ISY100 Ethics In Information Technology

In the previous weeks I have learned about ethics which is a set of acceptable codes of behavior within a particular group, morals which are beliefs about what is right and wrong, law which is a system of rules recognized by a particular community and it is enforced by particular institutions, the various ethics in the world of business and their importance (Collins 2012), corporate social responsibility and its importance which includes creating community goodwill, code of ethics which are written guidelines designed to help workers/ professionals to act with honesty and integrity.

From the lessons I also learned the ethical business decision making process which involves four major steps, the various strategies that managers can use to establish an ethical working environment, the various checklist questions that managers can use to assess if the organization is operating ethically, ethics in information technology, the various ways in which people unethically use IT, and how Ethics can be adopted in IT (Carsten Stahl 2011).  

Relevant Concepts And Theories

The major issues discussed in the lessons are;

Ethics: this involves both individual and organizational ethics. At the individual level ethics are highly dependent on morality and the law, while at the organizational level ethics are highly influenced by the established code of ethics. Organizational ethics are highly challenged by factors such as the need to achieve higher profit margins thus making the organization to use unethical ways of achieving the targets (Hartman, DesJardins, and MacDonald 2011). It is the role of organization managers to establish a working environment which is grounded on an ethical culture.

Approaches to ethical decision making: According to Ciulla (2011), there are four approaches that are used in making ethical decisions which are; the utilitarian approach which focuses on providing more good and less harm, the virtue ethics approach which states that all ethical approaches have to follow certain virtues that provide humanity development, the fairness approach which views an ethical action to be the one that treats everybody with fairness, and the common good approach whose quest is concentration on conditions that are common and important to everybody’s welfare.

Ethics in Information Technology: This refers to the consideration of various ethical aspects in the development and use of technology. According to Carsten Stahl (2011), there are various ways in which information technology is unethically used, they include: workplace monitoring to an extent of infringing employees privacy, copying and distributing copyrighted content without the consent of the copyright owner, masquerading and unauthorized access to data, web surfing and use of cookies to store the browsing history of a person, among others.  

Future Application Of The Knowledge

In my future as an IT professional, I intend to use the knowledge gained from the lessons in various ways such as; adopting ethics in all my dealings and following my organization’s code of ethics (Collins 2012), ensuring that information Technology in my organization is used in an ethical way through following given guidelines and laws such as copyright law (Carsten Stahl 2011), establishing a good ethical environment by following the ethical decision making approaches in order to ensure that an ethical culture is adopted by everyone in my department, restricting access to data and other IT resources from unauthorized persons in order to avoid identity theft and data alteration.

References

Carsten Stahl, B., 2011. IT for a better future: how to integrate ethics, politics and innovation. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 9(3), pp.140-156.

Ciulla, J.B., 2011. Is business ethics getting better? A historical perspective. Business Ethics Quarterly, 21(2), pp.335-343.

Collins, D., 2012. Business ethics: How to design and manage ethical organizations. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Hartman, L.P., DesJardins, J.R. and MacDonald, C., 2011. Business ethics: Decision making for personal integrity and social responsibility. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.