Professional IT Culture For Occidental Engineering: An Ethical Analysis

Evaluation of ACS values against the philosophical theories

Discuss about the Professional IT Culture for Occidental Engineering.

The report depicts IT professional risks occurred in a large engineering firm namely as Occidental Engineering. The software engineer Mr. Wayne Davison was working on Operation Safe Skies a building prototype project (Schrum et al., 2013). While working under the project, the organization and the employees faced several ethical issues. The report will provide a defense on IT culture in turns of ethical grounds based decision making. During analysis various risks come under focus.

Firstly, the project manager Deborah and the software engineer Wayne were just trying to determine the time to be taken in order to fix the machinery issue. On the basis of certain principles and benchmark they tried to satisfy their duties (Nguyen, 2014). These issues raised as the company just wanted to survive in the competitive environment. The report will provide ethical codes generated by Australian Computer Society. The reason behind the occurrence of ethical dilemma is the norms and policy of the organization. The situation of Occidental Engineering is fictional but difficult to impulse and it elaborated various crucial ethical points.

In the year of 1992, ASC provided an overview of ICT based ethical issues (Joshi et al., 2013). The issues majorly indicate fatalities that have been occurred due to tragic software coding. There are around six codes relevant to ICT ethical issues. The codes are as follows:   

The primary of the public interest: the software engineering code of ethics is a practical framework required to make moral organizational decisions (Joshi et al., 2013). The decisions are taken based on the software engineer issues that are affecting the organization.  According to this code of action public interests get more values above personal interest. In this case study, the software engineer Wayne was working on a software project and the project methodology used is prototype modeling. However, during after the completion of the project when it was handed over to the software engineer for testing he found that, certain little issues existing in the project (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015). Due to the presence of several aircrafts within a single system, sometime the system was losing the flow of the track. Nevertheless, for organizational existence the project manager advised to launch the software without proper testing. The issues kept private though was not consistent with public interest.

The enhancement of the quality life: The advanced ICT management system puts specified impact on the society that enhanced the life quality of the public and also reduces the disabilities. The air traffic control system is one of the important parts of the aerospace division. Thus, the quality of the product should be enough good for the public interest. As the manager was not ready to take such a loss for the company thus, he decided to deliver the flawed product (Tong, Tak & Wong, 2015) In order to enhance the quality of the life the company should think about each and every single part of the complete project. For the safely and security of the public this play a crucial role. The personal satisfaction of the project manager hampered the overall system.

Identification of the potential consequences to the project client

Honesty: It is referred to as the trustworthiness of the public and of the stakeholders. The professional decision made by the manager of Occidental engineering of aerospace company do not wanted to miss the deadline provided by the client and thus, she forced the testing engineer to deliver the product without proper testing (Hogan & Coote, 2014). This is a major dishonesty towards the clients. It was clear that the faulty product will not run properly without appropriate features. The software engineer was doubtful whole signing off from the role.

Competence: Competence is referred to as the ability of thee expert team and the products produced by them accordingly.  During analysis of this case study it is defined that, the employees are enough capable. The track of the system was losing the flow due to presence of too many aircraft systems (Center, 2014). The employees working on the project were determined that they can resolve or fix the issues but they need some time for the coding and testing. On missing deadline and cost overruns the government has certain policies so they are quite afraid of it. The assurance provided by the employees proves that they are capable enough in their allocated job role. The employees are too much responsible for their role in the organization. The employees are educated but the financial condition of the company was not supportive in nature.  

Processional development: In order to develop the professional relationship and quality of the products technical development is required to be adopted by the organization. The employees of the company are expert but according to the changing times more technical adaptation was needed (Nguyen, 2014). The organization was lagging it. Moreover, motivation and training and development of the IT professional were absent which was another ethical issue. Altitude changes from the assigned one, contradiction in critical maneuver, discretionary of the pilot re other issues relevant to it.  Though the manager gave his approval but still it was not al l safe for the consumers.

Professionalism:  In professionalism the employees should avoid certain things such as they are needed to be impartial, information disclosure (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015). They must respect other employees, initiative in responsibilities to maintain the integrity, sharing technical knowledge to improve the abilities of the employees. The engineer denied doing improper works but he did not disclose the organizational issue to the public. ACS generated the ethical codes for professionalism. In this particular case study, it is defined that the employees were bound to provide the product within the given deadline as the manager was not ready to lose the project (Mahaux et al., 2013). The organization did not acquire all the required improvement facilities and thus, they were suffering from various ethical issues. Apart from this, to resolve the unethical behavior they did not adopted appropriate actions. According to the contract it was clearly mentioned that, the delivered software should have to be in proper working condition. 

Technological risks were raised within the organization. According to McFarland, (2012)    simultaneous satisfaction for all the requirements is not possible from the ethical a well as from the corporate perspective. Ethics is referred to as n practical science. Sometimes it become necessary to compromise with the system and some of the demands based on the rate of priority were developed by the organization. The risks oriented in this case are as follows:

Dignity of the employees: Human dignity is one of the most considerable factors (Ortega Toro, 2016). The case study recognizes the primacy of ethics in human life. It gives protection and privacy the human life (Center, 2014). The faulty aircraft system would have hampered the life of others thus, the human dignity was not so far considered properly.

Management issue: The organization had faced many other issues that hamper the overall system of the organization. There was not a single set of norm followed by different organizations rather Occidental Engineering had certain particular norms and regulations to be followed by the organization (Mahaux et al., 2013). In order to avoid cancellation of the project the company had adopted some moral judgments. The manager of the project had undertaken a judgment whereas the testing engineer obtained simulating judgment for the organization. The test engineer stated that the project is similar to a car that does not possess any brake. It means that the car is a risk to the passengers. Similarly, the imperfect aircraft is a life risk for all of those who are going to use it.  

Autonomy: The autonomy of the human subject must be always respected. The ethical, social and political life of their community is strictly based on the financial position of the company (Center, 2014).  The financial structure of the company was not up to the mark and thus the repeat changes were too much time taken.

The victims of the risk involved the software tester Wayne Davidson and the project manager Deborah Shepherd of Occidental Engineering and the client of the aircraft (Ariza-Montes, 2014). From the ethical perspective, it had been defined that, the major risks was faced by the manager of the project as she was in the top most position of the company. The clients demanded for a certified product without any imperfection but during testing period the software developer noticed that, as lots of aircraft systems were present within the product thus the system was losing track during execution (Ariza-Montes, 2014). The other software engineers of the company demand for some extra time to fix the issue. However, due to lack of time the manager of occidental engineering company refused to give them extra time. With the hidden fault the manager decided to hand it over to the client of the product.

After analysis of the situation it has been determined that the project manager faced the major risk. As she made commitment to the client of that particular product, due to financial risks they were unable to meet the requirement of the client. If the issues are recognized by the client then the manager will be a financial victim (McFarland, 2012). Similarly, considering the corporate ethical aspect, software developer realized that the product was not meeting all the client’s requirements and therefore, if any complaint arises from the client side then, it will be risk to the tester. Finally, the main victim is the client as, the company planned to provide them a faulty product with hidden imperfections.

The manager of Occidental Engineering Company is the top most managerial level employee and he was bound to act the main role for the company (Chatman et al., 2014). He had the responsibility of all other working employees. If the case study is considered then, it can be said that, she must not allow the launching of the aircraft with the hidden faults, rather she must request for extra time, to resolve the machine orient issue.

Thus, it is defined that, she should not break the rules of ethics. Only, in order to avoid the financial risks she must not allow the employees to deliver the product to the clients (McFarland, 2012). The duty of the project manager is to maintain the organization culture including the behavior of all the individual employees working for the company.    She must be aware of the deadline of the project before 3 days of the submission.

The software engineer of Occidental Engineering Company is also the testing engineer of the particular project (Hogan & Coote, 2014). The responsibility of the developer is to motivate all the employees working under the project and also he must monitor the process of the work flow. Apart from this, the developer should have enough knowledge about the project that he is going to develop.

Considering the Occidental Engineering case study, it has been defined that, the software developer was trying to maintain the ethical approach of the organization. Not only this but also When he realized the exact fault he denied to deliver the project to the client (Panuwatwanich & Stewart, 2012). The duty of the software engineer is to build a perfect project for the clients. The software tester should make sure the quality of the product before 3 days of the deadline.

There are different technologies that should be adopted by the organization to resolve the ethical dilemma. The faults can be resolved by adopting different advanced technologies. These are as follows:

Reduce cultural barrier: The cultural barriers existing among all the working employees of the company should be reduced by adopting open communication. In open communication system the top level managers are bound to listen to all the other employees (Xi, Zhang & Ge, 2012). Thus, there is a chance to the employees to share their view point with the others.

Motivation: Instead of provide support to the bad ethical approaches the project manner of the company should motivate the employees to work under proper approaches (Mahaux et al., 2013).

Expert team: The organization should adopt different advanced technologies. So that, the technical issues can gets resolved easily. The team must have enough knowledge regarding ICT project management (Joshi et al., 2013). The expert team should be aware of all the single ICT application in the practical field such as designing, coding and testing.

Training and development program: The organization should arrange certain training and development program to enhance the knowledge the employees according to the emerging technologies. 

Conclusion

From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, the report has provided a defensive ethical ground to the company.  The figure provided in the case study described that, Occidental Engineering Company is working on a project on SafeSkies for Federal Aviation Agency. Uncertainly and organizational conflict is another issue occurred due to the test result of the software. Then, they are forced to select between two situations such as compromising with the organizational difficulties and to deliver defective products. The operation project had reported to the project manager and the test manager also reports to the project manager of the company.  The ethical dilemma implies that the wrong working progress hampered the overall system and in order to develop the ICT management certain recommendations are also mentioned.

References

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