Ethical Dilemmas in E-Business within Context of Arab Culture - Case Study Example

Ethical Dilemmas in E-Business within Context of Arab Culture and Their Interrelationship with Legal Issues Introduction The use of the internet has been increasing over the past few years at a very high rate and this has allowed a lot of changes in various fields including the business which has gone online. A lot of people now rely on the internet for their operations especially shopping and as a result business firms have adopted the same strategy to do their business on line. Doing business online is sometimes called e-business (internet marketing). Internet marketing is occasionally referred to as online marketing, e-marketing or web marketing. And it's simply marketing goods and services over the internet. With internet, it's cheaper to distribute information and news to a larger audience world wide. It's both interactive and unique in terms of providing immediate response and elicits reaction. Internet marketing has a wider coverage of clients since it encompasses digital media which has become very popular over the years i.e. email services, the internet, and wireless media. The aspects which internet capitalizes on are creative and technical support the internet offers including selling, adverts, developing websites, and the design. Background In Arab culture Business Ethics are described as a rule that regulate the socially acceptable means of performance and is usually resulted to when the other rules and regulations do not give a clear direction or guidance pertaining a certain situation or circumstance (Abdulla 2007). Those that deal with information security are expected to know and observe the laws and regulations that govern the use of computers and handling of information to the latter. The Certified Information Security System Professional (CISSP) is one such body that educates the information security professionals on such requirements (Warholic 2008). These responsibilities are essential to establishing confidence in the information security profession that motivate mutual respect from management and other stake holders; this encourages job performance to the fullest The current business world has invested so much in to communications and technology leading to so many people and businesses doing their business on the internet, commonly referred to as online trading. This has actually come with a lot of advantages as the clients reached are many and the business can make great sales. When a business operates online as in ebusiness or ecommerce, it has to keep the customers pin numbers to their credits because the common means of payment when doing business online is by use of credit cards (Petrovic et al 2001). This personal information provided on the internet is the major cause of insecurity and also elicits questions about authenticity of the businesses. In the Arabian countries and Middle East region where the Arab culture is strictly observed, technology has been inevitable and many people started using internet over the past 15 years. The people there are very preservative and do not expose their private information to the public very easily. The problem comes when some of the businesses are not careful with the client's private information leaking it to other people as in third parties or getting hacked and the information lost. Some have strict norms that do not even allow social interactions hence privacy concerns that are usually associated with the ecommerce (Warholic 2008). Some people have had to change their pin number several times within short lapses of time due to cyber crimes or careless leaking of information by the company in question. The consumer privacy is the major concern in this aspect and any business that has an intention of doing ebusiness should assure clients of their safety (Jelassi & Enders 2005). Whether the personal information of clients will be hacked or leaked, this is still unfair treatment to clients and business should try to protect their businesses from being hacked. Being safe is very critical for any company to develop and grow in terms of customer trust and other corporate operations, Klemper (2008). Aims and Objectives The main objective of carrying out the research is to; Investigate cases of fraud, hacking and selling out customer private information (ethical issues that affect ecommerce). This is because everybody has a right to privacy and the ecommerce risks personal information like pin numbers to credit cards as they can be leaked or stolen via computer crimes. The specific objective will be to; Investigate the causes and effects of eCommerce on the moral aspects of the society, Klemper (2008). This will identify the way people personal life is infringed by the ebusiness operations and the risk involved. To investigate the motivational factors of internet/ecommerce fraud, abuse and scam. Literature Review The Arab business traditions and culture is quite unique and this has to some extend affected the way business in carried out in the Arab countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman UAE and other middle east countries. Most people are conservatives and do not usually like exposing their information to the public. This is because even their feelings are kept private (Petrovic et al.2001 & Al-Sabt 2006)). Being very conservative, the Arabian nations do not allow viewing the media contents that explicit or exposing too much of private issues. For this reason, the internet marketing that is conservative will win customers as opposed to that which is not. The level of education and observing the traditional norms is contradictory as those who are elite do not strictly follow the old culture, however the way internet has been received in these nations, only those businesses that keep the values and do not contradict the culture of the Islam teaching which is the common religion in the area, Al-Sabt (2006) Ethical Issues The project has addressed the ethical aspects that have arisen from the nature of the e-business in relation to the Arab culture. Since the evolvement of free market on the internet where people can personally access the information and obtain the information they want and also give their personal information. The ethical issues were divided into different groups like the ethical issues about the community (Severson 1997). These issues include the participation of the community; internet marketing raises questions about the straightforwardness, sincerity and fairness in the open market. The use of animals in performing experiments is also a serious issue that has been addressed in business though it's not a direct factor in e-business. The degrees of safety of the products being advertised on line cannot be ascertained before purchase and counterfeits are on the increase. The customers can be conned as there is no security of money transfer and other transactions. The types of products is usually questionable as the Arab culture does not embrace the use of addictive drugs like narcotics but the online businesses sell products despite these regulations from other nations (Webguru 2008). The loss of the property is not likely to be compensated for instance in case of mishaps, leaks and spillages. Privacy is the major concern when addressing the e-business as this has developed several problems that have never been witnessed before. This has allowed people to carry out background searches about people personal and private matters like assets, criminal record and income (Fletcher et al 2004). When personal information is stolen, the thieves can sometimes the stolen document for criminal activities. The act of using someone else identity or stealing of somebody's identity is an illegal practice. Allowing e-business to access personal information and risk being hacked or leaked in the first place is dishonest and should never happen. There are recent incidences that include Best Western where all the personal consumer information since 2007 including credit cards information was stolen. How the hackers managed to access the information is very unclear and very hard to imagine, this make people to constantly change their credit card numbers several times over a short period of time. The other victims suffered extra costs, though the banks covered the losses from illegal charges on the accounts, victims are forced to spend a lot of time revoking the cards, altering all kinds of direct charge accounts that may use the numbers stolen (Hammond & Hammond 2003). These occasions usually bring about a lot of inconveniences including cancellation of a credit card while one is travelling. The victims of identity theft are proposing that the companies that leak their personal information be held responsible for the actions. They claim that the corporations are not supposed to keep the data in the first place, more or less to give it to some felonious people who manage to breach their information security, this being the bottom line of the matter. The information leaked once it gets to the hand of criminals does not matter whether it was stolen or leaked out through negligence or even on purpose but someone has to take responsibility and in this case, the victims claim that the hacked company should. (Severson 1997) This is because the company retains sensitive individual identity information and hence responsible for the attack. Criminal charges should include charges on both the receiver of the information and those who leak it (Menon et al 1999). Methods The research will involve a sample of 90 participants of who will be divided into three categories; clients of ecommerce, businesses in ecommerce and other experts in ecommerce. The main methods used in the research were mainly focusing the social relativist engagement in the area of the objective matter. The researcher will be an active internet user; the interviews will conducted to incorporate several players in addition to a watchful investigation and observation techniques on the internet marketing to ensure that a salient insight will be developed in the context. Some questions will be designed to find out if the participants have ever suffered loss of money or information on e-business transactions (victims of hacking, fraud or computer scam) (Al-Wugayan 2004). The main methods to be used will be the qualitative methods of research which will enable the researcher to handle cultural and social observable facts among the Arabs. The qualitative information will be collected by observation of participants and subject examination. Key informant interviews rather than filled questionnaires, library research was also conducted documented results of previous researches and texts. The cases in the ebusiness have been iterative leading to this research being conducted the way it is to conform to research pragmatics (Hammond & Hammond 2003). Data Analysis A project field work was conducted to contribute to the ongoing study and group discussions with the participants in the field were also held to supplement other interviews. The research was designed to obtain as detailed analysis as possible from the interviews and due to this the interviewees were discriminately across the ebusiness or ecommerce but this also ensured a well-versed cross section of the entire industry. There are two possible sources of errors that might be encountered during the research and they include sampling errors and non sampling errors. This will enable in the analyses of qualitative data via the test that will be mentioned. Sampling errors usually come as a result of poor data collection techniques (Al-Wugayan 2004). For instance, when the information obtained only covers a small portion of the sample size rather than the entire census of the population in question, Non sampling errors are usually committed during collection, data analysis, evaluation and drawing conclusions. The significance tests that were used in this study were based on the student's t statistics. Due to the number of increasing comparisons as the same level of significance, it was more likely to cause one of the estimates to fall in the significance range by chance and this would be erroneous as it would probably be identified as zero (Menon et al 1999). Qualitative data is usually difficult to decode and analyse, however this study will try hard to analyse by use of methods such as domain analysis (Arab culture context), discourse analysis, hermeneutical analysis, content analysis, phenomenology and narrative analysis. All these analyses will help the research to evaluate the information from the social context of the Arabs into meaningful research findings. Ethical Considerations The research will involve only those participants who express informed consent and sign the consent form to show that they are aware of the study and are willing to take part. The participant will have unlimited restriction for partaking in the study and will be free to terminate it if they feel that their security or privacy is being infringed. Program of Work Task 1: training of research assistants that would be carrying out the study, they have to be familiar with the statistical methods of compiling data, analyzing, assessing and drawing conclusions. The researcher will need two assistants to help in the extensive research process which is very difficult to perform alone or single handed. This would probably take two weeks Milestone 1: Training Task 2: the researcher together with the selected assistants will carry out an extensive library research to collect enough information about the cases of computer/internet fraud, internet scam, hacking and leaking out private and confidential information. The will contribute a lot in establishing the ways through which business ethics are breached in online business/ecommerce. Millstone 2: Literature review. Task 3: the collection of all the material to be used in the research like preparing the questionnaires, getting the stationary together, preparing computer programs to be used for data analyses, evaluation, and assessment (Ferrell & Gresham. 1995). This would last for about two weeks Milestone 3: collecting stationery Task 4: acquiring permission from the correct authorities to carry out the research. The permission will be sought from business owners, the government regulatory bodies in charge and consent of the public will also be sought (Junt et al 1996). This would take about three weeks. Milestone 4: obtaining Legal requirements Task 5: the initial parts of the research this would include seeking the consent of participants, sampling, and meeting other research requirements like being familiar with the place where research will be carried out, and understanding the culture of the people. Milestone 5: finalizing preparations Task 6: this is the actual research where survey is carried out, interviews of the selected participants and collection of data by the use of correct tools like recording. Milestone 6: the research Task 7: compiling the report will include drawing conclusion based on the data collected from the research Milestone 7: reporting Conclusion Ebusiness operation gives clients a faster online transaction or the convention one on one service. Clientele generally get the privilege of accessing web and search for products, compare, purchase and complete transactions without necessarily going to the physical location of the Company. However Computer crime is a way in which computers can be misused to cause problems to individuals and businesses. References Abdulla R. A (2007). The Internet in the Arab World. Egypt and Beyond. Peter Lang. Al-Sabt M. (2006). Things You Should Know About Arab Culture and Business Culture. Retrieved on March 12th 2009, from http://ezinearticles.com/Things-You-Should-Know-About-Arab-Culture-and-Business-Culture&id=343976 Al-Wugayan A. (2004). An Empirical Investigation of Consumer Ethics in a Collectivist Arab Culture. Consumer-Retailer Relationship (CRR) Approach College of Business Administration, Kuwait University. Kuwait Ferrell O.C. & Gresham. L.G (1995). A Contingency Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision Making in Marketing, Journal of Marketing 49 (Summer): 87-96. Fletcher R. Bell J, & McNaughton R.B (2004). International E-Business Marketing Cengage Learning Emea Hammond R.J & Hammond R.J Jnr (2003). Identity Theft. How to Protect Your Most Valuable Asset. Career Press pp 35 - 79 Jelassi T & Enders A (2005). Strategies For E-Business. Creating Value Through Electronic And Mobile Commerce. Concept And Cases. Financial Times/Prentice Hall Junt S.D, Hunt & Vitell S (1996). A general theory of marketing ethics. Journal of Macro-marketing, 6 (Spring): 5-16. Klemper G. (2008). Ethical Dilemma. Creating a Thinking Board. Business ethics. Retrieved on 12th March 2009. from http://www.isfp.co.uk/download/Ethical_Dilemmas_Unit1.pdf Menon A. et al. (1999) Antecedents and Consequences of Marketing Strategy Making; Journal of Marketing. Vol 63. Petrovic O. & Kittl C (2001). Developing Business Models for e-Business; International Conference on Electronic Commerce.2001. Severson. R.J. (1997) The Principles of Information Ethics.M.E. Sharpe pp 34 - 76 Warholic J.A (2008) Importance of Ethics On The Internet. Internet Marketing Ethics Web Issues retrieved on 12th March 2009 from http://pwebs.net/marketing/ethics/articles/internetethics.htm Webguru (2008). Business ethics in eCommerce and eMarketing. Retrieved on 12th March 2009 from http://www.webtravel2.com/2008/06/29/business-ethics-in-ecommerce-and-emarketing/ E Commerce Read More