Professional Ethics and Morals - Essay Example

Professional Ethic Part1 Ethics and morals both relate on the definition of what is right and what is wrong. Ethics, however, refers to the series of rules provided to an individual from an external source. The most common ethics are those pertaining to the profession and are known as professional ethics. Morals, on the other hand, refer to the individual’s principles regarding what is right and what is wrong. Professional ethics includes the individual rules recognized and respected by a given class, organization, institution among other professional groups. The major difference between the morals and the ethics is that ethics relates to legal and professional guidelines within a particular place and time while morals refers to customs and transcends the cultural norms. Professional ethics partly comprises what a professional must do and what they should not do while in the workplace. It is important to note that professional ethics transcends other forms of ethics because professional ethics affects every individual in everyday life. All persons whether in business, government, and educational institutions among other professionals is guided by established ethical codes. Unlike the business ethics, professional ethics is strict, and all the individuals in the given organizations are required to observe. In the IT industry, the professional ethics are observed by the every member. The members range from the voting members, student members, and associate members. The ACM guidelines are guided by a given set of guidelines that are intended to serve as the basis of ethical decisions in dealing with the various issues in the department. Professional ethics plays an important role in the workplace. Professionals are the eyes of the society, and they influence those surrounding them and those they work together. Leaders in any profession exert the power and influence the behaviour and make the decisions on who should be fired, retained, hired or even promoted. Through the professional ethics, co-workers in any profession learn lessons on which they should admire whether to ask questions of their bosses and their supervisors. The employees, therefore, learn what is right and what is wrong, what matters and what does not matter in the professional arena. Professionals hold higher standards of ethics because of many reasons. First, professional ethics contributes to the well-being. Ethics holds the principle of quality life of all people. These ethics include the protection of fundamental rights of the people and the respect of diverse culture. An essential aim of computing professional ethics in the IT industry is to minimize the negative effects of computing systems that include threat to the health and the general safety of an individual. In addition to safe and healthy products, higher ethical standards in the IT department promotes safe, natural environment. Without the professional code of conduct, computing professional may fail to be alert to and make others aware of any potential danger and environmental damage both locally and globally. Higher ethical standards are kept because they help professional to avoid harming others. Harming include bringing negative consequences like undesirable loss of property, damage, loss of information among others. Under the ACM code of conduct, IT professionals are warned not to use computing technology in ways that may harm the users, general public, employers and the employees. Harmful actions may include intentional modification of files and programs leading to a very serious loss of important information, resources and expenditure of human resources. In order to minimize malfunctioning in the IT sector, professional ethics needs to be observed to the last bit. The IT professional observe the code of ethics by ensuring that they report any system dangers or signs of dangers that may arise as a result of personal or social changes. Trust is the central part of the professional ethics. Honesty is the basic component of trust that should be observed by any professional. Without trust, an organization or institution cannot function effectively. Honesty helps in winning more clients into an organization because an IT professional will not make any deliberately false products or any deceptive claims concerning the system in terms of its design and its function but instead they will provide full information pertaining all the pertinent system problems and limitations. A computer professional or any IT personnel needs to be honest about their qualifications and any situations and circumstances that can bring conflict of interests. Trust is paramount because it helps, and individual take up personal responsibility by accepting mistakes and corrections. Trust is the core of professional ethics. Without trust, professionals may not observe other ethical values and principles. Ethics is built on trust and for one to observe the trust; he/she needs to make honesty their motivating factor. Questions of facts are also known as the point fact and refer to the questions answered by referring to the facts or evidence and inferences arising from such facts. Factual questions are subject to approval or disapproval, and their answers are true beyond any reasonable doubts. Questions of value, on the other hand, are value relative, and they look into the goodness or badness of something. They ask an individual to choose between two things, beliefs, ideas, and actions. In the value questions, an individual provides reasons for their choices. Questions of fact differ from questions of value because they deal with actual situations that have the criteria of proving while the questions of value are based on opinions and their responses vary from one individual to the other. Part 2 As an IT professional, I face many challenges in my daily activities that require observation of the key ethical principles. There are instances that put an individual’s morality at stake simply because they provide limited options to the solution of the problems. In one of those difficult situations, I found myself doing what is contrary to my moral obligations. Situations that bring conflicts with the ethical codes are dangers and may make a good person do what is socially bad. Like many managers who dream of transforming their companies, I was faced with a situation that required me to put aside my moral code in order to give the best to my company. I was posted to manage a small IT industry that had suffered from many failures. In my second year, I suffered several challenges after barely surviving my first year. As a new leader, I realized that I had to make many changes that could make my company a better place. My first year was confronted by many challenges that ranged from political, social, and cultural and also the strained relationships between the governing board, the public and the members of the staff. After three years of hardship and innovations, the company’s relationship with the public changed, and the company gradually changed from worst to better. Many clients gave positive comments about the company. The staffs that were initially demoralized and demotivated became lively and active. They claimed that they were satisfied with their jobs and the company’s leadership. Unlike the earlier days, the staff could even work extra hours without being pushed or even requested to do so. After four years, our company became the centre of attention to both political and economic sectors of the country. I held several discussions with the state officials who encouraged me and my team to work harder. I was congratulated for transforming the company into a higher level. I did not realise however that those who congratulated me had other motives that could challenge my morality. One day, one of the senior members in the office of the governor requested that we meet for dinner. That evening, a senior official convinced me to take a job in the governor’s office. He argued that it was better for someone like me to go for higher managerial jobs that suited my large abilities rather than sticking to a small company that did not recognize my hard work. He also promised me a pay that doubled my earnings. I knew that it was wrong for me to go for money at the expense of my duty, but I was attracted to the pay and the recognition. At this point, I was faced with a big dilemma. The situation involved deciding on whether to leave the management of the company and go for the promised better and higher job or to stick to my company. In requested the official from the governor’s office to give me more time to make up my mind. It took me two months meditating on it and consulting my close friends and my family. My task was to make a congruent decision without putting my interests before the interests of the company I was managing at stake. I had to develop a clear guideline on what criteria to use since my friends and relatives were pressurizing me to take up the job. The government officials also took a greater part in influencing the decisions I made. I took an action by creating a comprehensive strategy that could help me balance between my interests and those of the influential people surrounding me. I asked the governor’s official to give me three months to clear from the company. Within the three months, I trained my deputy manager on management policies that could help the company keep going. After training the assistant manager, I suggested to the management that the assistant manager could take up the responsibility. I then resigned from the managerial job and took up a job at the governor’s office. The result of all the actions I took included taking a higher paying and a prestigious job. Additionally, I ensured that my former company kept going though weaker than during the time I was working with it. Though the action was a prudent one, the fact remains that the morals were violated. Ethical code of conduct was not observed. The questions of fact that arose regarded the fact that the promised job was more prestigious, and the payment was better, however, the questions of value, regarding the decision I made negated the facts. Conclusively, professional ethics occupies the central position in any profession. However, as a professional, we always face the challenge of foregoing the codes of conduct at the expense of personal interests. References Dale, N. B., & Lewis, J. (2013). Computer science illuminated. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Heathcote, P. M. (2004). A2 ICT. Ipswich: Payne-Gallway. Read More