Ethical Dilemma in Professional Practice in IT

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN IT
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ETHICAL DILEMMA 1
Case Study 4
Introduction
Brenda in discharging her duty of observing how junior management uses a new
accounting software at a leading city firm discovers that a majority of the management staff
makes a particular data entry error resulting in lost profits. The employees had signed an
informed consent that stated that they would remain anonymous (Sternberg, and Fiske, 2015).
Ethical dilemma
Brenda was tasked with observing how the junior management uses a new accounting
software. The employees had signed an informed consent that their names would remain
anonymous. By reporting the error to the management might result in punishment of the
junior management while remaining silent will mean that the company continue making
losses at the cost of the shareholders (White 1993).
Interested parties
1. Brenda
2. Junior Management
3. Senior management
4. Shareholders
By reporting reduced profits that are manufactured by the errors, shareholders get
reduced dividends. The assumption here is that despite the reduced profits the company still
manage to meet its financial obligations and that the errors are done intentionally. So, if
Brenda does not report there is no harm as the errors have gone unnoticed for a while without
affecting the company’s’ bottom line (Sternberg, and Fiske, 2015).

ETHICAL DILEMMA 2
Values
The dilemma brings out a question of trust whereby by accepting to take part in the
observation, the junior management expected their names and activities to be kept
anonymous. The company on the other hand hoped that by engaging Brenda to observe how
the software is used would improve the performance of the company (Sternberg, and Fiske,
2015). According to the ACS Code of professional conduct and ACS code of Ethics Brenda
has to take in to account the following values.
1. Integrity: Brenda ought to be fair to all parties that are involved or affected and must
act in a straightforward manner.
2. Confidentiality: Brenda owes a duty of confidentiality to all the staff involved.
3. Professional behavior: Brenda course of action should be in a way that they will not
discredit her professionally or personally.
4. Objectivity: in line with the trust that has being nurtured between the company and
Brenda, and the threat brought about by the new developments during her
observation, she must remain objective.
5. Professional competence and due care: the report she produces in line with the
observation must be a true reflection of what is happening and must meet all the
professional standards.
Apart from the reduced profits, which have gone unnoticed, nobody is being harmed.
Pros and cons
If the issue is reported, then some of the junior managers and all those involved in the
error might be summoned or worse still, they can be fired from their respective positions.
Moreover, if these actions are not reported then it is likely that they may escalate to the point