Ethics, Professionalism and Governance

This article discusses the importance of maintaining ethical professionalism in conducting professional behavior and resolving ethical dilemmas in a web design consultancy company. It explores the values derived from ACS codes of ethical conduct and relevant Australian legislation. The article also provides a solution to the ethical dilemma faced by an analyst in the company.

Running head: ETHICS, PROFESSIONALISM AND GOVERNANCE
Ethics, Professionalism and Governance
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ETHICS, PROFESSIONALISM AND GOVERNANCE
Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................ 2
3 values from the ACS Code of Ethics................................................................................2
Resolving the Situation.......................................................................................................2
Relevant Australian legislation applying to the scenario.....................................................3
Solving the Ethical Dilemma...............................................................................................3
Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 3
References............................................................................................................................. 5

2ETHICS, PROFESSIONALISM AND GOVERNANCE
Introduction
In any professional conduct it is important to maintain the ethical professionalism.
This is the way by which a person conducts their professional behaviour not meaning to
cause harm to a particular person on the organisation as a whole involved with their
profession. Following is a case study about a web design consultancy company that hires
James to interview their staff and ascertain the current knowledge regarding the type of
training courses that the organisation needs to implement (Kuespert 2017). It was informed
to James that the information that has been gathered from the interviewees is to remain
private. But he was still asked by the senior vice President of the organisation about the
information regarding the particular individuals and which employer did the best in the study.
Thus, the following report would ascertain the values derived from ACS codes of ethical
conduct in professionalism for resolving the ethical dilemma that James is right now facing.
3 values from the ACS Code of Ethics
The ACS codes of ethical professional conduct is a part of the ACS constitution ascot
the legislation of the Australian government, which states that every professional person
should honour the dignity and effectiveness of their professional conduct and be a good
citizen by acting for conducting their professionalism within the limitations of the law and
adherence to the societal values (Zeki 2019). The way by which James would be ethical to
his professional conduct according to the ACS codes of professional conduct can be
described as follows with regards to three of the identified values:
Honesty: according to the codes of conduct regulated by the Australian law, a
person needs to be honest in the representation of their knowledge, skills, products and
services. Since James was invited to evaluate the employees in the organisation conducting
an interview and figure out what more training does the company names without sharing the
information gathered from the employees, he would under no circumstances indulge in
sharing the information to the senior vice president of the organisation (Leicester 2016).
Professionalism: according to the Australian codes of ethics, it is important that a
person enhances the integrity of the society by respecting the members involved within his
or her workplace. The employees of the web based organisation and their information is
extremely confidential as explained in the terms and conditions of the contract under which
James had been working (Burmeister 2017). Therefore he should maintain the integrity of
the society and respect the employees by not divulging their confidential information even if
the senior vice President of the organisation asks for it.
Professional development: it is important that a person should enhance their own
professionalism as well as that of their colleagues and staff (McDermid 2015). Therefore it is
important that James not just only refrain from sharing the confidential information about the
interview but should also make the vice president be aware of the professional conduct so
he would also not ask for it again and be under the integrity of his own professional conduct.
Resolving the Situation
If the ACS codes of ethics are followed, then first and foremost when James was
invited by the web development and design consultancy organisation to interview their staff
and ascertain the current knowledge and inform the company about the type of training
courses that they need to implement, it is also the responsibility of the web design
consultancy company that they should we also following the Australian legislation about the
codes of conduct. Maintaining a security they had mentioned that the individual information

3ETHICS, PROFESSIONALISM AND GOVERNANCE
gathered from the interviewees needed to be confidential (Kovac 2015). However the
interview was built such that it could highlight the areas of the overall weakness as opposed
to individual shortcomings. Keeping that in mind the organisation should never ask James
about the results of the interview to maintain the dignity of the individual employees within
the organisation. By this they would abide by the overall ethical codes of conduct. However,
the senior vice President asked James about the result of the interview (Thornley et al.
2018). This breaks the ethical conduct according to an ACS codes for the vice president of
the company. For resolving the issue, James should not indulge in to sharing the information
of the study to the vice president and briefly describe what the company has hired him for.
He should instead present the senior vice President with the result of the study which was to
find out the training courses that the company needs to implement rather than sharing the
information about who did well in the interview and open up about the shortcomings of the
individual employees (D'Angelo 2018).
Relevant Australian legislation applying to the scenario
According to the Australian legislation it is important that the privacy of the public
interest is maintained as well as the employee of an organisation should be provided with
the right to share their confidential and intricate details. This code of conduct divulges that it
even if an employee of an organisation is bound by the contract made by the company; they
still have the right to their own privacy (Warren and Lucas 2016). On the other hand, James
was appointed by the web design consultancy company to certain that training requirements
of the organisation and it was never mentioned that they need to assess the overall
weaknesses of individual employees. Therefore under no circumstances within the
Australian legislation did the senior vice President have the right to ask James about the
result of individual employees. If James shares the result of the individual employees, he
would also be violating the Australian ethical laws and legislations.
Solving the Ethical Dilemma
This is an ethical dilemma situation for James since he was appointed to ascertain
the overall requirement of the organisation in finding out the appropriate training method that
the web design consultancy company should implement to enhance the skills of the existing
employees. However the interview was designed in such a way that it would easily make out
the shortcomings of individual employees (Tansey 2016). James was just an analyst who
was hired to the organisation. The senior Vice President had all the rights to question James
about the study accept the individual performance of the employees since according to the
Australian law it remains under the control of the individual employees to share their
confidential information or not.
In this particular case the most problematic situation that was faced was by James in
answering the question that was asked to him by the senior Vice President.
This particular matter can be easily solved if James reminded the Vice President
about the analysis process that he was hired for by the organisation. He can simply remind
him that he was hired to analyse the kind of training process that the organisation would
need to enhance the skill of the existing employees without knowing about the skill levels of
each employee. So he can simply deny answering to the senior Vice President and instead
give him the result of the analysis that he has made.
Conclusion
Therefore, in confusion in can be said that, the entire situation that who was raised
during the analysis of the web design consultancy company violated several ethical

4ETHICS, PROFESSIONALISM AND GOVERNANCE
consideration of professional conduct according to the ACS codes of ethics. This simply
means that when the web design consultancy company hired James from another
organisation, he was simply asked to analyse what type of training courses that organisation
need to implement to develop the skill levels of the existing employees what the study
highlighted the overall weakness opposed to individual shortcomings of the employees. This
violated the ACS codes of ethics. On top of that the senior Vice President and also asked
James about the individual assessment of the employees and who did well in the study.
According to the Australian legislation, this also violates the ethical law as employee
information is subjected to the will of the employee themselves. The ethical dilemma
situation that James was in can have a possible solution if James himself conducted or
handled the entire situation utilising an ACS codes of conduct as mentioned in the report
above.

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References
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D'Angelo, J.G., 2018. Ethics in science: ethical misconduct in scientific research. CRC
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Kovac, J., 2015. Ethics in science: The unique consequences of chemistry. Accountability in
research, 22(6), pp.312-329.
Kuespert, D.R., 2017. Safety and ethics in ACS and major scientific and engineering
societies: A gap analysis. Journal of Chemical Health and Safety, 24(6), pp.2-5.
Leicester, N., 2016. Ethics in the IT Profession: Does a Code of Ethics have an Effect on
Professional Behaviour?.
McDermid, D., 2015. Ethics in ICT: an Australian perspective. Pearson Higher Education
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Tansey, J.T., 2016. Using Readings and Discussion to Teach Ethics in the Undergraduate
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Thornley, C.V., Murnane, S., McLoughlin, S., Carcary, M., Doherty, E. and Veling, L., 2018.
The Role of Ethics in Developing Professionalism Within the Global ICT
Community. International Journal of Human Capital and Information Technology
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Warren, M. and Lucas, R., 2016. Ethics and ICT: Why all the fuss?. Journal of Information,
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Zeki, A.M., 2019, February. Incorporating Unmanned Systems Ethics into the Curriculum.
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