Application of IT Governance and Ethical Codes in Westfield: A Case Study Report

Westfield Searchable Mall Case
study Report
Executive Summary
This report encapsulated the application of IT governance and ethical codes to the case of Westfield
retail organization with an aim to achieve organizational effectiveness. The report explores the
reasons why the organisation should implement corporate governance in the company and the
benefits it would bring to Westfield. It suggests how IT governance can empower business
operations, align business processes, and help in efficient use of IT resources. With the governance
procedures implemented, the company can expect to achieve better efficiencies and productivity.
The report explores theories, principles, practices and issues related to ethics and IT governance and
further makes recommendations for implementation of IT governance and addressing of ethical
issues. Recommendations have also been made for establishing ethical practices and ensuring that
ICT systems are maintained well without causing ethical conflicts. The exploration of the ICT
practices is done using STS theory that recommends use of social and technological integration to
establish business results.
Contents
Executive Summary...............................................................................................................................1
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1
Frameworks for analysis........................................................................................................................2
Ethical consequences............................................................................................................................2
IT Governance.......................................................................................................................................3
Recommendations.................................................................................................................................5
Conclusions............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7
Introduction
Westfield is an Australian mall which is searchable in the digital space. It has 100,000 products listed
online. The company has a long history of being a preferred shopping destination for Australian
customers but with the digital disruption coming in, the company could see the changes in their
shopping behaviour and in response to which the company decided to transform its business model
and leverage on social media, mobile marketing and other digital marketing opportunities to
diversify. They have decided to adopt some new technologies in their stores to make the shoppers
experience more digital. These include digital storefronts, digital in-centre signage, click and collect
hubs, Wi-Fi networks, frictionless car parking payment services, mobile food service apps and the
searchable mall web platform. While these initiatives will give a competitive edge to the company, it
also raises some ethical and regulatory concerns. This report would analyse the ethical and
governance concerns of the company moving towards digital and would come up with

recommendations for adoption of ethical and inclusive practices for the company without affecting
their competitive advantage.
Frameworks for analysis
A big challenge with ethical issue is that it is only observed after a technology is already in use which
is why to predict the possible ethical consequences of implementation of the digital technologies in
the retail organization, the first step would be to understand how the technologies caused ethical
problems in earlier implementations. However, since the company may be adopting some new
technologies that are not really widespread enough to gather information about their ethical
impacts as well as would be developing some new artefacts for technology adoption, it may not be
completely possible to derive from earlier experiences. In this case, ethical theories can play a role in
understanding the concerns. However, the problems identified using this approach cannot be
assured to occur in the future.
This report would explore the possibility of applying ethical principles and theories to identify
possible scenarios where ICT could create ethical problems. Based on the insights obtained from this
application, the report would have some recommendations for Westfield company so that ethical
issues can be identified and addressed in advance. A number of categories of ethical issues that
usually occur in ICT technologies used in retail would be identified to form the base for analysis
(Beheshtifar & Zare, 2013).
STS theory helps in holistic analysis of organizational systems that include technical systems, social
systems and organizational environment. Technical systems include infrastructures, applications,
services, and technology tools. Social systems include customers, industry, and markets.
Environment consists of society, policies, and regulations. The theory aims to mingle human
ideologies with the concept of system engineering to bring cooperation between them to attain
positive outcomes in business. When social systems cooperate with technical systems, positive
outcomes are achieved through knowledge sharing. Trainings are provided to the people so that
they can understand the IT systems and innovations.
STS can be used for any organization that has IT systems implemented. This theory can thus be used
to make predictions of possible IT governance structures and issues that may arise when the digital
systems are implemented by Westfield. The retail organization would have complex interactions
happening between people and the IT systems post implementation when IT systems are developed
and new technologies are implemented. To deliver higher operational efficiencies and productivities,
it is important to understand these interrelationships and use methods to make them effective. The
relationships can be maintained with negotiations that can assist the business system reciprocally.
The theory sees both social and technical environments as equal partners in development such that
collaboration between them can bring value to the business systems through good governance
(ROGERSON, 2004).
Ethical consequences
Ethics is a seen as a reflection of moral principles as per the studied social norms. IT ethics can be
descriptive, normative or meta ethics. Different investigative approaches may be taken when
exploring different types of ethical issues. Descriptive ethics are studied with technical and social
understanding. Normative and meta ethical issues can be understood based on the principles of
philosophy. Behavioural guidance is usually followed as defined in ethical codes of conduct when

addressing normative issues. Specific guidelines, codes or policies are defined by various bodies such
as Association for Computer Machinery and British Computer Society that define possible ethical
issues and ways to address them. These codes identify ICT solutions, applications and artefacts that
can cause ethical issues. Artefacts include the hardware, software and other systems used in an ICT
setup. Different artefacts may have different ways of applications. It is important to understand the
distinction between ICT applications and ICT artefacts as they can have different ethical implications
(Aston, 2017).
With technology artefacts, the challenges can be technological such that they are not concerned
with any social context. Having a trustworthy and pervasive infrastructure can be a technological
problem and if the technology fails to deliver this then as per ethical codes, the old technology must
be replaced by a new one. Another technological issue could be cognitive and related to how easy it
is for a user to use the technological artefact. Electronic components can also pose certain
technological challenges as they could get outdated before next generation technologies. Innovation
in ICT products and service is thus the goal of ethical ICT development. With better technological
advances, competitiveness and wellbeing of users can be improved (Stahl & Rogerson, 2009).
Socio-economic challenges are mostly concerned with ICT applications and it deals with issues
related to digital content, personalisation, and human interaction. When studying ethical issues from
this perspective in ICT technologies, most common problems that appear are intellectual property,
privacy, digital divide, access, and data quality. Specific industries may also have specific challenges
to face such as retail in which there could be ethical concerns of governance and inclusion. With
applications, it may be easier to identify the ethical issues unlike with artefacts (Weill & Ross, 2004).
When applying the ethical framework for investigation of applications and artefacts to understand
potential issues in ICT, emerging technologies that are put to use in the retail organization may have
to be explored. These could be the machines involving high speed data processing, human computer
interaction, and more. For exploring ethical impacts of applications technologies that have a
widespread usage may be elaborated. These types of issues are mostly covered in procedural
guidance such as taking consent from those affects by the technology and taking care of the
legislative compliances. These are the ways ethical issues can be dealt with during a research on ICT
system. Informed consent is used often when a data is collected from a customer or user and there
is a possibility of the organization taking the details to use it further. An informed consent would
reveal the possible uses of the information and if the users are comfortable then only, the action can
be taken. Professional ethics are often predicted in the governance structures (Tiwana & Konsynski,
2010).
IT Governance
IT department is one of the key departments in any modern retail organization. IT departments have
gained significant importance since the stories of organizations failing IT resulting into huge losses
have prevailed. The organizations that were unable to cope were the ones with risky and volatile
environment of its technological infrastructure. To provide support to such organizations, IT
governance procedures are implemented. It provides assistance to enable IT activities and solve
related problems. IT security is a major issue across world which is why it is a major component of
corporate governance. It suggests organizational processes, responsibilities, communication
methods, decision making, and structures to be maintained in such a way that business goals are
achieved and value is delivered to businesses. Some IT governance also enables organizations to plan
for their processes and policies related to operations such that their results could be evaluated.
Thus, IT governance can help companies establish control over their management systems and also