Charles Sturt University: An Ethical Dilemma in Early Product Launch

This essay delves into the ethical complexities surrounding a senior manager's dilemma at Elite Tech Services, where the CEO pushes for an early product launch and cost reductions. The analysis spans professional ethics, highlighting conflicts related to employee welfare, customer security, and ind...Read More

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND MATHS, Charles Sturt University
Ethical dilemma regarding early launch of a product
Assignment 1: Three Distinct Perspectives of Applied Ethics
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Word Count: 1500

Ethical dilemma regarding early launch of a product
1. Introduction
This case study will start off with the senior manager of Elite tech service sitting inside the office
of CEO of Elite tech service. CEO of the company spoke to the senior project manager of the
company with regards to the completion of the project. CEO asked the senior project manager to
complete the entire project 3 months from the previously decided date. This was not accepted
properly by the senior project manager as he tried to make the CEO understand the cons that Elite
Tech services might suffer due to this early launch. The time when the senior project manager was
trying to make the CEO understand, CEO came up with another objective that he wants to decrease
the manufacturing cost so that the can gain an inch over their competitors. CEO of the organization
again started to convince the CEO of the organization regarding the problems that the application
might suffer from lack of robustness. The CEO was also tried to be convinced by the senior project
manager as he stated the problems that might arise if they are to complete the project 3 months
earlier and with a lower price. The senior project manager also tried to convince the CEO that clients
who will be trusting the organization will be suffering as imposters might gain access their [personal
portals and cause harm to them which might act as a long term loss to the organization. despite
being knowledgeable of the fact that clients of their organization will be the direct sufferers and the
organization will also suffer in long term, the CEO did not listen to the senior project manager and
told him that he is focusing on short term goals and wants to rise above other competitors in the
market.
2. Professional Ethics Perspectives
From professional ethics perspectives, the major ethical dilemma are as follows: -
Employee dilemma: despite the fact that employees of the organization are paid for performing
their duties, the major issues that lay in terms of manufacturing the product earlier than the
allocated time and then launching the same 3 months before. Completing the project 3 months
earlier will include the fact that present employees needs to work over-time after the shift hours I
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Ethical dilemma regarding early launch of a product
order to complete the project before time. Decreasing cost of the product will directly imply the fact
that production cost needs to be decreased as well in order to maintain the profit ratio. Hence
edging off of employee salary might act as a major source of project completion cheaply. This acts as
the major ethical dilemma as the employees will not be paid extra but they need to put in more
effort without any hike in pay. From employer point of view this can be a major dilemma as
employees hired by them will not stay satisfied and they will be exploited.
Clients/Customer dilemma: in case an application is needed to be built before time,
compromising in raw resources will be made. In case no extra money is spent in completion of the
project, compromise in quality and robustness of the product will be made. In case of compromising
robustness of the application, the major problem will be security of the application. Robustness of
an application is one of the major issues that creates a massive impact on clients. In case the
application that is built is not robust in nature, imposters who wants to gain access to the data that
is stored in the data center of the organization. This might affect the clients adversely as their
personal data might be accessed by the imposters and might get harmed. This is the major ethical
dilemma that might arise in respect to the client perspective.
Profession as a collectivity: in case this kind of blunders become part and parcel of a company,
the major issue that might arise will be the fact that trust of clients on the business organization
manufacturing application will be lost. This will lead to the fact that people will not trust the
application building organization. In that case, the organizations that were developed by
manufacturing applications will get closed as there will be no people approaching them. This will
affect the entire application developing sector. An entire technology might suffer due to this ethical
dilemma that is present in the completion of the project. These were the major ethical dilemma
that employees of the origination as well as higher authorities of the organization was facing.
Society: Robustness of an application is directly related to the identity protection of the clients
who will be using this application (Russett, 2015). This is the reason that maintaining robustness of
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Ethical dilemma regarding early launch of a product
the application is very important. In case the imposters gain access to personal details of the genuine
clients, they can access to their banking portals, leading to the fact that they can perform banking
transaction on behalf of the genuine clients. They can fetch money from portals without proper
acknowledgement of the clients. This also leads to the fact that genuine clients are affected in a
negative way. Entire society who have been using the data center for storing their private data will
get affected in a negative sense.
3. Philosophical Ethics Perspectives
From philosophical perspective the major projection must be done with the following
ethical dilemmas:-
 Virtue ethics: Virtue ethics suggest the fact that righteous things in accord to ethical
relation must be performed in order to stay profound (Little, 2018). In this case the
major dilemma is that the higher authorities wants the work to be done earlier than
the expected manufacturing date, which will surely lead to the fact that comprising
of quality or increase in cost of manufacture will be the either case. Despite these
facts, higher authorities have imposed their decision of lessening their cost of
production. This completely proved the fact that the higher authorities of Elite tech
services wants to compromise in the quality of the application. Despite the fact that
they are aware of the major consequences that might happen in the proceeding of
the application with least robustness in the framework of the application. Being
aware that imposters can gain access to the data center, higher authority employees
might be instructing their employees to build a robust framework, instead they have
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Ethical dilemma regarding early launch of a product
been focusing on earning profit from the application, keeping security of the genuine
clients are at stake. This acts as an ethical dilemma.
 Consequentialism: Consequentialism is the ethical aspect that states that in case the
motive is good, outcome of the company has to be good (Knapp, Gottlieb &
Handelsman, 2015). The major ethical dilemma arises due to the fact that the higher
authorities are mainly concerned with the profit making. They were ready to put
security of clients on stake for the sake of profit making. Here lays the ethical
dilemmas in order to regarding consequentialism. Despite the fact that senior
project manager was aware of the fact that in case they want to make high profit
from the project, they need to compromise the security of the project. This is the
reason that this case falls under consequentialism ethical dilemma.
 Pragmatic ethics: this case also falls under pragmatic ethical dilemma case. This is
due to the fact that pragmatic ethics states that social growth of a project is the
most important factor over personal interest. The fact that the higher authorities
were well accustomed with the fact that if they focus more on the profit making
section of the project, they will have to compromise the security of the society,
which might affect the clients in personal level. This is the reason that this case falls
under the pragmatic ethical dilemma case
4. Sociological/Descriptive Ethics Perspectives
The major concern for sociological ethics perspective is that confidentiality of an individual must
be maintained. In this case privacy of a company has been the major reason of sociological ethics
dilemma. This is the reason that this case falls under the sociological dilemma. The project manager
tried to convince the higher authorities the problems that the organization might face in order to
complete the processing of the project before the stated deadline. This also ensures the fact that
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Ethical dilemma regarding early launch of a product
robustness of the organization will be at stake (LaRossa & Bennett, 2018). Senior manager explained
the higher authorities that in case the robustness of the application is not well maintained,
imposters who want to get access to their data. By gaining access to the data that are stored in the
account of each and every personnel, imposters can get access to the banking details of each and
every client. Imposters can act on behalf of the genuine client, leading to the fact that conflict in
between the genuine clients and other stakeholders of the clients. A wrong impression might get
created due to the fact that communication in a wrong way might be made by the imposters. The
major problem is that it violates the confidentiality and privacy ethical dilemma in the course of
completion of the entire project. The project manager stays in an ethical dilemma whether to listen
to higher authority of the organization or to complete the work in its allotted time. He was under a
dilemma whether to think for the security issues that might affect the client who will be using the
application or to think about the profit making procedure of the company. This is the reason that
delay procurement is made in performing data management.
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Ethical dilemma regarding early launch of a product
5. References
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Goetghebeur, M. M. (2016). CAN THE ETHICAL DILEMMAS FOR HEALTH CARE
DECISION MAKING ON DRUG REIMBURSMENT BE TACKLED THROUGH HOLISTIC
MCDA: AN ADAPTATION OF THE EVIDEM FRAMEWORK IN REAL-WORLD SETTING-
THE CATALAN EXPERIENCE. Value in Health, 19(3), A264.
Bjelica, D., Gardašević, J., Vasiljević, I., & Popović, S. (2016). Ethical dilemmas of sport
advertising. Sport Mont, 14(3), 41-43.
Knapp, S. J., Gottlieb, M. C., & Handelsman, M. M. (2015). Ethical dilemmas in psychotherapy:
Positive approaches to decision making. American Psychological Association.
LaRossa, R., & Bennett, L. A. (2018). Ethical dilemmas in qualitative family research. In The
psychosocial interior of the family (pp. 139-156). Routledge.
Lawson, C., Beer, C., Rossi, D., Moore, T., & Fleming, J. (2016). Identification of ‘at risk’students
using learning analytics: the ethical dilemmas of intervention strategies in a higher education
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Little, D. (2018). The paradox of wealth and poverty: Mapping the ethical dilemmas of global
development. Routledge.
Russett, B. M. (2015). Ethical dilemmas of nuclear deterrence. In Bruce M. Russett: Pioneer in the
Scientific and Normative Study of War, Peace, and Policy (pp. 153-168). Springer, Cham.
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