Analysis of Ethical Issues in IT Consulting: Scenario 3 Assignment

This assignment analyzes an IT consulting scenario involving ethical issues. The student identifies and examines ethical concerns, focusing on integrity and trustworthiness. The consultant's actions, including promising more than can be delivered and manipulating data for personal gain, are scrutinized. The analysis highlights the lack of honesty and deceptive practices, emphasizing the importance of ethical behavior in IT. The consultant's actions are evaluated based on ethical principles, such as the golden rule and virtue ethics, to underscore the consequences of unethical conduct. The assignment concludes by emphasizing the significance of upholding integrity and honesty in providing services to clients to avoid unethical behavior and maintain professional standards. The document provides a comprehensive overview of ethical considerations within the IT consulting environment.

Topic: Ethical Issues (Scenario 3)
Student Name
Subject
Task
Due

Introduction
Ethics is defined as those things or actions that can be termed to be morally right 1. This can be
viewed in various perspectives under different situations or environment in determining if the
actions performed are ethical or not. These behaviors that are examined in order to find out if an
action was wrong or right are what are referred to ethical issues. Ethical issues are defined by
different environment in which an action is performed 2. In IT environment there are various
ethical characters or habits that are considered in order to ensure that actions or functions are
performed well within the defined code of ethics as expected by clients.
Identification and Analysis of Scenario’s Ethical issue
There are various ethical issues arising from scenario three. These issues revolve around the fact
that an IT consultant promises more than he can deliver and also manipulating data for his/her
own personal gain. The main ethical issues here are:
Integrity
This is an act of being honest in whatever you do 3. In this case integrity as an ethical issue is
based on the honesty of the IT and Security consultant towards his/her client. According to this
scenario the client is promised more than can be delivered by the consultant. This raises an issue
of honesty. The consultant is not honest since he promises more services that he is able to
deliver. This therefore means that the client will be falsely informed only for the final product to
be short of what was expected. Honesty therefore as a virtue would have been seen if the
consultant would have told the client of his capabilities of what can be done and what cannot be
done. Therefore the consultant is not truthful on his service information.
Trustworthy
This is where one conducts his/her duties without using any deceptive ways towards the client 4.
This issue arises in the scenario where the consultant manipulates the data information for his
personal gain. He does this in order to reap more money from the client by rating the cost higher.
Also the fact that the consultant promises to deliver everything the client wants is a lie since the
consultant does not have the ability to deliver everything as promised. This therefore is an ethical
related behavior portrayed by the consultant towards the client.
Evaluation and Justification
Integrity
The consultant has compromised his integrity by being dishonest to the client for his personal
benefits. This can be deduce as such considering the fact that the consultant promises to deliver
everything the client wants even though the consultant does not have the capabilities to deliver
everything. Even though this might seem to be right for the consultant business, the whole aspect

of lying is unethical as the consultant will deliver shoddy services that do not meet the client’s
expectations. This action defiles ethics golden rule which states that one should do unto others
what he/she wishes others would do to him/her as explained in the virtue ethical theory. This
theory explains that one’s character would be judged by whatever actions he/she takes 5. This
there paints unethical character of dishonesty possessed by the consultant.
Trustworthy
This is considered to be an ethical issue in this case since the client has given the consultant the
mandate to provide services and the costs incurred by each service. Instead of the consultant
providing the normal ratings of each service, the consultant manipulates the information and
record higher prices than normal. This is unethical behavior. To uphold trustworthy, the
consultant should provide all the information showing all the doable services on making the
client’s network secure and highlights some of the limitations involved. Even though an action of
asking the client to replace their firewalls with those of the different manufacturers or open
source might seem right, the motive behind it is wrong. This is because the consultant does this
in order to have more money from the client due to regular changes that will happen with open
source operating systems. Also a question of safety will arise. Open source operating system or
firewalls might not be secure as such but since the consultant wants to get more money he
advices the client to take that route for the consultant personal gain. This shows that the
consultant cannot be trusted to deliver quality services and therefore the whole mistrust habits
results to unethical behaviors.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the consultant should uphold integrity and honesty in providing services to clients.
This therefore means that one should not use deception for personal gain at a cost of their clients
since this result to unethical behavior.

References
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[1] Norberto Patrignani, "Teaching Computer Ethics Challenges and Methodologies.," Uppsala,
2009.
[2] Blacks, "What is ETHICAL ISSUE?," Ethical Issues, pp. 1-3, 2011.
[3] Federation of European Accountants, "Integrity in Professional Ethics," Federation of
European Accountants, EU, Research 2010.
[4] Dr. La Jolla, "Making Ethical Decisions: Core Ethical Values," Josephson Institute of Ethics,
San Diego, Research 2009.
[5] Nafsika Athanassoulis, "Virtue Ethics," Keele University, Research Report 2008.
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