Code of Ethics and Professionalism: A Project Management Approach

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Project Planning
Topic: Impact of the code of ethics on professional responsibility
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Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Research Question...........................................................................................................................4
Literature Review............................................................................................................................5
Research Methodologies..................................................................................................................8
Project plan....................................................................................................................................11
Research Instrument......................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13
Appendix........................................................................................................................................15
Appendix I.................................................................................................................................15
Appendix II................................................................................................................................15
Appendix III...............................................................................................................................16
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Abstract
Corporations and policymakers have underlined code of ethics to be as an impact of the
organization and corporate governance. Identifying the ethical issues and code of ethics is critical
for the practitioners of professional corporations, educators, work practitioners, and students.
However, the profession of social work has always been ethical and value-based and follows a
code of ethics, there has been a rapid increment in the interest of this topic. The code of ethics
has a huge impact on the professional behavior and responsibility of an individual. This paper is
examining to determine what is the impact of a code of ethics on professional responsibility and
how the code of ethics will enhance professional behavior and responsibilities. This
enhancement in turns initiates the ethical norms which can monitor the opportunistic behavior.
The professional responsibility also includes the practices to endorse and keep the high level of
standards and this cover emphatic reflection which is related to the interaction with others. The
code of ethics is used to provide ethical help and strategies for professional responsibilities.
Further, it is finding that the impact of the code of ethics is that it can only improve professional
behavior and investor confidence only when public certification is incorporated by the code.
Keywords: certification, corporate governance, code of ethics, professional responsibility
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Introduction
A code of ethics summaries the ethical and social principles that are used to govern the behavior
and decision at an organization or company, especially in terms of professional responsibility. It
provides the outlines for professional responsibility including the behavior of employees, certain
guideline principles to handle situations like safety and interest. The code of ethics was
established to obtain the highest standards and principles where these principles are used as
general statements to show the professional ideas for the activities (Parker 2016). The term
professionalism means to behave and act with courtesy and dignity to the professionals and
another person is related to the business activities. The professional services are also provided
with the help of diligence where it is the provision of the activities and services including the
accurate planning of the interpretation of the service quality.
The main purpose of the code of ethics is to help the persons to become a better practitioner and
also help them to acquire professional behavior. In this project planning, the research is
conducted on the code of ethics and its impact on professional responsibilities. Firstly, some
literature papers are reviewed to determine the understanding of the code of ethics and then
research methodologies are identified along with the proper planning.
Research Question
There are some research questions for which the planning is made like which methodologies will
be used. The research question includes:
R1. Do individuals are aware of the code of ethics regarding professional responsibilities?
R2. What are the impacts of the code of ethics on professional responsibility and behavior?
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Literature Review
According to Worthington (2015), the connection between the professionalism and code of
ethics is close but both the terms are not changeable i.e. not all points in ethics is related to the
professionalism and not everything of professional practice is about matters of the code of ethics.
Both the professionalism and code of ethics could be determined as two equals but overlapping
terms which means neither both are completely integrated with each other, nor both are separated
to each other. There is some relevance between both professional practice and code of ethics.
The code of ethics is used to provide ethical help and strategies for professional responsibilities.
While Holtzhuasen (2015) stated that the concept of ethics and morality are habitually
interdependent and connected. Morality is a set of principles and values of some actions that are
suggested to an individual with the help of some intermediate systems while ethics is the degree
where individual sustenance the moral code over some conducts. Hence, the code of ethics
means conduct that is morally acceptable and can be expected from anyone, especially in terms
of professional relations. Also, there is often confusion among ethics and morality with the law.
Due to this, there is tension among the expectations of the professional responsibility of every
individual and code of ethics and it can be understood as the ethical practice that aimed to have
the ethical consequences. (Holtzhuasen 2015).
The current code of ethics of the professional communities shows some degrees of support for
the issues related to ethics. It includes standards for professionals in six areas which are
responsibilities to clients, professionals, society, colleagues, social work, and responsibilities in
practical work (Hersh 2017). However, Lee et al. (2014) stated that code of ethics is an
expression of the ethical norms of an organization in written form that provides the guidelines
and principles useful for the decision-making and managerial policy of an employee. The code
impacts the decisions made regarding the issues such as professional behavior of an individual,
public stakeholders, professional responsibilities of an individual, etc. Code of ethics evident
itself as programs related to employee orientation, training on formal ethics, ethics audits,
instructional materials, and ethics corporate governance. With the development of the code of
ethics, it encourages corporate authorization in terms of high ethical values and principles. Such
ethics not only creates the commitment among the individuals but also help them to manage the
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professional responsibilities as well as to attain trust among each other. So according to Lee et al.
(2014) code of ethics or its perception should be established in communal organizations and
corporate governance as it brings corporations among everyone.
There are some issues with the code of ethics that are observed and this type of misconduct
includes wrong use of public time, desecrations of official guidelines, an unfair violation against
public, improper authority use for the personal benefits, ignoring the responsibilities. Apart from
this, there are some other issues also like not adhering to the communal governance, unethical
and improper behavior, giving priority to the personal profits rather than public interest, failure
to balance the standard and quality regarding the professional responsibilities, and illegal misuse
of the professional behavior (Davis 2016). These issues can be addressed by the implementation
of some principles of the code of ethics. These principles include integrity, objectivity,
competence, fairness, confidentiality, professionalism, and diligence. Integrity is used to deliver
the professional responsibility and services by demanding the sincerity and honesty. Both
sincerity and honesty cannot be subordinated to the particular benefit and profit. This honesty,
sincerity, and trust can be brought by the personal integrity of the certificate as there is no co-
existence of integrity with the subordination of ethics and values. Another way to deliver
professional services and responsibility is the objectivity that needs logical neutrality and
honesty. Despite the specific service or the capacity, the professionals must secure the integrity
and hence keep the objectivity (Alias & Nawawi 2019).
Competence is another principle of a code of ethics that can be used to deliver professional
service and responsibility by maintaining the essential skills and knowledge. The meaning of
competence is to maintain and achieve an acceptable level of skill and knowledge. It also
comprises of the wisdom for determining the restrictions of the knowledge when it is appropriate
to consult with the other professionals regarding a code of ethics. It also states that professional
relationship can be maintained by being reasonable and fair. The meaning of fairness here means
intellectual honesty, impartiality, and disclosure of interest conflicts. It suggests that there should
be an appropriate balance among the ethical dilemma and conflicting interest (Hammersley
2015). Professional service with respect to the code of ethics also summarize that there should be
confidentiality means there must be surety of authorization and security of the information
(Leighty 2015). In communal governance or any organizations, professionals should give access
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to information to those who have access to them because trust is the most important factor of the
relationship between individual and client. Professionalism is the most important principle of the
code of ethics as it mainly used to enable professionalism among every individual. The term
professionalism means to act with the courtesy and dignity to each other, clients, business-related
stakeholders, and associated professionals (Alias & Nawawi 2019). The professional services are
also provided with the help of diligence where it is the provision of the activities and services
including the accurate planning of the interpretation of the service quality. Thus, a code of ethics
helps in maintaining and improving the quality of service and professionalism of an individual.
According to Halliday (n.d.), code of ethics for professional organizations is very important. It
influences the responsibility and behavior by making the principles and values. The uniqueness
of a profession and the professionals who know about their responsibility are associated with the
public statements. Code is determined as promoting the status and responsibility of a profession
and service of honesty, dignity, and self-worth of the professionals. The professional
responsibility also includes the practices to endorse and keep the high level of standards and this
cover emphatic reflection which is related to the interaction with others. It is also used to provide
ethical help and strategies for professional responsibilities.
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Research Methodologies
In order to identify the answers to the research question that are discussed in the above part, there
are some research methodologies that can be used. These research methodologies include both
quantitative methodologies as well as qualitative methodologies and this include interviews,
questionnaires, different case studies, and surveys. Each research methodologies have some
benefits while some limitations, thus it is very essential that accurate methodologies must be
selected for the collection of data to perform the analysis.
Questionnaires:
The questionnaire is a type of quantitative based research methodology and it is a useful method
to gathers the data to find out the answers to the research questions. The questionnaires help to
ask several questions to the number of participants and the answers obtained from the question
helps in the data collection. It can also be understood as the questions arranged in pre-order. For
the questionnaire methodology, it is not necessary that the researcher should be present at the
time of question, the participants can easily respond to the questions at any specified time. The
benefits of using the questionnaire are that a large number of participants can participate in it and
give the response the questions asked and also it is easy for the researcher to collects the
information from the responses. But there is drawback also with the questionnaire that there is no
surety whether the participants are giving the honest and correct answers (Chokprajakchat &
Sumretphol 2017).
Interviews
The most common qualitative based approach is an interview that can be used to gathers all the
data and information related to the research question. Interviews help more in gathering the data
and analysis of the collected data (Puljak 2019). Interviews help the researcher to ask any limit
of questions to the participant for collecting the additional information. It is used to particularly
collects the data and information which supports the ideas of the researcher and also provides a
deep understanding and insight of the code of ethics. The interview can be taken in three ways,
one is structured, second is semi-structured, and third is unstructured. But this research
methodology also has benefits as well as drawbacks. The benefits with the interview research
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methodology are that it allows the researcher to collect the detail data and get a depth analysis of
the information. It also gives the flexibility to both the researcher and participant to take as much
time they want as the researcher can ask any questions. But there is one problem also with this
methodology which is it is very time-consuming because researcher needs to write down the
answers by himself/herself and then perform the analysis on the basis of answers determined
(Hart 2018).
Survey:
Another research methodology is a survey which is the most useful research methodology
because the survey includes a questionnaire and easily calculates and analyze the result obtained
from the data collection. Another benefit to using the survey research methodology is that the
simialar question is asked to a huge group of people at the same time and this saves the time that
spent in the interview methodology.
Selected Methodology
There are several research methodologies that are discussed in the above part, among which two
methodologies are selected which are focus groups and survey.
Focus group
Focus group are the group of some people among which the research is performed to gather the
data. It is type of qualitative research methods and is the most suitable research methodology to
determine the answers to the research question. In a focus group, questions are asked to some
group in order to collect the information. The reason behind selecting this research methodology
is that all the members of a group are assembled together and a group interview is conducted
where all can have interaction with each other and there will be a group discussion. With the help
of the focus group, it will be easy to get deep insight and complete understanding of the topic
code of ethics and its impact on professional responsibilities. Another reason of selecting this
research methodology is that it allows identifying the common views about what people know
about the code of ethics and how much they implement it and what are their views regarding the
impact on professionalism.
Survey
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Apart from the focus group research methodology, there is one more methodology which is
selected is Survey. A survey is another best suitable methodology to collect the data and
information for the analysis and finding of the answers to the research question. The reason
being selecting this research methodology is that it is the easiest and convenient way of
performing the analysis and gathering the information. Although the interview and focus group
will give detail analysis and information about the research topic they might take more time
while the survey will only give the relevant and required information. With the help of the
survey, the results can be obtained in graphical and numerical forms and it will be then easy to
perform the analysis and find out the answers to the research question. Another reason for
selecting this methodology is that it consumes less time in comparison to the other research
methodologies. There are several tools through which this survey can be conducted.
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Project plan
The project is a plan by dividing it into several activities along with the starting and finishing
date and total duration in which the particular task will complete. See Appendix 1 under
appendix section for the project planning which is in the form of Gantt chart.
Research Instrument
See Appendix II and Appendix II where the research methodologies are written as survey
questions and focus group respectively.
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Conclusion
The code of ethics in addition to the compliance is specified along with the professionalism and
moral values. To determine the term code of ethics and how it is related to professional
responsibilities, several literature papers and journal articles are reviewed. These articles and
papers help in understanding the topic and acknowledging the research on the code of ethics in
the past time. Among various discussed research methodologies, two methodologies i.e. focus
group and surveys have been chosen to determine the answers for the research question, “Does
individuals are aware of the code of ethics regarding the professional responsibilities?” and
“What are the impacts of the code of ethics on the professional responsibility and behavior?” The
complete planning of the project along with the activities and their duration has also discussed in
this report.
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