ATMC ICT351: ICT Professional Practice - Ethical Dilemma Report

This report presents a case study on an ethical dilemma within an Australian government department concerning the selection of procurement software. The IT manager, Nirmal, faces a conflict of interest: choosing between a more advantageous software offer from Company A, which would benefit the department head, and an offer from Company B, whose general manager is Nirmal's best friend. The report employs the 'Doing Ethics Technique' to analyze the situation, outlining the facts, issues, and stakeholders involved. It explores ethical issues such as egoism and act utilitarianism, and evaluates various options, concluding that choosing Company A's system is the most ethically sound decision, despite the potential impact on Nirmal's friendship. The report emphasizes the importance of prioritizing the well-being of the 500 staff members and the overall financial health of the department over personal relationships. The conclusion highlights the potential for corruption and reinforces the need for ethical conduct in professional decision-making.

Running Head: ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
ICT Professional Practice
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Ethical Perspective of ICT...............................................................................................................2
Doing Ethics Technique..............................................................................................................2
What’s going on?.....................................................................................................................3
What are the facts?...................................................................................................................3
What are the issues?.................................................................................................................4
Who is affected?......................................................................................................................4
Ethical Issues Occurred:..............................................................................................................5
What can be done about it:..........................................................................................................5
What options are there :...............................................................................................................6
Which option is best and why:.....................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
Reference.........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
In this new age of information technology more people are inclined towards the
collection and distribution of information. As technologies have increased deliberately in this
modern world, its uses have also increased drastically. The procurement software are the
programs that allows a company to automate its purchasing processes of goods and materials
(Patil et al. 2015). These software generates online ordering process, order purchase, electronic
payment of bills and matching of invoices with the products received. This report will discuss
about the ethical issues occurred in choosing a procurement software enterprise, the IT manager
got stuck in a dilemma in doing so, as one company’s general manager is his best friend who
urged him to accept the offer and another company’s offer will profit the departmental head
(Slade and Prinsloo2013). Therefore, ethical issues will definitely arise (Crane 2019). In
addition, taking decisions for the company in ethical way is important. Involvement of ICT
ethics in this report would be included.
Ethical Perspective of ICT
Technique of Doing Ethics
The technique of Doing Ethics is considered to be a tool related to ethical and non-ethical
issues, this tool helps to find those issues in any scenario (Vaughn 2015). This technique
involves answering several question in order to carry out this study. This process is related to
finding out basic information about the incident going on in the company and occurrence of
ethical dilemma related to the incident (Eisenbeiss et al. 2015). On the basis of Information and
communication technologies (ICT) ethical dilemma occurred in a government department,

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Australia (Kowalkowski et al. 2013). A conflict may occur between the IT manager and its
departmental head due to acquiring of an enterprise for planning system of resource containing
procurement software.
What is going on?
In a department of government in Australia, a manager of IT named as Nirmal with his
500 staff and nearly six branches across Australia needed a system of Enterprise resource
planning based on procurement software. Hence, advertisement was given out to several
number of papers, from which two companies have responded with variable offer. Nirmal the
IT manager acknowledged the offers of both the companies, he found out that Company A’s
offer is comparatively better than the Company B’s offer. Also, the general manager of
Company B is the best friend of Nirmal. The software of Company A is reliable for
modification and user friendly. The installation price of the software of the Company B is
lower as compared to the software of Company A. However, the software of Company B
would require some consultants that may increase its initial cost.
What are the facts?
A department of government in Australia needed an Enterprise resource planning system.
That system is supposed to manage their functions and information of the company from the
data that are stored. As the Enterprise resource planning system are expensive and failure
chances are high as several issues may occur related to configuration, proficiency and
usability. Due to the issues in the system and chances of failure, it can impact in negative
way on the company. The IT manager Nirmal is supposed to choose between the two
companies that have responded to the given advertisement in newspaper. The Company B’s

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manager Debraj is the best friend of Nirmal and Company A’s offer would profit the head of
the government department Robert Brown.
What are the issues?
The issues occurred here are whether Nirmal would take the offer of his best
friend or not instead of lesser risk and cheaper system offered by the other company. If
Nirmal accepts the offer of his desperate best friend Debraj then he would be giving a
favor to him. The initial cost of the system is low, however it would lead to the usage of
more resources of the company as well as trouble in the configuration and usage of the
system as it is difficult in those. The overall cost of the system would all increase,
affecting the 500 staffs present in the department. The worst scenario would be the failure
of the Enterprise Resource planning system that would rise up the cost for the company
and it the long run it would have negative impact on the employees.
Who is affected?
According to the situation of the company, the 500 staff working in that government
department would be effected. If the IT manager chooses the system of Company B, its
initial cost is lower although consultation is required later like consultants of business and
tools consultants that may increase the overall price of the system. As a whole that increased
cost would affect the 500 employees working there. If the IT manager chooses the Company
A’s system then the friend of Nirmal would be heart- broken as he has asked Nirmal to
accept his offer and he is desperate to get the deal. Debraj also reminded him that accepting
the offer would result in recruitment in Debraj’s office for the business and tools consultant,
also those recruitment would be done from his home country which in turn means sending
the money to home. This affected Nirmal’s emotions too.

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Ethical Issues Occurred:
The occurrence of ethical issue leads to making of choices for the concerned person. Here
Nirmal have to choose between two perspectives one from his personal side of his best friend
and another from company’s side toward his employees present in the department (Sikka and
Lehman 2015). In the considered case several ethical issues have occurred, such as:
 The egoism theory, this theory states that for the maximum good of the concerned
situation, acts should be selected (Overall 2016). Nirmal have to evaluate the
Enterprise Resource planning system for the most productive outcome according to
the company’s need rather than favoring his best friend Debraj (Broad 2014). The
cost of the system and related failing risks must be keep in mind at the time of
evaluation.
 Act Utilitarianism, in this theory the concerned person acts according to the benefit of
the most people involved irrespective of his personal emotions, feelings and societal
law ( Hooker 2014). In this case, Nirmal should set aside his personal feeling for his
best friend and choose the Company A over B and consider Debraj as a normal
business person from who they are buying a system. Nirmal have 500 staffs working
in his department which is larger than the employees that Debraj have, therefore
Nirmal’s employees must be considered as the most concerned people than the staffs
of Debraj.
What can be done about it:
If Nirmal have to choose between friendship and career, he is in dilemma and he must
consider the risks related to the required system, the overall cost for the system and effects on his

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staffs and then choose a suitable Company A or B of Enterprise Resource Planning system (Neu,
Everett and Rahaman 2015).
On financial perspective, Nirmal should consider the Company that is offering cheaper system
that would cause good to the department.
What options are there :
Nirmal have two options either to choose the Company A or to choose the Company B
for the ERP system in their department, the company B has less initial cost however consultancy
cost may increase the overall cost for that system also acquisition failure may create financial
problem in the department. The system of Company A is cheaper and more reliable in overall.
Nirmal could have discussed the choosing of company with his immediate senior that is the
department head Robert Brown.
Which option is best and why:
As discussed above, IT manager Nirmal must choose a Company’s system keeping the
benefits of the department and not a single person. Therefore choosing the Enterprise Resource
Planning system of Company A would be beneficial for the company as well as the staffs there.
The cost of the system would be reasonable, no consultant charge would be added as well as risk
for acquisition failure would be less. Therefore, Company A is the best choice that Nirmal can
make irrespective of his personal relationship with his best friend in the professional field.
Conclusion
The above study can be concluded as the occurrence of dilemma for Nirmal in between
his professional field and personal area, he must choose a company that favors the greater
number of the population and in the above case the 500 staff of the department is bigger than his

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one single best friend. The ethical issues that have occurred in this case are of egoism and act
utilitarism, for Nirmal his career must be important than his friendship and there is a chance in
the occurrence of corruption as he might lost his face in public (Mill 2016). The personal feeling
of Nirmal should be omitted and he must select the ERP system of Company A for maximizing
his own good as well as his department.

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Reference
Analyzing the relationship between CEO ethical leadership and firm performance. Journal of
Business Ethics, 128(3), pp.635-651.
Broad, C.D., 2014. Five types of ethical theory. Routledge.
Crane, A., Matten, D., Glozer, S. and Spence, L., 2019. Business ethics: Managing corporate
citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Eisenbeiss, S.A., Van Knippenberg, D. and Fahrbach, C.M., 2015. Doing well by doing well.
Hooker, B., 2014. Utilitarianism and fairness.
Kowalkowski, C., Kindström, D. and Gebauer, H., 2013. ICT as a catalyst for service business
orientation. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 28(6), pp.506-513.
Mill, J.S., 2016. Utilitarianism. In Seven masterpieces of philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.
Neu, D., Everett, J. and Rahaman, A.S., 2015. Preventing corruption within government
procurement: Constructing the disciplined and ethical subject. Critical Perspectives on
Accounting, 28, pp.49-61.
Overall, J., 2016. Unethical behavior in organizations: empirical findings that challenge CSR and
egoism theory. Business Ethics: A European Review, 25(2), pp.113-127.
Patil, T.B., Joshi, S.D., Jalnekar, R.M. and Joshi, M., 2015. Software Improvement Model for
small scale IT Industry. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and
Communication Engineering, 4(5), pp.601-604.
Sikka, P. and Lehman, G., 2015. The supply-side of corruption and limits to preventing
corruption within government procurement and constructing ethical subjects. Critical
Perspectives on Accounting, 28, pp.62-70.

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Slade, S. and Prinsloo, P., 2013. Learning analytics: Ethical issues and dilemmas. American
Behavioral Scientist, 57(10), pp.1510-1529.
Vaughn, L., 2015. Doing ethics: Moral reasoning and contemporary issues. WW Norton &
Company.