Professional Ethics in IT - Discussion Forum Analysis

This assignment, submitted by a student, delves into the critical domain of professional ethics within the IT sector. The student meticulously analyzes a case study involving a database programmer facing ethical dilemmas, applying the McDonald framework to dissect the situation, identify involved parties, values, and potential courses of action. The assignment also addresses discussion forum questions, exploring cultural impacts on ICT professionals, the rationale behind selecting the McDonald framework, conflict of interest scenarios, and the application of Telstra's value statements. Through these analyses, the student demonstrates a strong understanding of ethical considerations, decision-making processes, and the practical application of ethical principles in a professional setting, referencing relevant resources such as the ACS Code of Ethics and academic literature to support their arguments.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN IT
Professional Ethics in IT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN IT
Table of Contents
1. McDonald Frame Work.......................................................................................................2
References............................................................................................................................. 4
2. Discussion Forum...............................................................................................................5
Question 1.......................................................................................................................... 5
Question 2.......................................................................................................................... 6
Question 3.......................................................................................................................... 7
Question 4.......................................................................................................................... 8

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1. McDonald Frame Work
a) Recognizing the Moral Dimension
John has been working for several months, however recently he had been trapped
on various portions of a program. Organizational manager, without even realizing difficulty of
program has asked John to complete it within few days. To resolve this situation, John
remembered that one of his co workers had provided him with a source listing from the
current works and even from a traditional version of a software package. While studying the
two areas of code, he found that he can directly incorporate into his own code. Thus, he
used sections of codes from both commercial software and co-worker, unethically and by not
mentioning it to anyone.
b) Who are the Interested Parties? What are their relationships?
The interested parties identified in this case study are John, the statistical database
programmer and his organizational manager (Noddings 2013). Since the manager had
asked John to complete the program he has taken, within few days, John was in ethical
dilemma to complete the work with two sections of codes from both commercial software
and co worker’s provided source.
c) What values or principles are involved?
i) ACS code of ethics can define the case study effectively. The first suitable code of
ethics is professionalism. It was needed to maintain work ethics under every circumstance,
however John violated this value in this work. He is not promoting and protecting
professionalism in ICT.
ii) The second value is honesty. John can be termed as unethical as he did not
confess his unethical act to anyone (ACS Code of Ethics. 2019). He is unknowingly
misleading the client regarding product suitability and giving credit to himself, although code
was not written by him entirely.
iii) The third suitable ethical value was professional development. He did not follow
work ethics by copying segments of code from software and other sources. Hence, he did
not continue in upgrading his skills and knowledge and increasing awareness of issues that
affect profession.
d) Course of Actions
Professional discussion with manager would have been the best recommendation or
course of action for John, as he would have been able to make him understand the
complexity of program. The second recommendation would be taking help from colleagues
or co-workers, however not by copying segments of code as he has violated Privacy Act
1988.
e) Benefits and Burdens
The major advantage identified in this case study would be providing accurate
statistical program within deadline given to John by the manager (Peters 2015). Another
advantage is that the client would not get an idea about code being copied from software
and other sources.
The burden would be that John had not followed work ethics and even has violated 3
values of ACS code of ethics, which are professionalism, honesty and professional
development. Another burden is that he was asked to complete the complex within limited
days.
f) Analogous Cases

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i) Manager should understand the position of John and reason for his incapability to
complete the complex program.
ii) John should not have copied the code segments from software and other sources
even after missing deadline.
g) Discussion with Relevant Others
Although, manager had forced John to complete the program within few days, he
should have discussed with the manager, so that he might have been able to make him
understand about the complexity of the program (Critchley 2014). Discussion with senior
authority is the second distinctive option in this case.
h) Accordance of Decision with Legal and Organizational Rules
ACS code of ethics values for professionalism, honesty and professional
development were violated, hence organizational rules were not followed by John by copying
segments of code. It was illegal as well, since he did not mention it anyone.
i) Comfortable with Decision
I am not at all comfortable with the decision since ethics was not followed and the
action taken by John was illegal in terms or legal rules in an organization. Moreover, Privacy
Act 1988 was violated by John.

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References
ACS Code of Ethics. 2019. [online]. Accessed from
https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/rules-and-regulations/Code-of-Professional-
Conduct_v2.1.pdf [Accessed on 28 May 2019].
Critchley, S., 2014. Ethics of deconstruction. Edinburgh University Press.
Noddings, N., 2013. Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. Univ of
California Press.
Peters, R.S., 2015. Ethics and Education (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.

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2. Discussion Forum
Question 1
The cultural issues in any organization have significant impact on me as an ICT
professional are as follows:
i) Discouraged Employees: I can get bored and discouraged due to monotonous
working works and the main reason of this issue is for quality control and attendance issues.
ii) Over Supervised: The second issue is that the supervisors are over supervised
and technological advancements are often been forced without involvement of any training
(Alvesson and Sveningsson 2015). As a result, I often get demotivated while working.
iii) High Turnover: Several individuals leave organization due to this cultural issue.
Being an ICT professional, I do have issues with the policies and rules of this company.
Reference
Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015. Changing organizational culture: Cultural change
work in progress. Routledge.

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Question 2
I have selected MacDonald framework for assignment 1. The main reason is that this
particular framework helps in better analysis of a case study by dividing it into certain
sections. There are eight questions that are required to be answered, which includes
recognition of moral dimension, interested parties and their relationships, involves values
and principles, course of actions, benefits and burdens, analogous cases, discussion with
others, accordance of decision with legal and organizational rules and comfortable with
decision (MacDonald 2010). This framework helped me in understanding that John is a
database programmer, who is eventually making an attempt to complete a statistical
program, required by his organization. The programmers within the organization are being
reinvigorated for writing their own work and even publishing the algorithm within professional
journal. However, recently he was stuck and took unethical means for completing his
program.
Reference
MacDonald, C. 2010. "A Guide to Moral Decision Making". Accessed from
http://www.ethicsweb.ca/guide [Accessed on 28 May 2019].

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Question 3
Conflict of interest can be referred to as a situation, which arises mainly in IT
industry, where any individual is having a conflict of interest since he is playing two roles. In
this particular situation, two different parties are absolutely incompatible in nature and
personal benefits could be derived from the decisions and actions that are been made
(Rahim 2017). Every organization wants to eradicate conflict of interest from their business
for ensuring that ethics is being followed under any circumstance effectively. I have myself
faced conflict of interest in my professional career. I used to run a hardware shop. One of my
friends, once came to me asking for help in his system’s motherboard. At first being a
professional, I suggested him to discard the older one and purchase a new from my shop.
However, after having conflict of interest, I controlled myself and followed ethics. I repaired
the motherboard and it was again working properly. It was even illegal to extract money from
him without any reason.
Reference
Rahim, M.A., 2017. Managing conflict in organizations. Routledge.

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Question 4
I am working as an Intern in Telstra Corporation Limited. The value statement in
Telstra include showing care, working better and together, trusting every employee, making
complex simpler and finding their courage (Telstra About Us. 2019). They even has the
willingness in taking responsibilities, determination for thinking better, desire in learning and
courage to challenge themselves. The vision statement of Telstra is to improve method of
people’s living and working. I have been working with this value statement and have
analysed that there are few good factors like showing care, working better and together,
trusting every employee, making complex simpler and finding their courage. However, they
need to improve their values for employees for enhancing productivity.
Reference
Telstra About Us. 2019. [online]. Accessed from https://www.telstra.com.au/aboutus/our-
company/present/purpose-values [Accessed on 28 May 2019].