7101ICT: Professional Issues Assignment 1 Report - Ethical Analysis

This report presents an analysis of two ethical scenarios within the technology sector, focusing on issues faced by professionals in quality assurance and software engineering. The first scenario involves a quality assurance engineer, Rachel, grappling with the decision of whether to ship a product despite potential defects due to time constraints. The analysis examines legal, professional, employment, and personal factors, highlighting the risks of releasing potentially faulty products that could harm customers. The second scenario addresses copyright infringement, where a software engineer, William, reuses code from a previous employer, raising legal and ethical concerns. The report assesses the legal implications, intellectual property violations, and organizational guidelines, considering the actions and inactions of the individuals and the company. The report prioritizes the identified factors, proposes decisions to resolve the ethical dilemmas, and discusses potential solutions, such as improving quality control processes, establishing ethical guidelines, and protecting intellectual property rights. The report emphasizes the importance of ethical conduct and legal compliance in the workplace.

Student Name
Student No.
7101ICT
Trimester n, 202n
Professional Issues Assignment 1
Due Date: time, dd/mm/yy
Lecturer: David Tuffley
Campus (NA, LG, GC):

Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
Contents
1. Introduction 2
2. Analysis 2
2.1. Legal factors...............................................................................2
2.1.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................2
2.1.2. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................2
2.2. Professional factors....................................................................3
2.2.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................3
2.2.2. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................3
2.3. Employment and Social factors..................................................3
2.3.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................3
2.3.2. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................4
2.4. Personal factors..........................................................................4
2.4.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................4
2.4.2. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................4
2.5. Intrinsic factors............................................................................5
2.5.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................5
2.5.2. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................5
2.6. Prioritisation................................................................................5
2.6.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................5
2.6.1. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................6
2.7. Decision......................................................................................6
2.7.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................6
2.7.2. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................7
3. Discussion 7
3.1.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................7
3.1.2. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................8
4. Conclusion 8
4.1.1. Scenario 1.1.........................................................................8
4.1.2. Scenario 1.2.........................................................................9
5. References 10
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
1. Introduction
The case study scenario is based on a large electronics company where
Racheal works. Racheal is the quality assurance engineer for the company
and responsible to responsible for testing of the servers of company. The
business model for the product is releasing new generation server for each six
months, therefore the company has limited time to conduct a quality control
testing. Due to short amount of time for each release of next new product,
therefore each single testing is not done. At that time, if there are any testing
defects, Racheal is not able to ship the products will cause malfunction of
company’s servers and cause physical harm to customers also.
Based on the scenario 2, it is focused on SDX Alliance Company, selling of
computers, software as well as components. As an entry level software
engineer, William is hired for the company to write codes for their product, He
reused the same code for product of SDX Alliance, which was used for its
previous company’s product. It was an ethical issue of copyright laws. In case
the company had not used codes of William, in this case they have to rewrite
the code of product caused delaying of its product release by months.
The report is focused on examining of the two ethical events and providing
decisions with an intent to solve the ethical issues in proper way. The
stakeholders those are involved to take ethical decisions are clients, vendors,
managers and project staffs.
2. Analysis
2.1. Legal factors
2.1.1. Scenario 1.1
Factor 1- Quality defects
Racheal who suffers losses as well as damages resulting from the defects in
codes for their company’s servers, the large electronics company should bring
legal actions for negligence against the quality assurance engineer. There is
liability of the breach of contract, a legal action of negligence is to be taken
(Paradice et al., 2018). Racheal is able to deliver the products to the
customers, but it can cause physical harm to the customers with loss of data
for the customers.
2.1.2. Scenario 1.2
Factor 2- Copyright infringement
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
The legal penalties for the copyright violation due to using of same code of
previous workplace to current workplace are infringer pays to dollar amount
for the damages as well as profits. The Australian law provided a range of the
dollar amount as $200-$150,000 based on the copyright infringed. Australian
copyright laws are included under Commonwealth Copyright Act 1968, and it
offers infringing of the copies of the computer programs for selling, importing
and distributing and dealing with the infringing copies (Fitzgerald & Dwyer,
2017).
2.2. Professional factors
2.2.1. Scenario 1.1
Factor 3- Inappropriate behaviour
Due to short period of time, Rachel does not perform a quality assurance
testing of and ship the products with a likelihood of the failure. Therefore, it
results in loss of the customers. It is an inappropriate behaviour in the
workplace (Bolhari et al., 2017).
2.2.2. Scenario 1.2
Factor 4- Intellectual property violation
The copyright infringement is pertained to be violation of the intellectual
property of SDX Alliance Company and also the company where William
worked previously. It is the piracy and theft of the same code used in previous
company to enhance with performance of the product. William developed the
code by itself, but the problem is that previous company owned the intellectual
property rights on the code (Parviainen & Pirhonen, 2017). Therefore, when
he used those codes in current workplace, it lead to violation of the intellectual
property of previous company.
Factor 5- Inaction
When the manager of SDX Alliance Company informed about the problems of
code, William did not admire his mistakes as he said that he was not familiar
with the copyright laws (Sharibudin et al., 2018). In that case, no actions are
taken from the business professional side, otherwise the manager thought
that if it requires to rewrite entire code for the product, then it would delay their
release timeframe.
2.3. Employment and Social factors
2.3.1. Scenario 1.1
Factor 6- Organizational policy
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
Racheal is continued to provide and ship the product to the customers,
without testing the code defects for the company’s servers, then it puts the
company in risk by losing of the business reputation (Shukla, 2019). Racheal
has no commitment with others regarding the testing defects and he must not
provide respect to the customer’s rights as defective product would cause loss
of the customer’s data. Therefore, the company’s values and their policies are
unprofessional (Gu & Lai, 2019). Difficulty to deliver defect free product should
be communicated with the management to get their support of it. The
company is not maintaining a corporate responsibility to for delivering defect
free products to the customers. When the customers received defective
products, then it not only causes data loss of the customers, but it also
provides impact on business reputation.
2.3.2. Scenario 1.2
Factor 7- Organizational guidelines
When the manager was informed about the intellectual property violation of
the software engineer, then the manager had not taken any employment
actions against it. Even William admits that he has not done any mistakes and
even not familiar with the copyright laws (Sulaiman & Bakar, 2019). Therefore,
the organization has not provided proper guidelines to their employees
regarding copyright laws.
2.4. Personal factors
2.4.1. Scenario 1.1
Factor 8- Customer rights
Racheal did not carry out all the needed quality testing of the products so that
he can make sure that all the defects are free. As the quality testing is not
done for the products, therefore it can break the customer rights, therefore the
customers are received data those are lost (Matthews, 2018). Racheal did not
ship the products the customers, those are having possibility of server to be
malfunction as well as physical harm to the customers. But in other way, the
products are provided to the customers those are caused data losses. The
customers have right to get a defect free product, for which they are paying to
the company (Lurie & Mark, 2016). Therefore, Racheal is playing with trust of
the customers.
2.4.2. Scenario 1.2
Factor 9- Experience
When employed to SDX Alliance Company, William should focus on the
organizational laws as well as policies, but as he was not familiar with the
intellectual property rights of the company and broken the copyright law of the
company, therefore he had lack of experience to work in the company and not
familiar with the organizational policies as well as guidelines (Mathies, 2018).
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
2.5. Intrinsic factors
2.5.1. Scenario 1.1
Factor 10- Education
Racheal is quite educated as he is working as quality assurance engineer,
therefore he was graduated from the engineering field.
2.5.2. Scenario 1.2
Factor 11- Lying behaviour
When the manager asked William about the mistakes regarding usage of
same code for product development, it is possible that William lied to the
manager that he was not familiar with the copyright laws. As when working in
the company, they should familiar with it (Fischer et al., 2018).
2.6. Prioritisation
2.6.1. Scenario 1.1
Factor Related Issue
1 Legal factor (Quality defect) Losses as well as damages
resulting from the defects in codes
for their company’s servers
2 Professional factor (Inappropriate
behaviour)
Rachel has shipped the products to
the customers even found that
there is quality defects in testing.
3 Employment and social factor
(Organizational policy)
The company’s values and their
policies are unprofessional as
defective products are shipped to
the product without proper testing
4 Personal factor (Customer rights) As the quality testing is not done for
the products, therefore it can break
the customer rights
5 Intrinsic factor (Education) Graduated from the engineering
field
Table 1: Priority List Scenario 1
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
2.6.1. Scenario 1.2
Factor Related Issue
1 Legal factor (Copyright
infringement)
Commonwealth Copyright Act
1968, and it offers infringing of the
copies of the computer programs
for selling, importing and
distributing and dealing with the
infringing copies.
2 Professional factor (Intellectual
property violation)
William developed the code by
itself, but the problem is that
previous company owned the
intellectual property rights on the
code
3 Professional factor (Inaction) William did not admire his mistakes
as he said that he was not familiar
with the copyright laws
4 Employment and social factors
(Organizational guidelines)
SDX Alliance Company has not
provided proper guidelines to their
employees regarding copyright
laws
5 Personal factors (Experience) William was not familiar with the
intellectual property rights of the
company and broken the copyright
law of the company
6 Intrinsic factors (Lying behaviour) William lied to the manager that he
was not familiar with the copyright
laws
Table 2: Priority List Scenario 2
2.7. Decision
2.7.1. Scenario 1.1
Based on prioritization of the factors identified above priority list table, the
legal factors are considered as priority as compared to other factors. Followed
by legal factors, other factors are f importance.
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
The legal factor is quality defect which are provided impact on the reputation
of the business and also customer’s rights. In order to overcome with the
quality defects in the testing process, Racheal should require to do proper
quality testing of code and ensure that a defect free products is shipped to the
customers (Rees et al., 2016). Racheal should require to provide time
management to monitor dates of their product shipment and time should be
managed for proper quality testing. Racheal should also outsource of their
quality processes to other company while they can get defect free products
and also meet with the timeline.
2.7.2. Scenario 1.2
For scenario 1.2, the legal factor is at high priority as there is copyright
infringement caused in SDX Alliance Company. In order to overcome with the
legal issue, the company should require to provide a strict ethical guidelines to
their employees regarding the copyright laws of the company (Carrieri,
Peccatori, & Boniolo, 2017). The software codes should be protected with
various types of intellectual property laws. It is required that the copyright
owner can get right to reproduce the literacy work in which the copyright
consisted, pursuant to the section 31 of Copyright Act 1968 (Romious,
Thompson, & Thompson, 2016). It is possible that before release the code to
public, William should take approval from its copyright owner about code
usage. Then, SDX Alliance should continue with their production process and
launch of the product while the real copyright owner has no problem with code
usage.
3. Discussion
3.1.1. Scenario 1.1
The ethical issue that Racheal caused is due to short period of time to
perform the quality testing of defects in the products. In short timeframe, it
was not possible to do a quality assurance testing, and will ship the products
to the customers with high likelihood of failures. It should possible that there is
an increase of workload in the quality department so that proper testing is to
be done (Nimmer, 2019). Latest technology should be used to test the
servers, therefore it will lead to reduce both time as well as efforts for testing
of the servers. There is required to change new generation production policies
so that it provides more time in quality assurance testing of the products.
When the company provides high quality products to the client, then there is
an increase in customer satisfaction as well as increase in sales (Banerjee,
2017). As Racheal is not providing proper testing results, therefore it caused
loss to the business reputation on market.
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
Based on the ethical principles of the company, the customers are required to
provide efficient products and their customer rights should require to
safeguard (Williams, 2017). The company has responsibility safeguard to
provide defect free product to the customers for which they are paying.
Delivering of defect free product is priority of Racheal and responsible to
communicate with the management level to get support from them. It helps to
protect the customer’s rights by meeting with their interest at center of
business (Vinueza et al., 2019). It is possible that the company should take
low process for their products or ensure that there is replacement of the
server if any failure found.
3.1.2. Scenario 1.2
Based on the scenario, corporate ethical issues occurred due to ethical
problems in the business occurred because of personal gain as well as self-
interest. It is referred to be focused on requirements and desires of self which
provides with benefits. In case of William, the code he had written for previous
company used in SDX Alliance product, as he wanted to save time as well as
effort and quickly done his work. He even not thing about the consequences
of this work. Through direct negotiation, SDX alliance should resolve the
dispute of the copyright infringement. As SDX Alliance Company has less time
to release their product on time, therefore William should take approval from
the copyright owner before using the code from his previous workplace
company (Okere, Adam, & Sanusi, 2017). In case William managed to take
approval of code release, therefore there should be no problem. In other case,
if there is legal violations of the issue, then SDX Alliance can pay a royalty pay
to the original owner of the code for breaking the copyright laws.
4. Conclusion
4.1.1. Scenario 1.1
It is concluded that Racheal should overcome with the ethical issues occurred
by delivering quality servers meeting with required quality of the customers.
The rights of customers should be protected, by keeping an interest of the
customers at the first priority of the business. Racheal should take moral
responsibility to deliver the product which is defect free and also avoid
delivery of the defective product to the customers. Racheal should require to
provide more concentration on quality control, rather than eager to beat the
competition with Competitor Company for releasing the products in the
market. Racheal should meet with the customer’s rights and provide quality
product to the customers to maintain customer satisfaction level and business
reputation in the market. Therefore, the company should either maintain the
time or distribute the workload of the quality department to other resources. It
would lead to meet with customer’s requirements and deliver quality
assurance product to customers.
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
4.1.2. Scenario 1.2
It is concluded that what William did with using same code for the product of
SDX Alliance, which was already used in his previous employment, therefore
it is an ethical work. It was done to lessen time and effort required for coding
work. As per William, what he did was not intentional as he was not aware of
the copyright laws. Now, as the company has to deliver the product on time,
therefore they decided to go for an ethical solution. In order to avoid the
ethical issues of SDX Alliance Company, the company should resolve
problem with direct negotiation with the copyright owner. William should try to
get in contact with the copyright owner and take the approval and permission
to use the code for the product of SDX Alliance. Even to make the case to be
ethical, the other company should get cost benefits as SDX Alliance Company
paid some royalty pay to the original copyright owner.
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
5. References
Banerjee, A. (2017). Copyright Violation or Access to Education: Navigating
Legal Dichotomies. NALSAR Stud. L. Rev., 12, 102.
Bolhari, A., Radfar, R., Alborzi, M., Poorebrahimi, A., & Dehghani, M. (2017).
Perceived Possibility of Disclosure and Ethical Decision Making in an
Information Technology Context. Engineering, Technology & Applied
Science Research, 7(2), 1567-1574.
Carrieri, D., Peccatori, F. A., & Boniolo, G. (2018). The ethical plausibility of
the ‘Right To Try’laws. Critical reviews in oncology/hematology, 122,
64-71.
Fischer, A. J., Schultz, B. K., Collier-Meek, M. A., Zoder-Martell, K. A., &
Erchul, W. P. (2018). A critical review of videoconferencing software to
support school consultation. International Journal of School &
Educational Psychology, 6(1), 12-22.
Fitzgerald, A. M., & Dwyer, N. (2017). Copyright in databases in Australia.
Gu, M. M., & Lai, C. (2019). An ethical analysis of how ESL teachers construct
their professional identities through the use of information technology in
teaching. British Educational Research Journal, 45(5), 918-937.
Lurie, Y., & Mark, S. (2016). Professional ethics of software engineers: An
ethical framework. Science and engineering ethics, 22(2), 417-434.
Mathies, C. (2018). The Ethical Use of Data. New Directions for Institutional
Research, 2018(178), 85-97.
Matthews, K. J. (2018). The securitization of asylum in Australia: Delineating
endogenous and exogenous causes.
Nimmer, D. (2019). Volition in Violation of Copyright. The Columbia Journal of
Law & the Arts, 43(1).
Okere, S., Adam, M. E., & Sanusi, B. O. (2017). Awareness of Plagiarism as
Copyright Violation with Implications for Intellectual Property Education
in Tertiary Learning. Journal of Research and
Development, 187(5726), 1-7.
Paradice, D., Freeman, D., Hao, J., Lee, J., & Hall, D. (2018). A Review of
Ethical Issue Considerations in the Information Systems Research
Literature. Foundations and Trends® in Information Systems, 2(2),
117-236.
Parviainen, J., & Pirhonen, J. (2017). Vulnerable bodies in human–robot
interactions: embodiment as ethical issue in robot care for the elderly.
Rees, A., García-Peñalvo, F. J., Jormanainen, I., Tuul, M., & Reimann, D.
(2016). An overview of the most relevant literature on coding and
computational thinking with emphasis on the relevant issues for
teachers.
Romious, T. S., Thompson, R., & Thompson, E. (2016). Ethics Training and
Workplace Ethical Decisions of MBA Professionals. Journal of
Education and Learning, 5(1), 190-198.
Sharibudin, N. H., Asraf, N. S., Razak, M. S. A., Yatin, S. F. M., Ismail, S. A.,
Ab Rahman, A., & Yu, H. (2018). ETHICAL ISSUES IN MANAGING
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Professional Issues Assignment Introduction
INFORMATION IN ORGANIZATION. NATIONAL ACADEMY OF
MANAGERIAL STAFF OF CULTURE AND ARTS HERALD, (1), 985-
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Shukla, N. (2019). A Comparative Analysis of Contemporary Laws Related to
Copyright in Australia, the UK and the USA. IUP Law Review, 9(4).
Sulaiman, M. A., & Bakar, N. A. A. (2019). Systematic Review on Ethical
Issues in Cloud Computing. Open International Journal of Informatics
(OIJI), 7(2), 65-74.
Vinueza, M. M. H., Santacruz, H. B., Vaca, P. T., Vaca, H. L. I., & Portilla, L.
M. (2019, July). ICT in Higher Education and Its Relation to the
Violation of Copyright and Intellectual Property. In International
Conference on ‘Knowledge Society: Technology, Sustainability and
Educational Innovation’ (pp. 328-342). Springer, Cham.
Williams, J. (2017, July). Legal and ethical issues surrounding open source
research for law enforcement purposes. In ECSM 2017 4th European
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publishing limited.
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