Role of Ethics in Projects

Question: Discuss about theRole of Ethics in Projects. Answer: Introduction: Ethics is an important concept that plays a significant role in every single field. There are many industries and organizations that work on hundreds and thousands of projects on a simultaneous basis. The element of ethics is something that must always be maintained in the project activities. The document covers the concept of ethics along with the ethical issues that are seen in the accounting and software projects. The impact and role of presence and absence of ethics on the decision making activities in the project along with the role of Professional Engineer in the same has also been discussed in the project. Concept of Ethics Ethics is an area of study that evaluates the correctness of an activity on the basis of the ethical grounds. There are a number of different factors that contribute towards the evaluation process and many theories have been developed to perform the judgment (Resnik, 2016). The ethical theories that have been developed for evaluating the ethical correctness of an act differ from one to another as each one of them is based upon different set of principles. For instance, theory of Deontology judges an activity on the basis of its adherence to a particular duty whereas Virtue Ethics gives priority to the character of the person behind the execution. (www.philosophybasics.com, 2016). Ethical Issues in Advertising Projects Advertising industry and the projects that are associated with the same are a part of every country. These advertisements are brought out to the public using the tele media and the print media. With the increase in the competitors in the market for every single product, there is a race among the organizations to score ahead of the other in the advertising world. The same goal leads to violations of ethics and some of the issues have been pointed out as below. Truth is an element that must always be present in all the components of an activity as per all the ethical theories. An activity will never be considered ethically correct of the element of truth goes missing from the same. Advertising projects often violate this simple rule of ethics by intentionally excluding complete truth from the advertisements that they design. In order to make the product more appealing there are features that are included that make it unique from the rest of the competitors and some of the important details are kept hidden. For example, many of the advertisements of the health drinks show only those ingredients that are good from the health perspective but do not include the additional details such as preservatives and likewise (Singal Kamra, 2016). Companies often hide the information that is associated with the price of the product or the warranty information which is only revealed at the time of purchase. The same is ethically incorrect as well. There has been an increase in the unethical comparison that is made by the companies in their advertisements. There are a number of brands and organizations that develop a similar product. Brands often adapt the strategy of indirectly telling the flaws of other competitor in their advertisements by showcasing the flaws of the same. The activity stands ethically incorrect as it includes the case of defamation and the implications will be negative for the other brand (A.G.N., 2010). Environment and human health is something that is always believed to be an asset. It is always told that one should try his or her best to keep these two elements protected at all times and at all places. However, there are a certain products that cause harm to either the human health or the environment and in spite of being well aware about the same; the products are being widely advertised. For instance, alcohol, tobacco and similar products have many advertisements for different brands. Such an activity is completely unethical in nature (VICTOR, 2016). Advertisements are meant to engage more and more customers and allow the product to gain popularity in the market. Some of the brands make use of vulgar or obscene content to promote its products which is completely incorrect as per the principles of ethics (www.ccny.cuny.edu, 2016). Ethical Issues inSoftware Projects Software projects include a number of components, phases and activities that involves varied number of resources. Due to the presence of so many entities, there are often ethical issues that are seen in these projects that may harm the environment and the human race as well. There are a number of codes of conduct that have been designed to maintain ethics in the projects and the same by IEEE is one of them. The code includes a number of principles which say the public interest should always come at the top priority for the project resources, the interest of the clients must always be maintained, best practices and standards must be followed, team spirit must be maintained and the management should always follow the ethical practices in the project (Gotterbarn and Miller, 2016). There are a number of ethical issues around the privacy of the data and the information that is involved in the software projects. For analytics and Business Intelligence activities, data is collected from different sources and this data may or may not be private in nature. When the same is amalgamated as a single unit, the privacy of the data is often compromised. It is thus considered to be ethically correct as there is a violation of one of the most important properties of the data and the consequences of the same can be fatal. The other area in which there are a number of ethical issues involved in the software projects is the accuracy of the data (Crnkovic Feldt, 2016). There are many projects in which the requirements gathering and analysis phase is not correctly executed and the same causes major re-work down the project timeline. The act is ethically incorrect as the implications of the same are negative. Also, the scenario of information filtering is unethical. Access and authentication are also the areas that are home to many ethical issues. There are employees in different projects that allow a fellow peer from other project or a friend to get access to the project environment or information which is unauthorized in nature from the perspective of the project. Such an activity may or may not have negative effect but the same is ethically incorrect (Thomson Schmoldt, 2016). Ethical issues also exist in the area specific to the data authority and data ownership. There are often scenarios when the ownership is provided to the category of users that should not have received the same or there is negligence or inadequate knowledge involved behind the same. Such an act is evaluated as ethically incorrect because of the implications and the intent that is involved. Also, the same does not adhere to the legal and regulatory policies that are defined to keep the assets protected. Software projects also include the domains or specific set of requirements in a particular project that may harm the environment. IT is something that is involved with every sector in the present scenario. Software firms receive the projects from many different domains and areas and the same can be negatively impacts from the perspective of environment safety. For instance, design and development of a construction project using IT tools for planning phase in the area that is not safe for construction will cause harm to the human beings as well as to the environment. There are also ethical issues that are majorly involved in the implementation phase of the project. Testing activity may bring up some of the critical defects present in the software piece that has been developed. The resolution of the same may take a lot of time which may affect the due deadline for the project. In such cases, managers and leaders often implement and release the defective software among the customers and soon upgrade the build. The activity is ethically incorrect as the customer shall always be made available with the product that functions as per the requirements and is free from all the critical and major defects. Decision Making in Projects Ethical theories and the codes of conduct have been designed to make sure that the industries follow ethical practices in all of their projects and activities. In the advertising projects, the primary aim in every project is to allow the product to reach out to maximum number of customers and develop a strong hold and position in the market. In the race to succeed and come ahead of every other competitor, the brands often forget the ethical practices and norms that must be followed. It is such scenarios when the ethical theories and professional codes of conduct come in the picture. These theories and codes allow the advertisers to stick to a certain guidelines to come up as winners along with the complete adherence to the ethics and morals. The same goes down for the software projects as well. IEEE and other guiding bodes have developed standards and the codes of conduct so that the leaders and managers find it easy to manage the projects as per the guides specified in the same. There are a number of different project management and development methodologies in the software world. There are also decisions involved regarding the set of tools and equipment that must be utilized along with the resource allocation. With the presence of so many decisions and management activities, ethical theories and professional code of conduct make it easy for the managers to maintain adherence in the aspect of ethics and morals. Conclusion Ethics is a concept or an area of study that has its applications across industries and projects. There are many ethical theories that are followed all across the globe in order to maintain the concept of ethics in all the activities and the projects. The task to maintain the same can be extremely tedious in the absence of a resource to look upon the same. Professional Engineer is a resource that serves the purpose by being exceptionally trained in the respect of ethics and is also deployed to keep a check on all the activities to make sure that ethical practices are followed in each and every one of them. Professional Engineer is made part of the project team to make sure that ethical compliance is maintained at all times and also to point out the violations that have been made intentionally or accidentally. There are special trainings that are provided to this resource to perform such an activity. The knowledge and experience of the Professional Engineer can also be utilized to tra in the other resources of the team to make their expertise in the same field. Professional Engineer can also organize and conduct sessions in a formal and informal manner to generate awareness about the ethical practices in the organization. In the absence of the Professional Engineer or the professional code of ethics or both from a project, there can be some serious consequences. There will be no guiding line present in order to adhere to during the execution of the project activities. There will also be reduction in the ethical compliance of the project and of the organization as a whole which may have a negative impact on the reputation of the same. There are leads and managers engaged with the projects who have lesser experience to deal with the ethical issues. The professional code of conduct and ethics comes to rescue under such circumstances and the absence of the same can have a significant role on the decision making and the productivity that is associated with the projects. References A.G.N.,. (2010). Ethics in Advertising. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 40(3), 277. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC537048/ Crnkovic, G. Feldt, R. (2016). Professional and Ethical Issues of Software Engineering Curricula. Retrieved 28 August 2016, from https://edu.technion.ac.il/Faculty/OritH/HomePage/HAOSE_OOPSLA_Workshop/Papers/Dodig-Crnkovic.pdf Gotterbarn, D. Miller, K. (2016). Computer Society and ACM Approve Software Engineering Code of Ethics. Retrieved 28 August 2016, from https://www.computer.org/cms/Publications/code-of-ethics.pdf Resnik, D. (2016). What is Ethics in Research Why is it Important?. Retrieved 28 August 2016, from https://courses.washington.edu/bethics/Homepage/What%20is%20Ethics%20in%20Research%20%20Why%20is%20it%20Important_.pdf Singal, R. Kamra, G. (2016). Ethical Issues in Advertising. Retrieved 28 August 2016, from https://www.ijmser.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Paper7689-694.pdf Thomson, A. Schmoldt, D. (2016). Ethics in computer software design and development. Retrieved 28 August 2016, from https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/VT_Publications/01t7.pdf Victor, S. (2016). Ethics in Advertisingand Marketing in the Dominican Republic: InterrogatingUniversal Principles of Truth, Human Dignity, andCorporate SocialResponsibility. Ideals.illinois.edu. 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