Lecture 8: Professional Responsibility

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Lecture 8 Professional Responsibility Employer
Authority(Chapter 5, Martin Schinzinger,
Ethics in Engineering)

• ELEC4011 Ethics Electrical Engineering Practice
• Hugh Outhred

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Contents

• Professionalism (review)
• Institutional authority
• Expert advice
• Negotiating conditions of employment
• Confidentiality
• Conflicts of interest
• Bribes extortion
• Occupational crime
• Career implications

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Attributes of a professional engineer

• Sophisticated skills, independent judgement
• Acceptance of responsibility (moral autonomy)
• Expert authority, balancing complex obligations
• What is the legitimate authority of an employer?
• In what sense, and to what extent, are the
  interests of the public paramount?
• Collegiality with ones fellow engineers
• Loyalty to an employer or client

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Collegiality

• Attributes of collegiality
• Respect for the professionalism of ones peers
• Ethical conduct, even in a competitive context
• Connectedness to the profession of engineering
• Continuing education, professional activities
• Benefits of collegiality
• Public assurance, respect for the profession
• Threats to collegiality
• Exploitation of public trust, cut-throat
  competition

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Loyalty to an employer or client

• Agency loyalty
• Fulfil contractual obligations (subject to public
  interest)
• Identification loyalty
• In addition, personally identify with an
  employer/client
• Appropriate if part of a reciprocal commitment
• Both consistent with the role of faithful agent
• Misguided loyalty
• Ignoring public interest to protect an employer
• An abrogation of moral autonomy
• Risky for both engineer employer in the long run

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Relevant tenets of the IEAust Code of Ethics

• 1. responsibility for the community before
  sectional or private interests
• 4. fairness, honesty, good faith towards all
  including clients, employers and colleagues
• 5. skill knowledge in the interests of their
  employer or client as faithful agents ,
  without compromising the welfare of the
  community
• 6. inform themselves, their clients
  employers the community of the social
  environmental consequences
• 8. continue to develop knowledge, skills
  expertise
• 9. not assist, induce or be involved in a
  breach of these tenets support those who ...
  uphold them

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Institutional authority

• Societies are organised on the basis of
  institutions
• e.g. corporations operating under company law
• Institutional authority is delegated to
  individuals
• The right to make decisions on behalf of an
  institution
• In performing assigned duties (managers
  subordinates)
• Based on institutional rules (written
  unwritten)
• Requires the authority of leadership
• May conflict with the expert authority of a
  professional subordinate

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Legitimacy of institutional authority

• Legitimacy depends on answers to two questions
• Are the goals of the institution morally
  permissible?
• Does a proposed act violate basic moral duties?
• Acceptance of institutional authority
• Within a (self-monitored) zone of acceptance
• Retain independent moral autonomy
• Balance paramount obligation to the public
  against obligations to the employer, family
  other stakeholders

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Expert advice

• Managers hold decision-making responsibility in
  companies
• However usually based on expert advice
• Some responsibility for decisions lies with
  expert advisers
• Implications for expert advisers
• Explain the rationale for your recommendations
• In lay terms, not overstating the case
• Correct any misconceptions that a manager holds
• These may bias the outcome

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Negotiating conditions of employment

• Conditions of employment are negotiated between
  employer employees
• Usually an imbalance of power
• Employees rights depend on ethical behaviour by
  employer
• Unionism collective bargaining
• Employees negotiate with employer as a group
  rather than as individuals
• Relinquish individual rights to achieve a better
  outcome
• Usually employment conditions, sometimes public
  interest

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Professionalism unionism

• Some professional societies oppose unionism
• Claimed to be in conflict with role as a
  faithful agent with paramount duty to the
  public
• An alternative view
• Unionism has similar ethical issues to
  employment
• Accept institutional authority within a zone of
  acceptance
• Hence
• Unionism acceptable if retain moral autonomy
• Conclusion
• Union membership is a personal matter for an
  engineer

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Confidential information

• Information is confidential to an organisation
  if
• It was developed within the organisation, it is
  not widely known it has commercial value
• Intellectual property or trade secrets
• Patent - a description of a product or process
• placed in the public domain in return for
  protection of the intellectual property for a
  defined period
• Confidential information patents
• Allow organisations to benefit from innovation

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Obligation to maintain confidentiality

• While employed by the organisation concerned
• Duty to the employer subject only to public
  interest
• After changing jobs
• Obligation to protect confidentiality remains
• Particularly if new employer is a competitor to
  the old one
• Difficult to define boundary between
• Previous employers trade secrets
• The engineers developing professional skills
  knowledge
• Requires good judgement by all parties

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Professional conflicts of interest

• Conflict with another professional activity, e.g
• Consulting for two companies that are competitors
• Conflicting personal interest, e.g
• Employee of one company while shareholder of
  competitor
• General characteristic of a conflict of interest
• A situation with the plausible potential to
  distort professional judgement
• Basic rule- avoid any such situation

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Bribes and extortion

• Bribe
• A substantial gift intended to influence or
  corrupt
• Particularly when not widely known
• Extortion
• A gift demanded by a decision maker
• When does a gift become a bribe?
• If it were to become publicly known
• Would professional integrity be brought into
  question?
• Would the employers reputation be tarnished?
• All such acts are inconsistent with moral autonomy

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Occupational crime

• Illegal acts made possible through employment
• Misusing confidential information for personal
  gain
• Promoting employers interests in an unlawful way
• Industrial espionage
• Illegally acquiring the trade secrets of a
  competitor
• Price fixing
• Collusion between companies to defraud the public
• Endangering lives
• Infringements of occupational health safety law

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Career implications

• Most engineers are employees or consultants
• Likely to work for more than one company
• Long term success depends on developing good
  judgement about employer client relationships
• Strategies for success
• Develop collegiality and avoid misguided loyalty
• Respect legitimate authority but retain moral
  autonomy
• Choose career employers to avoid potential
  conflicts
• Maintain confidentiality
• Avoid potential conflicts of interest

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Summary

• Professional engineers work both for employer or
  client for society
• Need sophisticated judgement to balance
  obligations
• Respect legitimate institutional authority
• Provide sound expert advice
• Protect confidentiality avoid conflicts of
  interest
• Avoid corporate crime
• In future, most engineers will work for more than
  one company
• Balance self family interests with career
  client interests