Ethics: 4, 6, 7

Culture and Ethics

A strong ethical culture can deter stakeholder damage and improve bottom-line sustainability.

European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Provides that personal information cannot be collected or shared by companies w/o individuals' permission Info on who is using the data and for what reason must be clearly stated Heavy fines to the companies who break these regulations Under GDPR, European Union does not allow the transfer of data on its citizens outside of the country unless country has adequate data privacy laws

Diversity

Refers to the presence of differing cultures, languages, ethnicities, races, affinity orientations, genders, religious sects, abilities, social classes, ages and national origins of the individuals in a firm Encompasses values of respect, tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance

Treating employees well for a return vs a sense of duty

Return: the return is harmony, productivity, and innovation; effective firms treat humans humanely and respectfully; managers have an impact on the emotions of the their workers as do rewards, compensation and composition of teams Duty: emphasizes rights and duties of all employees and treating them well because it is "the right thing to do"; sense of duty might stem from law, professional codes of conduct, corporate code of conducts, or moral principles

How are stakeholders affected by the "top"

Stakeholders are guided by the "tone of the top", there must be a consistent tone throughout the firm. If leadership is unethical, stakeholders will deem this acceptable behavior

USSC Minimal Requirements for Due Diligence

Standards and procedures, responsibility of board and other executives; adequate resources and auditory, preclusion from authority: prior misconduct; communication and training; monitoring evaluation and reporting processes; incentives and disciplinary structures; response and modification mechanisms

Examples of Discrimination

Stating or suggesting preferred candidates in job advertisement, excluding potential employees during recruitment, denying certain employees compensation or benefits, paying equally qualified employees in the same position different salaries, discriminating when assigning disability leave, etc..

What four criteria must be met for USSC to lower penalties for compliance violations

Those responsible for the programs must have direct reporting obligations to the governing authority, the program detected the offense before outside discover, offense was promptly reported to governmental authorized, no person responsible for the program condoned the offense

How can affirmative action arise

Through legal requirements of Executive Order 11246 to ensure equal opportunity court requirement of "judicial affirmative action" to remedy a finding of past discrimination voluntary affirmative action plans

What are the moral requirements that need to be imposed on information if technology is dependent on information

Truthfulness and accuracy, respect for privacy, respect for property and safety rights, accountability

EU Privacy Shield

Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment to serve as the Privacy Shield Ombudsperson. a watchdog to handle complains about intelligence-related matters transmitted from EU to US Companies must comply

Calculating Acceptable Level of risks (health and safety)

a workplace is safe is the risks are acceptable

Benefits of Multiculturalism

acknowledging and promoting diversity in the workplace can serve to both educate and encourage diversity-related benefits cost of ignoring diversity is high, in terms of lost productivity, and legal liability

Fourth Amendment Protection

against unreasonable search and seizure applies to the public-sector workplace All monitoring practices by employers *may* invade employee's privacy rights including social media outside of work, drug testing, monitoring employee emails, requesting employee personal health info

Occupational Safety and Health Administrations (OSHA)

agency of the federal government that publishes and enforces safety and healthy regulations for US businesses

Reasons for Monitoring Technology Usage

allows managers to ensure effective performance by preventing lost productivity due to inappropriate technology usage if the employee is aware they will be monitored Protect other resources like protecting proprietary information and gaurds against theft, equipment and bandwidth, and protecting against legal liability

American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA)

applies to any entity that collects, processes, or transfers covered data and is subjected to the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission including nonprofits and telecommunications common carriers but not government entities Provides following rights: transparency (entities must provide individuals with policies detailing their data collection, etc) Ownership and Control (individuals with the right to access, correct, delete or port personal data) Consent and Object (sensitive covered data may not shared or collected without consent) Civil Rights and Algorithms (prohibits entities from collecting, processing, or sharing data to discriminate based on specified protected characteristics) Targeted Advertisements (must be given a way to opt out of targeted advertisements. For under 17, targeted advertisement is prohibited)

Due processes

right to be protected against arbitrary use of authority In legal contexts, due process is the procedures that police and courts must follow in exercising their authority over citizens

Culture

shared pattern of beliefs, expectations and meanings that influences and guides the thinking and behaviors of the members of a particular group

Possible downsides of diversity

tension and anxiety may emerge when bringing people with diverse differences due to the work itself or cultural challenges integrating diverse viewpoints with a preexisting corporate culture prejudgements based solely on differences in intepretations of culturally based standards

Government Regulated Health and Safety

these standards can: be set with the best available scientific knowledge and thus overcoming market failures from lesser information prevent employees from choosing between job and safety focus on prevention rather than compensation are a social approach addressing public policy questions ignored by markets

Challenges to acceptable risk approach

treats employees disrespectfully by ignoring their input as stakeholders ignores fundamental deontological (moral) right an employee might have to a safe and healthy working environment assumes equivalency between between workplace risks and other types of risks when there are significant differences between them improperly places incentives because the risks faced at work could be controlled by others who might stand to benefit by not reducing them

Corporate Culture

unspoken, yet influential standards and expectations. Can be defined by how employees act, the company cultures and employee perception of company culture

Hypernorms

values that are fundamental across culture and theory Freedom of Speech, Right of Personal Freedom, Right of Physical Movement and Informed Consent Privacy is fundamental right worldwide Property rights: boundaries defining actions that individuals can take in relation to other individuals regarding personal information

Reciprocal Obligation

when an individual expects respect for their personal autonomy, they have a reciprocal obligation to respect the autonomy of others

Intrusion Into Seclusion violation

when someone intentionally intrudes on the private affairs of another when the intrusion would be highly offense to a reasonable person

How can ethical issues relate to information and technology?

when we do not understand the technology involved, we might not understand the ethical implications of our decisions Ethical issues are enhanced by the knowledge gap existing between people who do understand the technology and those who cannot protect themselves because they do not understand

Downsizing

reduction of human resources at an organization through terminations, retirements, corporate divestments, or other means

Free Market Approach to Healthy and Safety

Favor individual bargaining as the approach to workplace healthy and safety Workers demanding higher safety standards and healthier conditions would settle for lower wages Workers willing to take higher risks would demand higher wages

What are Hofstede's cultural dimensions?

Power distance, individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, time and order orientation, masculinity vs femininity, indulgent vs restrained

Whistleblowing

An individual within an organization reports organizational wrongdoing to the public or the others in position of authority vocabulary has an impact (rat vs strong moral compass)

What are the exceptions to the Employment at Wall

Bad faith, malicious or retaliatory termination in violation of public policy termination in breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing termination in breach of some other implied contract term like those in employee handbook, termination in violation of the doctrine of promissory estoppel (employee reasonably relied on employer's promise, to employee's detriment) other exceptions determined by statutes

Covert Racial Discrimination vs Covert Gender Discrimination

Based on one's name (Pakistani sound name, for example) vs gender influencing the expectations (success and likability do not go together for women)

What does the code of conduct do?

Both enhance reputation and provide guidance for internal decision making, thus creating built in risk management system

How is the Ethics Code integrated?

Communication of culture must be incorporated into firm's vocabulary, habits, and attitudes to become an essential element in the corporate life, decision making and determination of success Incentives in right place to encourage ethical decision making and checked whether it is evaluated during worker's performance review

How can privacy be protected?

Constitution, statutes, and common law

Moral Free Space

Culture Values determined by such are not hypernoma

How can monitoring become more ethical?

Hawthorne Effect, no monitoring in private areas, limit monitoring within the workplace, employees should have access to info gathered during monitored, no secret monitoring, should only be done in attaining some business interest, etc..

What is the benefit of placing employees at the core of a company's strategy?

Higher long-term returns to shareholders than their industry peers -- more than double

Monitoring system may include significantly positive objectives like

How to better allocate resources, determine whether a program is keeping pace with organizational growth, whether all program's positive results are being accurately measured and reported and the firm's compensation structure is adequately rewarding ethical behavior, "tone at the top" is be having sharing effectively

Challenges to Free Market Approach to Health and Safety

Labor markets are not perfectly competitive and free Employees seldom possess the kind of perfect information markets require We ignore important questions of social justice and public policy if we approach questions solely from the point of view of an individual

Sources of Corporate Ethical Culture

Leadership (and maintenance) of control environment. through high level commitment and management responsibility, leaders set standard and tone Control Activities, information and communication (statements, policies, operating procedures, communications and training). Must be consistent and constant Review, assessment, ongoing monitoring

How is culture built and maintained?

Leadership, Integration, Assessment and Monitoring Communication of values for organization (code of conducts or statement of values)

Famous Whistleblowers

Mark Felt (Nixon administration with Watergate Scandal), John Schilling (Columbia Healthcare and their 4 accounting firms), Edward Snowden (NSA), Cheryl Eckard (GlaxoSmithKane), Harry Markopolos (Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme)

Cons of monitoring

May create suspicious and hostile workplace Constrain effective performance since it can cause increased stress and negatively impact performance, cause injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome, and lead to unhappy workers Employees may find it an inherent invasion of privacy

How do effective and ethical effective leaders differ?

Not every effective leader is ethical. One difference is the means used to motivate others and achieve one's goals Transformative or transactional leaders employ *methods* that empower subordinates Another element is the end or objective of leader (productivity, efficiency and profitability are minimal goals)

Hawthorne Effect

Notifying workers when they are being monitored Workers are found to be more productive based on the psychological stimulus of being singled out

Compliance-Based Culture (traditional approach)

Obedience to Laws and Regulations is the prevailing model for ethical behaviors Emphasizes adherance to rules as primary responsibility to ethics Only as strong and precise as rules Goals may include meeting: legal and regulatory requirements, minimizing risks of litigation and indictment, improving accountability mechanisms

Legal constraints to an affirmative action program that supports an ethical decision-making process

Policy may not infringe upon the majority of employees' rights or create an absolute bar to advancement Policy may not set aside any positions for women or minorities and may not be construed as quotas to be met May not change legitimate expectation of employees Should only be temporary in that it is for the purpose of attaining, not maintaining, a balanced workforce

Components of Corporate Culture

The employee's perception of the culture. Other components include tempo of work, organization's approach to humor, methods of problem solving, competitive environment, incentives, individual autonomy, hierarchical structure

Values-Based Culture (progressive approach)

conformity to a statement of values and principles rather than simple obedience to laws and regulations Reinforces sets of values rather than rules Relies on personal integrity of the workforce Goals may include: maintaining brand and reputation, recruiting and retaining desirable workers, unifying a firm's global operation, creating better working environment, doing the right thing as well as doing things right

Privacy

right to be "left alone" with personal zone of solitude right to control information about oneself establishes boundary between individuals and defines one's individuality founded in the individual's fundamental right to autonomy

Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA)

discrimination based on genetic information genetic information is also family's medical history Exceptions: employer can collect genetic information to comply with the family medical leave act (FMLA) and monitor the biological effects of toxins in the workplace

Title Two of the PATRIOT Act

enhanced surveillance procedures typically related to electronic communication One way it was enhanced: expanded authority to intercept wire, oral and electronic communications related to terrorism, computer fraud, and abuse offenses

Privacy rights

legal and ethical sources of protection for privacy in personal data has increased with increase of computers

Employment at Will (EAW)

legal doctrine that holds that, in the absence of a particular contractual or other legal obligation that specifies the length or conditions employment, all employees are employed "at will" Employers can fire employees at any time for any reason and EAW workers can leave at any time for any reason

Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations (FSGO) 1987

listed offense levels based on the severity of the offense Court inputs this info into sentencing grid and determines the offender's sentence guideline range

Affirmative Action

policy or program that tries to respond to instances of past discrimination by implement proactive measures to ensure equal opportunity

Negative outcomes of downsizing

poor recommendations of the firm by former employees decline in customer service by surviving employees increase in errors or dangerous behavior by employees bad attitudes from remaining workers

Electronic Communication (ECPA) of 1986

prohibits unauthorized access of stored communications Impacts electronic monitoring only by third parties and not by employers when consent form employee has been granted and if the employer provided the service being monitored