Information technology professionals working in industry have an ethical responsibility to protect sensitive company and customer data, maintain systems and intellectual property, and avoid misusing technical skills or sensitive information after leaving a company. As technology becomes more integral to business operations and customer experience, IT professionals must prioritize ethical and confidential use of systems to support business goals like efficiency and competitive advantage while also protecting privacy, security, and appropriate communication. Debates remain around surveillance and content distribution policies. Overall, the document discusses the importance of information technology in modern industry and some related ethical considerations.
2. Business (Industry) Ethics in
Information Technology
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3. Industry Code of Ethics
Professionals
who work with information
technology have access to sensitive information and
tools that are important to business operations.
Because of this, ethical responsibility is as central to
IT
professionals
as
technical
knowledge.
4. Performance
In the early 21st century, the role of IT has become
more customer-centric due to emphasis on customer
relationship management (CRM), a company-wide
business marketing process with a goal of enhancing
the total customer experience. IT professionals have
an ethical duty to use their expertise to support
employees in serving customers, and to maintain and
use solutions that are important to managing
business
and
marketing
processes.
5. Sensitive Information
IT professionals often have access to sensitive
company data and employee information not readily
available to other company employees. Companywide business systems like CRM and enterprise
resource planning (ERP) rely on the collection of
customer data. IT helps with data extraction. IT also
sets up employee network access, email accounts and
other technology access. IT professionals must
adhere to strict confidentiality guidelines because of
their
access
to
these
types
of
data.
6. No Vengeance
Dissolution
of working relationships creates
additional ethical dilemmas for IT. IT professionals
manage and use company hardware and software
and maintain intellectual properties. Committing to
leave company property intact and promising not to
use technical knowledge for punitive action upon
termination are common inclusions in IT codes of
conduct, according to the SANS Institute's "IT Code
of
Ethics."
7. The Role of Information Technology in Industry
Competitive Advantage
Integrating the latest and greatest technology is
useless unless it can be used to improve the business’
processes and transactions and offer a viable
advantage. Technology has become increasingly
significant and plays a vital role for organizations to
use in acquiring a competitive advantage.
8. The Role of Information Technology in Industry
Increase Efficiency and Speed
Information systems are fast, powerful and can sort
through massive amounts of data. Computer
information systems offer a high level of efficiency
and organization. This makes information easier to
find and store.
The speed at which transactions can be completed
are highly desired because machines can essentially
take over the mundane aspects of running a
business. All that is needed is someone to operation
and/or give the commands. This frees employees up
to focus on other important tasks that must be
handled by the human brain.
9. The Role of Information Technology in Industry
Strategic Planning/Detect Trends
Collecting data is an advantage because any data
collected can be turned in to useful information to
help in strategic planning and to predict trends. All
of this information gained can be attributed to the
role of information technology. Without it, this
information would be pretty difficult, if not
impossible to attain.
The human eye couldn’t possibly sort through and
determine unseen patterns, but through data mining
and other ways to sort through data, various
industries can discover patterns unseen previously
and see trends that have emerged or use past trends
to try and predict future events.
10. The Role of Information Technology in Industry
Better Deliverables for Customers
Technology
is beneficial because it helps
significantly increase the level of customer
service when used correctly. Smart managers
understand the value of information technology
and how it can be used to increase levels of
customer service, offer faster transactional
processing, increase convenience and choices,
and to also provide much higher levels of
personalization.
11. The Role of Information Technology in Industry
No one likes to feel like a number, but technology
initiatives make it possible for even the largest of
businesses to offer thousands of customers
individualized attention and personalization.
How downtime has an impact
In the event technology stops working or a large
interruption is experience, this disrupts business. It
has gotten to the point that the role of information
technology is so vital that other areas of operations
have emerged in order to protect these valuable
electronic assets.
12. The Role of Information Technology in Industry
Information security is one area that is making
significant growth due to the importance of securing
valuable data and ensuring its availability. Many
career opportunities are evolving for this field.
Business continuity has become an essential
component of any business plan and strategy
because without running technology, a business can
suffer tremendously in the event of a disruption.
13. The Role of Information Technology in Industry
The role of information technology in industry has
become a centralized role because there are little, if
any, areas of a company that does not use some sort
of information system. Many of the major segments
of any given business use computers or other kind of
automation. Businesses today can’t afford to do
without it else they’ll likely lose a strong position in
their respective markets.
15. Privacy
Individual
privacy is one area that has been
identified clearly as a base for unethical business
behavior through the application of technologies.
Companies can track Internet usage, buying habits
and individual movement as well as collect personal
information about millions of customers or even
potential clients. While governments have passed
legislation restricting the collection of personal data
and allowing individuals some control over what
companies can collect and store, ethical businesses
must decide -- independently of legislation -- what is
appropriate behavior.
16. Security
Companies monitor employees and visitors and
collect much additional information in the name of
security. Ethical issues arise from the continuous
monitoring of employee activity and the recording of
security camera images. An unjustified level of
employee surveillance is ethically questionable; the
ethical company must try to establish a level of
monitoring it can justify. The surveillance of nonemployees, such as visitors or suppliers'
representatives, must be constrained to an even
lower level to be ethically acceptable.
17. Communication
Where it used to be difficult to monitor telephone
conversations due to the nature of the analog signal,
companies and governments can easily monitor
digital, text-based communication, such as email.
Computers can scan the text of millions of messages
for words that are of interest to investigators and
identify the sender. Companies that employ such
technologies must ask themselves about the ethical
implications of such surveillance, especially if it is
carried out without the knowledge or explicit
agreement of employees.
18. Distribution
With new technologies allowing the easy creation and
distribution of images and videos, both individual
employees and companies need guidelines as to what is
acceptable. Without such guidelines, some of this content
will be offensive to some of the company staff and to
some members of the public. When developing such
guidelines, companies may be quite restrictive in terms
of what is permissible within the business. Such
restrictions only become ethical issues when the
company tries to extend them into the employees' private
lives. The interaction of such restrictions with legal limits
on hate speech and pornography, as well as with
community standards, make this a particularly delicate
area for business ethics.
19. Question
The Impact of Information Technology in the
development of industry
Ethical Issues of Information Technology towards
Industry
Point of View on how to promote Information
Technology in improving Business Industry