Engineering Ethics

Slide 1: Engineering Ethics- Responsibility to Employers Presented by Prof.K.Prabhakar prabhakar.krishnamurthy@gmail.com

Slide 2: Context • Employer(who?) • Organization (what?) • Past organizations (HMT, Dynora,ECTV,Lambertta Etc) • Present organizations(WIPRO, Infosys,Bajaj, Microsoft ) • Future organizations (Wal-Mart?, 3M?,Citicrop?, Coke?)

Slide 3: Organization • People • Processes • Technology • Leadership • It defines the relationships between roles inorder to reduce internal and external uncertainty

Slide 4: What is Culture? • International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences defines “Culture or civilization taken in this wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,art, morals,law, custom and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”.

Slide 5: What is organizational culture? • Organizational culture is relatively enduring quality of the internal environment that is experienced by members , influences their behaviour and can be described in terms of values of a particular set of characteristics of organization- RenatoTaguire

Slide 6: Dimensions of Culture • Individual Autonomy • Position Structure • Reward Orientation • Consideration, Warmth and Support • Conflict • Progressiveness and Development • Risk Taking and Control

Slide 7: Determinants of Culture • Economic Condition • Leadership Style • Organizational Policies • Managerial Values or ethos • Organizational Structure • Characteristics of Members • Organizational size •

Slide 8: Managerial Ethos? • Ethos refer to habitual character and values of individuals, groups, races,etc. Managerial ethos is concerned with the character and values of managers as a professional group. Contemporary managers hold some specific values that affect their work they are autonomy, equity, security and opportunity.

Slide 9: We come to Ethics-Employer • Mahindra & Mahindra’s Scorpio • It is designed by Engineers with average age of 27years. • For what you attribute to its success?Success was attributed to employees ego satisfaction, money that could buy things for their families ,that is self esteem and financial benefits. But what is the reality?

Slide 10: Engineers Actual Motive • They wanted the thrill comes from knowing that what they designed works, works to the requirement that they wanted, infact it has become a part of their extensions. The “soul” of the machine was the engineers personal commitment and caring. It was their creation! Mr..Sundaram of Karur designing a machine

Slide 11: How these Engineers from different disciplines worked? • The Quality Function Deployment has given tradeoffs • Finance want Low cost (5.5Lakhs the lowest in the world for a SUV) Conflicts, deadlines, competition • Success is the result of technical excellence and good Ethics. • What ethics?

Slide 12: Other success Stories • Moserbaer • Shantha Biotech • Technical Excellence • Provoked by Passion • Love for country • 950 Rs Vs 32Rs

Slide 13: What Ethics? • Ethics of Team Play among the professionals who shared the common goal of the organization • The responsibility of team play ie professional responsibilities are matched with the responsibilities towards other public.

Slide 14: We will discuss the team play Virtues First • Collegiality • Loyalty • Respect for authority • Collective bargaining • means of improving working condition

Slide 15: Collegiality • Engineers shall not attempt to injure, maliciously or falsely, directly or indirectly, the professional reputation, prospects, practice or employment of other engineers non untruthfully criticize other engineer’s work. Engineers who believe others are guilty of unethical or illegal practice shall present such information to the proper authority.

Slide 16: How do we operationalize Collegiality? V a lu in g p e e rs fo r th e ir e x p e rtis e , R espect d e v o tio n to s o c ia l g o o d p ro m o te d b y p ro fe s s io n . It is re c ip ro c a l b u t n o t e m o tio n a l lik e frie n d s h ip . S h a rin g a d e v o tio n to th e m o ra l C o m m itm e n t id e a ls in h e re n t in th e p ra c tic e o f e n g in e e rin g . L ik e g a m e s re s p e c t o th e rs A n a w a re n e s s o f b e in g p a t o f a u n it C o n n e c te d n e s s c re a te d b y s h a re d c o m m itm e n t a n d e x p e rtis e . It is rig h t a ttitu d e . P ro m o tin g P ro fe s s io n a l a im s . C o o p e ra tio n A tte n d in g c o n fe re n c e s th a t h e lp y o u to g ro w a n d sh a rin g in fo rm a tio n o b ta in e d .

Slide 17: What is not Collegiality? • It is not mere self group interest • who engage in gross misconduct are not to be supported • It should be directed towards public good

Slide 18: Loyalty • Loyalty encompasses two dimensions • Agency Loyalty • Identification Loyalty

Slide 19: Agency Loyalty • It is acting to fulfill one’s contractual duties to an employer. These are specified in the terms of particular tasks for which one is paid, as well as more generally it is a matter of “ACTIONS”.

Slide 20: IDENTIFICATION LOYALTY • Identification loyalty deals with attitudes, emotions, and sense of personal identity with actions. • It implies seeking one’s moral duties to a group willingly, with personal attachment and affirmation. People who grudgingly do their work are not having identification loyalty.

Slide 21: OBLIGATIONS OF LOYALTY • Agency loyalty is a contractual obligation, it is the sum total of the obligations to employers. It is obligatory • Identification loyalty-Is it obligatory? • It will be obligatory only if it meets two goals

Slide 22: What are the two goals? • Pleasures of affiliating • Employees treated with the group fairly, each receiving his or her share of • Recognition from the benefits and burden. If group that one’s these are met then the contributions are organization can valuable, and sense of expect worth and ‘IDENTIFICATION accomplishment in LOYALTY’. pursuing the goals

Slide 23: IDENTIFICATION LOYALTY IS A VIRTUE • If the employer thinks that employees are only producers of profit only, he can expect only agency loyalty • If the employer thinks that they are partners in progress then you can have identification loyalty.

Slide 24: The example our President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam • 1979 Incident of Failure

Slide 25: When it becomes Misguided? • It should be for the whole organization • It should not be for a small project or for a small group • The example of Ford Motor Company • The Clean Air Act wanted to conduct 50,000km test • The test results were rigged • A specialist in computer Department has brought out the truth to Lee Iacocca

Slide 26: Professionalism Vs Loyalty • If there is a conflict between professional responsibility and loyalty to company then professional responsibility to public comes first. • It is not loyalty to immediate current superiors • An engineer has obligations to both public and to employer. But the interest of public comes first.

Slide 27: Questions? • How to frame questions • Caselets

Slide 28: Authority • What is Institutional authority? • Institutional Authority is acquired, exercised may be defined as the institutional right given to a person to exercise power based on the the resources of the organization. It gives a person “right to get things done for the organization”.

Slide 29: Institutional Duties? • They deal with the activities and functions. • Project Engineers have to be given the reqired authority and responsibility to complete the task in the given time. • Can Authority and responsibility can be delegated ? Yes or No

Slide 30: Yes, But not Accountability

Slide 31: Institutional Vs Expert Authority • Expert Authority is the possession of special knowledge ,skill, or competence to perform some tasks or to give advice. • Sometimes Engineers can have expert authority and not institutional authority.

Slide 32: Morally Justified Authority Vs Morally justified duties • If the duties assigned are not morally justified, an Engineer need not follow them.