Unit IV GE8076 Professional Ethics in Engineering

GE8076 Professional Ethics
in Engineering
by
Dr. S. Selvaganesan Ph.D.(Malaysia)
Professor & HoD / IT
JJCET, Trichy.
Unit IV

UNIT IV
Safety, Responsibilities and Rights
 Safety and Risk – Assessment of Safety and
Risk – Risk Benefit Analysis and Reducing
Risk – Respect for Authority – Collective
Bargaining – Confidentiality – Conflicts of
Interest – Occupational Crime – Professional
Rights – Employee Rights – Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR) - Discrimination

Safety and Risk
 SAFETY
• Safety has different definitions and the perceptions are
different for different persons.
• Example
• Safety means the state of being safe. Safe means protected
from danger and harm.
• Initial version of William W. Lowrence’s definition:
• A thing is safe if its risks are judged to be acceptable.
• Modified Lowrence’s definition of Safety:
• A thing is safe (to a certain degree) with respect to a
given person or group at a given time, if its risks were
fully known, if those risks would be judged acceptable
(to that certain degree), in light of settled value
principles.

Safety and Risk
 RISK
• A Risk is the potential that something unwanted and
harmful may occur.
• William W. Lowrence has defined risk as “a compound
measure of the probability and magnitude of adverse
effect”.
Risk = Probability of the harm × Magnitude or consequence of the harm
• A risk is acceptable when those affected are generally no
longer apprehensive about it.
• Doubtfulness depends mainly on how the people take the
risk or how people perceive it.

Safety and Risk
 RISK
• Various factors that influence the perception of risk
• Probability of risk (possibility of occurrence of risk);
• Consequence of risk (Physical damage or death, economic
loss, damage to property, loss of money, and degradation
of environment);
• Voluntary risk (Some people may take risk voluntarily for
thrill or fun);
• Magnitude of risk (number of people / area involved in
risk);
• Proximity of risk (Closeness of effects caused by risk);
• Method of information widely spreaded on risk;
• Job related risk (whether the risk is compulsorily /forcibly
taken by persons).

Safety and Risk
 Risk
• The knowledge about acceptance level of risk is
useful to engineers.
• Designer can redesign the product/project to
include safety measures so as to
• Allow the product fail safely
• Abandon it safely
• Provide for safe escape/evacuation from the product or
site, and thus eliminate or minimize the human loss.

Safety and Risk
 Safety and Risk
• Safety was defined as the risk that is known and judged
as acceptable.
• Risk is a potential that something unwanted and harmful
may occur.
• It is the result of unsafe situation, sometimes
unanticipated, during its uses.
• Probability of safety = 1 – Probability of risk
= Probability of occurrence ×
Consequence in magnitude

Types of Risk
 Acceptable Risk
 Voluntary risk and control
 Job related risks
 Personal risks
 Public risks

Acceptable Risk
 Acceptable risk refers to the level of human and property
injury or loss from an industrial process that is considered to be
tolerable by an individual, household, group, organization,
community, region, state, or nation in view of the social,
political, and economic cost-benefit analysis.
 Example: For instance, the risk of flooding can be accepted
once every 500 years but it is not unacceptable in every ten
years.
 it is management's responsibility to set their company's level of
risk. As a security professional, it is your responsibility to work
with management and help them understand what it means to
define an acceptable level of risk.
 Each company has its own acceptable risk level, which is
derived from its legal and regulatory compliance
responsibilities.

Acceptable Risk Vs Unacceptable Risk

Voluntary Risk
 A person is said to take ‘VOLUNTARY RISK’.
 When he/she is subjected to risk by either his own actions
or action taken by others, volunteers take that risk without
any apprehension. Ex: over rough ground for amusement
 Voluntary risks have to do with lifestyle choices. They are
the risks that people take knowing that they may have
consequences. These risks include smoking tobacco,
driving a car, skydiving, and climbing a ladder.
 Involuntary risks are risks that people take either not
knowing that they are at risk, or they are unable to control
the fact that they are at risk, such as secondhand smoke.
These risks often include environmental hazards such as
lightning, tsunamis, and tornadoes.

Voluntary risk Vs Involuntary risk

Job related risks
 Many workers are taking risks in their jobs in their stride like
being exposed to asbestos.
 Exposure to risks on a job is in one sense of voluntary nature
since one can always refuse to submit to the work or may
have control over how the job is done.
 But generally workers have no choice other than what they
are told to do since they want to stick to the only job
available to them.
 But they are not generally informed about the exposure to
toxic substances and other dangers which are not readily
seen, smelt, heard or otherwise sensed.
 Occupational health and safety regulations and unions can
have a better say in correcting these situations but still things
are far below expected safety standards.

 Personal Risk
 Assessing the personal risk is a difficult task.
 Examples: A person living near a chemical plant
voluntarily or involuntarily; A person working in a
nuclear plant or oil refinery plant.
 While assessing the personal risk, one should consider the
following ethical questions.
 How to access the money value of an individual’s life?
 On what basis, the compensation for a risk can be
decided?
 Is the compensation for a risk by an amount based on the
exposure/tolerance of the average person justifiable?
 What will be the compensation if the tolerance level of
the person is below or above the average tolerance level?

 Personal Risk
 Assessing the personal risk is difficult.
 Any of the following methodologies may be adopted to
assess quantitatively the personal risk.
 Assess the voluntary activities (Life insurance policy taken)
 Assess the degree of occupational hazard (e.g. dust, radiation and
asbestosis) and its effect on health.
 Loss of sense such as sight (eyes), hearing (ears) and loss of limbs etc.
 Loss of earning capability
 Get assistance by trained arbiter
 Public Risk
 Assessing the public risk is relatively easy. To assess the
public risk, the loss of assets and the correction costs are
estimated.
 Loss of reduction in future income or earning capacity due to loss of
their capability /physical disability.
 Cost associated with an accident, (transportation / treatment etc.)
 Cost of welfare (rehabilitation, alternate jobs and other benefits, etc.)

Assessment of Safety and Risk
 Absolute safety is never possible to attain and safety can
be improved in an engineering product only with an
increase in cost.
 On the other hand, unsafe products increase secondary
costs to the producer beyond the primary (production)
costs, like warranty costs loss of goodwill, loss of
customers, legal action costs, downtime costs in
manufacturing, etc.
 Figure indicates that P- Primary costs are high for a highly
safe (low risk) product and S- Secondary costs are high for
a highly risky (low safe) product.
 It should now be clear that ‘safety comes with a price’
only.

Figure 1 Relationship between risk and cost to manufacture

What is the goal of risk assessment?
The aim of the risk
assessment process is to evaluate
hazards, then remove that hazard or
minimize the level of its risk by adding
control measures, as necessary. By
doing so, you have created a safer and
healthier workplace.

 Relationship between Safety, Risk and Cost
Safety
Risk
High Low
High
High safety and High risk,
High cost, High price
Examples: Nuclear Plant,
aircraft, missiles
Low safety and High
risk, Low cost, High
Price
Example: Automobiles
Low
High Safety and Low risk,
High cost, Medium price
Examples: Electrical products,
safety valves
Low safety and Low
risk, Low cost, Low
price
Examples: Electronic
goods, computers
Table 1 Relationship between safety, risk, cost and price

 Determination of Risk
 In order to determine the risk, one should have
knowledge about the following criterions.
1. Knowledge of risk
2. Uncertainties in design
3. Testing for Safety

 Determination of Risk
1. Knowledge of risk
 To assess a risk, an engineer must first identify it.
 To identify a risk, an engineer must first know the
information about the safety of standard products.
 Though past experience and historical data provide
good information about the safety of standard
products, still it is insufficient to completely assess
the risk of a product.
 The information is not freely shared among firms, and
 There are always new applications of old technology
that makes the available information less useful.

2. Uncertainties
 While designing a product, the design engineering must deal
with many uncertainties.
 Many of the risks can be expressed as probabilities and as
educated guesses.
 Uncertainties are in the form of application of product,
materials used for producing the product, changing economic
conditions, unfavorable environment conditions, temperature
etc.
 Newer applications of technologies may sometimes remain
unpublished, public may not have awareness about the update.
 Replacing new products whose behavior is not fully tested, lead
to increased hazard, and risk potentiality
 Unexpected outcome of a product/project.
 Example

Safety and Risk
 Different Methods to determine the risk
1. Testing on the functions of safety-system
components
2. Destructive testing
3. Prototype testing
4. Simulation testing

Safety and Risk
Different Methods to determine the risk
1. Testing on the functions of the safety-system components.
2. Destructive testing: In this approach, testing is done till the
component fails. It is too expensive, but very realistic and
useful.
3. Prototype testing: In this approach, the testing is done on a
proportional scale model with all vital components fixed in the
system. Dimensional analysis could be used to project the
results at the actual conditions.
4. Simulation testing: With the help of computer, the simulations
are done. The safe boundary may be obtained. The effects of
some controlled input variables on the outcomes can be
predicted in a better way.

Safety and Risk
 Risk Analysis
Analytical methods are adopted in testing for safety
of a product/project.
• Scenario Analysis
• Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA)
• Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
• Event Tree Analysis (ETA)

Failure Mode Effect Analysis
(FMEA)

(FMEA)
 FMEA (Failure Mode Effect Analysis) is one of the most
popular methodologies for the analysis of failure risks of
systems. It is a qualitative, quantitative and corrective method.
 FMEA is a tool for risk analysis and management in both
project and process phases.
 FMEA is a tool for risk analysis and management in both
project and process phases. The risk management strategy
of FMEA is based on checking the reliability characteristics of
a system from a qualitative point of view, also allowing the
evaluation of other aspects such as maintainability and safety.
FMEA is a failure prevention tool, a project development
methodology, and is used in a variety of areas related to
management quality assessment and analysis of production and
administrative processes.

(FMEA)
Example

Fault Tree Analysis
 Fault tree analysis (FTA) is a graphical tool to
explore the causes of system level failures.
 It uses boolean logic to combine a series of lower
level events and it is basically a top-down approach
to identify the component level failures (basic
event) that cause the system level failure (top
event) to occur.
 Fault tree analysis consists of two elements
“events” and “logic gates” which connect the
events to identify the cause of the top undesired
event.

Event Tree Analysis
 Event tree analysis (ETA) is a forward, top-
down, logical modeling technique for both
success and failure that explores responses
through a single initiating event and lays a
path for assessing probabilities of the
outcomes and overall system analysis.

 SAFE EXIT
 In the study of safety, the ‘Safe Exit’ principles are
recommended.
 The conditions referred to as ‘Safe Exit’ are:
 The product, when it fails, should fail safely.
 The product, when it fails, can be abandoned safely (it does not
harm others by explosion or radiation).
 User can safely escape from the product or site. (Ships need
sufficient number of life boats for all passengers and crew;
multi-storeyed buildings need usable fire escapes)
 Categories of Consumers
 Seasonal Consumers; Personal Consumers; Organizational
Consumers; Impulse Consumers; Need-based Consumers;
Discount driven Consumers; Habitual Consumers

Risk-Benefit Analysis
 What is Risk-Benefit Analysis?
 Risk-benefit analysis is a technique, similar to ‘cost-
benefit analysis’ used to analyze the risk in a project and
to determine whether the project should be carried out or
not.
 Risk-benefit analysis answers the following questions:
 What are the benefits of the project/product?
 Is the project/product worth the risks connected with
its use? and
 Do benefits outweigh the risks?
 In risk-benefit analysis, the risks and benefits of a
project/product are assigned money values, and the most
favorable ratio between risks and benefits is determined.

Difference between Risk Analysis and
 Risk analysis is the process of identifying and
analyzing potential issues that could negatively
impact key business initiatives or critical projects
in order to help organizations avoid or mitigate
those risks.
 Risk–benefit analysis is analysis that seeks to
quantify the risk and benefits and hence their ratio.
Analyzing a risk can be heavily dependent on the
human factor. A certain level of risk in our lives is
accepted as necessary to achieve certain benefits.

 Conceptual difficulties/limitations in Risk-Benefit
Analysis
 In risk-benefit analysis, both risk and benefits are
difficult to quantify. Because both lie in the future.
 It should be noticed that who takes the risks and
who enjoys the benefits? It is important to ensure
that those who have taken the risks are the
beneficiaries of it.
 It is mostly difficult to express both risk and benefits
in a common set of units. (risk – accidents/deaths on
the airways; benefits – speed of travel)

 Ethical Implications on Risk-Benefit Analysis
 While performing the risk-benefit analysis, one
should keep in mind the following ethical questions.
 Under what conditions, someone in society is
entitled to impose a risk on someone else on behalf
of a supposed benefit to others?
 How can we consider the worst-case scenarios of
persons exposed to maximum risks while they are
also obtaining only minimum benefits? Are their
rights violated? Are they provided safer alternatives?

 Personal Risk
 Assessing the personal risk is a difficult task.
 Examples: A person living near a chemical plant
voluntarily or involuntarily; A person working in a
nuclear plant or oil refinery plant.
 While assessing the personal risk, one should consider the
following ethical questions.
 How to access the money value of an individual’s life?
 On what basis, the compensation for a risk can be
decided?
 Is the compensation for a risk by an amount based on the
exposure/tolerance of the average person justifiable?
 What will be the compensation if the tolerance level of
the person is below or above the average tolerance level?

 Personal Risk
 Assessing the personal risk is difficult.
 Any of the following methodologies may be adopted to
assess quantitatively the personal risk.
 Assess the voluntary activities (Life insurance policy taken)
 Assess the degree of occupational hazard (e.g. dust, radiation and
asbestosis) and its effect on health.
 Loss of sense such as sight (eyes), hearing (ears) and loss of limbs etc.
 Loss of earning capability
 Get assistance by trained arbiter
 Public Risk
 Assessing the public risk is relatively easy. To assess the
public risk, the loss of assets and the correction costs are
estimated.
 Loss of reduction in future income or earning capacity due to loss of
their capability /physical disability.
 Cost associated with an accident, (transportation / treatment etc.)
 Cost of welfare (rehabilitation, alternate jobs and other benefits, etc.)

Reducing Risk
 Reducing Risk
 An application with inherent safety while designing (e.g. LPG
cylinder is provided with a protective frame, the valve handle)
 Use of redundancy principle in instrument protection /design.
(e.g. use of standby device, backup for computer storage)
 Periodical monitoring (inspection) and testing of safety system
to ensure reliability (e.g. Fire extinguisher)
 Issue of operation manuals, training of operating personnel and
regular audits
 Development of well-designed emergency evaluation plan and
regular rehearsal to ensure preparedness, in case of emergency.
 Voluntary Risk: (participating in car racing and risky stunts)
 Testing become inappropriate when the products are
 Tested destructively
 When the test duration is long
 When the components failing by tests are very costly.

Reducing Risk
 Risk Management
 Risk management may be defined as the
eradication or minimization of the adverse
effects of the pure risks to which an
organization is exposed.
 Elements of Risk management programme:
 Risk Identification
 Risk Evaluation
 Risk Control (Risk avoidance, Risk
transfer, Risk reduction and Risk
retention)

RISK IDENTIFICATION & RISK EVALUATION
 The risk identification and Evaluation process is a critical part of
effectively managing risks or events as part of an organization’s
operational risk. Risks are identified, and then classified by risk category.
Each risk is then assessed based on its impact, and prioritized in order to
direct management focus toward the most important.
 The process consists of 4 simple steps conducted by a Risk Committee:
 Identify potential risks that could impact the organization and classify
each risk into categories.
 Rate each risk based on impact and likelihood, and provide rationale
and understanding of root causes related to each risk (additional criteria
can be rated- some processes include ‘speed of onset’ and
‘vulnerability’).
 Prioritize top-rated risks to ensure the right ones are managed going
forward.
 Develop specific action plans to address the risks.
Reducing Risk

Reducing Risk
RISK CONTROL
 There are four main ways to manage risk:
1. Risk avoidance,
2. Risk transfer,
3. Risk reduction and
4. Risk retention.
 Each is applicable under different circumstances.
Some ways of managing risk fall into multiple
categories. Multiple ways of managing risk are
often utilized simultaneously.

Reducing Risk
1. Risk avoidance (elimination of risk)
• It involves completely avoiding an
activity that poses a potential risk.
However, this is not always practical.
• By avoiding risk we forfeit potential
gains, be it in life, in business or in with
investments.

Reducing Risk
2. Risk Transfer (insuring against risk)
 Most commonly, this is to buy an insurance policy. The
risk is transferred to a third-party entity (in most cases an
insurance company).
 To be more clear, the financial risk is transferred to a third-
party.
For example, a homeowner’s insurance policy does not
transfer the risk of a house fire to the insurance
company, it only transfers the financial risk. A house
fire is still just as likely as before. Risk sharing is also a
type of risk transfer. For example, members assume a
smaller amount of risk by transferring and sharing the
remainder of risk with the group.

Reducing Risk
3. Risk Reduction (mitigating risk)
 This is the idea of reducing the extent or possibility of a loss. This can
be done by increasing precautions or limiting the amount of risky
activity.
 For example, installing a security alarm, smoke detectors, wearing a
seat belt or wearing a helmet are ways of employing risk reduction.
 Diversification of assets and hedging are forms of risk reduction
with investments. Investments in information are a way of
mitigating risk because you are better informed, thus reducing the
uncertainty.
 Another way of employing risk reduction is the safety in numbers
approach.
 When discussing risk transfer, we spoke briefly about risk sharing.
The larger the number of people sharing risk, the less severe the
shared effects will be. Statistically, only a small number of
individuals in the group will experience an unfortunate event.
Insurance companies exist based on this concept.

Reducing Risk
4. Risk Retention (accepting risk)
 Risk retention simply involves accepting the risk. Even if the risk is
mitigated, if it is not avoided or transferred, it is retained. Retention
is effective for small risks that do not pose any significant financial
threat.
 The financial status of the family or individual will determine the
acceptability of a risk.
 A couple of examples of risk retention: A billionaire may not
have to worry about insuring his car. An individual may not be
able to afford or obtain health insurance. Both individuals are
retaining risk, one is because they’re able to, the other is
because they have to. Risk retention augments risk transfer
through deductibles. With a deductible, we retain or ‘self-
insure’ small, frequent occurrences and only utilize insurance
for needs over a particular dollar threshold, our deductible limit.

Engineering Responsibilities
 Responsibilities of an Engineer
 Responsibilities include both internal responsibilities
(responsibilities to employers) and external
responsibilities (responsibilities to outside world).
 Engineer functions at the socio-technological ‘interface’
(with science and technology on one side and, individuals
and communities on the other)
 Engineer bears a unique responsibility to decide on
priorities, establish performance criteria, select materials
and processes, and specify evaluation procedures.
 Major responsibilities of an engineer
 Problem Solving
 Decision making

Internal Responsibilities
 Internal Responsibilities
 In today’s competitive world, the success of any
organization relies on the team-play.
 Team-play involves virtues of:
 Collegiality
 Loyalty
 Respect for authority
 Collective bargaining

 COLLEGIALITY
 Collegiality is the tendency to support and cooperate
with the colleagues.
 It is a virtue essential for team work to be effective.
 Aspects/Elements of Collegiality
 Respect to the ideas and work of others
 Commitment to moral principles
 Commitment is towards moral decision, actions, goals of the
organization and values of the profession.
 Connectedness
 Shared commitment and mutual understanding; Sense of unity
among engineers (absence of egoism)

 LOYALTY is Quality of being true and
faithful in one’s support.
 Two Senses of Loyalty
 Agency Loyalty
 Attitude Loyalty or Identification
Loyalty

 Agency Loyalty
 It is to fulfill one’s contractual duties to an employer.
 The contractual duties include particular tasks for which one
is paid, general activities of cooperating with colleagues and
following lawful authority within the organization.
 Example: People may not like the job they do and hate their
employer, but still they would perform their duty as long as
they are employers. This sense of loyalty is known as
Agency Loyalty.
 Attitude or Identification Loyalty
 It is concerned with attitudes, emotions, and a sense of
personal identity as it does with actions.
 It implies that an employee should meet his/her moral duties
to the organization with personal attachment and affirmation.

 AUTHORITY
 Authority is the right to make decisions, right to
direct the work of others, and right to give
orders.
 Authority can be defined as the legal right to
command action by others and to enforce
compliance.
 Types of Authority
 Institutional Authority
 Expert Authority

 Institutional Authority
 Institutional Authority can be defined as the institutional right
given to a person to exercise power based on the resources of
institution, complete the task and force them to achieve goals.
 It is authority given by the institution to the qualified
individuals in order to meet their institutional objectives.
 E.g. Line Managers and Project Managers have the
institutional duty to make sure that the products/projects are
completed successfully.
 Expert Authority
 Expert Authority is the possession of special knowledge, skills,
expertise and competence to perform some task or to give some
advice.
 Authority Vs. Power

 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
 It is the bargain by the trade union for improving the economic
interests of the workers.
 The process is collective in the sense that issue relating to terms
and conditions of employment are solved by representatives of
employees and employers rather than individuals.
 The term bargaining refers to evolving an agreement using
methods like negotiation, discussion, exchange of facts and
ideals rather than confrontation.
 Process of Collective Bargaining
 Presenting the character of demands by the union
 Negotiations at the bargaining table
 Reaching an agreement.

 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
 Unionism and Professionalism
 Collective bargaining assumes ‘unionism’. Legally any organization
employing more than 20 employees could have a union.
 Employers from unions to safeguard the interests of employees and to
prevent exploitation of employees.
 Many professional managers have argued that ethical aspects of
professionalism in engineering are inconsistent with union ideology.
 According to John Kemper, the unionism and professionalism are
conflicting with each other. Professionalism offers important to the
interests of society and of the employer. But unions consider the interests
of the employees ahead of the interests of their employer.
 A number of professional societies have emphasized that loyalty to
employers and the public not possible with any form of collective
bargaining.
 Many professional societies indirectly instruct the engineers that they
should not become member of the unions.

 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING - Arguments over Unions
 Arguments in favor of unions
 Unions play a vital role in achieving high salaries and improved
standard of living of employees.
 Unions give employees a greater sense of participation in
organization decision-making.
 Unions ensure job security and protection against arbitrary
treatment to the employees.
 Unions have the ability to resist any orders from employers to
perform unethical acts.
 Unions maintain stability by providing an effective grievance
procedure for employee complaints.
 Unions can act as a counterforce to any radical political
movements that exploit the employees.

 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING - Arguments over Unions
 Arguments against unions
 Unions shatter the economy of a country by placing distorting
influences on efficient uses of labor.
 Unions remove person-to-person negotiations between
employers and employees. Thus an individual is not given much
important in the process of collective bargaining.
 Unions encourage unrest and strained relations between
employees and employee.
 Unions encourage the unhealthy concept of job promotion,
salary hike etc. on the basis of seniority.
 Unions prevent employer from rewarding individuals for their
personal achievements.

External Responsibilities
 External Responsibilities
 The responsibilities to the outside world
include:
 Confidentiality
 Conflict of interest
 Occupational crimes

 CONFIDENTIALITY
 Confidentiality means keeping the information on the
employer and clients as secrets. It is one of the important
aspects of team work.
 Confidentiality is that practice which helps to keep
secret all information deemed desirable to keep secret. The
maintenance of secrecy refers to the unrevealing of any
data concerning the company’s business or technical
processes that are not already in public knowledge. Every
company has some knowledge and can identify the
individuals and groups that might have access to a
particular set of information. The members of such groups
share the responsibility of maintaining confidentiality.

 CONFIDENTIALITY
 Term related to Confidential Information
 Privileged Information
 It refers information that is available only on the basis of special
privilege. That is, information available to an employee who is
working on a special assignment.
 It includes information that has not yet become to public or known
within an organization.
 Proprietary Information
 It is the information that is owned by a company.
 It refers to a new knowledge established within the organization that
can be legally protected from use by others.
 This term is used as synonym for ‘property’ and ‘ownership’

 CONFIDENTIALITY
 Trade Secrets
 A trade secret can be any type of information that has not become
public and which an employer has taken steps to keep secret.
 These trade secrets may be about designs, technical processes, plant
facilities, quality control systems, business plans, marketing strategies
and so on.
 Trade secrets are given limited legal protection against employee or
contractor abuse. In the sense, an employer can sue employees or
contractors for leaking trade secrets.
 Patents Vs Trade Secrets
 Patents legally protect specific products from being manufactured and
sold by competitors without the permission of the patent holder.
 Patents Vs. Trade Secrets: A patent holder has legally protected
monopoly power. But in case of trade secrets, the legal protection is
limited to keeping relationships of confidentiality and trust.

 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
 Situation where professionals have self-interest. If self-interest is
given importance, it may keep them away from meeting their
obligations to their employees or clients.
 Following are the examples:
 To serve as a consultant for a competitor’s company
 Personal interest such as making private investments in a
competitor’s company
 Types of Conflicts of Interest
 Actual conflicts of interest arises when an employee
compromise objective engineering judgment.
 Potential conflicts of interest may corrupt professional
judgment in the future.
 Apparent conflicts of interest : There are situations in which
there is the appearance of a conflict of interest.

 Conflicts of interest and Accepting Gifts/Bribes
 Mostly engineers who find themselves in actual, potential, or apparent conflicts
of interest are those involving accepting gifts.
 What is a bribe?
 A bribe is something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to someone
in a position of trust in order to induce him to act dishonestly.
 It is something offered to influence or persuade.
 What are the ethical reasons for not tolerating bribery?
 Bribery corrupts free-market economic system and is anticompetitive.
 Bribery corrupts justice and public policy by allowing rich people to make
all the rules.
 Bribery treats people as commodities that can be bought and sold.
 What is meant by the term ‘kickbacks’?
 Kickbacks are another form of bribing.
 Prearranged payments made by contractors to companies or their
representatives in exchange for contracts actually granted are called
Kickbacks.

 When is a gift a bribe? (What are the differences between a
gift and a bribe?)
 Gifts are not bribes as long as they are gratuities of smaller
amounts. But bribes are illegal and immoral because they are
worth of substantial amounts.
 Gift may play a legitimate role in the normal conduct of business
whereas a bribe influence the judgment.
 In olden rules, the following thumb rule was applied:
 A gift is a bribe if one can’t eat, drink or smoke it in a day.
 Today a more appropriate thumb rule says:
 If you think that your offer (or acceptance) of a particular gift would have
grave or merely embarrassing consequences for your company if made
public, then the gift should be considered a bribe.

 OCCUPATIONAL CRIMES
 Occupational crimes are illegal acts committed through a
person's lawful employment.
 It is the secretive violation of laws regarding work
activities.
 When professional or office workers commit the
occupational crimes, it is referred as ’White Collar
Crime’.
 Even crimes that are aimed at promoting the interest of
one’s employer rather than oneself are considered as
occupational crimes.
 Occupational crimes impinge on various aspects such as
professionalism, loyalty, conflict of interest, and
confidentiality.

Rights of Engineers
 Concept of rights can be categorized into
the following three types:
1. Human Rights
2. Employee Rights
a) Contractual rights
b) Non-contractual rights
3. Professional Rights

Rights of Engineers
 EMPLOYEE RIGHTS are the rights that apply or refer to the
status or position of employee.
 Employees are entitled for moral or legal rights.
 Few important ‘employee rights’ are as follows.
 No organization shall discriminate against an employee for
criticizing.
 No organization shall discriminate against an employee for
being engaged in outside activities of his/her choice.
 No Organization shall deprive an employee of the enjoyment
of reasonable privacy in his/her place of work.
 No employees in an organization who find fault that his rights
have been violated, shall be discharged or penalized without a
fair enquiry in the organization.
 Rights to free speech and dissent, conscientious refusal right
to obey unethical directives are also the rights of employees.

Rights of Engineers
 Contractual Employee Rights
 These employee rights are institutional rights that arise only due
to the specific agreements in the employment contract.
 Examples: The contractual employee rights include
 Right to receive a salary of a certain amount; and
 Right to receive other company benefits such as
bonuses, salary increments etc.
 Non-contractual Employee Rights
 These are rights existing even if not formally recognized in the
specific contracts or company policies.
 Examples: The non-contractual employee rights include
 Right to choose outside activities;
 Right to privacy and employer confidentiality
 Right to non-discrimination and absence of sexual
harassment at the workplace.

Rights of Engineers
 Engineers have several types of moral rights, apart from human,
employee and professional rights as human beings.
 PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS are the rights possessed by virtue
of being professionals having special moral responsibilities.
 The professional rights include
 Right to exercise one’s professional judgment on the basis of
his/her conscience.
 Right to refuse to involve in unethical activities
 Right to warn the public about harms and dangers
 Right to express one’s professional judgment, including his
right to disagree
 Right to fair recognition and remuneration for professional
services
 Right to talk publicly about one’s work within bounds.

Rights of Engineers
 Various aspects of Professional Rights
 Rights of Professional conscience
 One of the most fundamental rights of engineers
 Moral right to exercise responsible professional judgment in discharging
one’s professional responsibilities
 Negative right: it places an obligation on other people not to interfere with its
exercise.
 Positive right: it places an obligation on other people to do more than merely
not interfering.
 Specific Rights
1. Right of conscientious refusal
• According to these rights, no employer can force or pressure an
employee to do something that the employee considers unethical and
unacceptable.
2. Right to recognition
• Engineer’s right to professional recognition for their work and
accomplishment
• Types of recognition/reward: Extrinsic rewards (monetary
remunerations); Intrinsic rewards ( non-monetary remunerations)

Whistle Blowing
 It is the act of reporting on unethical conduct within an
organization to someone outside//inside of the
organization in an effort to discourage the organization
from continuing the activity.
 (reporting of wrongdoing within part of an
organization to senior management, often
confidentially.)
 Types of whistle blowing:
 Internal whistle blowing,
 External whistle blowing,
 Open whistle blowing,
 Anonymous whistle blowing.

Whistle Blowing
 When should Whistle blowing be
attempted?
Need
Proximity
Capability
Last Resort

Whistle Blowing
 To prevent Whistle Blowing:
 Company should create a strong ethics
culture;
 encourage free and open communication
system within organization;
 can create an ethics review committee;
 should have willingness to admit
mistakes.

What is “Intellectual Property”?
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

Intellectual Property
 What is “intellectual property”?
 Intangible assets recognized as “property” by the state
 Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind,
such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and
symbols, names and images used in commerce.
 For example, trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade
secrets.
 What is “infringement”?
 Unauthorized use of intangible assets whose control had
been exclusively granted to the owner.

Intellectual Property
 The WTO has established seven elements of IPRs,
which are agreed by TRIPS.
 Patents
 Industrial Designs
 Trade marks
 Copyrights
 Trade Secrets
 Design of Integrated Circuits
 Geographical Indications

Trademark
 If you're starting a new business or trade, a logo,
name or signature is the first thing you choose to
separate yourself from the rest.
 A "trademark" is that symbol you will use to do so.
Registering a trademark is a legal process provided
for under the Trade Marks Act, 1999

Trademark
 Trademarks (®) are intellectual property in a
brand (such as Coke®)

 Copyright is a right given by the law to creators of
literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and
producers of cinematograph films and sound
recordings.
 In the case of original literary, dramatic, musical and
artistic works, the duration of copyright is the lifetime
of the author or artist, and 60 years counted from the
year following the death of the author.
Copyright

 Copyright law (©) is intellectual property in creative works, such
as books, music, and movies (and presentations!).
 Copyrights are designed to protect the expression of ideas (not the
idea!)
 In India, under the Copyright Act 1957, copyright protection is
conferred on literary works, dramatic works, musical works,
artistic works, cinematograph films and sound recording. For
example, books, computer programs are protected under
the Act as literary works.
 Copyright gives the author exclusive right to make copies of the
expression and sell them to the public.
 “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of
expression,… from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or
otherwise communicated.”
Copyright

 Computer Software or programme can be registered
as a ‘literary work’. As per Copyright Act, 1957,
“literary work” includes computer programmes,
tables and compilations, including computer
databases.
 A web-site contains several works such as literary
works, artistic works (photographs etc.), sound
recordings, video clips, cinematograph films and
broadcastings and computer software too. Therefore,
a separate application has to be filed for registration
of all these works.
Copyright

 Public domain- work owned by the public, (e.g.
government)
 Work must be original to the author
 “fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use
by reproduction in copies…for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching
(including multiple copies for classroom use),
scholarship or research.”
 New owner can give away or sell object
Copyright

 Each copy mist be marked with the copyright
symbol © or the word Copyright, the year and the
author’s name
 Copyright Infringement: Unauthorized use of
copyright works.
 Copyrights for computer software (cannot
copyright the algorithm)
 You do not purchase a piece of software, just the
license to use it.
 Computer menu design can be copyrighted, but
not “look and feel”
Copyright

 A patent is a form of intellectual property that
gives its owner the legal right to exclude others
from making, using, selling and importing an
invention for a limited period of years, in
exchange for publishing an enabling public
disclosure of the invention.
 Protect inventions, tangible objects, or ways to
make them, not works of the mind.
 Patent is designed to protect the device or process
for carrying out an idea, not the idea itself.
 Patent goes to person who invented the object
first
 Algorithms are inventions and can be patented.
Patents

 In India, the Law of Patent is primarily governed by
the Patent Act of 1970.
 The term of every patent granted is 20 years from the
date of filing of application. However, for application
filed under national phase under Patent Cooperation
Treaty (PCT), the term of patent will be 20 years
from the international filing date accorded under
PCT.
Patents

 Information that gives one company a competitive
edge over others.
 Reverse engineering – study finished object to
determine how it is manufactured or how it works
 Trade secret protection can apply to software
 Some examples of trade secrets include customer
lists and manufacturing processes.
Trade Secrets

Benefits of Intellectual Property Rights
 IPRs promote technological, industrial and economical
developments of a country.
 IPRs provide incentives for the inventions and ensure
adequate returns on commercialization of the invention.
 IPRs prevent the competitors from using one’s invention.
 IPRs are useful in identifying unprotected areas to avoid
violation.
 IPRs grant exclusive rights to the inventors.
 IPRs provide use of the invention for the public purpose.
 IPRs are useful in identifying unexplored areas for undertaking
research so as to become a leader in that area.

Why is IP Enforcement Important?
• Intellectual Property Violations can harm
legitimate producers (artists, musicians, and
companies), retailers, distributors (local,
importers, and exporters) and exhibitors of
intellectual property.
• Intellectual Property Violations threaten public
health and safety.
• Intellectual Property Violations foster growth of a
lawless underground economy that escapes
accountability (such as paying taxes on sales).
• Intellectual Property Violations provide funding
for violent domestic and foreign-based organized
crime syndicates.

 Enforcing IP Rights can improve product-
related health and safety.
 Enforcing IP Rights can foster growth of
economic industries (software, high tech,
etc.).
 Enforcing IP Rights can foster creativity.
 Enforcing IP Rights can create incentive for
investment.
 Enforcing IP Rights can fulfill international
treaty obligations.
Why is IP Enforcement Important?

Discrimination
 Discrimination is the unequal treatment to an individual intentionally
on unintentionally.
 Discrimination refers to treating people unfairly because of one’s sex,
race, skin color, age or religious outlook.
 It violates fundamental human rights of fair and equal treatment
humans.
 Discrimination defined: Discrimination is a morally unjustified
treatment of people on arbitrary or irrelevant grounds.
 Preferential Treatments: Giving an advantage to a member of a
group that in the past was denied equal treatment, in particular, women
and minorities.
 Weak Preferential Treatment: Giving an advantage to members
of traditionally discriminated-against groups over equally qualified
applicants who are members of other group.
 Strong Preferential Treatment: Giving preference to minority
applicants or women over better-qualified applicants from other
groups.

Discrimination
 Arguments over Preferential Treatment
 Arguments favoring Preferential Treatments
 A right ethics who favor preferential treatment emphasizes on
the principle of compensatory justice. According to them, past
violations of rights must be compensated.
 The utilitarians who favor preferential treatment argue that the
women and minorities should be integrated into the economic
and social mainstream.
 Arguments against Preferential Treatments
 It can be argued that preferential treatment is a straightforward
violation of other people’s rights to equal opportunity.
 It is also argued that there is the economic harm that results from
a policy of not consistently recruiting the best qualified persons.
 The reverse discrimination is unfair in the present.
 Sexual Harassment

Unit IV GE8076 Professional Ethics in Engineering

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