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Professional Computing Issues: Chapter 10: Ethics of IT Organizations

This document discusses key ethical issues for IT organizations, including their use of contingent workers like contractors and visa holders, offshore outsourcing, whistleblowing, and supporting green computing initiatives. It defines these issues and outlines strategies for addressing them in an ethical manner, such as ensuring outsourced workers have needed expertise, protecting whistleblowers, reducing hazardous materials, and supporting reuse/recycling of electronics.

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170 views20 pages

Professional Computing Issues: Chapter 10: Ethics of IT Organizations

This document discusses key ethical issues for IT organizations, including their use of contingent workers like contractors and visa holders, offshore outsourcing, whistleblowing, and supporting green computing initiatives. It defines these issues and outlines strategies for addressing them in an ethical manner, such as ensuring outsourced workers have needed expertise, protecting whistleblowers, reducing hazardous materials, and supporting reuse/recycling of electronics.

Uploaded by

رغد ابراهيم
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Professional Computing Issues

Chapter 10: Ethics of IT Organizations


2

Learning Objectives
• What are contingent workers, and how are they employed in
the IT industry?
• What key ethical issues are associated with the use of
contingent workers, including visa holders and offshore
outsourcing companies?
• What is whistle-blowing, and what ethical issues are
associated with it?
• What measures are members of the electronics manufacturing
industry taking to ensure the ethical behavior of the many
participants in their long and complex supply chains?
• What is green computing, and what are organizations doing to
support this initiative?
3

Key Ethical Issues for Organizations


• Use of nontraditional workers
• Handling a whistle-blowing incident
• Transitioning to green computing
• Need for a code to address ethical issues
regarding:
▫ Worker safety and fairness
▫ Environmental responsibility
▫ Business efficiency
4

Need for Nontraditional Workers


• Organizations require nontraditional workers
due to the long term shortage of trained and
experienced IT workers
• Sources for nontraditional workers
▫ Contingent workers
▫ VISA workers
▫ Outsourced offshore workers
5

Contingent Workers
• Contingent work: Job situation in which an
individual does not have an explicit or implicit
contract for long-term employment
• Types
▫ Independent contractors
▫ Temporary workers hired through employment
agencies
▫ On-call or day laborers
▫ On-site workers provided by contract firms
6

Contingent Workers
• Organizations can obtain contingent workers
through temporary staffing firms or employee
leasing organizations
▫ Employee leasing: Subscribing firm transfers
all or part of its workforce to the leasing firm
 Subscribing firm leases the workers, but they remain
employees of the leasing firm
 Co-employment relationship: Two employers
have actual or potential legal rights and duties with
respect to the same employee or group of employees
7

Contingent Workers
Advantages Disadvantages

• Firm does not have to provide • Workers’ lack loyalty to the


employee benefits company results in low
• Highly flexible as firms can commitment to work and high
release workers when they are no turnover rates
longer needed • Workers gain additional skills
• Firm does not incur training costs and knowledge while working for
a company, which are lost to the
company when the worker
departs at a project’s completion
8

Deciding When to Use Contingent Workers


• To complete a project quickly and cheaply versus
developing people within the organization
• For projects that require unique skills that are
not necessary for future projects
• Not for projects that have access to key corporate
processes and strategies
• Not for positions with high risk of valuable
information being passed on to competitors
9

Deciding When to Use Contingent Workers


• Potential liability for payment of employee
benefits
▫ Contingent workers may be viewed as permanent
employees, depending on how closely they are
supervised and how the job is structured
▫ Even if workers sign an agreement indicating that
they are contractors, the deciding factor is the
degree of control the company exercises over them
10

VISA Workers
• Workers from other countries (Foreigners)
• Foreigner IT employees is a sign that there are
insufficient number of IT employees to meet
needs
▫ Adversely affects the wages of Saudi IT workers
▫ Affect the economy
VISA Workers - Ethical Issues
• Salary abuse:
• Unethical companies might pay them very low salaries
with long working hours

•Leave their families:


• Workers with very low salaries are not allowed to bring
their families with them to Saudi Arabia
12

Outsourcing
• Long-term business arrangement in which a
company contracts for services with an outside
organization that has expertise in providing a
specific function
• Why outsourcing?
▫ To lower costs
▫ To obtain strategic flexibility
▫ To keep the firm’s staff focused on core
competencies
13

Offshore Outsourcing
• Services are provided by an organization whose
employees are in a foreign country
• Factors to consider when selecting a destination
▫ Financial attractiveness
▫ People and skills availability
▫ Overall business environment
• Benefits
▫ Cost savings gained by employing foreign workers
▫ Potential to speed up software development efforts,
facilitated by teams working in different time zones
14

Limitations of Offshore Outsourcing


1. Shrinkage of cost advantage
▫ Firms incur high costs by way of resources spent to:
 Select an offshore vendor
 Develop a good working relationship with the vendor
2. Lay off of domestic staff
3. Misunderstanding due to cultural and language differences
4. Potential risk of loss of customer data
5. The company loses the knowledge and experience gained by
outsourced workers when those workers are reassigned after a
project’s completion.
6. Finally, offshore outsourcing does not advance the development
of permanent IT workers in the country which increases its
dependency on foreign workers to build the IT infrastructure of
the future.
15

Strategies for Successful Offshore


Outsourcing
• Ensure that the outsourcing firm can provide:
▫ Employees with the required expertise in the
technologies involved in the project
▫ A project manager who speaks the employer
company’s native language
▫ A pool of staff large enough to meet the needs of
the project
▫ A state-of-the-art telecommunications setup
▫ High-quality on-site managers and supervisors
16

Whistle-Blowing
• Effort to attract public attention to a negligent,
illegal, unethical, abusive, or dangerous act by an
organization
• Are there any laws to protect them?
▫ From being fired!
▫ From lawsuit by large companies with expert
lawyers!
17

Green Computing
• Green computing: Efforts directed toward the efficient design,
manufacture, operation, and disposal of IT-related products
• Why green computing?
a. Save money
b. Sustain our environment (prevent climate change and global worming)
c. Prevent health related issues (caused by materials such as lead, and
mercury which might lead to brain damage, kidney dieses, and cancer
etc.
d. Energy conservation
• Focuses on:
▫ Worker safety and fairness
▫ Environmental responsibility
▫ Business efficiency
18

Green Computing
• To manufacture truly green products, companies
must:
▫ Produce products that require less electricity
▫ Reduce the amount of hazardous materials used
▫ Increase the amount of recyclable materials used
▫ Help consumers dispose products in an
environmentally safe manner at the end of the
product’s useful life
19

The European Union’s Restriction of


Hazardous Substances Directive
• Restricts the use of many hazardous materials in
computer manufacturing
• Requires manufacturers to:
▫ Use at least 65% reusable or recyclable components
▫ Implement a plan to manage products at the end of
their life cycle in an environmentally safe manner
▫ Reduce or eliminate toxic material in their packaging
• Green computing laws and regulations in Saudi
Arabia?!
20

Summary
• Contingent workforce
▫ Independent contractors
▫ Temporary workers through employment agencies
▫ On-call or day laborers
▫ On-site workers provided by contract firms
• Outsourcing - Contract for services with outside organization,
with an expertise in providing a specific function
• Whistle-blowing - Effort to attract public attention to negligent,
illegal, unethical, abusive, or dangerous acts by company
• Green computers - Use less electricity, include fewer hazardous
materials, and contain reusable or recyclable material

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