ETHICS

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ETHICS

• Papia Bawa

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Introduction

• Taking an ethical stance requires balancing
  ethical and moral beliefs with the realities of
  the job. It requires you to consider the effects
  of your decision on
• The users of the product
• On your company
• On society
• On your job

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ETHICAL DECISIONS

• In your own communication you will face ethical
  decisions about the following
• How much information to give and how much to
  leave out.
• How to share the information for users and
  consumers.
• How to word an issue so as not to offend your
  readers.

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TYPES OF ETHICAL CHOICES

• Obligation to yourself to act in your own best
  interest and according to good conscience.
• Obligation to stand by the clients and customers.
  
• Obligation to your company to advance its goals,
  respect its policies, protect confidential
  information, and expose misconduct that would
  harm the organization.

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CONTD.

• Obligation to all workers to promote the safety
  and well being
• Obligation to the community to preserve the local
  economy, welfare, and quality of life.
• Obligation to society to consider the national
  and global impact of your actions.

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What circumstances can make an action unethical ?

• Yielding to social pressure
• Mistaking Groupthink for Teamwork
• Suppressing knowledge the public needs
• Exaggerating claims about technology
• Exploiting cultural differences

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CONSIDER THIS!

• If you're designing a Web site should you create
  a page that asks users for name, address, and
  other personal information?

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IF YOUR ANSWER IS YES!

• Although the answer may be yes for business
  purposes, you still need to
• Use a privacy statement to address both the
  business and ethical issues.
• Ensure that users have a way to remove their
  names from your database at any time.

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CONSIDER THIS!

• High-level employees of major tobacco companies
  apparently knew for years about the harmful
  effects of cigarettes and other nicotine related
  products. Yet lawsuits in the late 1990's proved
  that many managers and other company decision
  makers went to great lengths to suppress this
  information.

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YOUR ETHICAL DILEMNA

• You may need to ask if your obligation to the
  company takes priority over your greater
  obligation to your fellow citizens.

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Types of technical communication affected.

• GRAPHICS
• Graphics can be manipulated to distort
  information.
• A line graph that does not have clearly labeled
  axes might make a financial trend appear better
  than it really is.

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WEB PAGES AND INTERNET

• Its global reach and its ability to combine
  sound, color, images, text and interactivity
  create the potential for manipulation and
  distortion.
• A website for a herbal remedy that some people
  feel is helpful for anxiety may not have FDA
  approval, and the advertised product may have
  harmful side effects. But a website promoting
  this product could easily, and with very little
  cost be set up to look extremely scientific and
  factual.

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MEMOS AND INSTRUCTIONS

• The messages memos convey can present serious
  ethical choices.
• Many instructions contain safety information.
  Should this information be placed on the first
  page, or will this deter some consumers from
  using the product?
• If the average person truly needs two hours to
  assemble a product but the instructions say 30
  minutes, this information would be unethical.

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REPORTS

• The subject matter and purpose of the report must
  determine what is important and on what basis.
• In preparing a report about the environmental
  impact of your company's pulp and paper
  manufacturing process, you might be tempted to
  leave out damaging information, such as the
  effect of this process on nearby rivers and
  streams. You may be faced with the ethical
  decision should you include everything in your
  report?

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PROPOSALS

• Proposals Present specific plans to get something
  done.
• In a sales proposal presenting your company's
  plan to construct a community hall, since you're
  bidding against other companies you want to
  project the best image and offer the best service
  for the best price.

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SO WHAT IS YOUR DILEMNA?

• You may be tempted to stretch the truth about the
  time required to complete the job. On one hand,
  such projects almost always exceed the deadline,
  but if you tell the truth while your competitor
  lies, you might lose a job. On the other hand
  dishonesty is likely to damage your company's
  reputation.

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TO CONCLUDE

• As a communicator you need to question the
  possible outcome for users and the overall risks
  to society.
•  
• The greater the likelihood of deception, and the
  greater the injury to the reader as a consequence
  of that deception, the more unethical is the
  design of the document.

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Where to Get More Information

• Many professional discourse communities have
  created their own code of ethics for the
  particular situations that people in these
  professions face.
• Check my website for samples of such Discourse
  Community Codes.