MODUL
E 1
AN
OVERVIE
W OF

*
Nowadays, as we know that, information
technology becomes the famous things in the
world because most of technology makes our
work become clear and it is very useful to the
people in order to manage or do something. It is
very unique of information technology like mobile
device, computer, and so on because it is variety
of used to the people directly make the people
life more comfortable.

*L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E S
As you read this MODULE, consider the following questions:
1. What is ethics, and why is it important to act
according to a code of ethics?
2. Why is business ethics becoming increasingly
important?
3. What are organizations doing to improve their
business ethics?
4. What is corporate social responsibility?
5 What approach can you take to ensure ethical
decision making?

LESSON 1
WHAT IS ETHICS?

Every society forms a set of rules that creates
the limitations of commonly recognized
behavior. These rules are often expressed in
statements about how people should perform,
and the individual rules fit together to form the
moral code by which a society lives.
Unfortunately, the different rules often have
contradictions, and people are sometimes
uncertain about which rule to follow.

The term morality refers to social conventions
about right and wrong that are so widely
shared that they become the basis for an
established consensus. However, individual
views of what behavior is moral may vary by
age, cultural group, ethnic background,
religion, life experiences, education, and
gender.

*
Ethics is a set of beliefs about right and
wrong behavior within a society. Ethical
behavior conforms to generally accepted
norms—many of which are almost universal.
However, although nearly everyone would
agree that certain behaviors—such as lying
and cheating—are unethical.

At its simplest, ethics is a system of moral
principles. They affect how people make
decisions and lead their lives. Ethics is
concerned with what is good for individuals
and society and is also described as moral
philosophy.
The term is derived from the Greek
word ethos which can mean custom, habit,
character or disposition.

Ethics covers the following dilemmas:
*how to live a good life
*our rights and responsibilities
*the language of right and wrong
*moral decisions - what is good and bad?

*
Philosophers have several answers to this
question:
*God and religion
*Human conscience
*the example of good human beings
*a desire for the best for people in each unique
situation
*political power
*God-based ethics - supernaturalism

Supernaturalism makes ethics
inseparable from religion. It teaches that
the only source of moral rules is God. So,
something is good because God says it is,
and the way to lead a good life is to do
what God wants.

Intuitionism
*Intuitionists think that good and bad are
real objective properties that can't be
broken down into component parts.
Something is good because it's good; its
goodness doesn't need justifying or
proving.

Consequentialism
*This is the ethical theory that most non-religious
people think they use every day. It bases morality
on the consequences of human actions and not on
the actions themselves. Consequentialism teaches
that people should do whatever produces the
greatest amount of good consequences.

Virtue ethics
*Virtue ethics looks at virtue or moral character,
rather than at ethical duties and rules, or the
consequences of actions. Virtue ethics is
particularly concerned with the way individuals live
their lives, and less concerned in assessing
particular actions. It develops the idea of good
actions by looking at the way virtuous people
express their inner goodness in the things that they
do.

Situation ethics
*Situation ethics rejects prescriptive rules
and argues that individual ethical
decisions should be made according to the
unique situation. Rather than following
rules the decision maker should follow a
desire to seek the best for the people
involved. There are no moral rules or
rights - each case is unique and deserves a
unique solution.

*
*Ethics is concerned with other people.
*At the heart of ethics is a concern about
something or someone other than ourselves
and our own desires and self-interest.
*Ethics is concerned with other people's
interests, with the interests of society, with
God's interests, with "ultimate goods", and so
on.

Virtue Ethics is particularly concerned with the moral
character of human beings.
Searching for the source of right and wrong. At times
in the past some people thought that ethical problems
could be solved in one of two ways:
*by discovering what God wanted people to do
*by thinking rigorously about moral principles and
problems

*
A person who acts with integrity acts in
accordance with a personal code of principles.
One approach to acting with integrity—one of the
cornerstones of ethical behavior—is to extend to
all people the same respect and consideration
that you expect to receive from others.

*
When a person says "murder is bad" what are
they doing?
That's the sort of question that only a
philosopher would ask, but it's actually a very
useful way of getting a clear idea of what's going
on when people talk about moral issues.
The different 'isms' regard the person uttering
the statement as doing different things.

Moral realism
*Moral realism is based on the idea that
there are real objective moral facts or
truths in the universe. Moral statements
provide factual information about those
truths.

Subjectivism
*Subjectivism teaches that moral judgments are
nothing more than statements of a person's
feelings or attitudes, and that ethical statements
do not contain factual truths about goodness or
badness. In more detail: subjectivists say that
moral statements are statements about the
feelings, attitudes and emotions that that
particular person or group has about a particular
issue.

Emotivism
*Emotivism is the view that moral claims are no more than
expressions of approval or disapproval. This sounds like
subjectivism, but in emotivism a moral statement
doesn't provide information about the speaker's
feelings about the topic but expresses those feelings.

Prescriptivism
*Prescriptivists think that ethical statements are
instructions or recommendations. So, if I say
something is good, I'm recommending you to do it,
and if I say something is bad, I'm telling you not to do
it.

*
*Morals are one’s personal beliefs about right and
wrong, while the term ethics describes standards or
codes of behavior expected of an individual by a
group (nation, organization, profession) to which an
individual belongs.
*For example, the ethics of the law profession demand
that defense attorneys defend an accused client to the
best of their ability, even if they know that the client is
guilty of the most heinous and morally objectionable
crime one could imagine.

Law is a system of rules that tells us what we
can and cannot do. Laws are enforced by a set
of institutions (the police, courts, law-making
bodies). Legal acts are acts that conform to the
law. Moral acts conform to what an individual
believes to be the right thing to do. Laws can
proclaim an act as legal, although many people
may consider the act immoral—for example,
abortion.

*LESSON 2
ETHICS IN THE BUSINE

Ethics has risen to the top of the business
agenda because the risks associated with
inappropriate behavior have increased, both
in their likelihood and in their potential
negative impact. Several trends have
increased the likelihood of unethical
behavior.

First, for many organizations, greater
globalization has created a much more
complex work environment that spans
diverse cultures and societies, making it
more difficult to apply principles and codes
of ethics consistently.

Second, in today’s difficult and uncertain
economic climate, organizations are
extremely challenged to maintain revenue
and profits. Some organizations are sorely
tempted to resort to unethical behavior to
maintain profits.

*
*Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the
concept that an organization should act ethically
by taking responsibility for the impact of its
actions on the environment, the community, and
the welfare of its employees.
*Setting CSR goals encourages an organization
to achieve higher moral and ethical standards.

Supply chain sustainability is a component of
CSR that focuses on developing and maintaining a
supply chain that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their needs. Supply chain
sustainability takes into account such issues as fair
labor practices, energy and resource conservation,
human rights, and community responsibility. Many
IT equipment manufacturers have made supply
chain sustainability a priority.

INCLUDING
ETHICAL
CONSIDERATI
ONS
*LESSON 3

We are all faced with difficult decisions in
our work and in our personal life. Most of
us have developed a decision-making
process that we execute automatically,
without thinking about the steps we go
through.

For many of us, the process generally follows the steps:
Gather and analyze facts.
Make no assumptions.
Identify stakeholders affected by the decision.
Involve others, including stakeholders, in brainstorming.
What laws, guidelines, policies, and principles apply?
What is the impact on you, your organization, and other stakeholders?
Evaluate alternatives based on multiple criteria.
Develop and execute an implementation plan.
Provide leadership to overcome resistance to change.
Evaluate results against selected success criteria.
Were there any unintended consequences?

Utilitarian Approach
*The utilitarian approach to ethical decision-
making states that you should choose the
action or policy that has the best overall
consequences for all people who are directly
or indirectly affected. The goal is to find the
single greatest good by balancing the
interests of all affected parties.

Fairness Approach
*The fairness approach focuses on how
fairly actions and policies distribute
benefits and burdens among people
affected by the decision. The guiding
principle of this approach is to treat all
people the same.

Common Good Approach
*The common good approach to decision
making is based on a vision of society as a
community whose members work together
to achieve a common set of values and
goals. Examples include an effective
education system, a safe and efficient
transportation system, and accessible and
affordable health care.

*LESSON 4
ETHICS IN INFORMATIO
TECHNOLOGY

The growth of the Internet, the ability to
capture and store vast amounts of
personal data, and greater reliance on
information systems in all aspects of life
have increased the risk that information
technology will be used unethically.

Here are some examples that raise public
concern about the ethical use of information
technology:
*Many employees have their email and
Internet access monitored while at work,
as employers struggle to balance their
need to manage important company
assets and work time with employees’
desire for privacy and self-direction.

*Millions of people have downloaded music and
movies at no charge and in apparent violation of
copyright laws at tremendous expense to the
owners of those copyrights. Organizations contact
millions of people worldwide through unsolicited
email (spam) as an extremely low-cost marketing
approach.
*Hackers break into databases of financial and
retail institutions to steal customer information,
then use it to commit identity theft—opening new
accounts and charging purchases to unsuspecting
victims.

*Students around the world have been
caught downloading material from the
Web and plagiarizing content for their
term papers.
*Web sites plant cookies or spyware on
visitors’ hard drives to track their online
purchases and activities.

Two fundamental tenets.
*First, the general public does not understand the
critical importance of ethics as it applies to IT, as
too much emphasis has been placed on technical
issues.
*The second tenet is that in the business world,
important decisions are too often left to the
technical experts. General business managers
must assume greater responsibility for these
decisions, but to do so they must be able to make
broad-minded, objective decisions based on
technical savvy, business know-how, and a sense
of ethics.

The goals of this is to educate people about
the tremendous impact of ethical issues in the
successful and secure use of information
technology; to motivate people to recognize
these issues when making business
decisions; and to provide tools, approaches,
and useful insights for making ethical
decisions.

*