IE 508

Engineering
Values & Ethics
 Workplace
Responsibilities
And
Rights
 WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS

Intended Learning Outcomes:

1. Understand and discuss what is
confidentiality as it relates to:
● conflict of interest
● changing jobs
● management policies
● gifts, bribes, kickbacks
● moonlighting
● insider information
2. Understand and discuss ethical climate
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Intended Learning Outcomes (con’t):
3. Understand and discuss professional rights
and their importance.
4. Understand and discuss employee rights
● right to privacy
● right to equal opportunity
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
What is Confidentiality?
- is the duty to keep secret all information
deemed desirable to keep secret.
- it is any information that the employer or
client would like to have kept secret to
compete effectively against business rivals.
- it is any data concerning the company’s
business or technical processes that are not
already public knowledge.
- it clearly points to the employer or client as
the main source of the decision as to what
information is to be treated as confidential.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Privileged vs . Proprietary
Information:
 Privileged information literally means
“available only on the basis of special
privilege,” such as the privilege accorded an
employee working on a special assignment.
 Proprietary information is information that a
company owns or is the proprietor of, and is a
term carefully defined by property law. It is
synonymous to “trade secrets”.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Trade Secrets vs Patents:
 Trade secrets any type of information that
has not become public, which an employer
has taken steps to keep secret, and which is
thereby given limited legal protection in
common law (law generated by previous
court rulings) that forbids employees from
divulging it.
 Patents legally protect specific products from
being manufactured and sold by competitors
without the express permission of the
patent holder.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Confidentiality & Changing Jobs:
- the obligation to protect confidential
information does not cease when employees
change jobs, otherwise, it would be
impossible to protect such information.
- the relationship of trust between employer
and employee in regard to confidentiality
continues beyond the formal period of
employment. Unless the employer gives
consent, former employees are barred
indefinitely from revealing trade secrets.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Confidentiality and
Management Policies:
- one approach is to use employment contracts
that place special restrictions on future
employment. These restrictions include:
● the geographical location of future
employers;
● the length of time after leaving the present
employer before one can engage in
certain kinds of work;
● the type of work it is permissible to do
for future employers.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Confidentiality and Management
Policies (cont.):
- another approach is the use of employment
contract is perhaps not so threatening to
employee rights in that it offers positive
benefits in exchange for the restrictions it
places on future employment.
- also, offer an employee a special post-
employment annual consulting fee for several
years on the condition that he or she not
work for a direct competitor during that
period.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Confidentiality and Management
Policies (cont.):
- place tighter controls on the internal flow of
information by restricting access to trade
secrets except where absolutely essential.
- employers may help generate a sense of
professional responsibility among their staff
that reaches beyond merely obeying the
directives of current employers.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Conflict of Interest:
- Professionally, are situations where
professionals have an interest that, if
pursued, might keep them from meeting
their obligations to their employers or clients.
- Examples are:
● serving in some other professional role,
say, as a consultant for a competitor’s
company.
● making substantial private investments in a
competitor’s company.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
- conflicts of interest arise when these two
conditions are met:
● the professional is in a relationship or role
that requires exercising good judgment
on behalf of the interests of an employer
or client;
● the professional has some additional or side
interest that could threaten good
judgment in serving the interests of the
employer or client—either the good
judgment of that professional or the
judgment of a typical professional in that
situation.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Conflict of Interest vs
Conflicting Interest:
- Conflicting interest - means a person has two
or more desires that cannot all be satisfied
given the circumstances, but there is no
suggestion that it is morally wrong or
problematic to try pursuing them all.
- Conflicts of interest - it is often physically or
economically possible to pursue all of the
conflicting interests but doing so would
be morally problematic.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Situations Arising to Conflicts of
Interest:
- Bribes, gifts and kickbacks
- Interest in other companies
- Insider information
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Bribes, Gifts & Kickbacks
- Bribe is a substantial amount of money or
goods offered beyond a stated business
contract with the aim of winning an
advantage in gaining or keeping the contract,
and where the advantage is illegal or
otherwise unethical. Typically, bribes are
made in secret.
- Substantial is a vague term, but it alludes to
amounts, beyond acceptable gratuities, that
are sufficient to distort the judgment of a
typical person.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Bribes, Gifts & Kickbacks (con’t.)
- Gifts are small gratuities offered in the
normal conduct of business.
- Kickbacks are prearranged payments made by
contractors to companies or their
representatives in exchange for contracts
actually granted. When suggested by the
granting party to the party bidding on the
contract, the latter often defends its
participation in such an arrangement as
having been subjected to “extortion.”
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Interests in Other Companies:
- Conflict of interest may arise when having
interest in a competitor’s or subcontractor’s
business.
- Examples are:
● working for a competitor or subcontractor
either as employee or consultant
● owning shares of stocks in a company one
has occasional dealings.
- Moonlighting is working in one’s spare
time for another company.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Interests in Other Companies (con’t.):
- Moonlighting can cause conflict of interest
when:
● one works for a competitor, a supplier or a
customer
● when one leaves exhausted working for
another company thereby affecting his
performance in his original company.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Insider Information:
- using “inside” information to gain an
advantage or set up a business opportunity or
oneself, one’s family, or one’s friends.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Why Conflict of Interest are
Generally Prohibited:
1. The professional obligation to employers is
very important in that it overrides in the vast
majority of cases any appeal to self-interest
on the job.
2. The professional obligation to employers is
easily threatened by self-interest (given
human nature) in a way that warrants
especially strong safeguards to ensure that it
is fulfilled by employees.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
What is an An Ethical Corporate
Climate?
- a working environment that is conducive to
morally responsible conduct.
- within corporations it is produced by a
combination of formal organization and
policies, informal traditions and practices, and
personal attitudes and commitments.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Features of an Ethical Corporate
Climate:
1. Ethical values in their full complexity are
widely acknowledged and appreciated by
managers and employees alike.
2. The use of ethical language is honestly
applied and recognized as a legitimate part
of corporate dialogue. This can be done by
using a prominent code of ethics. Another
way is to explicitly include a statement of
ethical responsibilities in the job
descriptions of all layers of management.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Features of an Ethical Corporate
Climate (cont):
3. Top management sets a moral tone in
words, in policies, and by personal example.
4. There are procedures for conflict resolution
and it is important that there should be
designated executives that employees can
talk to. Also, manager should be trained on
conflict resolution.
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AND RIGHTS
What is Loyalty?
● Agency-loyalty - is acting to fulfill one’s
contractual duties to an employer. These
duties are specified in terms of the
particular tasks for which one is paid, as
well as the more general activities of
cooperating with colleagues and following
legitimate authority within the
corporation.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
● Attitude-loyalty - has as much to do with
attitudes, emotions, and a sense of
personal identity as it does with actions.
It can be understood as agency-loyalty
that is motivated by a positive
identification with the group to which one
is loyal. It implies seeking to meet one’s
moral duties to a group or organization
willingly, with personal attachment and
affirmation, and with a reasonable degree
of trust.
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Professional Rights:
1. Right of Professional Conscience
2. Right of Conscientious Refusal
3. Right of Recognition

Employee Rights:
1. Privacy right
2. Right to Equal Opportunity: Preventing
Sexual Harassment
3. Right to Equal Opportunity:
Nondiscrimination
WORKPLACE RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
Employee Rights (cont):
4. Right to Equal Opportunity: Affirmative Action