Garcia is a renowned structural engineer who is hired for a nominal sum by a large city newspaper to visit the site of a state bridge construction project. This project has had construction delays, cost increases, and litigation primarily as a result of several well-publicized, on-site accidents.
XYZ Corporation has been advised by a State Pollution Control Authority that it has 60 days to apply for a permit to discharge manufacturing wastes into a receiving body of water. XYZ is also advised of the minimum standard that must be met.
This essay discusses the benefits of support for ethical issues, specifically ethics support by IEEE. It features a hypothetical case where an engineer is told that a new patient monitoring system, though faulty and potentially dangerous, will be shipped immediately.
From the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)11/11/96. The goal of these guidelines is to provide general advice to engineers, including engineering managers, who find themselves in conflicts with management over matters with ethical implications. Much of this advice is pertinent to more general conflicts within organizations.
Developed by The National Society of Professional Engineers -NSPE-. This report emphasizes the right and the obligation of engineers to raise ethical concerns in the workplace, and provides guidance on how best to raise such issues. It also guides companies that want to guarantee a working environment where employees can feel free to raise concerns.
Other keywords for this article: ethics and prudence; preferences vs. values; negligence; trust, distrust; ambiguity; moral ambiguity; responsibilities, general; professional responsibility; worker safety; laboratory safety; design process; engineering competence; environmental issues, global; environmental issues, chemical; conflict of interest; ethical codes and guidelines from professional societies; harassment, sexual harassment and aggression; workplace relationships; research misconduct; falsification and fabrication; plagiarism; authorship; human subjects in research; animals in scientific research.
Herkert, Joseph R., ed. 1999. Social, Ethical and Policy Implications of Engineering: Selected Readings. Piscataway, New Jersey: IEEE Press (in press).
Other keywords for this: consumer safety; design and the environment; ethical codes and guidelines from professional societies; ethics and economics; ethics and the law; ethics support; global environmental issues; medical information; negligence; privacy; product quality; professional responsibility; professional societies; technical and scholarly societies; professionalism in computing; risk assessment; safety & performance; system security; whistleblowing.
Herkert, Joseph R. 1994. "Ethical Risk Assessment: Valuing Public Perceptions." IEEE Technology and Society 13 (1): 4-10.
Other keywords: communication; ethical codes and guidelines from professional societies; public safety; risk assessment; technological disasters.
Layton, E. The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986.
Other keywords for this: obligations; professional societies: technical and scholarly societies; professional responsibility; code violations; ethical codes and guidelines from professional societies.
Sarah K. A. Pfatteicher, "Death By Design: Ethics, Responsibility, and Failure in the American Civil Engineering Community, 1852-1986." (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1996).
Other keywords for this: professional responsibility; ethical codes and guidelines from professional societies; code violations; professional societies; responsibilities, general.
Stanley H. Goldstein and Robert A. Rubin, "Engineering Ethics," Civil Engineering (October 1996): 41-4.
Other keywords for this: professional responsibility; ethics and prudence; negligence; trust, distrust.
Karen Fitzgerald, "Whistleblowing: not always a losing game," in IEEE Spectrum (December 1990): 49-52.
Other keywords for this: professional responsibility; professional advice; ethical codes and guidelines from professional societies; responsibilities, general.
A more extensive video resource on the Challenger story. A three-part video program and instructional module containing a pedagogical documentary about organizational politics, ethics and decision making.