Information System Ethics Moral Principles of An Organization Discussion

This week we discuss an important aspect of information technology: ethics.  Please describe the term information system ethics and note some of the principles a company can establish to ensure they are acting ethically within their information systems.

Reply:

1)Information systems ethics is the set of principles and ethics that apply to the practice of managing and operating information systems. According to information systems ethics, ethical behavior in computing affects the use of information systems. Information systems ethics provides guidelines for managers and users in managing the ethical use of information systems (Radwan, 2021).

These principles are based on three principles:

Ethical principles: Companies must have honesty, integrity, and trust in their employees. This should extend to the way employees interact with management and employees of the company. This honesty, integrity, and trust must be maintained as a fundamental principle in all dealings with employees.

Employee rights: Every employee should be treated with dignity and respect. Every employee should be treated with sensitivity towards their job and the company. It must be emphasized that the individual must feel free to choose where and how it wishes to express himself or herself, to feel that he or she is in control over the quality of life available to him or her, to choose freely how much energy and money is needed to complete the journey. This is the type of autonomy they define as autonomy. This is not self-indulgence. This is self-determination through effort, self-governing action, and making choices for oneself, guided by a superior ethical code. An information system ethics framework offers some valuable guidelines for a manager’s consideration of information systems’ ethical implications. These guidelines are based on an interpretive scheme developed by a group of scholars who studied the ethics of information systems from the perspectives of social constructionism, agency theory, and epistemology. These scholars’ four interpretive schemes represent the four dimensions of information ethics and social constructionism (Ruotsalainen & Blobel, 2020).

References

Radwan, N. (2021). Big Data Ethics. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security (IJCSIS), 19(1).

Ruotsalainen, P., & Blobel, B. (2020). Health Information Systems in the Digital Health Ecosystem—Problems and Solutions for Ethics, Trust and Privacy. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(9), 3006.

2) Information technology ethics refers to the principles that apply to how an organization processes, stores, and transmits data and knowledge about its own and other organization’s information systems, especially systems designed for use as support in its work. In particular, ethical issues related to technology use can have significant ramifications for an organization that wants to implement information technology that is highly effective in its environment but still retains appropriate autonomy levels. The ethical question raised here is whether they should be striving to create a world where each individual can live an independent life free from constraints and pressures, or where they should try to make life as easy as possible for those around us who, for whatever reason, are unable to do so. Suppose they try to create such a world. In that case, the individualist ethic will have to be modified or replaced, along with the societal structure and institutions that structure social relationships and structure the social interactions within them (Svara, 2021).

Ethical codes, or principles, are standards that a company or individual believes are right to abide by. These are not legally binding and therefore not generally enforced by the company. They do, however, form the basis of a company’s culture and are used to justify behavior in the eyes of others, to provide a sense of belonging and a certain self-certainty. In practice, the word civility is used to describe behaviors that, while polite, do not fit well with the organization’s established values and norms. One example of this is how many voluntary non-profit organizations, in their determination to be good people, behave aggressively towards people they consider to be untidy or unduly political or to be unsociable (Yilmaz, 2021).

References

Svara, J. H. (2021). The ethics primer for public administrators in government and nonprofit organizations. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Yilmaz, N. (2021). Business Ethics: The Changing Face of Working Life. In Multidisciplinary Approaches to Ethics in the Digital Era (pp. 184-219). IGI Global.