Dec. 28, 1998 / Jan. 4, 1999
Facing ethical dilemmas
When do traditional IT perks become conflicts of interest?
By Reena Jana
The original of this document with active links to other locations
on the InfoWorld Web site may be viewed at:
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStat.pl?/careers/990104ethics.htm.
- Ways to resolve ethical conflicts
As chief technology officer at the large San Francisco law firm Morrison & Foerster, Jo Haraf doesn't want biases to sway her professional purchasing decisions -- even if it means sacrificing tempting personal opportunities.
"I don't want any conflicts of interest when I consider signing a million-dollar-plus contract with a potential vendor," Haraf says emphatically. "So I keep a dispassionate distance from situations that might influence me, including a free golf vacation or purchasing a vendor's valuable stock, even if it would greatly benefit my portfolio."
Let's face it: IT professionals like Haraf must navigate carefully through everyday ethical decisions involving junkets, biases, perks, and cost-cutting. Yet it can be hard to figure out whether a junket is just a bribe in disguise. Or when a "perk" -- such as using a top-of-the-line workplace computer to design the Web page of a moonlighting business -- is merely a nickname for the misuse of a company's resources. It can be confusing to distinguish between a seemingly harmless personal bias and a genuine conflict of interest. And it can be embarrassing to suggest avoiding commonplace -- but illegal -- cost-cutting measures such as using pirated software at multiple workstations.
These are just some of the scenarios that IT professionals face. Perhaps you or someone you know has planned to attend an unnecessary conference in order to garner a free plane ticket to visit a friend in New York. Or maybe you've discovered a small online betting pool between co-workers while monitoring their Web traffic. Have you ever scheduled extra appointments with a vendor or partner to get better acquainted before making the move to join their company? Have you gladly accepted a $100 dinner from a vendor who stands to make large sums of money from your purchasing decision, even though you would never accept a $100 bill as an incentive?
Some of these situations might seem like "standard practice" in the IT world, but serious repercussions, from losing your staff's or supervisor's trust to losing your job, might result from making an unethical choice. It all depends on who's keeping score, according to Bill Nance, a professor of management information systems at San Jose State University, in San Jose, Calif., who focuses his undergraduate and MBA lectures on tackling ethical issues in the IT workplace.
According to Nance, the first step in coping with ethical dilemmas is making sure there is a written policy in place to determine what behavior is acceptable in your organization. Otherwise, defining what is "ethical" for yourself, your staff, your boss, your partners, or your vendors is just too difficult, simply because what is ethical is too subjectively defined.
"Ethics is a highly individual philosophy and is a matter of culture and attitude," says Nance. "In the absence of organizational policies, there are gray areas. It's senior management's responsibility to establish what appropriate activities are and how those who violate the policy will be reprimanded. Senior management then needs to put it all in writing and make sure the policy is disseminated among everyone in the organization."
Although Haraf does not provide her staff with a written policy on what benefits are appropriate from vendors, she herself sticks to well-defined boundaries and feels confident that she makes her purchasing decisions with a clear conscience.
"I never even go to lunch with a vendor in a sales situation. In celebration of installing a big system, yes," Haraf says. "I can see why vendors send possible clients all of those free T-shirts and mugs and offer us complimentary tickets to the U.S. Open. They need to stand out. But I draw the line. I tell myself I made the right decision by saying no to a vendor before I make another decision that involves my company's money."
To some, Haraf's approach is extreme. For example, John Berkley, a product manager at Topica, a San Francisco Internet start-up, frequently made pitches to clients in his previous job as a marketing manager at Oracle. He wonders how trust can be established without a relationship-building process. He believes the sky's the limit in terms of courting clients -- if the courting budget allows it, and if both parties clearly understand and accept that a pitch will be made. Thus a relationship's seed has been planted, even if it doesn't ultimately amount to an immediate contract.
"Some companies just have the money and the reputation for being extravagant. I've been involved in client-courting dinners that cost well over $100 a person, and it's just part of the business," Berkley says. "My group hosted dinners and events to develop relationships, and I didn't feel like we were doing anything unethical. We were utilizing the relationships with our partners in the right way because we were up front about what we were doing."
Nance agrees.
"A good way of rationalizing an expensive business lunch between vendor and client is that the situation is all about relationships," Nance says. "If you slip a client a $100 bill, that's a far cry from conversation. But spending $100 and a few hours exploring common goals is OK -- as long as there is no explicit expectation."
Sometimes deciding whether or not to play the role of the ethics police in the first place can be a tough call, especially when dealing with an obviously illegal yet widely accepted "money-saving" situation. One West Coast IT manager, who in a previous job purchased substantial amounts of computer equipment for international multimillion-dollar projects, was advised to operate under a risky "don't ask, don't tell" policy when faced with an unethical cost-cutting situation.
"I was once directed to purchase $10,000 of computer equipment to be kept by the customer, who finagled the books so they didn't have to pay the ridiculously high European import taxes," recalls the IT manager. "I consulted with my supervisor, and we observed and deduced there was finagling of the books, but we concluded we weren't active participants. We didn't take the initiative to be legal or moral cops."
Nance feels such a way of thinking might end up costing a lot more than the money saved by the illegal money-saving strategies.
"If a client or co-worker is doing something that is beyond unethical -- something that is illegal -- and others involved know or `could have reasonably known,' as lawyers say in court, they could be considered an accomplice," Nance observes. "In the case of a multimillion-dollar company turning their heads to help a client save duty taxes on $10,000 worth of equipment, it doesn't seem worth it to jeopardize the entire company by putting it at legal risk so someone saves such a relatively small sum of money."
Of course, deciding to blow the whistle on a client's or colleague's unethical or illegal activity could cost you your popularity -- or even your job.
In this case, "you might rethink if you'd want to work in a place so at odds with your ethical standards," Nance advises.
Reena Jana is a free-lance writer in San Francisco.
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Ways to resolve ethical conflicts
1. Check whether a governing professional organization has made a written statement on your ethical dilemma. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), for example, have published codes of ethics and industry standards that can be consulted when in doubt.
2. Follow the "Would I tell my mom?" rule. In other words, use your common sense. "If you're engaging in an activity that you would feel uncomfortable telling someone [about] whose approval you seek -- like your mother -- then think twice about conducting that activity," says Bill Nance, a professor of management information systems at San Jose State University, in San Jose, Calif.
3. Subscribe to a mailing list that serves as a forum for ethical questions specific to the IT world. A popular source is computerethics@mailbase.ac.uk.
4. Consult published case studies of ethically questionable acts in the IT industry. In its professional journal, the ACM often presents questions such as, "Is it ethical for a programmer to use company equipment to write programs for friends during non-work hours?" along with suggested answers. McGraw-Hill publishes a slim paperback entitled Ethical Decision Making in Information Technology: An Introduction with Cases that addresses different ethical dilemmas.
5. Ask yourself who benefits from your actions. If you alone will benefit to the detriment of others, reconsider.
