Ethics
-
We have heard lots of stories about hackers using social engineering or even paying employees to get information. It is not really amazing anymore and sadly, we kind of expect people to compromise their ethics when dollars are involved.
What is even sadder is our leaders, the management of companies we work for, who are supposed to set an example for work, build pride in the company, and help it to grow, are expected to throw ethics out the window on a regular basis. This story about Morgan Stanley executives pressuring IT to buy certain products in order to get those vendors to bring their banking business is nothing new. In fact most of the IT people I've worked with are surprised when it isn't some political decision such as this that decides which products they will use.
I know that people often scratch each other's backs. After all, each of us on a small scale usually wants to work with someone we know, trade favors, and show some loyalty to each other.
But when you put out a bid, it gets frustrating for the people that work hard to find out what they think is best for the company, or the best solution for a problem and have that circumvented because someone got to go play golf or had tickets to a sporting event given to them.
Or worse, the promise of a job or other financial compensation for steering business rather than awarding it. There are penalties for accepting gifts of this sort, and the article has some advice on avoiding issues if you are worried.
I don't pretend to have a solution. Nor do I think I would be immune to this. Andy, Brian, and I have spent 5 years trying to build a community we're proud of, often putting the profit second or third on the list to having a place we are proud of running.
I just wish it could be different.
Steve Jones
-
All those not wishing to get a job/promotion in the future, please insert your objections to being unethical here -->
Max
-
Here in the UK civil service they are very keen on peventing that sort of thing - we have a specialist defence fraud unit to combat it, regular business wide presentations, posters on the wall with telephone numbers for anonymous reporting of suspicious incidents and any hospitality, gifts etc have to be declared in the books provided for the purpose.
Maybe it is bureaucracy going too far but it presents an image of fair competition for tenders (and there is a whole process and tender boards just for receiving those and ensuring no frauds by employees replacing pages etc etc.)
-
Bureaucracy too far? Somehow I don't think it goes far enough, especially not all the way up the chain for party "loans" and "donations".
Spot the cynic...
Max
-
This can be tricky.
Businesses exist to make money. "Trade" implies goods and services exchanged for capital. Capitalism, viewed from space, purports to be a system - partially described as money flowing from consumers to producers; and the producers then becoming consumers of other producer's goods/services; and on the cycle goes.
In a perfect world, all parties benefit from all trade - but the world isn't perfect. There is imbalance in every transaction.
I believe unethical behavior occurs when intentional deception enters the picture. And the usual motives apply: greed mostly, followed by power and influence.
However, not all imbalance is the result of unethical behavior. Hence the trickiness...
Just my $0.02,
:{> Andy
Andy Leonard, Chief Data Engineer, Enterprise Data & Analytics
-
In Canada, the government itself is one of the worst offenders in this type of behaviour (though there are laws to try to prevent it). In some ways when governments enable this kind of culture of waste, the ethical questions become more intense, because it's one thing for a private company to waste its shareholder money, and quite another for taxpayer dollars to be wasted.
What I find more disturbing than when marketing gurus or executives try to impose an option, though, is when IT leaders do it. It seems like neither spend enough time thinking about the productivity and usability factors, and in some cases one solution is as bad as the other.
Case in point, a former client moved to Linux because their new IT guru decided it would be so. There's nothing wrong with such a move, at any level, except that in their case it was done within about 8 weeks, and at every workstation. It ended up crippling them for about 6 months, because their productivity dropped as users struggled, and some back-end support tools staggered to run in the new environments. Like with all these ethically-challenged moves, the reason for making the changes was personal fervor, and it blinded the decision-maker to the risks.
Maybe when the rubber hits the road, what we're talking about isn't unethical behaviour at all, though, but just old-fashioned stupidity?
-
Regarding the article referenced in the editorial, there is an admonition to never accept a gift of more than 'nominal' value. I've never seen a definition of 'nominal' relative to the value of a gift and the vendor giving them. Could hard-to-get sports tickets be considered of 'nominal' value by the vendor if the vendor deals in multi-million dollar valued items on a regular basis? How does the term 'nominal' help the recipient avoid danger if it cannot be defined equally on both sides of the transaction?
Perhaps the admonition should be to only accept gifts cleared by the legal departments of both companies. That gives the lawyers their say and the recipient the ability to avoid litigation.
------------
Buy the ticket, take the ride. -- Hunter S. Thompson -
Max,
I feel very sorry for you if the only way you can get ahead in your company is to behave unethically. If I felt that my company was forcing me to do something that was unethical, I would quit.
The major problem that we are seeing with company after company (and govt after govt) is that one person decided to do something wrong (usually for money) and convinced the next person to do go along with it. Then the next one and so and so on. If someone in the chain had stood up to them and said NO. Reported them, called the papers, anything, this would have stopped and perhaps we wouldn't have so many scandals in the papers these days.
I don't want to hear that "this is the only way to get ahead". That's baloney and we know it. A line has to be drawn somewhere. If we don't, then nothing will be sacred, and everyone will be left hanging in the wind as person after person decides that it's OK to screw over the person next to them, as long as they get a bigger share of the pie. But that will be only until the person on their other side puts the screws to them.
Will it be easy? Doubtful, we might end up going through several jobs. But when it comes down to it. I want to be able to look my son in the eye and have him know that I did what was right.
Bill
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam
-
What a very high moral tone and how wonderful that it can be taken...Know that Max can well defend himself but I'm just fascinated by the interpretations...I read his response as one that said "everybody does it - either willingly or because circumstances coerce them into doing so..and that's the sad reality"...a cynic's approach but too close to the "real world" to be deemed a fantasy...
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
The idea known as moral relativism (there are no absolute moral standards, right and wrong are what the individual decides) has brought us to this point in time. Two jobs back I reported to a corporate controller who would not accept a lunch, tickets, nothing from a potential vendor. He felt that in following this course of action, there would never be even the appearance of impropriety in the decision process. Too bad there aren't more like that setting the tone for those lower on the food chain. The fish rots from the head down.
-
I think that this entire discussion is insane.
First off, I agree with Bill, the perception that you have to be a scoundrel to get ahead is just wrong. You don't have to be a scoundrel to get ahead, and it is unfortunate if you feel you do. If your company operates this way, then you should get out before the SEC gets wise to your operating standard.
Second, I get the tone from the article that there is something groundbreaking in that you shouldn't accept gifts from vendors, that you should be careful about email, etc. Email is not neccesarily the problem here, if you are doing things that you wouldn't want publicized, then it is probably time for you to take a long look in the mirror and decide what it is you are doing with your life (IE if you feel the inclination to communicate something to another person which could be construed as wrong, then that is the issue, the medium is irrelevent). Corperations are in business to make money. That is true. I accept this fact, even though I don't agree with corperations in general, and I think that the whole system sucks. I submit to you that if a corperation is in business to make money, then why should individuals in said corperation be getting gifts, etc. in exchange for substandard, overpriced, equipment/services/software etc. Yes, I know, not all vendors who give gifts sell you overpriced/substandard stuff, but lets look at this from a logical angle:
If I am selling a good/service that I feel is the best that money can buy, and I feel that I am reasonably charging for it, why then would I have to bribe the decision maker of any company to buy it? I wouldn't since people would buy the product since it is in the best interest of their company to do so (and in general, individuals within the organization would benifit since the company would make more money, and thus people would get better compensation for it).
If I am selling a good/service that sucks, I probably need to bribe you into buying my product. Its simple logic folks. Why any dunderhead would risk his job, life, etc. for a couple of sport tickets is beyond me. I think that this is really less of a legal issue and more of a corporate issue. If you have people in your organization that are willing to sell out the company they are working for for a golf game, sport tickets, etc. are they really worth anything to your organization? Can you trust their objectivity to decide which product will best benifit the company? I don't think so.
Call me nieve, but this whole conversation seems to not make any sense.
Aleksei
-
Although as a fellow Canadian, I have to disagree, regarding government being the worst offender. It happens we have an impressive auditing system for our public coffers, but a recent 'patronage' funding situation, from a global economic point of view is only a pittance for a marketing contract and as 'wasted' money percentage very low as compared to most other countries. Even after proving there was fraudulent use of funds, the consequences were marginal and expensive. Further, the only effect was to increase the 'value' of people involved who did the pointing out that the gate was left open, after the horse has already left the barn.
In contrast to other governments where a million dollars is just a way of starting a friendship, whether it is through tax concessions, preferential tendering processes, and dinners and cross corporate 'favours'.
In the States it seems that it takes tens of millions of dollars to even get anyone’s attention.
But as long as people want things that other people do not have or at least they think they don't have, there will be these sorts of 'good will' gestures.
I will never change my point of view on this subject, unless there is a small briefcase with large bills in it. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more say no more.
-
Hi Bill
Just to set the record straight (for straight I talk do): I was being flippant
Show me an unethical bloke and I'll bop 'em on the nose. Unlike many of you I have actually resigned because of a lack of agreement over ethics: primarily they didn't bribe me enough mawahahaha (and yes that was a joke).
RPF2^£*&£3 (sorry, it's a bit difficult to remember) I'd have to disagree with you, it'd only take a couple of k to get my attention (I'm a cheap date).
Max
-
Alexander, you bring up some good points, but that's a rather naive view of the world.
Let's say you are Oracle selling your ERP system, or attempting to sell it, to some company. It's a $1M deal. You are competing against SAP at $1M as well. Or maybe you're slightly more expensive, but you have confidence in your product. You need some advantage, or think you do. The decision is a coin flip, so you give a few "gifts" to people and try to get them to lean in your direction.
Or you sell consulting services, but it's an annual renewal, so you want to be sure that you contineu to get business and take the decision maker out for golf once a month to ensure they think of you favorably. Especially if you have issues with your people sometimes.
Let's say you're a DBA and a vendor offers to take you along with a few others to play golf, watch a basketball game, something. Is it ok? Hard to know. When younger, I've been on golf matches where dozens of IT folks were entertained by HP or some other firm. I didn't have decision making authority, but I definitely had influence. Usually the guy or gal writing the check didn't have technical authority, so that's where my recommendation came in. That's why that choice is there on those surveys.
Was it wrong? I'm not sure. After all the US tax structure at least, is geared to allow some of this. You can take someone out for a meal or entertainment and deduct a portion of the expense. Did it win my influence? I'd like to say no, but it definitely did make me lean more favorably toward the vendor. I wouldn't choose a product that didn't work, but likely all of my choices "work", it's a question of which one I'll choose to deal with.
The question is where you draw the line. Is a $20 meal ok? A $50 sports event? $10 pens/shirts/swag? $500 in a strip club?
It's a hard thing to deal with and in my experience, myself and others, IT is not a whole lot better than the politicians. Those in office usually have a guideline, a $50 or $100 limit to gifts. What's the IT guideline? My guess is when it gets near $50, you need to put the brakes on and stop accepting gifts.
-
Well damn I'll just tear that cheque for 200 dollars for supporting the site then.
I was wondering if its because of the ethic reasons for not going to the strip club rather than the 'favour' aspect of the issue.
But come on, think of the girls ... if we dont support them through college ..who will.
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 31 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply