ITC506 Information Technology Ethics and Organizational Conflict

Q2. What are the facts?

After going through the entire scenario it is determined that the junior project developer is much focused to the consumers and not that much serious about the status of the company. After getting call from the client he agreed to develop the system as per their changing requirement because the client was demanding for much user friendly software (Ruiz-Palomino & Martinez-Canas, 2014). In such situation the consumer focused nature is found to be ethically pretty appreciable but besides the demand of the consumers they are strictly required to focus on the project budget and project estimated time as well. Though, the junior developer failed to consider the budget but the program chief was worried about the agreement with the required change.  

Q3. What are the issues?

The main issue for this company was intra-organizational conflict. The project manager appreciated to the consumer focused nature of the junior developer but the chief programmer was unhappy with the decision because he was not ready to make the necessary changes as per the consumer requirement (Myers & Venable, 2014). If intra organizational problem occur then, that will disorder the entire work flow. According to the project management progress project planning is the very initial phase of project development. In this phase the project manager makes a feasibility study and risks assessment based on the budget and time as well (Al-Omari et al., 2013). However, both the intra organizational and inter organizational conflict were the main issues for the business organization. Improper communication can lead an organization towards massive success.

Q4. Who is affected?

If the demand of the consumer is accepted then the organization will be affected and even they disagree to the client’s demand then also they will be affected only. If they disagree then the client will not be satisfied and might not come again for another project. On the other hand if in order to meet the new requirement of the consumers the company agrees then that will affect the economic status of the company (Vassio, Metwalley & Giordano, 2016).  According to scenario at the very initial phase the project finance manager estimated the budget as per the requirement of the client but if they change the requirement to make the software much user friendly then, additional budget and tie will also be needed. This is not at all beneficial for the company and for the employees also.  Again if it is found that for making a user friendly system for the client different expert team is needed those for training and development extra budget will be needed and that will not at all found to be beneficial for the company and it will affect the consumers.

Q5. What are the ethical issues and their implications?

The main ethical issue that has been occurred in the organization is the intra organizational conflict. Due to intra organizational conflict the employees will not at all feel free to communicate with their senior developers and managers as well. Due to this reason, the developers might not be able to complete the project within the estimated project budget and time (Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2016). In order to combat these issues, the developer should focus on only those aspects which are easily implemented within the budget. Out of contract work could affect the revenue structure of the company and the mental state of the employees and project manager as well.

Q6. What could have been done about it?

For mitigating the inter organizational and intra organizational issues and to deliver the desired product to the clients on allotted time work co operation is very much required to be adopted by the system developers and company executives as well. The project development team should consider all the respective tools and technologies those are necessary as well as helpful for the software development company.  Beneficial organizational policy, mission statement, vision and strategies are very much important for the company to be undertaken to mitigate the organizational issues. Proper training and development will encourage the developers to improve the existing system for mitigating the organizational issues (Muller et al., 2013). After consideration of the workplace ethical policies it has been found that, project budget and project techniques and tools are required to be developed for mitigating the issues of project.

Q7. What are the options?

Based on the project quality and current situation of the company it can be said that different options are there through which the ethical issues could be mitigated. The factors rather components those are needed to be adopted for encouraging the workplace status includes professionalism, the primacy of the interested public, honesty, the increment of quality of life, professional development and competence (Myers & Venable, 2014).

Q8. Which option is the best and why?

Among these options the most suitable option is to select honesty and professionalism in the software development company, to resolve this kind of situational error. The issues that the company might face due to lack of professionalism will be resolved after adopting the standard code of ethics.   

References

Al-Omari, A., Deokar, A., El-Gayar, O., Walters, J., & Aleassa, H. (2013, January). Information security policy compliance: an empirical study of ethical ideology. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2013 46th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 3018-3027). IEEE.

More, S. K., Bass, J. M., & Meziane, F. (2015). An Exploratory Study of Ethical problems in Digital Service and Engineering Project Management. In QuASoQ/WAWSE/[email protected] APSEC (pp. 52-53).

Muller, R., Andersen, E. S., Kvalnes, Ø., Shao, J., Sankaran, S., Rodney Turner, J., ... & Gudergan, S. (2013). The interrelationship of governance, trust, and ethics in temporary organizations. Project Management Journal, 44(4), 26-44.

Myers, M. D., & Venable, J. R. (2014). A set of ethical principles for design science research in information systems. Information & Management, 51(6), 801-809.

[Online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0npm9cEJBWY

Ruiz-Palomino, P., & Martínez-Cañas, R. (2014). Ethical culture, ethical intent, and organizational citizenship behavior: The moderating and mediating role of person–organization fit. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(1), 95-108.

Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2016). Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.

Vassio, L., Metwalley, H., & Giordano, D. (2016). The Exploitation of Web Navigation Data: Ethical Issues and Alternative Scenarios. In Blurring the Boundaries Through Digital Innovation (pp. 119-129). Springer International Publishing.