Terri Deems and others have been writing on this thread of ethics,
morality and on the thread of competition and collaboration. It's been a
most interesting set of dialogs.
I came across a couple of statistics that might be of interest to the
data-hounds on the list. It is from "Balancing Ethics and Technology" -
USA Today, 4/27/98 - front page
***********
Forty five percent of workers say they have commited at least of of a
dozen actions that are either unethical or fall into a grey area within
the past year. Survey of 726 workers sponsored by American Society of
Chartered Life Underwriters & Chartered Financial Consultants and the
Ethics Officers Association.
13% - used company computers to shop the internet
13% copied company software for personal use
11% logged on to search for another job
6% accessed private computer files without permission
4% - done something to sabotage the computer sustem or data of company or
co-workers
Result - companies feel they have no choice other than to monitor use of
internet, email, etc.
***********
My take on it is that ethics are viewed differently by different people at
different times. Do the shoppers above really believe that they are
behaving in an unethical manner?
And do the perceived slights and reactions in a competitive situation
"justify" the sabotage of another's or the companies' database?
And is the monitoring warranted? Or does it merely generate another set
of deviant behaviors?
I don't have any answers but find the situations, data, perspectives and
philosophies of continuing interest.
Scott Simmerman
SquareWheels.com
--Scott Simmerman <SquareWheels@compuserve.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>