Ethics: good, evil, and moral duty: business ethics are absolutely critical today, but first organizations must define what is ethical and understand that what is ethical today may not be ethical tomorrow.

• Author: de Jager, Peter
• Position: BusinessMatters

At the Core

This article:

* Discusses how ethics affects information management

* Examines how organizations can deal with shifting ethical rules

The importance of ethical behavior can be found everywhere in newspaper headlines today. Watching a world-renowned auditing company implode over a period of a few short months because of its perceived violation of ethical norms should place ethics on everyone's business agenda.

The news is filled with examples of how unethical practices strike at the heart of information management. Erasing data is potentially an obstruction of justice; transmission of data is potentially an invasion of privacy; and accidental disclosure of data is a potential dereliction of duty to protect the property of clients.

Ethics can be approached from at least two different directions. One can speak about ethics in the abstract, never bringing individuals into the discussion and, in doing so, ignore its very essence, or allow that ethics is a personal, contentious issue, admitting that any honest discussion must use real-life examples to serve any useful purpose.

Ethics is about deciding whether an action is good or bad and what to do about it if it is "bad." The problem in discussing ethics is that it turns everyone into judge and jury, each deciding what is good or bad behavior, inevitably attempting to impose that judgment on others. The community to which we belong, then, decides the ultimate ethics.

What Is Ethical?

The first challenge is to determine what is ethical and to define what is right and wrong. This isn't easy. If it were, there would be peace on earth. The technique available to sidestep the debate is to publish a proclamation or code of ethics that states clearly what is right and wrong within a particular community or organization as defined by that group. By publishing its code of ethics, an organization states "These are the rules we adhere to." However, publishing ethics doesn't guarantee everyone will agree with them. Consider the following ethical directive taken from the Australian Computer Society (ACS) Code of Ethics (www.acs.org.au/national/pospaper/acs131.htm):

4.3.1 Priorities: I must place the interests of the community above those of personal or sectional interests.

The ACS included this moral directive in its code of ethics only after receiving its voting members' majority approval; as such, it represents the group's ethical beliefs. Yet in the author's opinion, the directive is itself "unethical" because he does not personally believe that the group's interests should always supersede the individual's rights.

The purpose of this example is not to denigrate the ACS' Ethics. Its document is excellent, worthy of examination and, perhaps, even adoption by other organizations. It is used, juxtaposed with the author's own beliefs, to demonstrate that one community's ethics can sometimes conflict with individual ethics.

The point is that one society's chopping block is another's pedestal. To assume that an ethical rule adhered to at home or in a particular organization is ethical elsewhere inevitably causes problems. Privacy with respect to unsolicited e-mail is one such example. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States have begun to define through the legal process what is right and wrong with respect to bulk e-mail. Other countries have, as of yet, done nothing. Organizations embarking on international e-mail marketing campaigns should not assume their mail strategy will receive...