Hello World Who is General Failure and why is he reading my drive?

So what does it mean to be ethical? In essence ethical people exhibit three main traits: honesty, integrity and loyalty.

Honesty:

To examine what honesty is we need to look at dishonesty. Dishonesty has four main forms:

• Lying
• Diliberate Deception
• Withholding Information
• Failure to seek out truth
• Academic

If you are in academia you’ll probably recognise there are a few different forms of academic dishonesty:

• Trimming - smoothing data to remove irregularities
• Cooking - keep results that fit the theory
• Forging - inventing results or reporting experiments not conducted
• Plagarism - using others’ intellectual property without due credit
• Mutliple Authorship - motivated by desire to gain as many publications as possible

Integrity:

Intellectual Property - Property that results from mental labour (ideas, theories and inventions). It is protected usually in a number of ways including:

• Trade secrets
• Copyright
• Trademark
• Patents

Expert Witnessing - As a professional practices inherit to the profession may be required to be described in the court of law. In some cases professionals are called as expert witnesses to present an industry view - often, legal representatives may look to hire expert witnesses based on the testimony they are willing to provide. Expert witnesses are often reimbursed well for their contribution.

Confidentiality - A component of most businesses wishing to protect processes and resources that give them a competitive advantage.

Informing the Public - See my upcoming post on whistleblowing.

Conflicts of Interest - Where a professional is subject to influences, loyalties or temptations that affect decisions / professional judements less likely to benefit the customer or client. There are three different degrees:

• Actual - in which judgement is directly influenced by benefit e.g. Selecting a bolt from a bolt making company that you have invested in, rather than one better suited for the application.
• Apparent - in which judgement is not immediately influenced by benefit, but becomes influenced in a foreseeable future e.g. Selecting a bolt from a bolt making company that is owned by a family you eventually marry into and inherit from.
• Potential - in which judgement is influenced in the long run by benefit, but has not eventuated yet

Loyalty

People can have loyalty to differing things, but there is an order or heirarchy of obediance:

1. Loyalty to public and public saftey - above all.
2. Loyalty to profession
3. Loyalty to colleagues
4. Loyalty to firm
5. Loyalty to firm’s client

This loyalty can be fostered in many ways within an organisation, typical means include: values and standards, expections, respect for individuals and long term commitment rewards.