ethical issues,social issues

Rahul De
MIS
MANAGING INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS,
GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY
Copyright © 2018 by Wiley India Pvt. Ltd., 4436/7, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002

MIS : Managing Information Systems in Business, Government and Society by Rahul De
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• Understand the ethical issues concerning information systems
• Get an overview of social issues concerning information systems
2

MIND MAP OF CHAPTER TOPICS
3

ETHICAL ISSUES
• Privacy
• Internet challenges to Privacy
• Workplace Monitoring
• Types
• The Information Panopticon
• The Role of Monitoring
• Power over Users
4

ETHICS
• Use of information systems in organisations can clash with existing norms and social
conditions.
• Ethics – publicly accepted moral rules and codes of behaviour for social engagement.
Ethics, unlike laws, are not encoded.
5

ETHICAL ISSUES: PRIVACY
• Sensitive data pertaining to individuals (related to work, personal habits and
professional life) is widely distributed within organisations – who owns this data – the
organisation or the individual?
• Opportunities exist for the misuse of data and ethical questions arise -
• Can the organisation use private data related to an individual for decision-making?
• Is there a need to maintain confidentiality of clients and partners of an
organisation?
6

ETHICAL ISSUES: PRIVACY - UNRESOLVED ISSUES.
• Most countries have framed laws regarding the need for organisations to seek explicit
permission from individuals to divulge their data to third parties.
• But the ambiguous laws leave a lot of ethical issues unresolved -
• Whose data is it anyway?
• Should the returns made on sale of data be shared with customers?
• Who owns derived information?
7

ETHICAL ISSUES: PRIVACY AND RIGHTS OF CITIZENS
• Governments collect data from citizens and use it internally.
• Introduction of unique identity to all citizens to collate citizen records across various
databases poses a challenge to the right to privacy of citizens.
• Transparency laws like India's Right to information Act though strengthening
democratic processes, infringe privacy rights of individuals.
8

ETHICAL ISSUES: INTERNET CHALLENGES TO PRIVACY
• Cookies track user activity online and even maintain personal details, posing a threat
to privacy.
• Spyware are malicious software that invade computers through email or browsers and
report back user activity to their creators.
• Counter measures include laws and organisation-level policies and controls.
9

ETHICAL ISSUES: WORKPLACE MONITORING
• The need for monitoring has existed through the ages.
• Managements justify this need two-fold, to boost productivity – to ensure no 'free-
loading' and to spot best performers and reward them; .
• Critique of monitoring – it is obtrusive, leads to lowered trust in the workforce, which
lowers confidence.
• Pervasive use of information systems has increased the scale and precision of
monitoring.
10

ETHICAL ISSUES: TYPES OF WORKPLACE MONITORING
• Video surveillance
• Network logs
• Emails – incoming and outgoing
• Employee Identity – cards and biometric data
• Access given to outside agencies to obtain employee personal data
• Access to employee files
11

INFORMATION PANOPTICON
• Conceived by British economist-philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the 19th century, the
Panopticon is an octagonal structure with rooms on each side, with windows opening
towards the central watch-tower.
• This structure made disciplining possible, since it ensured the source of power was
always present, though this could not be verified.
• When organisation implement rules of conduct and other monitoring policies, the
Panopticon effect helps ensure conformity and discipline.
12

INFORMATION PANOPTICON
Diagram – The octagonal Panopticon
13

ETHICAL ISSUES: ROLE OF MONITORING
• Workplace monitoring refers to observing and recording the behaviour of employees
in their place of work through electronic devices
• Organisations adopt monitoring to check both, information entering the organisation
from the outside as well as that leaving the organisation
• All kinds of organisations use monitoring
• For some firms it could be a competitive necessity
14

ETHICAL ISSUES: POWER OVER USERS
• In modern organisations, the role of IT professionals has increased due to the heavy
organisational dependence on information systems.
• This leads to the IT professionals having power over others in the organisation
• Power in an organisation comes with a position in the hierarchy or with the
assumption of a superior knowledge.
• An individual is said to have power over a person when he/she can influence the
behaviour of that person.
• Exercising power, which is different from this, implies that individuals with power
actually enforce it on others, in a deliberate way
• IT professionals are more powerful in certain situations owing to their ability to make
IT users listen to and agree to their way of thinking
15

ETHICAL ISSUES: EXERCISE OF POWER
• Technical exercise of power – when the professional has his way, by stating a
technical fact without explaining and justifying the reasons.
• Structural exercise of power results when professionals use their position to influence
decisions.
• Conceptual exercise of power results when professionals decide the manner in which
certain results can be achieved.
• Symbolic exercise of power result when systems professionals affect users' values
and beliefs
16

ETHICAL ISSUES: AWARENESS OF EXERCISE OF POWER
• When both users and professionals are aware, mutual negotiations result in solutions
acceptable to both
• When the user is unaware, opportunities exist for manipulation by the professional
• When professional is unaware, he/she can resist changes proposed by the user
• When either party is unaware, unintended result is likely.
17

ETHICAL ISSUES: AWARENESS OF EXERCISE OF POWER
• Table: Symbolic exercise of power by systems professionals
18

SOCIAL ISSUES
• Workplace Behavior and Health
• Resistance and Conformity
• Changing Work Practices
• De-skilling and Alienation
• Telecommuting
• E-waste
• Managing E-waste
19

WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR AND HEALTH: RESISTANCE AND CONFORMITY
• IS face resistance from users for many reasons – the most prominent one being the
resistance to a shift in the power base of individuals
• Organisational politics and organisational structure are affected by IS – leading to
flatter reporting structures, reducing the middle management level
• Younger Knowledge workers who work with IS have replaced older middle
management across hierarchy, departments and divisions, leading to a generational
difference in employees of the organisation
20

WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR AND HEALTH: CHANGING WORK PRACTICES
• More information to deal with
• Increased monitoring resulting in increased productivity
• Increased workloads
• Increased paperwork, counter-intuitive as it may seem
• Rearranged work spaces
• Need for ergonomically designed workspaces to combat various sickness and health
issues
21

DESKILLING AND ALIENATION
• Introduction of information systems leads to loss of some skills used in manuals
methods of working called de-skilling.
• De-skilling leads to a sense of loss within the workplace or community, resulting in
isolation and disaffection, also called Alienation.
• The resulting inability to cope with new systems of work also led to job losses.
22

TELE-COMMUTING
• Telecommuting refers to employees working from home with a telecommunications
link to the office, which effectively increases time at work by eliminating commute time;
travel expenses are also reduced
• This presents security challenges to the organisation, which have addressed by
security technologies that allow monitoring telecommuting activities vigilantly
23

E-WASTE
• Electronic gadgets and parts, since they are made of toxic materials, turn into
hazardous e-waste when discarded. Improper disposal of such waste leads to
environmental pollution and health hazards.
• Developed nations mostly bury their e-waste in landfills or export e-waste to less
developed nations where this problem is heightened due to unscientific disposal
methods.
• The 1992 Basel Convention was formulated in Europe to regulate e-waste, but was
not ratified by the USA, which is one of the largest e-waste producers. Imposing
controls has led to a flourishing illegal trade
24

E-WASTE : EFFECTS ON HEALTH OF SOME E-WASTE POLLUTANTS
25

E-WASTE RECEIVING CITIES IN INDIA
26

MANAGAING E-WASTE
27
• E-waste can be managed better both internally as well as in terms of addition to the
global waste stream by
• managing acquisitions cautiously, preferring longer life components, extending the
life of components by moving them to non-critical uses and sharing resources
• moving to Centralised computing through virtualisation
• using renewable and recyclable materials

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