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Type / Character- istics |
Managers and engineers: role and participation | Centrality of ethics and values | Allocation of praise and blame |
With holding informat- ion |
Treatment of dissent and DPOs |
| Finance-Driven |
Managers play line role (=make decisions) Engineers provide technical information (=staff role) |
Ethics and values are side constraints dealt with when they oppose financial consideations |
Allocated according to hierarchical position: praise goes up and blame goes down. |
Managers withhold to control and protect secrets. Engineers withhold bad news to avoid blame. |
"Shoot the messenger!" Dissent disloyalty and betrayal. |
| Customer-Driven |
Managers make decisions on financial matters. Engineers "go to the mat" on engineering matters. |
Ethics and values are not central but are still important. |
Praise and blame are fairly allocated based on assigned responsi-bility and contribution. |
Informat- |
Differences occur but engineers are expected to advocate their perspective in decision making process. |
| Quality-Driven |
Manager and engineering distinction drops out. Inter-disciplinary |
Ethics and values are constitutive of the organi-zation's identity. |
Praise and blame are attributed to group and distributed to individuals within according to contribution. |
Open consensus process ensures that needed informat- |
Engineers and managers work toward consensus by gathering more information, continuing the discussion, and (as last resort) postponing the decision until consensus is reached. |
Breakdown of Table
- Moral ecologies can be categorized according to a series of considerations. The table above focuses on five.
- First, managers and engineers occupy distinct roles and participate differently in the decision making process. Managers play the line role. They collect information to make decisions that govern the day to day operations of the corporation. Engineers are hired as staff employees. They provide technical information to decision makers but do not participate directly in the decision making process. This raises difficulties when engineers, for technical or ethical reasons, disagree with the decisions taken by their managers. The line and staff roles channel decision making and constrain dissent.
- Moral ecologies can also be typed according to the centrality of ethical considerations in the corporation's goals, charter, operations, and even identity. Ethical considerations can range from (1) playing a central role, (2) to playing an important but subordinate role, (3) to being marginalized as irrelevant side constraints. The importance a corporation places on ethics colors all the other categories mentioned in the table above. If ethics is central to a corporation then it plays a central role in the de cision making process, guides the allocation of praise and blame, determines the nature and amount of information shared in the decision making process, and determines how an organization treats dissent and disagreement.
- A corporation's conception of responsibility is revealed through the ways in which it allocates praise and blame. Significant differences arise between the way finance companies assign praise and blame and the ways these are allocated in quality or customer driven companies. Again, this related to the roles played by engineers and managers and the centrality of ethics in the corporation's governance.
- Ethical problems arise when crucial information is withheld from the decision making process. Hence, the flow of communication and the kinds of situations in which communication flow is disrupted helps to characterize a moral ecology. For example, the Hitachi report asserts that communication between managers and engineers breaks down predictably within finance-driven companies. This breakdown is grounded in the characteristics of the finance-driven moral ecology, especially in differences between the managerial and engineering roles and the extent to which managers and engineers participate in decision making.
- Finally, moral ecologies can be classified according to how they treat dissent and dissenting professional opinions. Dissent is less likely in quality than in finance-driven companies. While finance-driven companies treat dissent as disloyalty, quality-and customer-driven driven companies treat dissent as a stage in the process of reaching consensus.
Finance-Driven Companies
- Finance-driven companies place financial objectives at the very heart of their constitutive objectives and corporate identity. For example, such companies are focused on maximizing returns for investors.
- Manager and Engineer Roles and Participation in Decision Making Process: Managers play the line role in that they make the decisions that drive the day to day operations of the corporation. They bear responsibility for the consequences of their decisions and they are also responsible as the faithful agents of the company's directors. Being a faithful agent requires that one treat another's interests as one's own, maintain confidentialities, and avoid interests that conflict with the director. Engineers play the staff role, that is, they answer questions put to them by managers and are responsible for providing competent technical information. However, they do not participate directly in the decision making process, nor do they bear responsibility for the results of their manager's decisions.
- Centrality of ethics and values in the corporations decision making process: Ethical consid erations play only the role of side constraits in the setting of corporate policity and in the formulation and execution of its decisions. This means that ethical considerations are important only if they promote or interfere with the central, financial objectives. If appearing philanthropical is good for a corporation's image (and generates customers and profits) then the corporation appears philanthropic. If the corporation is likely to get caught in an ethical violation (excessive pollution) and this negative publicity will lower its prestige (and profits) then the corporation will not commit the violation. But in each case, the end is the promotion of financial objectives and the means are appearing ethical.
- Allocating Praise and BlameJackall goes into detail on how finance-driven corporations (and bureaucracies in general) assign praise and blame. The crucial factor is one's position in the corporate hierarchy. Praise works its way up the corporate ladder. If engineer Smith saves the company from a severe financial loss, then Smith's supervisor (or his supervisor's supervisor) gets the credit. However, if Smith's supervisor messes up, the blame passes down the corporate ladder to Smith. Praise moves up the corporate hierarchy, blame down.
- Information Exchange between Engineers and Managers: In finance driven companies, man agers withhold information from the engineers under their supervision for a variety of reasons. For example, if it is proprietary information, the manager may withhold all or part to prevent engineers from leaving the firm and revealing its secrets to a competitor. Managers may also use information to wield power and authority. By keeping engineers in the dark (like mushrooms) they effectively maintain authority and prevent dissent. On the other hand, engineers withhold bad news from their managers to avoid blame as well as the "shoot the messenger" syndrome. (When the incompetent general receives bad news from a soldier, he shoots the soldier rather than respond to the news.)
- Handling Dissenting Professional Opinions: Dissent is interpreted as disloyalty in finance-driven companies. This organizational habit (maintained by managers to hold on to their authority) will even undermine DPO (dissenting professional opinion) procedures that look good on paper. A good DPO procedure communicates the opinion to several levels of supervisor, allows for the independent investigation of the merits of the opinion, and prevents retaliation against the professional asserting the opinion. But ruthless managers find ways to undermine such a procedure at all levels. Engineers may claim the right not to be held as scape goats to administrative incompetence. (See the Theory Building Activities: Rights module) This right may be supported on paper by a detailed DPO procedure. But it also has to be implemented at all levels and continually monitored.
Customer-Driven Companies
- Customer-driven companies focus on customer satisfaction. If the customer asks for or is satisfied with a lower quality product, then this is an acceptable result for this type of company as opposed to a quality driven company which would stand fast with the higher quality product.
- Managers and engineers: roles and participation: Managers make decisions on financial matters. But engineers are expected to "go to the mat" for engineering standards when these form all or part of the decision. Hence the distinction between managers (playing the line role) and engineers (playing the staff role) weakens, and engineers play a much more active role (advocates for engineering standards) in decision making. (Engineering standards include engineering ethics standards.)
- Centrality of Ethics and Values: While customer satisfaction plays the central role, ethical considerations are still important, especially regarding the ethical treatment of customers and reflecting the ethical values held by the customers. In many cases, it is difficult to distinguish quality and customer driven companies as the role ethical standards play gets closer to a central, constitutive one.
- Allocation of Praise and Blame: Responsibility in customer driven companies is tied closely to individual performance and contribution. This is because customer satisfaction is a more objective criterion than the internal political standards that dominate finance driven companies. Responsibility is closely alligned with contribution.
- Withholding Information: Information enhances control and responsibility. (The more you know, the more responsibly you can act.) Since praise and blame are allocated according to contribution, there is less incentive to withhold information. If communication gaps arise between engineers and managers, these are much more likely to hinge on disciplinary differences. Engineers may have trouble communicating technical information to managers, or appear condescending by "dumbing down" the information. Managers may have difficulties communicating financial constraints to engineers who focus on quality standards. But these are minor, resolvable gaps.
- Treatment of Dissent: Dissent and disagreement are not only tolerated but actually expected. Managers expect engineers to advocate for issues in their sphere as they pertain to the decision making process. This process itself is adversarial because it is assumed that this is the best way to get all the information out on the table. Bad news and professional dissenting opinions are not interpreted as disloyalty; in fact, disloyalty lies in refusing to expose flaws in the choices proposed by one's supervisor. Managers expect their engineers to "go to the mat" when advocating technical positions based on their professional judgment.
Quality-Driven Companies
- Quality-driven companies stand out for the emphasis they place on achieving high engineering standards and on elevating the participation of the engineer in the decision making process. As is implied by the name, the central focus of these corporations is the achievement of high quality in products and services.
- Managers and Engineers: Role and Participation: In quality-driven companies, the distinction between the manager and engineering roles drops out. For example, while engineers play the staff role and provide expert engineering advice, they also participate fully in the decision making process. The locus of decision making moves from individual managers to small interdisciplinary groups. These groups, in turn, carry out consensus-based decision making procedures.
- Centrality of Ethics and Values: In quality-driven companies, ethics and values are central to the organization's objectives, charter, and identity. This has a decisive impact on the role of the engineer in the decision-making process. In customer driven companies, engineers are expected to advocate engineering and ethical standards precisely because these are not central to the organization's identity. But the centrality of ethical concerns in quality driven companies changes the engineer's role from advocacy to channeling technical expertise toward realizing ethical value.
- Allocation of praise and blame: In customer-driven companies, blame avoidance procedures no longer dominate the decision making process. In quality driven companies they disappear completely. Decisions are made by interdisciplinary groups in which engineers and managers participate fully and equally. Responsibility (praise and blame) then is allocated to the group. If it is distributed to members inside the group it is done so on the basis of contribution. But the primary target of responsibility ascriptions is the group, not the individual. And the response to untoward happenings is not targeting individuals and groups for blame but taking measures to learn from mistakes and avoiding them in the future.
- Withholding Information: The open, consensus-based decision process ensures that the needed information is brought forth and integrated into the decision. This results from removing a primary motivation to withholding information, namely, blame avoidance. Quality-driven corporations aggressively move to prevent untoward occurrences and, should prevention fail, make adjustments to ensure they do not reoccur. The motive to withhold information does not arise in this moral ecology.
- Treatment of Dissent and DOPs (dissenting professional opinions): Engineers and managers work toward consensus by gathering information, discussing the problem and continuing the discussion until consensus is reached. Thus, dissent does not stand alone but is considered to be an essential and healthy component to the decision-making process. When consensus is not immediately reached, participants seek more information. If consensus is still not reached, the decision is postponed (if this is possible). The most viable strategy to reach consensus is to continue the discussion. For example, an engineer and manager might approach a supervisor; in this way they bring a new perspective into the decision-making process. They might consult other experts. The crucial point here is that disagreement (really non-agreement) is not a bad thing but a necessary stage in the process of reaching agreement and consensus.
Skill Sets
- The four skills described below are derived from studying the moral expertise displayed by moral exemplars. Each moral ecology will require the exercise of each of the skills described below. However, each skill has to be contextualized into the moral ecology. For example, reasonableness should not be exercised in the same way in a finance-driven company as it should be exercised in a quality-driven company. The reasonable exercise of dissent is manifested differently in an environment where dissent is equated with disloyalty than in one in which dissent is embraced as a necessary part of the consensus-reaching process. So your job, in constructing your moral careers within these different moral ecologies, is to contextualize the skill, that is, describe specifically how each skill should be practiced in each particular moral ecology.
- Moral imagination consists of projecting oneself into the perspective of others. It also includes multiple problem definitions and the ability to distance oneself from the decision situation to gain impartiality.
- Moral creativity is the ability to generate non-obvious solutions to moral challenges while responding to multiple constraints.
- Reasonableness consists of gathering relevant evidence, listening to others, giving reasons for one's own positions (arguments and evidence), and changing plans/positions only on the basis of good reasons.
- Perseverance involves planning moral action and responding to unforeseen circumstances while keeping moral goals intact.
Personality Traits
- Extraversion: Extraversion, which is paired with its opposite, introversion, has also been called confident self-expression, assertiveness, social extraversion, and power. An individual in whom this trait dominates tends to be assertive and out-going.
- Conscientiousness: Individuals with this trait are successful in carrying out tasks because they can discipline themselves to stay focused on a task. They are successful in the right moral ecology and tend to conform to the basic norms of their environment. This trait can lead to bad results if not guided by moral considerations.
- Neuroticism: This trait indicates a lack of emotional stability. According to Huff et al., "it is correlated with less effective coping and depression." Neuroticism has also been shown to interfere with the exercise of moral skills. Is there a particular moral ecology that can heighten the negative impacts of this personality trait?
- Agreeableness: According to Huff et al, this trait has also been called "social adaptability, likability, friendly compliance, and love." Again think about how this trait would operate within a finance-driven moral ecology as opposed to a quality-driven one.
Two Kinds of Moral Expertise
- Studies carried out by Chuck Huff into moral exemplars in computing suggest that moral exemplars can operate as craftspersons or reformers. (Sometimes they can combine both these modes.)
- Craftspersons (1) draw on pre-existing values in computing, (2) focus on users or customers who have needs, (3) take on the role of providers of a service/product, view barriers as inert obstacles or puzzles to be solved, and (5) believe they are effective in their role.
- Reformers (1) attempt to change organizations and their values, (2) take on the role of moral crusaders, view barriers as active opposition, and (4) believe in the necessity of systemic reform
- These descriptions of moral exemplars have been taken from a presentation by Huff at the STS collo quium at the University of Virginia on October 2006.
Skill sets, personality traits, and kinds of moral expertise are discussed in detail by Huff et al., "Good computing: a pedagogically focused model of virtue in the practice of computer, parts 1 and 2." These are published in Information, communication and Ethics in Society, Emrald Group Publishing Limited, Vol. 6, numbers 3 and 4 in 2008.
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