Codes: Introductory Considerations

• Managers and administrators have used them to maintain positions of control and authority.
• Professional societies use codes to communicate and enforce minimum standards of acceptable behavior.
• Codes can be used to support those who would be ethical in the face of difficulties. For example, codes that uphold public welfare can be used as "clear mandates of public policy" in a legal defense created to support those who suffer organizational retaliation for refusing to carry out illegal or immoral directives.
• This leads to an important fact about codes of ethics: they serve several different functions such as educating, fostering dialogue, disciplining unethical behavior, encouraging and supporting ethical behavior, articulating values and aspirations, and even presenting a group in a favorable way to the general public.
• This module has been designed to get you to recognize these different functions at play in codes of ethics.

Difficulties With Codes

• The following objections lead many to omit teaching codes in practical and professional ethics classes.
• Codes can undermine moral autonomy by habituating us to act from motives like deference to external authority and fear of punishment.
• Codes take on more than they can handle when they purport to provide us guidance for complex situations. The ineliminable gap between rules (which are general and abstract) and action-situations (which are particular and concrete) leads to serious application problems.
• Codes fail to provide guidance in complex situations that present new and unexpected challenges. Arguing that codes should provide action-recipies for all situations neglects the fact that effective moral action requires more than just blind obedience to rules.
• Codes of ethics can encourage a legalistic attitude that turns us away from the pursuit of moral excellence toward just getting by or staying out of trouble. Compliance codes are most effective when they establish minimum standards of acceptable behavior. They break down when they turn to more elevated standards that reflect aspirations rather than minimum thresholds. Thus, compliance codes habituate individuals to the idea that morality can be reduced to carrying out minimal standards of moral decency.

Reflections on "A Cautionary Tale"

• Why do you think this university faculty failed to adopt, or even consider, the draft code?
• What leads different members of a group to view the same code provisions in different, and even opposed, ways? What considerations guide individuals as they interpret codes of ethics?
• Can codes of ethics be used by those in positions of power to strengthen that power and extend control?.

A Success Story

• Three years later at the same university, another faculty group set out to construct a code of ethics in order to respond to accreditation requirements. They began with the idea of constructing a stakeholder code.
• First, they identified the stakeholders of the college's activities, that is, groups or individuals who had a vital interest in that community's actions, decisions and policies.
• Second, they identified the goods held by each of these stakeholders which could be vitally impacted by the actions of the college. For example, education represented the key good held by students that could be vitally impacted by the activities and decisions of the College.
• Working from each stakeholder relation and the good that characterized that relation, members of the college began crafting code provisions. Some set forth faculty duties such as keeping regular office hours, grading fairly, and keeping up to date in teaching and research. Others emphasized student duties such as working responsibly and effectively in work teams, adhering to standards of academic honesty, and attending classes regularly.

1. They discussed a flawed document, the Pirate Credo. This brought about three positive results: participants came to see how codes embody values, that codes serve different functions, and that codes clarify relations between the insiders and outsiders of a community.
2. Participants examined "bona fide" codes of ethics such as academic codes, codes of honor, corporate codes, and professional codes. Since codes embody values, they developed lists of the values these codes embodied.
3. The sample provisions crafted in the earlier stakeholder code effort were presented so that participants could identify the values these embodied. Previous efforts in developing a stakeholder code could be benchmarked against the codes studied in the previous step. Convergences and divergences were noted and used to further characterize the college's community in terms of its similarities and differences with other communities.
4. In this step, faculty members were asked to reduce the values list to a manageable number of five to seven. This led to the most contentious part of the process. Participants disagreed on the conception of value, the meaning of particular values like justice, and on whether rights could be treated as values.
5. To resolve this disagreement, discussion leaders proposed using ballots to allow participants to vote on values. This process was more than a simple up or down vote. Participants also ranked the values under consideration.
6. After the top five values were identified, efforts were made, in describing each of the remaining values, to find places to include at least components of the values left out. For example, while confidentiality was not included in the final value list, it was reintegrated as a component of the more general value of respect. Thus, the final values list could be made more comprehensive and more acceptable to the faculty community by reintegrating some values as parts of other, more general values. Another way of picking up values left behind in the voting process was to combine values that shared significant content. Values that did not make it into the final list were still noted with the provision that they could be integrated into subsequent drafts of the Statement of Values.
7. A committee was formed to take each value through a value template. After describing the value, they formulated a principle summarizing the ethical obligations it entailed, crafted sample provisions applying the value, and posed different challenges the value presented to help guide a process of continuous improvement.
8. The committee presented its results to the faculty who approved this first draft Statement of Values
9. The faculty then developed a schedule whereby the Statement of Values would be revisited, expanded, revised, and improved.

The following section contains short exerpts from the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. For more details consult the materials referenced in note 5 below.

• "The hallmark of an effective program to prevent and detect violations of law is that the organization exercised due diligence in seeking to prevent and detect criminal conduct by its employees and other agents. Due giligence requires at a minimum that the organization must have taken the following types of steps:
• The organization must have established compliance standards and procedures to be followed by ite employees and other agents that are reasonably capable of reducing the prospect of criminal conduct.
• Specific individual(s) within high levelpersonnel of the organization must have been assigned overall responsibility to oversee compliance with such standards and procedures.
• The organization must have used due care not to delegate substantial discretionary authority to individuals whom the organization knew, or should have known through the exercise of due diligence, had a propensity to engage in illegal activities.
• The organization must have taken steps to communicate effectively its standards and procedures to all employees and other agents, e.g., by requiring participation in training programs or by disseminating publications that explain in a practical manner what is required.
• The organization must have taken reasonable steps to achieve compliance with its standards, e.g., by utilizing monitoring and auditing systems reasonably designed to detect criminal conduct by its empoyees and other agents and by having in place and publicizing a reporting system whereby employees and other agents could report criminal conduct by others within the organization without fear of retribution.

Recommendations by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for an Effective Compliance Program

• Appointing individuals to serve as ethics or compliance officers
• Developing corporate credos and codes of ethics that effectively communicate an organization's ethical standards and expectations to employees.
• Designing ethics training programs for all employees
• Designing and implementing monitoring and auditing systems
• Designing and implementing an effective system of punishments and sanctions. These must be accompanied by investigative procedures that respect employee due process rights.

Compliance Strategy

1. The initial and still probably the most prevalent method for responding to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is the compliance strategy. This strategy is based on three interrelated components:
2. Rules: Compliance strategies are centered around strict codes of ethics composed of rules that set forth minimum thresholds of acceptable behavior. The use of rules to structure employee action does run into problems due to the gap between rule and application, the appearance of novel situations, and the impression that it gives to employees that obedience is based on conformity to authority.
3. Monitoring: The second component consists of monitoring activities designed to ensure that employees are conforming to rules and to identify instances of non-compliance. Monitoring is certainly effective but it requires that the organiztion expend time, money, and energy. Monitoring also places stress upon employees in that they are aware of constantly being watched. Those under observation tend either to rebel or to automatically adopt behaviors they believe those doing the monitoring want. This considerably dampens creativity, legitimate criticism, and innovation.
4. Disciplining Misconduct: The last key component to a compliance strategy is punishment. Punishment can be effective especially when establishing and enforcing conduct that remains above the criminal level. But reliance on punishment for control tends to impose solidarity on an organization rather than elicit it. Employees conform because they fear sanction. Organizations based on this fear are never really free to pursue excellence.

Values Orientation

1. Development of Shared Values: Using a process similar to the one described above, a company develops a Statement of Shared Values. These provide guidelines that replace the hard and fast rules of a compliance code. Statements in values-oriented codes play a different logical function that statements in compliance codes. "Principles of Professional/Organizational Conduct" in compliance codes specify circumstances of compliance: time, agent, place, purpose, manner, etc. These circumstances provide sufficient content to set forth principles of professional conduct as rules that can be violated. This, in turn, allows them to be backed by punishment for violation. "Ideals of the Profession/Organization state a community's shared aspirations. They set forth levels of behavior well beyond the minimum. And they chart out directions for continuous improvement.
2. Support for Employees: Since Statements of Values set forth excellences or aspirations, the role of the organization changes from monitoring and then punishing misbehavior to finding ways of opening avenues for employees to realize key values in their day to day activity. In other words, the role of the organization changes from the punitive to the supportive.
3. Ethical Aspirations: In summary, values orientations set forth higher standards for behavior. Going well beyond the moral or legal minimum, these values, clarified in an organization's statement of values, serve as aspirations. A values orientation requires that an organization find ways to reinterpret basic values as excellences. Hence, it is most compatible with a virtue orientation and virtue ethical theory.

Read the Pirate Credo. Then answer the following questions individually

• What is good about the Pirate Credo?
• What is bad about the Pirate Credo?
• What is the purpose served by the Pirate Credo? For the Pirate Community? For non-members?

Form small work teams of four to five individuals. Carry out the following fours steps and report your results to the rest of the group.

1. Review a few sample codes per team.
2. List the values you identify in the codes. Express each value as a word or in as few words as possible.
3. Identify any recurring values.
4. Record and post the list of values.

In this third exercise, work with your group to develop a refined list of five to seven values. You can refine your list by integrating or synthesizing values, grouping specific values under more general ones, and integrating values into others as parts. Do your best to make your list comprehensive and representative.

1. Brainstorm: list the values for your group. Keep in mind that values are multi-dimensional. For example, in the academic context, the values will break down into dimensions corresponding to stakeholder: faculty, students, administration, and other academic stakeholders.
2. Refine: reduce your list to a manageable size (5-7). Do this by rewording, synthesizing, combining, and eliminating.
3. Post: share your list with the entire group.
4. Revise: make any last minute changes.
5. Combine: a moderator will organize the lists into a ballot
6. Vote: Each person ranks the top five values

Each value in your Statement of Values needs to be accompanied by a Value Profile. Give a description of the value in everyday, non-technical terms. Think concretely. For example, those who exemplify your value behave in a certain fashion, exhibit certain commitments, pursue certain projects, and show certain attitudes and emotions. Try to think of general guidelines to keep in mind when working to realize your value. Finally, values challenge us because portray our aspirations. Think of specific ways values challenge us. For example, students may set for themselves the challenge of working responsibly in teams. They can further spell out what kinds of actions and attitudes this might require. Faculty members might set for themselves the challenge of grading more fairly. This could require actions like developing rubrics and refining exams to make them clearer. The purpose of this fourth exercise is to provide content to your statement of values and begin its implementation in your community. The following steps ennumerated below will help.

1. Value: Responsibility
2. Description: a responsible person is a person who...
3. Principle: The faculty, students, and staff of the college of business Administration will...
4. Commitments: Keep office hours, do your fair share in work teams, divide work into clear and coordinated tasks, tec.

• Read the entire UPRM CBA Statement of Values (individually)
• Discuss the particular section/value assigned to your group and briefly describe what commitments or challenges does this value present for the students, faculty and/or staff of the CBA
• List the most important commitments or challenges as precise and concise principles

Marta Acevedo, a business administration student, has a report due tomorrow. She has been overwhelmed for the last few weeks with assignments from other classes and doesn't really have time to complete this exercise. She discovers that her roommate took this same class the previous semester and has a complete report on disk. She considers using her roommate's report. Should she? What would you do if you were her?

• Is Marta threatening any of the values listed in the ADEM SOV? Which ones?
• What can be done prevent this kind of problem from arising in the first place? Should Marta have planned her course load better when registering? Can teachers coordinate to prevent overloading students with the same deadlines? Whose fault is this? The students? The teachers? The system?
• Can this problem be posed as a conflict between ADEM values and other values held by students and teachers? If so, what are values that are in conflict? How can these conflicts be addressed?
• Do you think the ADEM SOV adequately addresses this problem? If not, how can it be improved?

You are head of your department. A recent study has revealed that plagiarism, which is a university-wide problem, is especially bad in your department. Imagine your relief when a member of your faculty brings you his latest software project, a super-effective and comprehensive anti-plagiarism software program. This program does everything. It detects subtle changes in style in student papers. Its new search engine quickly connects to existing online paper data bases, greatly expanding the ability of a professor to detect the sources from which their students have copied. Furthermore, it allows professors to upload papers and projects from past semesters and provides fast and flexible indexing to help them identify recycled student work. Professors can zero in on students using recycled papers, and the former students who have become their suppliers. Following the recent lead of Ohio State University, you can now revoke the degrees of past students who participate in this version of academic dishonesty. In short, this new and exciting software package allows you to monitor the work of present and past students to a degree thought impossible even in the recent past. “Plagiarism,” your colleague tells you, “will now become a thing of the past.”

• Does this anti-plagiarism program threaten any of the values in the ADEM SOV? If so, which values?
• Is the department chairperson treating students disrespectfully by adopting and implementing the anti-plagiarism software? Can faculty treat students disrespectfully as "justifiable" retaliation for student cheating and plagiaring? Do two wrongs make a right?
• What is the cause of plagiarism? Do students do it out of ignorance of standards and practices of documentation and achnowledgment? Do they do it because they procrastinate until they do not have time to do the assignment properly? Do students resort to plagiarism because they have too many conflicting obligations such as family, job, large course loads, etc.?

You teach an advanced course in Engineering Economics that has both graduate and undergraduate students. At the end of the semester the students turn in a group project that comprises 40% of their grade. One of the groups complains to you that only 4 out of the 5 members have done any work. The fifth student, the one who allegedly has done no work, is an undergraduate. The others are graduate students. You talk with the undergraduate who claimed that she tried to involve herself in the group activities but was excluded because she was an undergraduate. What should you do?

• ADEM faculty have identified students not working together effectively in groups as a major concern. Do you find this a problem? What do you think are the causes of students not participating effectively in work groups?
• Assume that the teacher in this case is committed to implementing the ADEM SOV. Which values are at play in this case? Design an action for the teacher that realizes these values?
• Assume you are a member of this student work group. What can groups do to ensure that every member is able to participate fully? What do group members do to exclude individuals from participating?

You are studying frantically for your exam in a computer engineering course. It will be very difficult. But your roommate, who is also taking the course and has the exam tomorrow, seems unconcerned. When you ask why, he tells you that he has a copy of the exam. Apparently, a group of students in the class found out how to hack into the professor’s computer and download the exam. (They installed a Trojan horse called Sub-Seven into the professor’s computer which allows unauthorized access; then they searched through the professor’s files, found the exam and downloaded it.) Your roommate has the exam in his hand and asks you if you would like to look at it. What should you do?

• A group of students in a computer ethics class created a survey that asked students if they would avail themselves of exams obtained through means such as that described in the scenario above. Sixty percent of the respondents said that they would. Compare this to the value commitments expressed in the ADEM SOV? Is there a gap between aspiration and behavior? What can be done to reduce this gap?
• Suppose you took the exam. Would this have any long term effects on your character? Would acting dishonestly this time make it easier to do so in the future?
• Suppose you wish to uphold standards of academic integrity in this case and not take the exam. Should you turn your roommate in to the teacher? Would keeping this exam theft a secret undermine any of the UPRM ADEM values? If so, which ones?

Sources for Cases

• Case 1 has been developed by William Frey, Chuck Huff, and José Cruz for their book, Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to Computer Ethics. This book is currently in draft stage and is under contract with Jones and Bartlett Publishing Company.
• Cases 2 and 3 were developed by UPRM faculty teams from the College of Engineering during workshops held for the ABET 2001 Steering Committee and the Department of Industrial Engineering. These workshops took place April 6, 2001 and May 14, 2001.
• Case 4 has been modified from “The Plagiarism Detector” written by Moshe Kam. It can be found at the beginning of the ethics chapter in Practical Engineering Design, edited by Maja Bystrom and Bruce Eisenstein. Moshe Kam. “The Plagiarism Detector”, in Practical Engineering Design, edited by Maja Bystrom and Bruce Eisenstein. Boca Raton, FLA: CFC Press, 2005: 27-28.

1. Lynn Sharp Paine (1994) "Managing for Organizational Integrity," in Harvard business review, March-April: 106-117
2. Gary R. Weaver and Linda Klebe Trevino (1999) "Compliance and Values Oriented Ethics Programs: Influences on Employees' Attitudes and Behavior," in Business Ethics Ethics Quarterly 9(2): 315-335
3. Stuart C. Gilman (2003) "Government Ethics: If Only Angels Were to Govern," in Professioinal Ethics, edited by Neil R. Luebke in Ph Kappa Phi Forum, Spring 2003: 29-33.
4. Stephen H. Unger (1994) Controlling Technology: Ethics and the Responsible Engineer, 2nd Edition. New York: John Wiley and Sons: 106-135.
5. "Federal Sentencing Guidelines--Sentencing of Organizations," in Ethical Theory and Business, 5th Edition, edited by Tom L Beauchamp and Norman E. Bowie, New Jersey: Prentice Hall: 182-187. This article was reprinted with permission from The United States Law Week, Vol. 50 pp. 4226-29 (March 26, 1991) (Bureau of National Afairs, Inc.