Management of Information Systems

Organisational and Intra-Organisational Structures

Ethics in information systems management quality

Many of the requirements for delivering a quality service in the management of information systems involves character and motivation. For example, one author defined quality as involving: prompt attention to complaints; good customer communications; showing respect and courtesy; keeping appointments and commitments; appearance and neatness and technical ability. Most of these involve ethical considerations and the development of ethical frameworks both for information systems development and IT service management. How can we do this? We need both processes and frameworks. Processes are steps which we can undertake during systems development which encourage the systems developers to reflect on and consider the ethical implications of the systems and services they are developing and implementing. Framework give guidance and hooks on which to reflect in the ethical issues of information systems. Many frameworks have been developed to identify issues that should be considered in systems and service development, for example PAPA which stands for privacy, accuracy, property, and accessibility. One such recently developed framework is ACTIVE ethics which stands for Autonomy, Community, Transparency, Identity, Values and Empathy.ACTIVE ethics tries to go beyond PAPA and provide a framework based on virtue ethics.

Task
Explain why ethics is an important aspect of information systems development. With examples such how ethics can be embedded into the process of information system development. Using a business intelligence system as an example apply the ACTIVE ethics framework. Why doesn't ethics get a higher profile in IT departments?