Is whistle blowing ethical in engineering profession?
Is whistle blowing ethical in engineering profession?
Engineers face a unique situation with respect to reporting unsafe situations that are created by an employer or a client, in that licensed engineers may have a legal or an ethical duty to “blow the whistle” on an employer in certain situations.
What is whistleblowing in ethics examples?
Whistle blowing basically is done by an employee where he finds that the ethical rules are broken knowingly or unknowingly and an imminent danger for the company, consumers or the public. The whistle blowing may not only lose his or her job but may also experience negative effect on his career and personal life.
What ethical issues are associated with whistle blowing?
The ethics of whistleblowing is a tricky matter. Whistle-blowing brings two moral values, fairness and loyalty, into conflict. Doing what is fair or just (e.g., promoting an employee based on talent alone) often conflicts with showing loyalty (e.g., promoting a longstanding but unskilled employee).
What is a formal description of whistleblowing?
Whistleblowing is the term used when a worker passes on information concerning wrongdoing. In this guidance, we call that “making a disclosure” or “blowing the whistle”. The wrongdoing will typically (although not necessarily) be something they have witnessed at work.
Is whistleblowing ethical or unethical?
A simple formula: whistleblowing is exactly as ethical as the practices it exposes are unethical.
What are the three ethical principles for engineers at individual level?
Accordingly, the services provided by engineers require honesty, impartiality, fairness, and equity, and must be dedicated to the protection of the public health, safety, and welfare. Engineers must perform under a standard of professional behavior that requires adherence to the highest principles of ethical conduct.
What are the ethical issues that engineers usually encounter?
Ethics in Engineering
- Respecting others and ourselves.
- Respecting the rights of others.
- Keeping promises.
- Avoiding unnecessary problems to others.
- Avoiding cheating and dishonesty.
- Showing gratitude towards others and encourage them to work.
What happens if an engineer blows the whistle?
As we recognized in earlier cases, if an engineer feels strongly that an employer’s course of conduct is improper when related to public concerns, and if the engineer feels compelled to blow the whistle to expose the facts as he sees them, he may well have to pay the price of loss of employment.
What is whistleblowing and how does it work?
Whistle blowing only happens when there is a clear deviation from the norm in reporting of ethical violations. The case presented in this paper is about a medical electronics engineering firm called Air-Shields Inc. that manufactures life support equipment for medical institutions.
Who should respond to a whistleblower’s discovery?
When an engineer like Castro is making a whistle blowing attempt, he or she assumes that someone somewhere having the right authority will respond to the discovery. Such a response would arise because the person understands the moral importance of disclosure. In many cases, the whistle-blower puts this faith in the employer’s top management.
What are the pros and cons of whistle-blowing?
The overall intention is usually to promote justice and fairness and have a positive outcome for the benefit of all stakeholders. On the other hand, those who are subjects of a whistle blowing case may feel betrayed, and the whistle-blower can be considered disloyal (Waytz, Dungan, & Young, 2013).
