AUTHOR
Chris Barry, Mairéad Hogan and Ann Torres

ABSTRACT

In keeping with the overall conference theme, this paper explores how ICT, in the low-cost carriers (LCC) sector, is yielding customer service that is moving ‘backwards’ rather than ‘forwards’. The paper investigates ethical issues around the design of certain LCC Websites in the airline industry in Ireland. The study assesses user views of how airlines are delivering sales-focussed and non-sales generating services. User views on ancillary charges, regulation, and how favourably disposed users feel towards LCCs are also explored.

Global deregulation of the airline industry has resulted in the emergence of highly competitive markets with intense price competition (Kahn 2002). The resulting low-cost model has been very success as travellers eschew legacy airlines in pursuit of low, ‘no-frills’ fares (Alamdari and Fagan 2005), allowing LCCs to rapidly increase market share (de Neufville 2006). Traditional customer service has been jettisoned by many LCCs, rationalized on the strength of low airfares. The study uses a mixed-method approach, utilizing quantitative and qualitative techniques. Three research techniques were used: usability testing, verbal protocols and focus groups. Usability testing (amongst ninety-six participants) largely examined ease of use, seven verbal protocols explored the disposition of users towards the Websites and five focus groups were mediated to discuss in more detail issues arising from the usability tests and verbal protocols. Aer Arann, Aer Lingus, bmibaby and Ryanair were the subject airlines of this study.

The quantitative findings from usability tests (Torres, Hogan and Barry 2009) were conclusive – users were able to quickly and effectively reach a ‘committal point’, where they are psychologically committed to purchase flights. Other well-designed features included stunning route maps, sophisticated destination and schedule information, easy to see ‘initial’ prices and quick systems response times. In contrast, interactions with non-sales activities were troublesome. Finding the ‘final’ price was highly problematic. Making complaints proved to be a major difficulty and many abandoned the task in frustration. The availability and visibility of contact information was discovered to be utterly inadequate and in focus groups users were strongly convinced airlines simply did not wish to be contacted on non-sales matters. Only Aer Arann were compliant with the European Union’s recent directions on the provision of contact information. Two of the four airlines, Ryanair and Aer Lingus, supply only a postal address and fax number. In contrast, certain features and design decisions in the post-committal process are being used to: obscure the final price; force users to seek out opt-out buttons; and compel users to inadvertently choose items like priority boarding and travel insurance. Participants in study groups were unanimous that such features were intentional design decisions.

Focus group and verbal protocol sessions revealed high levels of cynicism towards LCCs. Aer Arann and bmibaby were viewed more benignly than Ryanair and Aer Lingus. While both the latter airlines rated poorly in terms of customer service, participants expected lower standards of service from Ryanair. A number of participants reflected on their dissapointment with Aer Lingus from whom they “hoped” for a better level of service. Tellingly, one participant traded poor customer service with price – “unless it is cheap, it is not acceptable”. Others believed that once the flights were cheap, the attitude and methods used by the airline were irrelevant – “most people have no ethics if they get cheap flights” and that what was acceptable varied depending on the price. Some participants were willing to pay a supplement for better service. Many in focus groups felt poor service would untimately harm the reputations of LCCs.

Significant antipathy was expressed towards Ryanair who were described as “cut throat and ruthless” offering “less service”. One participant stated that “with Ryanair you have to check everything” – a recurring sentiment that the airline routinely ambushes users with unexpected charges or unsolicited ‘services’. Many actually read terms and conditions for Ryanair because they felt that they would be “caught out”. The central concerns amongst users were unclear pricing, pop-ups, inacessible offers, hard-to-find contact information and inadequate complaints procedures. Distinctly, such features and aspects of Ryanair’s Website are consistent with the notion of ‘intentional deception’ in Deception Theory where an agent manipulates information to influence a target’s behaviour (Johnson, Grazioli, Jamal and Berryman 2001; Grazioli and Jarvenpaa 2003; Mingers and Walsham 2008).

Despite cynicism and distrust most participants flew regularly with LCCs. This contrasts with much literature on trust that emphasise its importance in Website design (Roy, Dewit and Aubert 2001; Grabner-Kraeuter 2002; Gefen and Straub 2003; Wang and Emurian 2005) and claims that un-satisified users will not return (Kim and Stoel 2004; Mavlanova, Benbunan-Fich and Kumar 2008).

Following an EU-wide investigation conducted by the European Consumer Affairs Commissioner, that found widespread ‘unfair and misleading’ practices, the Parliament issued a directive to end ambiguous practices regarding airport taxes, additional charges and ‘opt-out’ features (European_Parliament 2008). Despite such regulatory attention, LCCs have recently made many new ‘innovative’ changes to the booking process which is now cluttered with disaggregated products that users need to re-assemble, to construct a flight of infinite variety and all predicated on the user, by obligation and via self-service, spending significant time and effort.

Structured and object-oriented methods, the most widely used IS development approaches (Barry and Lang 2003), have their origins in scientific research and are of a positivist tradition. They ‘assume’ an ethical posture on the part of IS/IT professionals. The authors would argue this supposition has become unsafe and ethical guidelines and frameworks in IS design; corporate, professional IS/IT and marketing codes of ethics; and ethics in the IS and marketing curricula, need to be re-visited.

This paper presents evidence of shared user perceptions that certain firms are using Web technologies to: conceal pricing; compel users to make unintended choice; and inhibit customer service. While such practices might be considered more subtle than outright immoral activities such as identity fraud or on-line scams, they are just as concerning because they call into question the ethical posture of known firms, managers and professionals. The research reveals an ethical void between the normative view and actual practice in Website design.

REFERENCES

Alamdari, F. and S. Fagan (2005). “Impact of the Adherence to the Original Low-cost Model on the Profitability of Low-cost Airlines.” Transport Reviews 25(3): 377-392.

Barry, C. and M. Lang (2003). “A comparison of ‘traditional’ and multimedia information systems development practices.” Information and Software Technology 45(4): 217-227.

de Neufville, R. (2006). “Planning Airport Access in an Era of Low-Cost Airlines.” Journal of American Planning Association 72(3): 347-356.

European_Parliament (2008). “MEPs All-Inclusive Air Fares Just Around the Corner as MEP Back Legislation on Transparency.” Retrieved 10/8/08, 2009, from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopresspage/062-33694-189-07-28-910-20080708IPR33693-07-07-2008-2008-true/default_en.htm.

Gefen, D. and D. Straub (2003). “Managing User Trust in B2C e-Services.” e-Service Journal 2(2): 7-25.

Grabner-Kraeuter, S. (2002). “The Role of Consumers’ Trust in Online-Shopping.” Journal of Business Ethics 39(1): 43-50.

Grazioli, S. and S. Jarvenpaa (2003). “Consumer and Business Deception on the Internet: Content Analysis of Documentary Evidence.” International Journal of Electronic Commerce 7(4): 93-118.

Johnson, P. E., S. Grazioli, K. Jamal and R. G. Berryman (2001). “Detecting deception: adversarial problem solving in a low base-rate world.” Cognitive Science 25(3): 355-392.

Kahn, A. E. (2002). Airline Deregulation. The Concise Encyclopaedia of Economics, The Library of Economics and Liberty.

Kim, S. and L. Stoel (2004). “Dimensional hierarchy of retail website quality.” Information & Management 41(5): 619-633.

Mavlanova, T., R. Benbunan-Fich and N. Kumar (2008). Deception Tactics and Counterfeit Deception in Online Environments. International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Paris, Association for Information Systems.

Mingers, J. and G. Walsham (2008). Towards Ethical Information Systems: The Contribution of Discourse Ethics. International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Paris, Association for Information Systems.

Roy, M. C., O. Dewit and B. A. Aubert (2001). “The impact of interface usability on trust in web retailers.” Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy 11(5): 388-398.

Torres, A., M. Hogan and C. Barry (2009). “Opaque Web Practices Among Low-Cost Carriers.” Journal of Air Transport Management forthcoming.

Wang, Y. D. and H. H. Emurian (2005). “An overview of online trust: Concepts, elements, and implications.” Computers in Human Behavior 21(1): 105-125.

AUTHOR
Ryoko Asai and Kiyoshi Murata

ABSTRACT

In April 1986, the Law concerning Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in Employment went into force in Japan. Thirteen years later, the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society was enforced. Both of the laws aim at enhancing to construct a gender-equal society and prohibiting gender segregation in workplaces. Furthermore, the Japanese government has recently adopted policies to promote work-life balance in order to encourage women to continue their careers after marriage or childbirth. However, the effectiveness of these policies has been deteriorated due to the Japanese culture with respect to “work”. This circumstance can typically be observed in the Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) industry. In this study, we examine gender issues in the Japanese ICT industry focused on its masculine workplace culture and practices.

The conventional work-life style had established during the Japanese high economic growth period (1955 – 1973); men devote themselves into their work while sacrificing own personal life for their family. On the other hand, women are considered as candidates for brides and housewives in the company, and two or three years later after finding employment women marry as a fulltime housewife taking care of her family. Additionally, the unmarried woman past their marriageable years and the two income household were the deviation of gender role. Therefore, they were dogged with negative image based on gender bias and gender norms.

However, Japan has experienced the economic depression in 1990’s, and the depression has raised decrease in average household income. Furthermore, Japan has faced expected labour shortages due to the declining birthrate and the aging population. These social situations have enhanced the social awareness that women should continue to work after marriage and/or maternity leave. And the laws which support and protect working women has enforced one after another, Japan no longer have any discriminatory treatment of women or men systematically. Under these circumstances, female full-time workers tend to be required to have an equal workload to males without ridding themselves of housework at all.

Now women play a more active role and work in the every industry. Especially the ICT industry has absorbed working women, because it has consistently grown and is expected to continue to create job opportunities even in the current recession. Job opportunities provided steadily by the Japanese ICT industry would be helpful for women who eager to develop their career as well as for construction of a gender-equal society. The fact that ICT workers are expected to be professionals due to their social influence may suggest that increase in employment in the industry is advantageous to improvement of social status of women. Whereas, the industry has faced the pressure for significant cost-cutting and a shortened system development period in the fiercely competitive, globalised market and, thus, the working environment of the Japanese ICT industry has become severe.

Given ICT and the Internet facilitate gender equality in workplaces as the government alleged, the Japanese ICT industry is considered as one of the most progressive gender equal workplace. However, in actuality, the industry is known as a typical masculine one where employees experience physically demanding and prolonged work. Additionally, the industry is notorious for its poor working conditions and bad business practices such as multi-tier subcontract in information system development. Although the industry provides employment opportunities, workers are forced to accept severe working conditions straying far from work-life balanced life. In order to examine in detail, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 female workers in the Japanese ICT industry. The survey revealed how working women in the Japanese ICT industry face severe working conditions; for example, some of them stayed workplace all night long, in such situation they slept with cardboard futon and newspaper blanket on a floor next to male workers. And they considered their work as physical work, not as intellectual work, and that the level of pay was inadequate to compensate for their workload.

However, all of them recognised that marriage was never an obstacle and that working conditions of them were the same in men and women. That is, though they placed themselves in severe working conditions, they didn’t feel particular difference or inequality between sexes in their companies. Based on the survey, we found several gender issues in the Japanese ICT industry. First, both male and female workers suffer off-balance between work and life. Secondly, equal opportunity in a workplace seems to cause increased workload for women. Actually, women are unconsciously forced to accept that housework and child-rearing are their responsibility. Thirdly, law enforcement to enhance a gender equal society has lowered employers’ incentive to hire women. Even though the original aim of the law is to address the problem of low fertility in Japan. Employers recognize that hiring female employees is costly.

Especially, the most serious issue in the Japanese ICT industry exists in the context where the employees interviewed didn’t recognise the existence of the gender issues at all. They have been accustomed to the male-dominated working environment. Therefore working women inevitably come to the crossroad in developing their career. In order to resolve gender issues, we could devise several policy recommendations. At first, social support for child-raising is necessary. For example public support for child raising will reduce workload of female ICT workers. Secondly, the reduction in corporate taxes for companies addressing work-life balance of their employees is another way of supporting working mothers. Furthermore, networking among female ICT workers across companies may be useful because this would clarify a role model of female ICT workers and they could enjoy peer consultation.

However, we currently face another gender issues which run counter the efforts of improving social status of working women. Namely, Japan has new social trends with an increasing number of women those want to become a full-time housewife, particularly common in women of the younger generation. And this social phenomenon obscures women’s role model which keep developing own career than ever before. Now we need to review the work-life balance not only from economic perspectives but also from gender perspectives.

AUTHOR
Mirja Airos

ABSTRACT

Theoretical Viewpoints

Images of the organizations are nowadays exposed to the drastic moves and changes in society, organizations and among individuals. One organization may have multifaceted, ambiguous and polyphonic fragmented images depending on the multiple discursive voices to be followed. Together these partial images create the overall and common image of that organization. This study aims to find out, how chosen three ICT enterprises are reflecting their ethical and responsible ideals and how the overall society is attempting to guide these acting firms through public discourses. Thus, there are theoretical scientific voice, official company voice and voice of the regulatory authorities or interest groups present in this examination.

Caring leadership and responsible business may be conducted by defining values and other basic principles: visions, missions, goals, rules and guidelines. Systematic communication on responsible and ethical issues proves the overall stance of the corporation. These days the stakeholder communication is crucial part of every firm’s strategic performance and different parties are waiting for more than just theoretical discussions in the form of public statements. (Kujala & Kuvaja 2002, 49, 72-75) Desire and willingness to communicate the responsible way of thinking varies and amount of which the companies interact in outlining processes differs. These are absorbing issues to be approached.

This paper reveals that major professional organizations and regulatory authorities, which are having impacts and effects to Finnish ICT field: Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), The European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO), Ministry of Transport and Communications Finland, Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA), Finnish Federation for Communications and Teleinformatics (FiCom), Finnish Information Processing Association (FIPA) etc. have their own published codes of ethics. Enterprises also have their own written ethical principles, professional guidelines, corporate social responsibility reports or like. These codes have differences in presentation and emphasis, but they are still in vast agreement on some general principles. This paper profiles also, how these explicit, commonly admitted and stated, codified rules of ethics are tight to the other implicit discursive statements, which chosen firms are introducing in their own discourses. Firms are using multiple discourses as a strategic devices, how to govern ethical and responsible issues. Dialectical and pragmatic way to see the multiple voices are relevant and also the contextual understanding of these voices. Both normative and empirical aspects shall be encompassed in integrative approach (Singer, 2009).

Empirical Viewpoints

This research attempts to show, how some publicly presented discursive thoughts are heading to formulate the stakeholders view and visualization on the ethical and responsibility issues of the selected ICT firms. Chronological contemplation is conducted through years 1997 – 2007, the aim is to reveal some extensive ideas on the subject. Last two years 2008 and 2009 of this longitudinal study has taken into account by revealing some descriptive statements. Reason for that is the ever-growing number of discursive statements.

In this research the contemplation concentrates on three companies, which are TeliaSonera, TietoEnator and Elisa, formerly Yomi. These corporations may have had many names in previous years, but in present paper above-mentioned names are in use. The development and the route of the two first ones are more unilinear than is the case in the last one. Selected firms differ in the size and fields of business-making are partially unlike, but the well-known definition (European Commission in Virallinen Lehti L 107 1996, 4-9) of the large-scale firm annual turnover more than 40 MEUR and total sum of balance sheet more than 27 MEUR holds true in every case.

TeliaSonera and Elisa are communications service providers and TietoEnator is service producer, which offers computing, research and development and consultancy services. Although these firms present the different sides of the broadly perceived information technology enterprises, these all have had operations both in domestic markets and also in international level and the scales of the operations have been multi-filament, making the firms equally essential for this kind of research. This way we are able to explore more comprehensively the common phenomena of different kind of voices, which are present in image building processes of ICT enterprises. The research has then more cross-sectional nature, too.

Methodological Viewpoints

This study belongs to qualitative research tradition and it has nuances of both interpretative and radical humanistic paradigm (Burrell & Morgan, 1979 and onwards). Critical business research as this study seems to be tries to create new ways of thinking (Alvesson & Deetz 2000, 22-31) and written texts and documentations are seen as socially constructed phenomena (Atkinson & Coffey 1997, 47), which are related to prevailing society and produced by individuals. Empirical examination is based on the official written documents (annual reports, responsibility reports, ethical codes, web-contents) of the firms and the theoretical notions are made with the scientific literature about business ethics and corporate responsibility and also ICT related references. Research data represents only some of the possible discursive cases, but in this particular study that procedure is acceptable, because of multi-dimensional and rich sources of data. This kind of data is called discretionary samples (Eskola & Suoranta 1998, 15–18).

This study could also be named as cross-case methodological approach (Gerring 2007, 1 & Yin 1990, 27 etc.), because of multiple cases and sources of data. Methodologically this study has signs of three various dimensions: case analytical points, interpretations are made both about the individual cases and also from more abstract entities, (Hammersley & Gomm 2000, 3-4) as mentioned already, discourse analytical elements and then content analytical views; analyzing discourses goes through different steps (Tuomi & Sarajärvi 2003, 94), data shall be categorized in a suitable way (Holsti 1969, 94-95; Carney 1972, 167-168) and one possible hermeneutic understanding is created. Researcher is seen as active subjective creator of meanings and it is relevant to recognize and confess that openly (Hardy & Harley & Phillips 2004, 19 – 22).

Conclusive Viewpoints

This study continues the scientific work, which have studied ethics and responsibility in ICT industry in conceptual-historical way and prospects and challenges for management and leadership with public-discourse based approach (Airos, 2006 and Airos, 2009) and has some neighboring studies among Finnish (Onkila, 2009; Kooskora, 2008; Takala & Syrjälä, 2008; Siltaoja, 2006) and international (Payne & Landry, 2005; Gilbert & Rasche 2008; Vaccaro & Madsen 2009) current discussions. In the paper the reality is seen as socially constructed phenomena, this is consistent with author’s thinking. (Ilmonen 1993, 69-70; Beck 1990, 17-23; Giddens 1991, 3 etc.) The reality and also business environments are fragmented to partial realities and constructing of the each actor’s own reality is exclusive.

Other essential perceptions or facts are the presence of the stakeholder issues in current discourses as well. Stakeholders are seen multiple ways and various dividing and illustrating approaches are in use as was present already earlier many cases in literature, too (Näsi 1995, Carroll 1989 & 1993, Clarkson 1998, Freeman 1984 etc.). Stakeholders may be seen as theoretical practicalities as normative recommendations or as instrumental methodological approach (Friedman & Miles 2006). In this study the stakeholder interaction is seen with more theoretical emphasis than as methodological practice even though three kind of discursive voices are explained more thoroughly.

At the same time firms are trying to reflect them as individual among others and also underline their ability to be open and transparent. Some of Seeger’s (1997, 18-19, 26, 34) ideas about diminishing the organizational ambiguity in their ethical and responsible image are implicated in discourses, too. Enterprises attempt to reveal them as entities, which allow different audiences and stakeholders to reflect their feelings etc. Interaction and remoulding of the ethics and responsibility interpretations is enclosed.

As also Elia (2009) also points out transparency is supposed to encourage stakeholder trust, separate the company from its competition and persuade new investors, clients and employees, which leads to better prosperity and growth. Corporations ethical and responsibility policies are tangible illustrations, which show the firms commitment to develop the operations and act in good way in business dealings (Wood & Rimmer, 2003).

REFERENCES

Airos, Mirja (2006). Informaatio- ja kommunikaatioteknologia-alan etiikka ja vastuullisuus – käsitehistoriallinen tarkastelu. Teoksessa Kallio, Tomi J. & Nurmi, Piia (toim.). Vastuullinen liiketoiminta: peruskysymyksiä ja esimerkkejä. Keskusteluja ja raportteja 10:2005, Turun kauppakorkeakoulun julkaisuja. Turku. (73-85)

Airos, Mirja (2009). Ethics and Responsibility in ICT -Enterprises – Prospects and Challenges for Management and Leadership. EJBO Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies. 14 (1) Business and Organization Ethics Network (BON), Jyväskylä. (33- 42)

Alvesson, Mats and Deetz, Stanley (2000). Doing Critical Management Research. Sage Publications Inc. London, Thousand Oaks, Delhi

Atkinson, Paul and Coffey, Amanda (1997). Making sense of qualitative data: Complementary research strategies. Sage Publications Inc. Thousand Oaks, California.

Beck, Ulrich (1990). Riskiyhteiskunnan vastamyrkyt: organisoitu vastuuttomuus.(translated by Heikki Lempa) Tampere. Vastapaino.

Burrell, Gibson & Morgan, Gareth (1979). Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis: Elements of the Sociology of Corporate Life. Gower Publishing Company Limited. Aldershot, England.

Carney, Thomas F. (1972). Content Analysis: a Technique for Systematic Inference from Communications. University of Manitoba Press, Winnipeg, Canada.

Carroll, Archie. B. (1993). 2nd Edition. Business & Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management. Cincinnati (Ohio). South-Western Publishing Co.

Clarkson M. B. E. (1998). Corporations and Its Stakeholders: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Toronto. University of Toronto Press

Elia, John. (2009). Transparency Rights, Technology, and Trust. Ethics and Information Technology 11:145–153

Eskola, Jari and Suoranta, Juha (1998). Johdatus laadulliseen tutkimukseen. Osuuskunta Vastapaino, Tampere.

Freeman, Richard E. (1991). Business Ethics: The State of the Art. New York. Oxford University Press.

Friedman, Andrew L. and Miles, Samantha (2006). Stakeholders: Theory and Practice. New York, Oxford University Press, Inc.

Gerring, John (2007). Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Giddens, Anthony (1991). Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge. Polity.

Gilbert, Dirk U. and Rasche, Andreas. (2008). Opportunities and Problems of Standardized Ethics Initiatives – A Stakeholder Theory Perspective. Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 82:755–773

Hammersley, Martyn and Gomm, Roger (2000). Introduction. Teoksessa Gomm, Roger & Hammersley, Martyn & Foster, Peter (Eds.) Case Study Method: Key Issues, Key Texts. Sage Publications Inc. London. 1-16

Hardy, Cynthia & Harley, Bill & Phillips, Nelson (2004). Discourse Analysis and Content Analysis: Two Solitudes?. Julkaisussa Gerring, John (toim.) Qualitative Methods, Newsletter of the American Political Science Association: Organized Section on Qualitative Methods, Volume 2, No 1. 19 – 22

Holsti, Ole R. (1969). Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. Reading, Massachusetts.

Ilmonen, Kaj (1993). Tavaroiden taikamaailma: sosiologinen avaus kulutukseen. Tampere. Vastapaino

Kooskora, Mari (2008). Understanding Corporate Moral Development in the Context of Rapid and Radical Changes: The Case of Estonia. Jyväskylä Studies in Business and Economics, Jyväskylä.

Kujala, Johanna and Kuvaja, Sari (2002), Välittävä johtaminen. Sidosryhmät eettisen liiketoiminnan kirittäjinä, Helsinki. Talentum. (72-75).

Näsi, J. 1995. Understanding Stakeholder Thinking. Jyväskylä.Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy.

Onkila, Tiina (2009). Corporate Argumentation for Acceptability: Reflections of Environmental Values and Stakeholder Relations in Corporate Environmental Statements. Journal of Business Ethics 87: 285–298

Payne, Dinah and Landry, Brett J. L. (2005). Similarities in Business and IT Professional Ethics: The Need for and Development of A Comprehensive Code of Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics 62: 73–85

Seeger, Matthew W. (1997). Ethics and Organizational Communication. Cresskill, New York. Hampton Press, Inc.

Siltaoja, Marjo (2006). Value Priorities as Combining Core Factors Between CSR and Reputation – A Qualitative Study. Journal of Business Ethics 68: 91–111

Singer, Alan E. (2009). Integrating Ethics and Strategy: A Pragmatic Approach. Journal of Business Ethics DOI 10.1007/s10551-009-0176-z Published online 14 August 2009

Takala, Tuomo and Syrjälä, Jari (2008). Ethical Aspects in Nordic Business Mergers: The Case of Electro-Business. Journal of Business Ethics 80: 531–545

Tuomi, Jouni and Sarajärvi, Anneli (2003). Laadullinen tutkimus ja sisällönanalyysi. Kustannusosakeyhtiö Tammi, Helsinki. Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy, Jyväskylä.

Vaccaro, Antonino and Madsen, Peter (2009). Corporate Dynamic Transparency: The New ICT-Driven Ethics. Ethics and Information Technology 11:113–122

Virallinen lehti No: L 107. 30.4.1996. Recommendation given by European Commission on 3rd of April 1996, about the definition of small- and medium-sized firms (text designated for European Economic Area) (96/280/EY) Helsinki. Edita Publishing Oy. 4-9

Wood, Gregg and Rimmer, Malcolm (2003). Codes of Ethics: What are They Really and What They Should be? International Journal of Value-Based Management 16: 181–195

Yin, Robert K. (1994). Case Study Research: Design and Methods 2nd ed.. Newbury Park, CA. SAGE Publications

AUTHOR
Ali Acilar and Muzaffer Aydemir

ABSTRACT

Computer is one of the important technological developments affecting our daily lives. Computers are changing almost everything in our personal and social life: from communication to education, from business to entertainment. Computers and Internet have become an integral part of our society. There is no doubt that these technologies have had considerable impact on our lives. However, the tradeoff between the benefits and dangers of these information technologies for a person or a society is controversial. Computers and Internet have enlightened many people but these technologies have also raised some ethical issues such as piracy, privacy invasion, unauthorized access and use of computer systems. Mason (1986) was summarized ethical issues related to information technology usage by means of an acronym – PAPA (Privacy, Accuracy, Property, and Accessibility). Piracy is one of the major ethical issues that have arisen in the context of information technology usage. Software piracy is globally widespread phenomena and costs software manufacturers billions of dollars annually. The ease of copying software has made the issue of piracy very well-known and widespread around the world.

Technological developments create new opportunities for action and new sets of choices that are ultimately of a moral nature (Mullen and Horner, 2004). As living in the information age, also known commonly as the computer age or information era, we constantly confronted with important technological changes and the need to create new attitudes towards new situations arose from the computer technology (Masrom and Ismail, 2008). As the use of computers and Internet has become widespread, misuses of these technologies have also increased dramatically (Banerjee et al, 1998). The easy of reaching, storing, changing and transmitting information provided by computers and Internet has made unethical behaviors much easier, particularly among students in the academic environments (Abdul Karim, Zamzuri, and Nor, 2009). Internet has provided a new dimension to human computer interactions. There is no doubt that proper use of computers and Internet is beneficial to both, students and academicians in the universities. However students enter universities from different backgrounds with different experiences and many students are unaware of ethical issues of computer usage such as software piracy (Cohen and Cornwell, 1989). According to Calluzzo and Cante (2004) students had misconceptions about what represented ethical and unethical behaviors in the use of software and information technology and systems.

It is possible that if university students are uncertain about what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behavior then this uncertainty will be carried forward into their workplaces after graduation (Calluzzo and Cante, 2004; King and Case, 2007). Employee abuse of company information technology resources can result in lawsuit or dismissal. Even though some organization adopted code of ethics for members, not every computer user and information system professional is a member of these organizations, and therefore does not necessarily follow these codes (Harris, 2000). Many companies depend on people who are computer literate and computer users face ethical problems everyday in the work-place. For these reasons university students who are future employees and managers should be aware of ethical computer usage before graduation (Pierce and Henry, 1996; Calluzzo and Cante, 2004).

There are some important studies about computer ethics awareness and attitudes among university students in the developed countries. These studies investigated the effects of various independent variables such as gender, age, study majors, relationships, PC ownership and PC experience to students’ attitudes about software piracy and other issues of computer ethics. However, related studies about computer ethics awareness and attitudes among university students in the developing countries are limited.

Gender is one of the most heavily researched variables in the literature of ethics. There are many studies that have investigated the role of gender in ethical decision making, beliefs, perceptions and attitudes. There is a debate about whether females are more ethical than males. Some studies found that females are more concerned about ethical issues than males. However, some researchers found that gender has no significant effect on ethical judgements. Although research on “gender and ethics” and “gender and information technologies usage” has increased, a few of the studies are available about gender issues in computer ethics especially software piracy. Given these issues, the main purpose of this study is to examine whether gender differences influence student attitudes on software piracy and the following hypothesis is proposed.

H0(1): Female and male students have the same ethical beliefs about software piracy.

The paper will first give an overview about the relevant literature and then test the hypothesis of the study through a survey on a sample of students in a public university in Turkey. Study results will be discussed for the researchers as well as the practitioners and compared with previous studies.

REFERENCES

Abdul Karim Nor Shahriza, Zamzuri Nurul Hidayah Ahmad, and Nor Yakinah Muhamad (2009). Exploring the relationship between Internet ethics in university students and the big five model of personality. Computers & Education, doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.01.001, (Article in Press).

Banerjee Debasish, Cronan Timothy Paul, and Jones Thomas W. (1998), “Modeling IT Ethics- A Study in Situational Ethics”, MIS Quarterly, Volume 22, Number 1, 31–60.

Calluzzo Vincent J., and Cante Charles J. (2004). Ethics in Information Technology and Software Use. Journal of Business Ethics, 51, 301–312.

Cohen Eli and Cornwell Larry (1989). College Students Believe Piracy is Acceptable. CIS Educator Forum, 1(3), 2–5.

Harris Albert L. (2000). IS Ethical Attitudes Among College Students: A Comparative Study. The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference, 2000, v. 17.

Mason Richard O. (1986). Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age. Management Information Systems Quarterly, Volume 10, Number 1, 5–12.

Masrom Maslin, and Ismail Zuraini (2008), “Computer Security and Computer Ethics Awareness: A Component of Management Information System” International Symposium on Information Technology, ITSim 2008 26-28 Aug. 2008. Volume 3, 1–7.

Mullen Hilary, and Horner David Sanford (2004). Ethical problems for e-government: an evaluative framework. Electronic Journal of e-Government, 2(3), 187-196.

Pierce Margaret Anne, and Henry John W. (1996), “Computer Ethics: The Role of Personal, Informal, and Formal Codes”, Journal of Business Ethics, 15, 425–437.

AUTHOR
Marty J. Wolf, Keith W. Miller and Frances S. Grodzinsky

ABSTRACT

Typically, ethical analysis of Free, Libre, and Open Source Software, either separately or as a collective in contrast to proprietary software, implicitly has treated all categories of software as ethically equivalent in all circumstances. In this paper we explore the notion that some categories of software elicit different ethical concerns and that it is important to include those concerns in any analysis. By analyzing the ethics of Free Software (FS) and Proprietary Software (PS) in the context of a particular category of software, we develop a nuanced approach that helps clarify the ethical value of each type of software. We also tease apart the definition of free software to explore the question of whether there is some middle ground between FS and PS that captures key ideas in the ethical analysis of some software categories.

For the purposes of our paper, we define Proprietary Software (PS) to be software that is developed by either an individual or company and is made available to the public and other businesses only in binary form. Furthermore, it is licensed in such a way that restricts its further distribution and prevents reverse engineering.

In order for a piece of software to be considered Free Software (FS) it must be licensed under an approved Free Software License (FSF License, 2007). However, for our purposes, the four software freedoms provide more clarity about what those licenses are designed to accomplish (FSF Definition, 2007). Briefly, software that is “free” is affords four freedoms:

• Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
• Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
• Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
• Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

In addition, Free Software usually includes the notion of “copyleft”, which uses copyright law to ensure that all derivative works of Free Software are also Free Software.

Note that Freedoms 1 and 3 require access to the source code. In the analysis in this paper we find times when access to the source code is sufficient to mitigate ethical concerns. We will call all software that has its source code available in a standard electronic format, Source Code Available Software (SCAS). This is not to be confused with Open Source Software (OSS), which also has a formal definition that includes more than just available source code (Coar, 2007). While there are some important differences between FS and OSS, those differences do not impact the discussion in this paper and we use FS to refer to both.

For clarity, when we talk about software type, we are referring to whether it is FS, PS, SCAS or some modification of one of these types. We use the term software category to refer to a collection of similar pieces of software that all accomplish roughly the same purpose. Some categories will admit subcategories. For example, the category of “Productivity Software” includes the subcategory of “Word Processing Software.”

In the paper, we make the claim that the type of software is a relevant factor when attempting an ethical analysis of a software category, whether it be the development, distribution, or use of software. We explore the relevance of the software’s type by examining the ethical tension between FS and PS that stems from the two different types of licenses. We consider a variety of categories of software and, using the lenses of both FS and PS, develop support for normative statements regarding the software development landscape. One interesting category that we consider is web software. Web software can be divided into two broad subcategories: server-side software and client-side software. Each subcategory offers a different perspective on the FS questions. Our analysis builds a case that there is a strong ethical argument for ensuring an environment in which FS web browsers can be developed. Our claim has an implication that extends beyond software; the ethical analysis also requires that the protocols and languages used for web communication be open and available as well.

In the remainder of the paper we consider other categories of software and accumulate evidence to support the claim that as society’s use of software changes and the role of software in society changes, the ethical analysis for categoies of software must necessarily be repeated. We give compelling ethical arguments that some categories should be FS, that some applications should be PS, and that some applications ethically can be either one. We also find that there are software categories that are most ethically robust when both FS and PS are available. Furthermore, we find that there are times when company involvement in both FS and PS is ethically appropriate, economically fruitful and technically advantageous. We conclude by noting that an overarching ethical concern surrounding software development is ensuring the software development environment has the agility to allow both FS and PS to make positive ethical contributions.

AUTHOR
Janusz Wielki

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with the problem of the impact of search engines on the functioning of contemporary organizations. In the first part an overview of the situation connected with the growing role of search engines in the business environment of contemporary organizations and the consequences of this process is briefly provided. The second part is focused on an analysis of the two basic forms of influence of search engines on contemporary organizations: direct and indirect. Finally the most significant conclusions and suggestions are provided