AUTHOR
Andrew Korac-Kakabadse and Nada Korac-Kakabadse
ABSTRACT
In the last fifteen years, there has been an growing interest in the subject of professional and business ethics. Organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the effects of (un)ethical practices on stakeholders (Adams et al, 1991). Public awareness of unethical business behaviour has sharpened, as the climate of deregulation and competition has shifted, impacting on the boundaries of accepted practice, with the media and investigative reporting surfacing many incidents. Public awareness has been facilitated by multi-media that rests on the advancements in information technologies (IT).
Furthermore, economies that are shifting from material growth towards added value in all its varied forms through information, ideas and intelligence, the “three I economy”, in health care, the arts and environment, leisure, travel, sport and service sectors, are increasingly becoming information intensive and at the same time IS/IT driven (Handy, 1995). Consequently these economies are increasingly dependent on the knowledge and services of IS/IT specialists. Although these IS/IT specialists are increasingly referred to in the literature as professionals, they operate as an occupation and at best can be seen as a para-specialists, without professional certification and codes of conduct.
This paper examines what constitutes profession, through an analysis of the pros and cons of a profession. The paper also explores the emerging need for IS/IT “professionals” and/or para-professionals to adopt codes of conduct. It is argued that sustained research output in this area is important in order to establish IS/IT ethics on en equal footing with other topics in applied ethics and the establishment of an ethical code of conduct for IS/IT “professionals”.