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From...
Do PCs make us unethical workers?
July 30, 1998
Web posted at: 12:15 PM EDT
by Glenn McDonald
(IDG) -- According to a study released earlier this month, technology is increasing the risk of unethical and illegal business practices.
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The survey -- conducted by the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters & Chartered Financial Consultants, along with the Ethics Officer Association -- polled a total of 726 respondents from a cross-section of American workers. Nearly half of those polled said they had engaged in some sort of unethical action related to new technology within the last year.
The most frequently cited action was "creating a potentially dangerous situation by using new technologies while driving." The next most common was "wrongly blaming an error you made on a technical glitch."
The stated objective of the study was to determine whether the advance of workplace technology increases the risk of unethical and illegal practices--an issue of obvious concern to insurance underwriters. The report does not establish whether there is a direct correlation between new technology and increased risk of unethical behavior (potentially leading to lawsuits). There are, however, many interesting numbers:
- Thirteen percent of respondents admitted to copying office software for home use, and using office equipment to shop for personal items online.
- Six percent admitted to accessing private computer files without permission.
- Four percent admitted to sabotaging the systems or data of a former or current employer.
Perhaps even more interesting are respondents' views of what constitutes unethical activity. For example, while 96 percent of polled workers agreed that sabotaging another's system was unethical, only 54 percent believed that using the office PC to shop online was wrong.
The respondents were culled from a wide range of professions in such fields as health care, retail, finance, and manufacturing.