Ethical and Social issues in Information Systems.

Information system has revolutionized the way information is being transferred and the way
information being passed from one person to other. They provide speed, efficiency,
dependability, quality, accuracy, reliability for the information and help the organization to
achieve the objective of the organization. Ethics is an important aspect in information system.
The fact is that business which does ethically will remain for long in the market and ensures
steady growth and great acceptance of the products or services from the customers. There are
many organizations which are unethical has caused a social outcry and intervention from
authorities and didn’t prove favorable and created problem for the future of the company.
Innovation, efficiency, effectiveness, the ability to utilize market potential optimally, recognize
the signs of the times , and the art of saving costs and expenses in the right place at the right time
will continue to be of greatest importance alongside all the other corporate virtues. However, an
additional element will gain in significance: applied business ethics. It will become more and
more a new, solid basis for competitive ability, breaching the limits of classical markets. The
more affluent a society is, the more significant non material values become. Corporations that act
in a visibly ethical will be preferred by informed consumers more and more. This fact will
become a problem for those corporations that ignore moral aspects, and for others it will become
a problem for those corporations that ignore moral aspects, and others it will be an opportunity to
get the very top

GOOD ETHICS ARE GOOD BUSINESS

Something which directs the behavior of the company is its ethics. The worst conceivable result
of high moral standards would be competitive or other tangible detriment because the special
efforts to cost a company attaches to ethical consideration result in net disadvantage for it. The
information system is considered as one of the major functional area of business. It is an
important contributor to the operational efficiency, employee productivity, morale, customer
service and satisfaction. It is a major source of information and it helps in decision making.
Information system is a vital ingredient in making our products and services more competitive in
the global environment or in the global market. It is a dynamic and more challenging career
opportunity and it is a key component of today’s networked business. It emphasizes on the
quality, strategic business value and security of an organizational information system. It helps to
control cost hence helps in cost reduction. It helps in the easy flow of information from one
person to other or helps in passing information from the top level managers to the operational
level managers When a strategy is adopted to use information technology what people think is
how it can be utilized to earn extra income so that they can earn more money

Managing Ethics

Everybody has the responsibility to be ethical in areas wherever they are and whatever they do.
According to Webster dictionary, “ethics is defined as the discipline dealing with what are good
and bad. Thus ethics is concerned with doing business with truth and justice and other aspects
such as fair or healthy competition, meeting the expectations of the society, public relations,
social responsibility, consumer autonomy and corporate behavior. When we speak about
managing ethics of an organization mainly there are three theories coming to mind. They are:

 UTILITARIAN THEORY
 THEORY BASED ON RIGHTS
 THEORY OF JUSTICE

Utilitarian theory suggests that plans and action can be evaluated by their consequences or
results. The idea behind this is that plans or actions should have to yield good to large number of
people.

Theory based on rights tells that people have basic rights an organization should consider and
should value the rights of the people and the organizations do not have the right to hinder their
rights. Managers have the right to initialize ethics in the organization so that they survive for
long. That really means we have to integrate ethical concepts in our daily actions. Ethics can be
bring to an organization by establishing an appropriate company policy by using forming an
ethics committee and by teaching and by training to the managers to be ethical in their activities.
The most important thing is that they have to establish a code of conduct in the organization.
FACTORS THAT RAISE ETHICAL STANDARDS

The important factors that’s raise are the public disclosure and increased concern of a well
informed public. These factors together with government regulations and highly educated
professional will bring ethics in to the organization. Necessary provisions have been made to
enforce ethics in an organization. Privileges and benefits should be withdrawn and have to apply
sanctions. Unethical mangers have to be held responsible and should be terminated from the
organization. Another important aspect is that we should use code of ethics to solve our problems
.The reason is that when a problem arises people try to solve the problem by any means. But if
there is a good code of conduct for our organization we need not have to be unethical for solving
the problems of the organization. Another important fact is that if people have to be ethical he
should have to learn it from the schools and universities. He has to learn to be ethical in every
activity or in every code of conduct from the family. He has to understand the importance of
ethics and should learn values from their family. Whistle Blowing is a very good way for
encouraging ethical behavior in an organization. It means making aware what the unethical
practices are. The managers have the responsibility to make necessary changes according to
global competition, customer expectations, and the need to respond quickly according to the
changes in environment. The main objective is to protect and prevent persons from doing
unethical practices. In olden days there where trust, integrity, loyalty, caring and keeping
promises were there in an organization and focused on maintaining the culture of the
organization with trust, but now a days now people will do anything as there only motive is
profit generation. In that case techniques such whistle blowing helps to enforce environmental
laws and works for accountability of business.

TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS IN ETHICS

Technology has got many advantages as well as disadvantages. The managers are operating in a
complex environment. Based on the environment the management takes necessary decisions.
Thus organizations are concentrated on establishing an environment which is favorable to
business and the society. Every organization has some responsibility towards the individuals and
the society. So now a day’s what corporate are focusing to establish social responsiveness
relating to corporate operations and policies to the social environment in ways that are beneficial
to the company and the society. Ethics thus deals what is good as well as with moral duty and
obligations. Technology has helped to simplify the operation, to achieve economies of scale and
to establish value for the product manufactured. It has helped to reduce the cost of production
hence made the organization to receive huge profits for the products manufactured. In case of
increased profits what an organization can do is to work for the development of the society,
providing more employment opportunities, providing products which give value to the
customers, and preventing from emission of wastages to the nature thereby preventing from
environmental problems.

ETHICAL ASPECTS OF INFORMATION SYSTEM

The spread of information has been revolutionized by new computer technology by the way they
gather information, manipulate and communicate data. The use of information system with high
speed and efficiency is obtained by the use of local and global networks and software, hardware,
people and resources has provided new responsibilities to the people who use information
system. It is a source of power. Thus when we speak about the ethics of information system we
should say that it has to involve social and political relationships. The most important thing is
how information has been used such as whether it has been used for good or bad. A certain code
of conduct followed in the organization will explains how information system has been used
ethically. It helps to bridge the gap between need of the organization and the rights of every one.
A network refers to one system which can share information with other system. It is referred as a
reliable source of sharing information .The networks participants have recognized the value of
information system and has combined humanity.

ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEM

The organizations and corporate were rocked by the accounting scandals at Enron, Tyco and
WorldCom. This scandal understands the lack of ethical content among the individuals. The
technology has been misused by the people who are well aware of the technology. Computer
virus affect the computer and people who are well aware of technology spread virus which harm
people’s computer and they themselves produces the antivirus software’s to prevent computers
from virus. Thus they make huge profit out of this. It is truly unethical. Apart from this there are
hackers who r intended to destroy the data and software’s and can disturb computer services.
Phishing has been done by people who are well aware of technology. What they do is they
acquire sensitive information such as password, credit card details etc. It is done through email
or messaging and offer directs to people to unsecured sites. Criminals usually acquire
information’s of the financial data and used to steal money. Some of the other practices have
made the system very slow computer process and make pop ups taking over..Due to this reason
pirated versions of software are available for every product. People are cheated by selling the
pirated version and they will have to face trouble in future and cause serious issues to the
computer when it is being caught by the company. This always happens because people always
focus on low cost rather than quality of the product. Thus the victim is subjected to loss of funds.
The issue related to personal or organizational ethics, privacy, information security, and
protection has been made understand by technology by the managers. Spyware, adware, and
phishing attempts have grown in sophistication and prominence. This has to be seriously
identified and should be prevented so as to have a good code of conduct.

LEGAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEM

The Legal Issues in Information Technology is designed for technologists and managers
responsible for creating and implementing policies for protecting IT resources within private
corporations or government agencies. Surveys are conducted for understanding the leading
privacy, criminal, intellectual property and regulatory laws that establish liability and boundaries
related to enterprise information systems. It focuses on the practical implications of these laws
and the issues that should be covered in an enterprise security policy. People working in the
organization are asked to spot issues and suggest standard practices to reduce risk. It ensures
preliminary look at the legal issues and the surrounding and activate cyber defenses. The
information system which is used the individuals have to thus use the originals to protect
themselves from trouble in future. It is a serious problem if we use unauthorized versions or
pirated versions of software and all. The firewalls or the security system won’t be effective in
such systems so these system can be affected seriously by hackers, spammers etc. So to get
maximum protection and safety we should use only originals so that we can claim for damages if
anything happened in future.
SOCIAL ISSUES IN FORMATION SYTEM

Information system has lot of social issues same as any other issues. The unethical behavior of
people creates several social problems .It has a great impact on the culture. Spreading of vulgar
activities have increases in largely and people are more prone to sex and other activities like
video chats. Several cheating cases have been reported

Multiethnic issues in organizations refers to one of the most often discussed underpinnings in
accumulation systems search throughout the term of the IS business. Cultural issues are those
which are most allied with the hominine bourgeois in damage of collection systems, use and
utilization of message systems and technologies.

The conceptualization of particularized sociable issues and their related constructs, planned
designs and infrastructures, falsifiable determination of cultural models, and circumstance
studies illustrating socializing success and failures would be important. Whatsoever key topics
may allow:

(1) Ethics

(2) Culture

(3) Relationships

(4) Human interaction

(5) Security

(6) Design.

Whatever of the research topics that would fit within this mini track comprise:

1. Ethical issues: electronic monitoring of employees, data utilization, and morality in entropy
systems survival;
2. Cultural issues: education of nascent technologies, developing trust, commonwealth
asymmetry, insurance feat, and multiethnic environments;

3. Human interaction issues: recruitment and retainment of foul department, motive, societal
presence, and organizational champions of info systems;

4. Relationship issues: development partnerships, realistic teams, set cohesiveness, cooperation,

unit facilitation, networking, and buyer-supplier linkages;

5. Security issues: expend of aggregation, virus/worm commencement, Intranet assail, collection

security, dupery with systems use, and standards and regulations.

CONCLUSION

Information Technology has greater importance in an organization. It is necessary for an

organization to achieve competitive advantage and to achieve the goals of the organization. The
same technology can be used to cheat people also. It all depends on the users of information
technology. The management has the sole responsibility to check how the information
technology has been utilized by the individuals so that it yields good result for the organization.
The management has to ensure that the resources are utilized for doing ethical activities. They
have to ensure that no fraudulent activities have been done with the information technology. For
that the organization or company should have some values and principles. The company should
follow some code of ethics so that the employees are aware of the company policies so that it
yields good name to the company also a good reputation among general public. Also the
company or organization have to ensure that the company is working as per the rules and
regulations of the government and it activities are based on the laws and regulations enforced by
the local jurisdiction. Therefore it is important to have a very good knowledge of ethics and the
corporate has some responsibility towards the society. Every individual who uses information
system should have to understand the importance of ethics and should inculcate a good code of
ethical conduct in all his activities. Some of the codes of conduct which an organization or an
individual has to do are the following:-

 Contribute to society and Human well being

  Avoid Harm to others
 Be Honest and trust worthy
 Be fare and take action not to discriminate
 Honor property rights including copyrights and patents
 Give proper credit for intellectual property
 Respect privacy of others
 Honor confidentially

Only if there is a good ethical theory we can take a good others ethical decision. Treating others
with respect is very important and vital for every individual. As per saying give respect and take
respect. Today we live in an information society and in order to gain the greatest advantages in
the modern market place, we need to be able to

access the available information effectively. Every technological innovation, from paper through
to the modern computer, has broadened the spectrum of learning necessary to attain peak literacy
levels. In our current information society, the minimum requirements for true literacy are:
intellectual skills; technology and access.

Intellectual skills are the result of education, and include reading, writing and comprehension
skills as well as the ability to reason, calculate and solve complex problems through the
application of analytical thought processes. Information is of no use if one has not the intellectual
skills to unlock its potential. Only thing is that everything has to be used ethically should be
capable of developing the society.