RIGHTS AND

RESPONSIBILITIES OF
ENGINEERS
TERMS TO BE REMEMBERED
SEPARATELY
PRIVILEGED PROPRIETARY PATENTS
INFORMATION INFORMATION
It literally means “available It is the information that a It legally protect specific
only on the basis of special company owns or is the products from being
privilege,” such as the proprietor of, and hence is a manufactured and sold by
privilege accorded an term carefully defined by competitors without the
employee working on a property law. A rough express permission of the
special assignment. It means synonym for “proprietary patent holder. Trade secrets
any information which is in information” is trade secret, have no such protection, and
written, oral, electronic or which can be virtually any a corporation can learn about
other tangible or intangible type of information that has a competitor’s trade secrets
forms, including any not become public, which an through legal means. But
communications by or to employer has taken steps to patents do have the
attorneys (including attorney- keep secret. It includes trade drawback of being public and
client privileged secrets, inventions, mask thus allowing competitors an
communications), memoranda works, ideas, processes, easy means of working
and other materials prepared formulas, etc. around them by finding
by attorneys alternative designs
MORAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Engineering designates a type of action which takes place in a complex social and technical network, jeopardizing
multiple animate and inanimate beings and consisting fundamentally in transforming ideas into concrete forms. The
designing act entails a specific responsibility of its authors because society is dependent on engineers in this domain.
The intensity of this responsibility is proportional to the number of beings whose existence, health, quality of life – even
life expectation – are at stake.

Certainly, the engineers’ obligation is difficult to apprehend owing to the engineering context. Dennis Thompson (1980)
gave the name of “problem of many hands” to the phenomenon of dilution of the individual responsibility in large
organizations where it is difficult to identify who is morally responsible, because many different persons in various
manners contribute to the decisions. Nevertheless engineers, owing to their training, their mission and their position in
the social space, contribute collectively to the creation of phenomena whose effects on the social and natural
environment are important, and sometimes irreversible
MORAL ISSUES
Types of Moral Issues

There are mainly two types of Moral issues that we mostly come across while keeping the ethical aspects in
mind to respond. They are −
Micro-ethics

This approach stresses more on the problems that occur on a daily basis in the field of engineering and its
practice by engineers.
Macro-ethics

This approach deals with social problems which are unknown. However, these problems may unexpectedly
face the heat at both regional and national levels.

Examples
MORAL ISSUES
Examples

Let us now understand a few examples related to moral issues.

Example 1

After a recent collapse of a structure in which many people died, an Engineer came to know about a bridge
which is marginally safe. He informed his superior who asked him to stay calm and not to discuss with
anyone, while waiting for the next year budget sessions to get some financial help for the repair required.
What should the engineer do?
Example 2

What should an Engineer who observes his colleague copying confidential information unauthorized, do
immediately? If he chooses to stop his friend, what if this gets repeated without his notice? If he chooses to
report the management, what if his friend loses the job? Which is morally correct?
CONFIDENTIALITY
● The duty of confidentiality is the duty to
keep secret all information deemed
desirable to keep secret.
● It is any information that the employer or
client would like to have kept secret to
compete effectively against business rivals.
● Understood to be any data concerning the
company’s business or technical processes
that are not already public knowledge.
● Although this criterion is somewhat vague,
it clearly points to the employer or client as
the main source of the decision as to what
information is to be treated as confidential.
 CONFIDENTIALITY AND
CHANGING JOBS
● Former employees would quickly divulge it
to their new employers or, perhaps for a
price, sell it to competitors of their former
employers. Thus, the relationship of trust
between employer and employee in regard
to confidentiality continues beyond the
formal period of employment
● Unless the employer gives consent, former
employees are barred indefinitely from
revealing trade secrets. This provides a
clear illustration of the way in which the
professional integrity of engineers involves
much more than mere loyalty to one’s
present employer.
Problem - Many engineers value professional
advancement more than long-term ties with any
one company, and so they change jobs frequently.
Engineers in research and development are
especially likely to have high rates of turnover.
When they transfer into new companies they
often do the same kind of work as before,
CONFIDENTIALITY AND
MANAGEMENT POLICIES
● Those restrictions centered on the
geographical location of future employers,
the length of time after leaving the present
employer before one can engage in certain
kinds of work, and the type of work it is
permissible to do for future employers.
● Such contracts are hardly agreements
between equals, and they threaten the right
of individuals to pursue their careers freely.
For this reason the courts have tended not
to recognize such contracts as binding,
although they do uphold contractual
agreements forbidding the disclosure of
trade secrets.
● Other tactics aside from employment
contract provisions have been attempted by
various companies. One is to place tighter
controls on the internal flow of information
by restricting access to trade secrets except
where absolutely essential. The drawback to
this approach is that it may create an
CONFIDENTIALITY: JUSTIFICATION
● The primary justification is to respect the
autonomy (freedom, self-determination) of
individuals and corporations and to
recognize their legitimate control over some
private information concerning themselves.
● Additional justifications include
trustworthiness: Once practices of
maintaining confidentiality are established
socially, trust and trustworthiness can grow.
Thus, when clients go to attorneys or tax
accountants they expect them to maintain
confidentiality, and the professional
indicates that confidentiality will be
maintained.
● Confidentiality has its limits, particularly
when it is invoked to hide misdeeds.
Investigations into a wide variety of white-
collar crimes covered up by management in
industry or public agencies have been
thwarted by invoking confidentiality or false
claims of secrecy based on national interest
● Just as patients should be allowed to
 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Professional conflicts of interest are situations where professionals have an interest that, if
pursued, might keep them from meeting their obligations to their employers or clients.
Sometimes such an interest involves serving in some other professional role, say, as a
consultant for a competitor’s company. Other times it is a more personal interest, such as
making substantial private investments in a competitor’s company. Because of the great
variety of possible outside interests, conflicts of interest can arise in innumerable ways, and
with many degrees of subtlety.

Conflicts of interest typically arise when two conditions are met:-

1. The professional is in a relationship or role that requires exercising good judgment on

behalf of the interests of an employer or client
2. The professional has some additional or side interest that could threaten good judgment
in serving the interests of the employer or client—either the good judgment of that
professional or the judgment of a typical professional in that situation
 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IN DIFFERENT
SITUATIONS
1. GIFTS, BRIBES AND KICKBACKS

A bribe is a substantial amount of money or goods

offered beyond a stated business contract with the aim
of winning an advantage in gaining or keeping the
contract, and where the advantage is illegal or otherwise
unethical.8 Substantial is a vague term, but it alludes to
amounts, beyond acceptable gratuities, that are
sufficient to distort the judgment of a typical person.
Typically, although not always, bribes are made in secret.
Gifts are not bribes as long as they are small gratuities
offered in the normal conduct of business. Prearranged
payments made by contractors to companies or their
representatives in exchange for contracts actually
granted are called kickbacks. When suggested by the
granting party to the party bidding on the contract, the
latter often defends its participation in such an
arrangement as having been subjected to “extortion.”
 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IN DIFFERENT
SITUATIONS
2. INTERESTS IN OTHER COMPANIES

Some conflicts of interest consist in having an interest in

a competitor’s or a subcontractor’s business. One blatant
example is actually working for the competitor or
subcontractor as an employee or consultant. Another
example is partial ownership or substantial stockholdings
in the competitor’s business. Moonlighting usually
creates conflicts of interest only in special
circumstances, such as working for competitors,
suppliers, or customers. Even then, in rare situations, an
employer sometimes gives permission for exceptions, as
for example when the experience gained would greatly
promote business interests. A special kind of conflict of
interest arises, however, when moonlighting leaves one
exhausted and thereby harms job performance. Conflicts
of interest arise in academic settings as well.
 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IN DIFFERENT
SITUATIONS
3. INSIDER INFORMATION

An especially sensitive conflict of interest consists in

using “inside” information to gain an advantage or set
up a business opportunity for oneself, one’s family, or
one’s friends. The information might concern one’s own
company or another company with which one does
business. For example, engineers might tell their friends
about the impending announcement of a revolutionary
invention, which they have been perfecting, or of their
corporation’s plans for a merger that will greatly improve
the worth of another company’s stock. In doing so, they
give those friends an edge on an investment promising
high returns. Owning stock in the company for which one
works is of course not objectionable, and this is often
encouraged by employers. But that ownership should be
based on the same information available to the general
public.
 MORAL STATUS OF CONFLICTS OF
INTERESTS
Employee conflicts of interest occur when
employees have interests that if pursued could keep
them from meeting their obligations to serve the
interests of the employer or client for whom they
work. Such conflicts of interest should be avoided
because they threaten to prevent one from fully
meeting those obligations. Even when conflicts of
interest are unavoidable or reasonable, employees
are still obligated to inform their employers and
obtain approval. This suggests a fuller answer to
why conflicts of interest are generally prohibited: (1)
The professional obligation to employers is very
important in that it overrides in the vast majority of
cases any appeal to self-interest on the job, and (2)
the professional obligation to employers is easily
threatened by self interest (given human nature) in
a way that warrants especially strong safeguards to
ensure that it is fulfilled by employees.
 ENGINEERS, ORGANIZATIONS AND ETHICS
● The work of engineers affects the lives of millions of people and society as a whole. As such, this presents an
ethical and moral dimension to the decisions engineers are required to make. Ethics in engineering practise
requires an awareness of all the behaviours, obligations, rights and duties of the engineer towards the integrity of
the profession, towards professional bodies and other engineers, towards clients and employers, towards the
environment and its effects even into the future, and towards the interests of multiple, often competing
stakeholders in society.
● Ethical concerns often present themselves in highly complex contexts. Engineers are continuously confronted
with problems demanding solutions. Yet problematic dilemmas spread into the grey areas between simple right
and wrong choices.
● Organizations have important roles in engineering. For example, an engineer may not be able to take off time to
attend a professional meeting without permission from a superior—and may not be able to afford to attend
unless the employer pays. Engineering also has an important role in setting organizational culture. Working
through various standard-setting bodies, engineers have much to say about what they will and will not do for
their employers—and how they will do it. So, for example, many of engineering’s professional organizations
(such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers or the American Society of Mechanical Engineers)
have standard-setting bodies.
● The standards those bodies adopt become de facto standards of competent work. And often, they become legal
standards as well because local, state, and even national governments incorporate them by reference into safety
codes, building codes, procurement contracts, and the like.
ORGANIZATIONS
Some characteristics of managerial decision making that are useful in analyzing
the manager– engineer relationship:
1. managers have a strong and probably overriding concern for the well-being
of the organization.
2. Managers have few, if any, loyalties that transcend their perceived
obligations to the organization. They do not, for example, have professional
obligations that they might consider to override or even counterbalance their
obligations to the organization.
3. The managerial decision-making process involves making trade-offs among
the relevant considerations.

Most engineers are corporate employees rather than self-employed. This means that
their role-responsibilities are a function of relationships they have with, not only
other
engineers but also their managers and, ultimately, with the aims and goals of the
organizations within which they work. So, most engineers are not their own bosses,
and
they are expected to defer to recognized authority in their organizations.
When an organization radically changes its aspirations, as in the case of Ray
Anderson s Interface Carpets, engineers in its employ need to be able to adapt to
 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Engineers must first have some understanding of the organization in which they are employed.
This knowledge helps engineers to understand:
(1) how they and their managers tend to frame issues under the influence of the organization
(2) how one can act in the organization effectively, safely, and in a morally responsible way. It
is generally agreed that organizational culture is set at the top of an organization—by high level
managers, by the president or chief executive officer of the organization, by directors, and
sometimes by owners.
Three Types of Organizational Culture:-
1. Engineer-Oriented Companies - In these firms, there is general agreement that quality takes priority
over other considerations, except safety. In the words of one manager, ‘‘we have over designed our
products and would rather lose money than diminish our reputation. Engineers often said that managers
would rarely overrule them when there was a significant engineering issue, although they might make
the final decision when primarily such issues as cost or marketing are involved.
2. Customer-Oriented Companies - Decision making is similar to that of engineer oriented firms, but
with four significant differences. First, managers think of engineers as advocates of a point of view
different from their own. Second, more emphasis is placed on business considerations than in engineer-
oriented companies. Third, as with engineer-oriented companies, safety outranks quality. Sometimes
quality can be sacrificed to get the product out the door. Finally, communication between engineers and
managers may be somewhat more difficult than in engineer-oriented firms.
3. Finance-Oriented Companies - These firms are more centralized and that this has important
consequences. For example, engineers may receive less information for making decisions and
consequently their decisions are given less weight by managers. Managers are less inclined to try to
reach consensus, and engineers are seen as having a ‘‘staff ’’ and advisory function.
Acting Ethically without Having to Make Difficult Choices
Acting in an ethical manner and with little harm to oneself is generally easier in engineer-oriented and
customer-oriented companies than in finance-oriented companies. Additional suggestions that should make
acting ethically easier and less harmful to the employee:
First, engineers and other employees should be encouraged to report bad news. Sometimes there are formal
procedures for lodging complaints and warnings about impending trouble.
Second, companies and their employees should adopt a position of ‘‘critical’’ loyalty rather than uncritical or
blind loyalty.
Third, when making criticisms and suggestions, employees should focus on issues rather than personalities.
This helps avoid excessive emotionalism and personality clashes.
Fourth, written records should be kept of suggestions and especially of complaints. This is important if court
proceedings are eventually involved. It also serves to ‘‘keep the record straight’’ about what was said and
when it was said.
Fifth, complaints should be kept as confidential as possible for the protection of both the individuals involved
and the firm.
Sixth, provisions should be made for neutral participants from outside the organization when the dispute
requires it.
Seventh, explicit provision for protection from retaliation should be made, with mechanisms for complaint if
an employee believes he or she has experienced retaliation.
NGINEER-MANAGER RELATIONSHIPS
Respect for authority is important in meeting organizational goals.
Decisions must be made in situations where allowing everyone to exercise
unrestrained individual discretion would create chaos. Moreover, clear
lines of authority provide a means for identifying areas of personal
responsibility and accountability.
1. The relevant kind of authority has been called executive authority: the
corporate or institutional right given to a person to exercise power based
on the resources of an organization. It is distinguishable from power (or
influence) in getting the job done.
2. It is distinguishable, too, from expert authority: the possession of special
knowledge, skill, or competence to perform some task or to give sound
advice.
Employees respect authority when they accept the guidance and obey the
directives issued by the employer having to do with the areas of activity covered
by the employer’s institutional authority, assuming the directives are legal and do
not violate norms of moral decency. Within this general framework of authority,
however, there are wide variations in how engineers and managers relate to each
other. At one extreme, there is the rigid, top-down control. At the other extreme,
there is something more like how professors and administrators interact within
universities.
The primary function of engineers within an organization is to use their
technical knowledge and training to create structures, products, and
processes that are of value to the organization and its customers. Thus,
engineers have a dual loyalty—to the organization and to their profession.
The primary function of managers is to direct the activities of the
organization, including the activities of engineers. Rather than thinking in
terms of professional practices and standards, managers tend to enumerate
all of the relevant considerations (‘‘get everything on the table,’’ as they
sometimes say) and then balance them against one another to come to a
conclusion.
These functions suggest a distinction between what we call a proper
engineering decision (PED), a decision that should be made by engineers
because it either (1) involves technical matters that require engineering
expertise or (2) falls within the ethical standards embodied in engineering
codes, especially those that require engineers to protect the health and
safety of the public. and what we call a proper management decision
(PMD), a decision that should be made by managers because (1) it involves
factors relating to the well-being of the organization, such as cost,
scheduling, and marketing, and employee morale or welfare; and (2) the
decision does not force engineers (or other professionals) to make
unacceptable compromises with their own technical or ethical standards.
● Whereas engineers focus on the job at hand, the focus of managers is on the team
they are given to accomplish a task. Managers look at the budget, resources
available to them and the time constraint before they start to feel comfortable.
● On the other hand, engineers are more daring and concentrate on the job at hand
more than anything else. Engineers take decisions based upon their knowledge
and skills whereas decisions of a manager are based upon many constraints such
as capital, process, and his team and so on. An engineer performs individual tasks
whereas a manager is involved in planning, leading, controlling, and organizing.
● As far as output of work is concerned, an engineer’s work is quantifiable and can
be measured. On the other hand, only qualitative analysis of the work of a
manager is possible. His work can be judged more in terms of financial
statements of the company he is working with. An engineer relies on his technical
skills, whereas a manager relies on the skills of the members of his team and gets
the work done through motivation.
● A manager is always people centered whereas an engineer is always technology
centered. An engineer’s approach is centered around how whereas a manager’s
approach is centered around what and why. An engineer is always concerned with
the workability of a project whereas a manager is concerned whether it will add
value and lead to customer satisfaction along with profit for the stakeholders.
 LOYALTY

Loyalty is the faithful adherence to an organization and the employer. Loyalty to an employer can be either of the two
types −

● Agency-loyalty − Agency-loyalty is acting to fulfil one’s contractual duties to an employer. This is

entirely a matter of actions, such as doing one’s job and not stealing from one’s employer, irrespective of
the motive behind it.
● Attitude-loyalty − Attitude-loyalty has a lot to do with attitudes, emotions and a sense of personal identity
as it does with actions. It can be understood that people who work grudgingly and spitefully are not loyal;
in spite of the fact they may adequately perform all their work responsibilities and hence manifest agency
loyalty.
 WHISTLE -
BLOWING
Whistle-blowing occurs when an employee or former employee
conveys information about a significant moral problem to someone in
a position to take action on the problem, and does so outside
approved organizational channels (or against strong pressure). The
definition has four main parts:-
WHISTLE-BLOWING

DISCLOSUR RECIPIEN
E
Information is TOPIC AGENT
TheTinformation is
intentionally conveyed The information The person disclosing
conveyed to a person or
outside approved concerns what the the information is an organization that is in a
organizational person believes is a employee or former position to act on the
(workplace) channels or significant moral employee, or someone
problem (as distinct, for
in situations where the problem for the else closely associated
example, to telling it to a
person conveying it is organization (or an with the organization family member or friend
under pressure from organization with (as distinct, say, from a
who is in no position to do
supervisors or others not which the company journalist reporting what anything).
to do so. does business). the whistleblower says)
 TYPES OF WHISTLE-BLOWING
INTERNAL
WHISTLE-BLOWING OPEN WHISTLE-
means the communication of BLOWING
information, either orally or in
writing, about wrongdoing within in which individuals openly
a private or public sector entity 04 reveal their identity as
(Article 5(4)). Under the
Directive, this type of
they convey the
whistleblowing channel takes information. A
priority over external whistleblowing is
whistleblowing and Member considered as open when
States should establish
the identity of the
procedures to encourage internal
whistleblowing. Naturally, the 01 03 whistleblower is disclosed.
judgement on whether to use an
internal whistleblowing channel
rests with the whistleblower, and
primarily with a view to the
effectiveness of the procedure ANONYMOUS
and its future safety.
EXTERNAL WHISTLE-BLOWING
WHISTLE-BLOWING 02 which involves concealing
when the information is passed one’s identity. Some instances
outside the are partly open and partly
organization.Typically, only anonymous, such as when
external whistleblowing ends in individuals acknowledge their
court actions. If you choose to identities to a journalist but
report misconduct to a hotline, insist their names be withheld
government agency, or from anyone else.
prosecutor, you may lose all
MORAL GUIDELINES
Under what conditions are engineers justified
in whistle-blowing? This really involves two
questions: When are they morally permitted,
and when are they morally obligated, to do
so? In our view, it is permissible to whistle-
blow when the following conditions have been
met. Under these conditions there is also an
obligation to whistle-blow, although the
obligation is prima facie and in some
situations can be overridden by other moral
considerations.

1. The actual or potential harm reported is

serious. 2. The harm has been adequately
documented.
3. The concerns have been reported to
immediate superiors.
4. After not getting satisfaction from
immediate superiors, regular channels within
the organization have been used to reach up
to the highest levels of management. 5. There
 PROTECTING WHISTLEBLOWERS
1. Government employees have won important
protections. Various federal laws related to
environmental protection and safety and the Civil
Service Reform Act of 1978 protect them against
reprisals for lawful disclosures of information believed
to show “a violation of any law, rule, or regulation,
mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of
authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public
health and safety.”
2. In the private sector, employees are covered by
statutes forbidding firing or harassing of whistleblowers
who report to government regulatory agencies the
violations of some 20 federal laws, including those
covering coal mine safety, control of water and air
pollution, disposal of toxic substances, and
occupational safety and health.
3. In a few instances, unions provide further protection.
Laws, when they are carefully formulated and enforced,
provide two types of benefits for the public, in addition
to protecting the responsible whistle-blower: episodic
and systemic. The episodic benefits help to prevent
harm to the public in particular situations. The systemic
benefits send a strong message to industry to act
 COMMON SENSE
PROCEDURES
There are several rules of practical advice and common
sense that should be heeded before taking this action.
1. Except for extremely rare emergencies, always try
working first through normal organizational
channels.
2. Be prompt in expressing objections.
3. Proceed in a tactful, low-key manner. Be considerate
of the feelings of others involved.
4. As much as possible, keep supervisors informed of
your actions, both through informal discussion and
formal memorandums.
5. Be accurate in your observations and claims, and
keep formal records documenting relevant events.
6. Consult trusted colleagues for advice—avoid
isolation.
7. Before going outside the organization, consult the
ethics committee of your professional society.
8. Consult a lawyer concerning potential legal
liabilities.
BEYOND WHISTLE-BLOWING
Sometimes whistle-blowing is a practical moral
necessity. But generally it holds little promise as the
best possible method for remedying problems and
should be viewed as a last resort. The obvious way
to remove the need for internal whistleblowing is for
management to allow greater freedom and
openness of communication within the organization.
By making those channels more flexible and
convenient, the need to violate them would be
removed. But this means more than merely
announcing formal “open-door” policies and appeals
procedures that give direct access to higher levels
of management. Those would be good first steps,
and a further step would be the creation of an
ombudsperson or an ethics review committee with
genuine freedom to investigate complaints and
make independent recommendations to top
management. The crucial factor that must be
involved in any structural change, however, is the
creation of an atmosphere of positive affirmation of
engineers’ efforts to assert and defend their
 CONDITIONS
NEED PROXIMITY
In deciding whether to go public, This point also implies that the
the employee needs to have a whistle- blower must have enough
sense of proportion. You don't expertise in the area to make a
need to blow the whistle about
realistic assessment of the
everything, just the important
things. If there is a pattern of situation. This condition stems from
many small things that are going the clauses in several codes of
on, this can add up to a major ethics which mandate that an
and important matter requiring engineer not undertake work in
WHISTLEBLOWING
that the whistle be blown. areas outside her expertise. SHOULD BE
ATTEMPTED IF THE
CAPABILITY LAST RESORT FOLLOWING FOUR
The whistleblower must Whistleblowing should be CONDITIONS ARE
have a reasonable chance attempted only if there is no
of success in stopping the one else more capable or MET
harmful activity. You are not more proximate to blow the
obligated to risk your career whistle and if you feel that all
other lines of action within
and the financial security of
the context of the
your family fi you can't see organization have been
the case through to explored and shut off.
completion
Thankyou