Engineering misconduct

The final case to be presented is an unusual but important one. Unlike a number of the preceding cases, there is no hint in this one of any engineering misconduct. On the contrary, the actions of the engineer at the center of this case are clearly in accord with the pertinent FEREs and he appears to have acted with laudable intent. After reading this case, the reader will in all likelihood agree with the author that the individual in question is an impressive example of an ethically responsible engineer. 

GENERAL SITUATIONAL FACTORS CONDUCIVE TO ENGINEERING MISCONDUCT... 

List 4 10 General Factors Conducive to Engineering Misconduct... 

The reader is encouraged to scrutinize the specific factors contained in List 3 to see if s/he can identify additional notewortliy general factors conducive to engineering misconduct. 

In several of the cases considered, a key contributory causal factor in the engineering misconduct that occurred was that the engineering design or production work done was in some sense or other decontextualized. The people who carried it out may have an overly narrow context in mind when doing their design work (Cadillac). This may lead them to overlook problematic consequences of their work that stem from interactions with elements left outside that narrow system context. Alternatively, engineers involved may not take carefully into account how their products will be made or for what purposes they will be used in the actual social contexts of production and use. This can have serious unexpected negative consequences (Bhopal, Topf Sons). 

Borman, Stu. "19th-Century Chemist Kekuie Charged with Scientific Misconduct." Chemical Engineering News, 23 August 1993, 20-21. 

A survey of Rutgers University students found that in graduate school, a significant number of students admitted to cheating (MBAs 56%, engineering 54%, education 48%, and law 45%). The Ethics Resource Center s 2007 national business ethics survey results showed that within the corporate environment, 56% of employees have observed misconduct 36% fear retaliation and 54% are skeptical that a report would matter (Ethics Resource Center, 2007). Management may not be aware of misconduct, since 42% of employees who observe misconduct do not report it. 

Micro-social. The only previous case study in this book that dealt with engineering research - Case 03, the Schon case - focused on research misconduct and several ethically problematic research practices linked with collaborative research. Here I shall examine ethical responsibilities related to several different ethically questionable research practices, only the first of which is specific to nanotechnology. 

Morals One important moral of this case has to do with cultural conflict. Conflict can and sometimes does exist between a culture that celebrates the build it, ship it mentality characteristic of a results-oriented engineering organization that has not internalized the value of environmental protection, and a culture that includes the value of carrying out systematically the time-consuming scientific research needed to do a professional job on environmentally complex and sensitive problems. Such cultural conflict can lead to frustration, an outcome fueled by recognition of increased project costs and delayed profits. This can tempt engineers to resort to (behavioral or semantic) misconduct to circumvent it. 

Please note that the first list is a list of specific engineering-related ethical issues raised in the cases, not a list of examples of ethical misconduct by engineers. 

From this case-by-case list of specific factors that can press engineers to engage in misconduct, the following 10 general factors are distillable. They range from individual and technical to organizational and macrosocial in nature. 

An organizational culture that tolerates, encourages, and/or does not significantly punish misconduct by its engineers. 

As seen in the Pinto, Apple, and Westway cases, the ethically problematic pattern upstream acquiescence, downstream misconduct recurs in contemporary engineering practice. It is difficult for engineers to bring themselves upstream to oppose, resist, or reject compressed schedules that are imposed on them and that they know or suspect are unrealistic. This is so even when they realize that meeting those schedules is likely to result in serious downstream misconduct. In the case studies, upstream time compression resulted in downstream failure to do adequate safety testing on a product (Pinto), imposition of unhealthy psychosocial conditions on some family members (Apple Newton), and deception about the adequacy of truncated critical research studies (Westway). 

The ORI website - http //ori.dhhs.gov/case summary - provides case summaries for all administrative actions that were imposed due to findings of research misconduct. It lists 43 case summaries of incidents resolved between 2008 and Older and 2013. Of the 43, none involves engineering research. Only one, involving bioinformatics, is even remotely related to engineering. 

An engineer concerned about ethically responsible engineering practice at her/his workplace can attempt to forge alliances or form united fronts with other key, like-minded engineers at her/his company, with a view to opposing company misconduct as a group when it occius. The efficacy of this strategy will depend on whether the company in question would be more reluctant to... 

From an engineering point of view the main safety problem of nuclear power station construction is the concentration of work in a small area. There is an inherent desire in human beings to take risks. If they are denied risks they are not happy. I am not certain that one can separate this problem from some of the misconduct outside work where people are clearly seeking to take risks because life in their work is too dull and too free from risks. How can the desire of human beings to expose themselves to risks be reconciled with all the things that must be done to ensure safety on engineering work ... 

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