Contents Page
Contents Page
1
Introduction
2
Company Structure
4
Legislation
6
Code of Conduct
8
Advantages of Code of Conduct
9
Disadvantages of Code of Conduct
10
Ethical Issues
11
Conclusions
12
Bibliography
13
Introduction
Mac Contract Services Limited has received a contract from Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited in order to provide consulting and development services related to the technology functions and process operations of the company. Based on the current status of the organisation, there are various issues pertaining to the maintenance and access of the systems, including the upgrading of the company systems and adequate maintenance of the applications and software developed within the organisation.
In this report, there will be a detailed assessment of the current functions and IT org chart for Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited and the importance of creating an IT code of conduct for the organisation. The current scenario related to the operational challenges being faced by the organisation would also be properly studied as a part of this report and ethical issues related to the operations would also be highlighted at the end to assess the overall status of the processes legally and breaches, if there are any.
Company Structure
EXISTING
The existing company structure consisted of The Senior Management team which had a Managing Director and a Financial Director
The Financial Director along with Accountant and General Manager. There is also a sales and managing director, responsible to look into the sales side of the organizational transactions. The service director is responsible to manage the service quality and procedures completely take care of the functions related to seven regional centres. The only IT employees are related to the core functions which are Web Developer, IT Service Engineer and Informational System Manager. The overall system clearly lacks a specifically allocated IT leadership and considering the fact that the organization deals primarily with the IT functions, it is necessary to develop a hierarchy which can not only take care of the developmental and operations issues but also legal and ethical issues related to IT.
IMPROVED
Mac Contract Services Limited will be responsible to handle the outsourcing functions, releases the application development for which their IT service engineer may require adequate access to the application systems of MES Ltd. If we look at the new overall hierarchy, the CIO (Chief Information Officer) or director of information technology or general manager of information technology would report into the Managing director of the company and will be taking care of the overall computed process, including the contractors and the company employees.
If we assess the structure of Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited, there will be a manager technology will be responsible to provide IT related solutions for the organisations and manage the whole operation is related to IT application development, planning and execution. The IT service specialist, who is also directly report to the Gen manager, will take care of the licensing of all softwares and creation of inventory for the procured hardware and at the same time will also be responsible for the testing and implementation of relevant applications into various processes within the organisation.
The Systems manager hired by Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited will be responsible to take care of the overall shared services with the contractor and will report to the new IT head while simultaneously working with the Systems manager of the contracting organisation which is Mac Contract Services Limited. Thelma dudd the IT service engineer will be responsible for the core application development process and will be requesting for access to any application on requirement from the systems and application admin Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited. Lastly, Elma Harris would be designated as instructional developer and will be responsible to report to her system engineer and to develop applications on the customer requests, which in this case would be Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited.
Legislation
Moneymusk Electric Sava centres Limited as an organisation as to have a very responsible attitude in terms of abiding by the law and various other rules and regulations which are applied to their operational proceedings as a business owner. In this discussion, three most important aspects applicable to the business functions are highlighted, which must be immediately taken care of in order to ensure that the business is not face any legal or transactional challenges and future.
If we talk about the storage of data, and the use of the same within the organisation, it becomes very important to ensure that there are specific terms and access for data protection. The Data protection act of 1988 clearly requires appropriate security measures to be taken by an organization against unauthorised access to, or alteration, disclosure or destruction of, personal data, and against accidental loss or destruction of personal data. If we look into the current scenario, there are various departments who may require access to data and these departments may include the employees of the organisation and even the contractors. Hence it is important to ensure that there is application and system administration, which can be held responsible to provide access after proper verification, and checking whether a particular access to information and data is necessary for an employer contractor in order to maintain business as usual.
Copyright, Design and Patents are extremely important parts of the organisation as well, considering the fact that there are various, internally developed processes and software which are being used both by the parent organisation and the contractor and therefore there is a new chance of the software being used were implemented by competitor or may become inaccessible if copyright is obtained on the same by any other organisation. The current situation clearly specifies that there is no history of the current versions of software which have been created and therefore it becomes a mandate for the organisation to allocate this responsibility to the IT systems specialists of the organisation to maintain and regularly tests the software versions which are internally developed and grown and to ensure that they are adequately copyrighted and if necessary then also patented. The intellectual property rights provide the owner of an intellectual property to restrict any distribution or usage of the property without adequate approvals and therefore in the above case as well, it is applicable and must be taken into account. The applicable law in this situation is based on the protection of rights under the copyright protection act, and hence it becomes important that the required copyrights are obtained and any access to internally developed software is controlled by legal usage contracts. Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited and outsources some of its development functions to another contractor and may also do that in future. However, in such situations, it is very important to ensure that there is a specific contract will provide the organisation all the intellectual property rights which will help the organisation to retain the rights to consistently use the applications and may also distribute them in future if required considering the fact that they have already paid the contractor for the development purpose and have obtained the necessary intellectual property rights.
Code of Conduct
In order to ensure that the company maintains its reputation in the market and meets all the ethical standards which are required for a smooth functioning of an organization, it is important to have a specific code of conduct and maintain the presence of ethics and social responsibility in an organization. The above points are very important in order to rule out strategy, which ensures that all ethics related factors are adequately followed within the organization.
Advantages of Code of Conduct
There are various benefits of code of conduct for a company, which include the availability of a set direction and guidance for the employees within which they can balance their conduct and be sure of righteousness. The code of conduct also provides an unbiased line of control which is applicable to all the levels within an organization and regardless of the designation and power; everyone is expected to follow those. It also helps a lot in quick decision making, as by referring to it, any decision can be made while making sure that the code of conduct is appropriately abided by.
Another important advantage of code of conduct within an organization is the implementation of ethical standards for the employees and operations homogeneously within the organization.
Code of conduct provides a detailed outline for the business processes to perform and also keeps their employees informed about the expectations from them related to the performance and the ethical responsibilities which are a part of the company’s conduct and represent it in the market.
Business ethics of the company have a very clear and concise approach where the business is done however the following the code of conduct is very important part of the operations as well. There are set standards of operations considering the fact that the products deal with electronics and are related to various types of environment impacting features like e-waste and chemical pollution. The consumer electronics industry deals with devices which come in direct contact with consumers and therefore it is important to ensure that all the related guidelines on the chemical compositions etc. are adequately managed.
The code of conduct also helps the employees to have the facility to highlight any issue which they may seem impacting their performance at the workplace and may compel them to leave the job. The employees are provided with an escalation matrix, which is perfect to provide the channel through which any related issues can be properly managed. There are set guidelines for the employees, related to the expectations from them to perform as per their role.
Disadvantages of Code of Conduct
It is important understand the feasibility of implementation of code of conduct in organization and requires the management to stick to highest standards in ethical conduct as the applicable regulations should be homogeneously implemented and if there is any biasing it can lead to a severe dissatisfaction of the employees.
Responsibilities are given a lot of weightage in the code of conduct laid down by organizations and they concentrate towards ensuring that while business and profitability are organizations goals however they also have certain commitments towards the society, environment and community. The code clearly specifies the laws and regulations which must also be followed in order to be legally right to operate in any geography and do business lawfully. Thus, there are times when the code of conduct contradicts with the actual business profitability and my result in financial losses if followed strictly. The code may not be able to list all the laws pertaining to specific product lines or employee behaviour, hence if it is implemented anything which is not a violation of the code of conduct may not be questioned by the employer.
Ethical Issues
All organisations regularly face issues which are ethical in nature and may not have a specific solution to it however needs to be handled adequately in order to maintain ethical and responsible behaviour as an organisation. Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited has planned to outsource few of its components to its contractor who will be responsible for the computing and necessary information transfers for which an access will be granted however based on the information available, the stock and share information which is then the systems will also be accessible by the contractor which is ethically not right for the shareholders of the company.
It is important to understand that, Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited is liable and answerable to all of its shareholders and therefore in case if they are taking any such decision which may result in information leakage which may result in a financial impact of the organisation, they must ethically inform the shareholders about their decision and the practices which are being implemented in order to safeguard from any kind of unwanted losses all information theft.
On the other hand, there is also a lot of critical information related to credit card information and other financial information related to the customers of Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited which can prove to be critical in case if the data is mismanaged. Hence it is important to ensure that ethically there is supervision and control over the access to this data and in no case it should ever be revealed to contractor even is required for the benefit of the business.
Conclusions
Moneymusk Electric Savacentres Limited requires adequate streamlining of the IT organisation structure, there are specific roles are supposed to be allotted to the badge employees and the vendor's working together on customer information. The IT code of conduct is very important for the organisation considering the fact that it deals with critical customer data, inbuilt software applications and contracts are employees who may need an access to the information systems of the organisation.
It is not only important for the organisation to consider the issues from technological perspectives however the ethical perspectives are also equally important and therefore they must also be managed in a proper manner.
Bibliography
acm.org. (n.d.). ACM Code of Ethics. Retrieved June 19, 2012, from www.acm.org: http://www.acm.org/constitution/code
Apple Inc. (2012). Business Conduct. New York: Apple Inc.
Armenakis, A., & Burdg, H. (1998). Consultation research: contributions to practice and directions for improvement. Journal of Management, Vol. 14 No. 2 , 339-65.
Bynum, T. W., & Rogerson, S. (2003). Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility. Chicago: Wiley.
Carucci, R., & Tetenbaum, T. (2004). The Value-Creating Consultant: How to Build and Sustain Lasting Client Relationships. New York: AMACOM.
CISCO. (2008). Planning a Network Upgrade: Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or IS . New York: Cisco .
eeoc.gov. (n.d.). Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from eeoc.gov: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm
Gilman, S. C. (2005). Ethics codes and codes of conduct as tool for promoting an ethical and professional public service. Washington, DC : PREM, The World Bank.
ico.gov.uk. (n.d.). Data Protection Act of 1998. Retrieved June 18, 2012, from ico.gov.uk: http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guide/the_principles.aspx
legislation.gov.uk. (n.d.). Copyright Design and Patents Act of 1956 . Retrieved June 12, 2012, from legislation.gov.uk: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents
Lewis, J. (2007, January 12). Strategies to Improve the Ethical Climate of a Business Organization. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from ehow.com: http://www.ehow.com/way_5891381_strategies-ethical-climate-business-organization.html
LRN. (n.d.). The impact of codes of conduct on corporate culture. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from http://www.ethics.org: http://www.ethics.org/files/u5/LRNImpactofCodesofConduct.pdf
sqa.org.uk. (n.d.). SQA Website for Professional Issues. Retrieved June 18, 2012, from sqa.org.uk: http://www.sqa.org.uk/e-learning/ProfIssues02CD/index.htm
uslegal.com. (n.d.). Constructive Discharge Law & Legal Definition. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from uslegal.com: http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/constructive-discharge/
