Communication should be considered unethical when it leaves others at a disadvantage and keeps them from making sound decisions. Writing must be kept accurate, honest, and free of bias if it is to be considered ethical. This begs the question, "How can I be sure of doing the right thing?" This chapter re-cap will attempt to answer that question.
It is important to keep in mind that unethical communication is increasingly common in the workplace. Examples of this can range from what one may consider to be a small "white lie", such as exaggerated credentials on your resume, to misrepresenting a given batch of researched data. An range of examples proves the point that the difference between an ethical and an unethical decision is not black and white. There are a lot of grey areas between the two, which is probably the major reason why there is so much controversy over this issue.
When examining ethics, it is important to know the major causes behind unethical communication. This probably does not come as a surprise, but ethics are oftentimes compromised due to some sort of external pressure. Oftentimes, an important issue that needs to be resolved quickly will overshadow a person's ability to discern between right and wrong. This can be especially detriment when a company's motto is "succeed at any cost". For example, automobile often try to maintain the goals of production and safety, but when you add "efficient" before production, the two goals often compete. When efficient production wins out, ethics and safety oftentimes goes out the window. If you work in a company like this, it is important for you to adhere to your own ethical standards.
An example of a good intention gone wrong in terms of ethics, is found in the fact that most companies nowadays rely heavily on teamwork to get jobs done. Teamwork and collaboration are essential in a corporate setting, but groupthink can get confused with teamwork. Groupthink happens when pressure from within the group prevents individual group members from questioning and clarifying group decisions. This probably happens because people feel a need for acceptance in a group-- nobody likes to be the one to defy everyone else. Groupthink is actually much like peer pressures that most teenagers feel.
Anyone who works on writing technical documents in a company should have a particular boss to whom they report and send their documents-- at times, this may put them in the precarious decision of whether to finish the assignment or tell the truth. The line between ethical and unethical is blurring when expectations are high and the deadline is nearing. There are also many specific examples of communication abuse in the workplace. These include: downplaying any dangers or problems so the public has a better perception, hiding conflicts of interest from the public, or exaggerating claims about a new technology. Problems also arise when false data is added to technical communication or visuals are added to hide truth. Some companies are even guilty of exposing proprietary, or confidential, information from other companies, and also misusing information that they have procured from electronic databases. Since corporate use of the internet to hold addresses, credit card numbers, music, videos, and other information is so common these days, many ways of stealing internet information have been developed and used unethically. There have also been cases where information that workers need for their jobs is withheld, and cultural differences are exploited.
In order to combat the vast arrays of varying unethical exploits, you must be able to rely on your own critical thinking whenever you are forced to make ethical decisions, which is almost constantly. You need to understand what your obligations in the situation are, as well as what values or ideals you want to represent in your situation. You also need to consider what will happen if you act in a multitude of different ways.
Reasonable criteria are the standards by which most people find work acceptable, and it has three categories: obligations, ideals, and consequences. Obligations will vary from yourself to all of society, and will oftentimes be conflicting-- this means that you will have to set aside a group of primary obligations to which you will adhere to. Ideals are the values by which you live your life, which standards drive your everyday decisions. And consequences are the results, be them good or bad, or the actions that you choose to make. Consequences can vary, and may even be challenging to predict or hard to recognize. This means that even though you may think one answer is right, it may in fact be completely wrong.
You will need to anticipate difficult choices sometimes when dealing with ethical dilemmas. The most important aspect of this decision is what to reveal and what to conceal of the information that you have collected. It may arise, however, that you will have to choose between your company's organizational goals and what you know to be right.
It may be true that the law sometimes tells us how we should act ethically, but we should never rely solely on legal guidelines when making ethical communication decisions. This is because it may be true that a document is legal and unethical at the same time. The legal guidelines that dictate workplace communication include: laws against deception (or lying), laws against libel (falsifying statements), laws protecting employee privacy, copyright laws, laws against software theft, laws against electronic theft (distribution of internet material), laws against stealing or revealing trade secrets (such as proprietary), laws against false advertising, and, finally, liability laws (defective information).
When working with technical communication in this day and age, it is extremely important that you know how to recognize plagiarism. Plagiarism, by definition, is using somebody else's ideas, words, or research as your own. It violates all ethical standards when you fail to cite your sources. Plagiarism can be blatant or simply a failure to cite something and for all intensive purposes, a mistake, but, regardless, it is a serious breach of ethics. The internet has made plagiarism much more probably now, so you need to take extra precaution when reviewing someone else's work.
Whistle-blowing is a term used to describe the act of going public on an unethical matter. It is almost a guarantee that you will be fired when you take this act (or you may even be black-listed from future hire), but there are a few legal protections for a person who decides to take a stand against unethical behavior. Some of these laws include the Federal False Claims Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which essentially keep the employee who blew the whistle from having monetary or future job troubles. It is a good idea to research a company's history of whistle-blowing and its reactions to it-- unethical issues occur quite a lot in corporate settings and there may be a time when you are facing with making a tough decision about whether to report an issue or not.
Group Discussion Question: Suppose you are working in a factory setting where you and other workers assemble a piece of machinery that will be used by hundreds, if not thousands of people. You notice that the company is deliberately skipping several important safety procedures on one particular part. What factors would you consider before you decided to go on with your work, quit, or report the unethical practice?
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