RESPONSIBILITIES AND RIGHTS

Responsibilities of Engineers

Internal Responsibilities:
Responsibilities of an engineer towards an employer, that the Responsibilities
within an organization
External Responsibilities :
Responsibilities of an engineer towards outside world, that the Responsibilities
outside organization
Collegiality
 It is the tendency to support and cooperate with the
colleagues
 According to NSPE , the collegiality should include
following characteristics
1. Engineers should not attempt to injure, unkindly or falsely
directly or indirectly, the professional reputation, prospects,
practice or employment of other engineers
2. Engineers should not untruthfully criticize other engineer’s
work.
3. Engineers should not bring unethical or illegal practice of other
engineers to the proper authority for action
Collegiality

 According to Craig Ihara – “A kind of connectedness

grounded in respect for professional expertise and in
commitment to the goals and values of the profession
 Elements of Collegiality
 Respect
 Commitment
 Connectedness
Elements of Collegiality
 Respect:
 In general Means valuing one’s colleague for their
professional skill and their devotion to the social
goods promoted by the profession
 For engineering : It means affirming the worth of
other engineers engaged in producing socially
useful and safe products
 Collegial respect Vs Friendship:
 Collegial respect is Reciprocal like friendship
 But not necessarily develops personal affection like
friendship
Elements of Collegiality
 Commitment:
 Sharing devotion to the moral ideals essential in
the practice of engineering
 Even when there is cut-throat competition b/w
engineers, there should be a feeling that all
engineers share a concern for overall good to the
society
Elements of Collegiality

 Connectedness:
 Awareness of being part of a cooperative undertaking created by
sharing commitments and skill
 It means the sense of utility among engineers that includes
cooperation and mutual support
Why is collegiality a virtue
 Collegiality should be encouraged among engineers
and other professionals because
 From the point of view of society, collegiality is the influential
value to promote the aims of professions.
 It supports personal efforts act responsibly in concert with
colleagues
 It strengthen ones motivation to live up to professional
standards
 From the point of professionals, collegiality is more valuable
as many individuals jointly working for the goodness of the
public and society
Negative aspects of collegiality

 Collegiality may be misused and distorted.

 Ex: colleagues appeal to be silent about corporate
corruption
 It may degenerate more group of self-interest, rather
than shared devotion to the public
 Because of heavy competitions among engineers,
collegiality may focus on the corporate goal of
maximizing profit at the expense of public good
Loyality

 The quality of being true and faithful in one’s support

 It is more a function of attitudes, emotions and a sense of
identity
 Senses of loyalty
 Agency Loyalty
 Identification Loyalty
Agency Loyalty
 It is fulfill one’s prescribed duties to an employer
 The contractual duties may include particular task for
which one is paid, general activities of cooperating with
colleagues, and following lawful authority with the
organization
 It concerns with the matter of actions, whatever it
motives. It is motivated by identification with the group to
which one is loyal.
 Example:
 People may not like the job they do hate their employer, but still
they would perform their duty as long as they are employees.
This sense of loyalty is agency loyalty
Identification loyalty
 It is much concerned with attitudes, emotions, and a
sense of personal identity as it does with action
 Employee should meet his moral duties to the
organization willingly with personal attachment and
affirmation.
 Some of the duties of loyal employees are,
 To avoid conflicts of interest
 To protect confidential information
 To be honest in making estimates
 To admit one’s error
 Is loyalty
obligatory(responsibility)
Agency loyalty to employers is an obligation within
proper limits
 According to john H.Fielder, identification of loyalty is
obligatory, only when the two conditions are meet.
 Employees must be treated fairly, they should be given their
share of benefits and burdens
 Employees must see that their goals are achieved by and
through a group in which they participate
Professionalism and Loyalty

 Acting on professional commitments to the public is more

effective to serve a company than just following company
orders.
 Loyalty to employers may not mean obeying one’s immediate
supervisor.
 Professional obligations to both an employer and to the public
might strengthen rather than contradict each other.
Respect for Authority
 It is right to make decisions, the right to direct
the work, and the right to give orders.
 It is crucial factor in organization, since
engineers and employees must be authorized to
carryout the jobs assigned to them.
 Authority can be defined as the legal right to
command action by others to enforce
compliance
 Clear lines of authority identifies areas of personal
responsibility and accountability.
Sources of authority
 Authority derives from the several sources. They
are the persons position or rank, and personal
attitudes such as knowledge and expertise
Institutional authority
 It can be defined as the institutional right given to a
person to exercise power based on the resource of
institution
 It is an authority given by institution to the qualified
individuals to meet their industries objectives
 This authority is exercised by making policy, allocating
resources, issuing orders, carrying out actions, giving
recommendations etc..
Experts Authority
 It is the possession of special knowledge skill,
competencies to perform some task or to give sound
advice.
 It proved that leaders with expertise can be more
effectively guide and motivate others than the
conventional leaders. This concept is referred as
“authority of leadership”
 In todays organization, the staff engineers, advisors,
and consultants are given expert authority, while the
institutional authority is assigned to the line
managers
Authority Vs Power
Sl. Authority Power
no
1 It is the legal rights to superior, It is the ability of the person to
which compel his subordinates to influence others to perform an act.
perform certain acts It may not have legal sanction
2 It is delegated to an individual by his It is earned by an individual through
supervisor his own efforts
3 It is mostly well defined and finite It is undefined and infinite

4 It lies in the position held and the It resets in the individual. Even
authority change in position when the position has changed, his
power remains with him
Morally Justified authority
 the institutional authority assigned to employee may
ensure in achieving the institutional objectives. But
those institutional rights should necessarily be
morally justified institutional rights and duties
 The institutional authority is said to be morally
justified when:
 The goals of the institution are morally permissible or
morally desirable
 The way of implementation should not violate basic moral
duties.
Accepting authority
 Employees accept their employers authority by accepting the
guidance and obeying the directives issued by the employer.
 According to Herbert Simon, “ a subordinate is said to accept
authority whenever he permits his behavior to be guided by the
decision of superior, without independently examining the merits of
that decision”
 All the employers have the limits on ‘zone of acceptance’ in which
they are willing to accept the authority
 Generally employees are not interested to make an issue of every
incident of questionable morality, because of fear of losing their job.
 Therefore the ‘zone of acceptance’ can be used as a measure of
the lack of individual moral integrity
 Paramount Obligations
 The engineers paramount obligation is to protect the public
health, safety, and welfare, rather than the obligations of
loyalty and faithful service to employers
 The engineers have obligations to accept their employers
institutional authority. But it does not mean that they have to
obey obligations blindly.
 Engineers must weigh their obligations to the public, their
employers, their colleagues, and others.
 *Obligation – responsibility
 Paramount- supreme
 Collective bargaining.
 International Labor Organization (ILO) define it as :
Negotiation about working conditions and terms of
employment between employer and one or more
representative employee’s with a view to reaching the
agreement
 The term bargaining refers to evolving agreement using
methods like negotiation, discussion, exchange of facts and
ideas rather than confrontation.
Process of collective bargaining

 Presenting character of demands by the union on behalf of

constituent elements
 Compromise at bargaining table
 Reaching the agreement
Unionism & Professionalism
 Legally, any organization employing more than 20 employees could
have a union. In a organization more than one union is permitted
 Unions to safeguard the interests of employees and to prevent
exploitation of employees
 According to john kemper, the unionism and professionalism are
conflicting with each other. Professionalism offers Paramount
importance to the importance to the interest of society and their
employers. But unions are collective bargaining agents.
 Many professional societies indirectly instruct the engineers should
not become members of the unions.
 Collective bargaining is ethical or unethical only on the basis of the
given situation
Arguments over Unions
 Arguments in favor of unions
 It play vital role in achieving high salaries and
improved standard of living organization
 Employees get greater sense of participation in
organization decision
 Ensure job security
 Unions maintain stability by providing an effective
grievance procedure for employee complaints
 Unions can act as counterforce to any political
movement that exploits the employees
Arguments over Unions
 Arguments against unions
 Unions destroys the economy of a country
 Unions remove person to person negotiation
between employers and employees
 Unions encourage conflict and stressed relations
between employees and employers
 Unions prevents employer from rewarding
individuals for their personal achievements
External Responsibilities

 Responsibilities of an engineer towards outside world, that

the Responsibilities outside organization
 It include
 Confidentiality
 Conflict of interest
 Occupational crimes
 Types Of Crime
Domestic crime
Non-accidental crime committed by members of the family

Professional Crime
When crime is pursued as a profession or day to day occupation
Street crime
Crime against person, property (theft, assault on a person, harassement )

Victimless crime
Person who commits the crime is the victim of the crime. E.g. Drug addiction

Hate crime
Crime done on the banner of religion,
community, linguistics
Occupational crimes
 Occupational crimes are illegal acts made possible through one’s lawful
employment.
 It is the secretive violation of laws regulating work activities.
 When committed by office workers or professionals, occupational crime is
called “white collar crime “
 Most of occupational crimes are special instances of conflicts of interests.
 These crimes are motivated by personal greed, corporate ambition,
misguided company loyalty
 Examples:
 Price Fixing

 Endangering lives

 Industrial espionage
Occupational crime of price fixing

 While fixing price for any product or service sometimes all

competitors come together and jointly set up the price to be
charged. These are called pricing cartels.
 This is unfair and unethical practice
Endangering lives

 Some companies employ workers without disclosing them

harmful health effects and safety hazards about the working
environment
 This is kind of occupational crimes
Industrial Espionage(spying)

 Industrial spying
 Espionage refers secret gathering of information in order to
influence relationships between two entities
 The vital information's are secretly gatherd through espionage
agents for economic gains
Conflicts of Interest
 In general conflicts of interest means individuals as two or more
desires that all interests cannot be satisfied given circumstance.
 Professional conflicts of interest are situations where
professionals have an interest, if pursued , could keep from
meeting one of their obligations to their employers
 Example:
 Employee working in a company serving as a consultant for a
competitor’s company
Types of conflicts of interest

 Actual conflicts of interests

 Potential conflicts of interests
 Apparent conflicts of interests
Conflict of Interest

Conflict of Interest arises when two conditions are met

 The professional is in a relationship or a role that requires
exercising good judgment on behalf of the interests of an
employer or client and

 The professional has some additional or side interest that

could threaten good judgment in serving the interests of the
employee or client. E.g. When an engineer is paid based on a
percentage of the cost of the design and there is no incentive
for him to cut costs- The distrust caused by this situation
compromises the engineer’s ability to cut costs and calls into
question his judgment.
Conflict of Interest created by Interest
in other companies
 When one works actually for the competitor or subcontractor as an employee or
consultant.
 Having partial ownership or substantial stock holdings in the competitor’s business.
 It may not arise by merely having a spouse working for sub-contractor to one’s
company, but it will arise if one’s job also includes granting contracts to that
subcontractor
Conflicts of Interest created by Insider information

 Using inside information to set-up a business opportunity for oneself or

family or friends.
 Buying stock in the company for which one works is not objectionable
but it should be based on the same information available to the public.
Avoiding Conflicts Of Interests

 Taking guidance from Company Policy

 In the absence of such a policy taking a second opinion from a coworker
or manager. This gives an impression that there no intension on the part
of the engineer to hide anything