Organizational technoethics

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Organizational technoethics (OT) is a branch stemming from technoethics. Advances in technology and their ability to transmit vast amounts of information in a short amount of time have changed the way information is being shared amongst co-workers and managers throughout organizations across the globe. Starting in the 1980s with information and communications technologies (ICTs), organizations have seen an increase in the amount of technology that they rely on to communicate within and outside of the workplace. However, these implementations of technology in the workplace create various ethical concerns and in turn a need for further analysis of technology in organizations. As a result of this growing trend, a subsection of technoethics known as organizational technoethics has emerged to address these issues.

Contents

Changes to organizational structure

Organizational technoethics "focuses on how technological advances are redefining organizations and how they operate within an evolving knowledge economy". [1] : 182  This new focus on knowledge and information within organizations has changed the way they function on a daily basis and has made it apparent that "as knowledge-intensive work gradually becomes the cornerstone of this economy, understanding its control practices is consequential to organizational effectiveness, worker satisfaction and ethical conditions of organizational governance". [2] With this "knowledge intensive work" at the forefront of most organizations, the efficient transmission of this knowledge and information now becomes a major priority to be carried out in the workplace. The introduction of the Internet in the workplace allowed employees to transmit information electronically not only to others in their own office but those in other countries as well. Technology began to facilitate the rapid exchange of information for these organizations and thus contributed to a structural change in how they operate. These changes prompted researchers to delve deeper into the issues surrounding organizational technoethics in how technology was shaping the workplace, whether positively or negatively, and the ethical issues that may arise.

The use of ICTs within organizations have given way to a new kind of office setting where physically being in the office is not mandatory to get the job done. This recent trend coined by many as the virtual workplace involves several workplaces that are connected through technology and are not hindered by physical restraints. Remote work, hot desking, and virtual teams are the three major types of virtual workplaces that have been made possible through the use of technology and have changed the way many organizations communicate and transmit information.

New ethical challenges

The increasing use of ICTs in the workplace has presented organizations with new ethical challenges. It has been argued that ICT use in organizational settings can contribute to counterproductive behaviour and deviancy [3] as the line between personal and professional lives becomes blurred.[ citation needed ] Usually this behaviour consists of non-sanctioned use of ICTs during work hours, such as updating personal blogs, playing games, doing personal banking online, and using email for non-work related activities.

In response to these popular misuses of technology in the workplace, some organizations have implemented workplace surveillance technologies and content-control software to monitor and restrict employees' activities online. ICT use in medical organizations has also given rise to new ethical dilemmas, such as the use of electronic medical records. These have created privacy concerns relating to potential breaches of doctor-patient confidentiality as well as concerns with information storage.

Organizational restrictions on social networking

One area of technoethics that is growing increasingly popular[ citation needed ] is organizational ethics and technology. The introduction of technology into organizations has fueled many different questions. Among these many questions is whether or not the technology being used is ethical. Many different case studies have been conducted in organizations around the world. In these case studies, new technology that has been introduced to an organization is examined. During the examination, one ethical question that seems to be a main focus for researchers is whether or not the new technology maintains users' privacy.

The advent of technology has also opened up new avenues and opportunities for individuals to misbehave; for example, cyberloafing, the act of employees using their companies' Internet access for personal purposes during work hours. While access to the internet may not result in an increase in production deviance with more people engaging in loafing per se, the temptation to do so is certainly higher since the Internet makes it so much easier and convenient to loaf in this manner. It is suggested by Lim when organizations are distributively, procedurally and interactionally unjust in their treatment of their employees (i.e., organizations have not given expected rewards or fair treatment in exchange for fair work), these employees are more likely to invoke the neutralization technique to legitimize their subsequent engagement in the act of cyberloafing. (Lim 2002) [4] One technology that has grown in popularity in recent years [5] is social networking sites, as many people use sites such as Facebook for personal and professional reasons. Organizations all over the world, including those in the Canadian province of Ontario, have begun to block access to Facebook and have led to criticism of Facebook. For example, in May 2007, Ontario government employees, Federal public servants, MPPs and cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government computers. Employees trying to access Facebook received a warning message that read "The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes". [6] The use of social networking sites led to a fear that government offices would become more vulnerable to computer viruses and hackers. However, with the government denying the use of these websites in their offices, many ethical questions arise about whether or not denying employees access to something that is readily available to everyone else is an infringement on the employees' rights and freedoms as Canadian citizens.

Technoethical challenges in medical organizations

Another area of organizational technoethics that has been becoming increasingly popular is in the field of medicine. Medical ethics are based on values and judgments in a practical clinical placement where six values are portrayed the most: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, dignity, truthfulness and honesty. Many of the issues in medical ethics are due to a lack of communication between the patients, family members, and health care team. An asset to medical ethics that has brought attention to its advantages and disadvantages are electronic medical records. This is a new way to update, organize and store patients' medical records in a database that can be accessible to other doctors by using the network.

An issue in organizational technoethics in the medical field that is an increasing matter is the privacy issue with electronic medical records. To start, some advantages of EMRs are that they can minimize errors, keep records safe in the database, it is cost efficient, translates into a better treatment for the patients and can even give some control over health records to the patients. On the other hand, EMRs have brought upon some disadvantages mainly around privacy issues. First, it threatens a patient's privacy. Having a patient's medical history recorded in the database loses the confidentiality between the doctor and patient since anyone who has access to the system is able to retrieve these files.

Moreover, some do not feel their medical records are safe in the database since others are able to get into personal files and potentially change medical records or misuse the information. [7] A group of researchers conducted a study on the privacy issues raised by the use of EMRs. They concluded that all electronic systems around us have this one-to-many exchange such as the internet and email just like the EMR system. However, more clarity needs to be provided around patient consent and patient restrictions as well as confidentiality issues. [8] With the issue of privacy at hand, many ethical questions have surfaced on whether this electronic system is safe or a hazard to patients due to the easy access and misuse of a patient's information.

Technoethics and surveillance

Organizational surveillance is becoming a reoccurring issue in the modern day workforce. Today's organizations are facing the ethical dilemma of privacy rights and meeting the societal demands of efficient productivity performances from employees. Organizations have restrictions on employees Web pages and have also implemented surveillance over workers email, Web browsing, and even video surveillance at the workplace. Surveillance has become a technoethical challenge because the rapid development of surveillance technologies. Surveillance is a prominent technoethical challenge because it threatens democracy, privacy, power, as well as brings various types of rights together. Surveillance is a technoethical challenge because it encompasses many ethical dilemmas made by new technology. Surveillance is a technoethical challenges because it threatens personal liberties. [9] Surveillance is said to corrode interpersonal trust, which is essential for democratic governance. [9] Citizens with access to new technologies are becoming more aware of the pervasiveness of these technologies. [9] Surveillances has evolved from people called informers to technology. Citizens are now seen as consumers, and their preferences are monitored in order to feed citizens their preferences rather than serve them with broad perspective. [9] This poses the question: Is it ethical to implement informational narrowcasting (only feeding citizens their preferences)? Surveillance also falls under many other categories and raises other ethical dilemmas. Another ethical dilemma would be: Should citizens be involved in the design process of technological policy on surveillance?

Surveillance can be ethical if states use it to protect national security and do not monitor citizens in the privacy of their bedroom and public washrooms. [10] In 1998 " New surveillance" introduced by technological advances added to the degree of complexity and mobility, that society had not seen before. [10] Surveillance has captured many areas of ethics and technology which translates into Technoethics. Surveillance has looked at power relationships in society, trust and autonomy, privacy, causes, authority as well as necessity, means, distance and social sorting. [10] Technoethics refers to the systems approach taken to look at all of these issues surrounding dilemmas such as surveillance.

The branch of utilitarian ethical theories are "based on the assumption of the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people". [1] : 26–27  Under this perspective of ethical theories, organizational surveillance for the workers does not bring happiness; "Workplace surveillance has consequences for employees, affecting employee well-being, work culture, productivity, creativity and motivation". [11] According to this report, the results show that surveillance produces the exact opposite results in which surveillance was implemented for, to increase workplace productivity. With organizational surveillance creating a workplace environment where employees feel unmotivated and as a result productivity will decrease. If the productivity of employees lack than the organization may not experience the rate of growth and success as wanted by management and ultimately, will lead to an overall unhappiness for both parties, employees and the organization.

Another branch of ethical theories which can be applied is duty ethics. Duty ethics is "concerned with the obligations one has to others in society". [1] : 26–27  Under this perspective, organizations have the obligation to provide services and goods to society. In order to produce services and goods for society, organizations must be efficient in productivity. As result of this need, organizations have implemented surveillance on employees in order to meet this obligation. Also, employees have the obligation to meet their own performance goals at the workplace, which align with the overall goals of the organization.

Organizational restrictions on Internet publishing

The Internet has become a popular medium of expression and accessing information and data. As the Internet community expands, there has been great debate on whether or not the internet should be censored, and if so, by whom. In Canada, there are many public and private organisations with the authority to censor, including many self-censoring associations and service providers. Canadian internet censorship is not specifically regulated; however local laws do apply to websites hosted in Canada as well as to residents who host sites on servers in other jurisdictions. Canada has seen many cases regarding websites including defamatory material [12] and material promoting hatred or contempt.

Important Canadian cases that raise the question of control of the flow of content on the Internet include:

Many cases were ruled through Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, such as the Marc Lemire case, which featured a "white nationalist" website hosted out of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. However, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) found that Section 13 was unconstitutional and refused to apply the provisions against the individual for reasons of freedom of speech. [14] All other Section 13 cases in Canada have been postponed pending on final decision of the applicability of Section 13.

Future

Organizational ethics and technology is a hot-bed for discussion. Whether it is about the maintenance of worker's privacy or the censoring of social network sites, organizations are striving to find a way to balance both their worker's agency and their productivity. It seems the fluid nature of the Internet is forcing the hand of companies to allow their workers some benefits to access the sites they normally would outside of the office, while at the same time maintaining a strict policy to not abuse any privileges meted out.[ citation needed ] The medical field has brought on a new technology that hopes to effectively and systematically ease the process of updating, storing, and organizing patient's records in a manner that suits both the patients and the doctors that treat them. With the advent of electronic medical records (EMR), the field of medical ethics has also seen an influx in ethical discourse. While the technology is different from social media per se, the efforts to protect the worker's (or patient's) privacy is similar and equally paramount to their survival. Patients will look to online databases to ensure that their information is both correct and secure, while trying to maintain the pseudo-ageless "doctor-patient confidentiality", even with full knowledge that their information is accessible worldwide with the click of a button.[ citation needed ] Looking ahead to how EMR advances, and whether or not organizations will always feel the need to block social network sites all depends on how they continue to be used as people become more complacent with the technology. There will always be instances of ethical debates concerning technology within an organizational context, as the only things that seem to change are the technologies surrounding them.

See also

Related Research Articles

Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.

Consumer privacy is information privacy as it relates to the consumers of products and services.

Medical privacy, or health privacy, is the practice of maintaining the security and confidentiality of patient records. It involves both the conversational discretion of health care providers and the security of medical records. The terms can also refer to the physical privacy of patients from other patients and providers while in a medical facility, and to modesty in medical settings. Modern concerns include the degree of disclosure to insurance companies, employers, and other third parties. The advent of electronic medical records (EMR) and patient care management systems (PCMS) have raised new concerns about privacy, balanced with efforts to reduce duplication of services and medical errors.

The ethics of technology is a sub-field of ethics addressing the ethical questions specific to the Technology Age, the transitional shift in society wherein personal computers and subsequent devices provide for the quick and easy transfer of information. Technology ethics is the application of ethical thinking to the growing concerns of technology as new technologies continue to rise in prominence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medical record</span> Medical term

The terms medical record, health record and medical chart are used somewhat interchangeably to describe the systematic documentation of a single patient's medical history and care across time within one particular health care provider's jurisdiction. A medical record includes a variety of types of "notes" entered over time by healthcare professionals, recording observations and administration of drugs and therapies, orders for the administration of drugs and therapies, test results, X-rays, reports, etc. The maintenance of complete and accurate medical records is a requirement of health care providers and is generally enforced as a licensing or certification prerequisite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic health record</span> Digital collection of patient and population electronically stored health information

An electronic health record (EHR) is the systematized collection of patient and population electronically stored health information in a digital format. These records can be shared across different health care settings. Records are shared through network-connected, enterprise-wide information systems or other information networks and exchanges. EHRs may include a range of data, including demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal statistics like age and weight, and billing information.

Media ethics is the subdivision dealing with the specific ethical principles and standards of media, including broadcast media, film, theatre, the arts, print media and the internet. The field covers many varied and highly controversial topics, ranging from war journalism to Benetton ad campaigns.

Email privacy is a broad topic dealing with issues of unauthorized access to, and inspection of, electronic mail, or unauthorized tracking when a user reads an email. This unauthorized access can happen while an email is in transit, as well as when it is stored on email servers or on a user's computer, or when the user reads the message. In countries with a constitutional guarantee of the secrecy of correspondence, whether email can be equated with letters—therefore having legal protection from all forms of eavesdropping—is disputed because of the very nature of email.Morrison, Steven R. "What the Cops Can't Do, Internet Service Providers Can: Preserving Privacy in Email Contents". Va. JL & Tech.</ref>

Information ethics has been defined as "the branch of ethics that focuses on the relationship between the creation, organization, dissemination, and use of information, and the ethical standards and moral codes governing human conduct in society". It examines the morality that comes from information as a resource, a product, or as a target. It provides a critical framework for considering moral issues concerning informational privacy, moral agency, new environmental issues, problems arising from the life-cycle of information. It is very vital to understand that librarians, archivists, information professionals among others, really understand the importance of knowing how to disseminate proper information as well as being responsible with their actions when addressing information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Institute for Health Information</span>

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) is a government-controlled not-for-profit Crown corporation that provides essential information on Canada's health systems and the health of Canadians. CIHI provides comparable and actionable data and information that are used to accelerate improvements in health care, health system performance and population health across Canada.

Patient portals are healthcare-related online applications that allow patients to interact and communicate with their healthcare providers, such as physicians and hospitals. Typically, portal services are available on the Internet at all hours of the day and night. Some patient portal applications exist as stand-alone web sites and sell their services to healthcare providers. Other portal applications are integrated into the existing web site of a healthcare provider. Still others are modules added onto an existing electronic medical record (EMR) system. What all of these services share is the ability of patients to interact with their medical information via the Internet. Currently, the lines between an EMR, a personal health record, and a patient portal are blurring. For example, Intuit Health and Microsoft HealthVault describe themselves as personal health records (PHRs), but they can interface with EMRs and communicate through the Continuity of Care Record standard, displaying patient data on the Internet so it can be viewed through a patient portal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyberethics</span>

Cyber ethics is the philosophic study of ethics pertaining to computers, encompassing user behavior and what computers are programmed to do, and how this affects individuals and society. For years, various governments have enacted regulations while organizations have defined policies about cyberethics.

Workplace privacy is related with various ways of accessing, controlling, and monitoring employees' information in a working environment. Employees typically must relinquish some of their privacy while in the workplace, but how much they must do can be a contentious issue. The debate rages on as to whether it is moral, ethical and legal for employers to monitor the actions of their employees. Employers believe that monitoring is necessary both to discourage illicit activity and to limit liability. With this problem of monitoring employees, many are experiencing a negative effect on emotional and physical stress including fatigue, lowered employee morale and lack of motivation within the workplace. Employers might choose to monitor employee activities using surveillance cameras, or may wish to record employees activities while using company-owned computers or telephones. Courts are finding that disputes between workplace privacy and freedom are being complicated with the advancement of technology as traditional rules that govern areas of privacy law are debatable and becoming less important.

Employee monitoring is the surveillance of workers' activity. Organizations engage in employee monitoring for different reasons such as to track performance, to avoid legal liability, to protect trade secrets, and to address other security concerns. This practice may impact employee satisfaction due to its impact on the employee's privacy. Among organizations, the extent and methods of employee monitoring differ.

Computer surveillance in the workplace is the use of computers to monitor activity in a workplace. Computer monitoring is a method of collecting performance data which employers obtain through digitalised employee monitoring. Computer surveillance may nowadays be used alongside traditional security applications, such as closed-circuit television.

Digital health is a discipline that includes digital care programs, technologies with health, healthcare, living, and society to enhance the efficiency of healthcare delivery and to make medicine more personalized and precise. It uses information and communication technologies to facilitate understanding of health problems and challenges faced by people receiving medical treatment and social prescribing in more personalised and precise ways. The definitions of digital health and its remits overlap in many ways with those of health and medical informatics.

"Corporate surveillance" describes the practice of businesses monitoring and extracting information from their users, clients, or staff. This information may consist of online browsing history, email correspondence, phone calls, location data, and other private details. Acts of corporate surveillance frequently look to boost results, detect potential security problems, or adjust advertising strategies. These practices have been criticized for violating ethical standards and invading personal privacy. Critics and privacy activists have called for businesses to incorporate rules and transparency surrounding their monitoring methods to ensure they are not misusing their position of authority or breaching regulatory standards.

Internet universality is a concept and framework adopted by UNESCO in 2015 to summarize their positions on the Internet. The concept recognizes that "the Internet is much more than infrastructure and applications, it is a network of economic and social interactions and relationships, which has the potential to enable human rights, empower individuals and communities, and facilitate sustainable development. The concept is based on four principles stressing the Internet should be human rights-based, open, accessible, and based on the multistakeholder participation. These have been abbreviated as the R-O-A-M principles. Understanding the Internet in this way helps to draw together different facets of Internet development, concerned with technology and public policy, rights and development."

Federal and state governments, insurance companies and other large medical institutions are heavily promoting the adoption of electronic health records. The US Congress included a formula of both incentives and penalties for EMR/EHR adoption versus continued use of paper records as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Indiscriminate monitoring is the mass monitoring of individuals or groups without the careful judgement of wrong-doing. This form of monitoring could be done by government agencies, employers, and retailers. Indiscriminate monitoring uses tools such as email monitoring, telephone tapping, geo-locations, health monitoring to monitor private lives. Organizations that conduct indiscriminate monitoring may also use surveillance technologies to collect large amounts of data that could violate privacy laws or regulations. These practices could impact individuals emotionally, mentally, and globally. The government has also issued various protections to protect against indiscriminate monitoring.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Rocci, Luppicini (31 January 2010). Technoethics and the Evolving Knowledge Society: Ethical Issues in Technological Design, Research, Development, and Innovation: Ethical Issues in Technological Design, Research, Development, and Innovation. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. ISBN   9781605669533.
  2. ↑ Guowei Jian (2008). "Identity and technology: Organizational control of knowledge-intensive work". Qualitative Research Reports in Communication. 9 (1): 62–71. doi:10.1080/17459430802400365. S2CID   52204974.
  3. ↑ Terrance G. Weatherbee (2010). "Counterproductive use of technology at work: Information & communications technologies and cyberdeviancy". Human Resource Management Review. 20 (1): 35–44. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.03.012.
  4. ↑ VIVIEN K. G. LIM (2002). "The IT way of loafing on the job: cyberloafing, neutralizing and organizational justice". Journal of Organizational Behavior. 23 (5): 675–694. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.500.9309 . doi:10.1002/job.161.
  5. ↑ Kimberlee Morrison (January 27, 2014). "The Growth of Social Media: From Passing Trend to International Obsession [Infographic]". Adweek. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  6. ↑ Benzie, Robert (May 3, 2007). "Facebook banned for Ontario staffers". The Toronto Star.
  7. ↑ Health WorldNet (2009). "Electronic medical records: the pros and cons". Health WorldNet Heads or Tails?. Archived from the original on 2010-01-04.
  8. ↑ van der Linden, H.; Kalra, D.; Hasman, A. & Talmon, J. (2009). "Inter-organizational future proof EHR systems: A review of the security and privacy related issues". International Journal of Medical Informatics. 78 (3): 141–60. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2008.06.013. PMID   18760661.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Haggerty & Samatas (2012-06-13). "Surveillance and Democracy". The Globalist.
  10. 1 2 3 Macnish, K. "Copyright & Reprint Information". Surveillance Ethics. International Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  11. ↑ Ball, K. (2010). "Workplace surveillance: An overview". Labour History. 1. 51: 87–106. doi:10.1080/00236561003654776. S2CID   154927156.
  12. ↑ Fitzpatrick, M (2011-10-19). "Internet links not libel, top court rules". CBC News.
  13. 1 2 Peterson & Hutchinson (1999). Interpreting Censorship in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 244–246. ISBN   0-8020-4164-7.
  14. ↑ Lemire, M. "Internet Censorship Case Finally gets Court Date".
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