A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
A Participatory Design Program for Making Ethical Choices in Client Vendor Relations in ISD
Authors: Vartiainen Tero, Heimo Olli I., Kimppa Kai K.
Editors: David Kreps, Gordon Fletcher, Marie Griffiths
Conference name: IFIP International Conference on Human Choice and Computers
Publication year: 2016
Book title : Technology and Intimacy: Choice or Coercion
Series title: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology
Volume: 474
First page : 116
Last page: 129
Number of pages: 14
ISBN: 978-3-319-44804-6
eISBN: 978-3-319-44805-3
ISSN: 1868-4238
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44805-3
Web address : http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-44805-3_10
We propose a program for developing
ethically sustainable cultures in client–vendor relations in information
systems development (ISD). The program is based on the participatory design
approach and is motivated by the findings of our survey (n=20) that explored
ethical challenges and good ethical practices in the IT field. The data showed
that client–vendor relations are ethically conflicting as profitability
pressures, for example, induce IS managers to undertake unethical practices.
Based on the results of our survey, we identified a dialectical process in
client–vendor relations in the form of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In
the process, impulses inducing questionable or unethical practices (thesis)
confront the guidelines for good ethical practices (antithesis). This
confrontation between a thesis and an antithesis is implemented through the program
we propose, and as a result, morally better practices are expected to emerge
(synthesis).
