June 2010 Edition
Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town
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These relationships are employer-employee, client-professional, society-professional and professional-professional.
This often involved the conditions of employments. This can be explicit in the contracts (concerns responsibilities and salary) but many important issues are left out (overtime). Some are specified by laws such as sick and annual leaves, while some are negotiated by unions such as retrenchment rules.
Moral foundation for this relationship:
Is contractual
Individuals should be treated with respects and not merely as a means.
Neither party should take advantage of the other. Employee should be honest with their qualification and employer should not exploit employee (decent wage, safe environment, etc.)
Another important issue is what does the employee owe?
Loyalty – can invite some unfairness (boss’s son) or loss of criticality (just agree with boss)
Trade secrets/knowledge in a field. There are many means of dealing with this, by making sure that:
Employee can only sell specific knowledge – but this is considered wrong.
Employees sign contract not to reveal secrets gain during employment as part of the job.
Employees sign contract not to work in similar area for a certain period after leaving the company.
Recall Carl and his safety concern. His company should have told the military that the project was late. In this respect, his company was not acting well. Additionally Carl tried to work through his company but failed. The client (the military) depends on professional for the knowledge and expertise in the special area.
There are different models for this kind of relationships:
Agency: Professional is the agent and does exactly what client tells him to do (like telling a stockbroker to buy “Telkom”).
Paternalistic: Professional makes all the decisions and the client abrogates all decision making.
Fiduciary: Both parties play a role by working together. The professional offers options while the client decides which one to take. This requires trust on both sides and that the decision process is shared.
This relationship is usually shaped by law, but the law (or people who makes them) can not foresee everything - consider Carl’s case. If Society licenses a professional society then the professional society:
Must serve the interests of Society in general
Certainly must not harm Society
Must maintain itself
Must take DUE CARE based on the special knowledge it processes.
Many believe that this relationship is self-serving. They see members as only having an obligation to other members. This might create a reluctance to criticise another professional. Often such scenarios are complex, especially when it is difficult to tell if it’s a genuine errors or incompetence.
For a professional society to flourish there must also be advantages to Society from it:
Members must consider what they owe to each other to maintain standards of conduct.
There is a need for disciplinary hearing procedure.
Members have important obligation such as much not take bribes, not lie about qualifications or fudge the results.
For a professional, there exist many conflicts between the four types of relationships that they take part in. This is most common between the responsibilities with employer and society. Consider the Carl’s case again – the company needs contracts to survive but Carl’s concern is his responsibilities to society. So when does a professional ‘rock the boat’ when it comes to society versus other relationships? There is no easy answer but generally:
Professional must be convinced of their position
Must consult managers at different levels of their company first.
If they whistle blow they must be prepared to lose their jobs.
Another issue is fragmentation. Where as medical profession sees the entire problem, computing professionals often sees a small part of the system and as such it can be very difficult to pass judgement.