Mary Prior

The ethical attitudes of information systems professionals: outcomes of an initial survey

This paper presents the results of a survey of the ethical attitudes of information systems (IS) professionals conducted during 1998. Surveys of attitudes reported in the literature are outlined, then the research objective and methodology are described and the main findings are discussed. While the survey indicated a high level of ethical awareness among respondents, it also highlighted a number of problematical areas, tending to confirm the findings of previous surveys. Finally, suggestions for further research in this area are made.

The Key Organisational Issues Affecting E-Government Adoption in Saudi Arabia

The e-government paradigm refers to utilizing the potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the whole government body to meet citizens’ expectations via multiple channels. It is, therefore, a radical change within the public sector and in the relationship between a government and its stakeholders. In the light of that, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a keen interest in this issue and thus it has developed a national project to implement e-government systems. However, many technological, managerial, and organizational issues must be considered and treated carefully before and after going online. Based on an empirical study, this article highlights the key organizational issues that affect e-government adoption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at both national and agency levels.

Organizational Knowledge: Ethics and the Importance of Trust

The aim of this paper is to grasp the ethical dilemmas that arise into organizational knowledge and the importance of trust for diminishing these dilemmas. Therefore, it focuses three key issues: knowledge management (concept; and, schools of thought); knowledge flowing models versus ethics (mental models; the Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization (SECI) model; and, Fiske’s relational model); and finally, the importance of trust as a possible answer. Plus, this paper suggests that the previous models only focus knowledge as continuum process and the result of this process omits ethical and moral dilemmas (obligation to share, personal property, personal worth, autonomy, dignity, privacy, etc.). These ethical dilemmas clearly weaken a knowledge management project, and how trust is a reliable answer. The absence of empirical work should be considered a limitation of this paper; however, does not diminish the importance for this debate.

Porquê relacionar gestão do conhecimento, cultura organizacional e ética: resultados empíricos

A gestao de conhecimento pode ser caracterizada como a aquisicao e utilizacao de recursos organizacionais de modo a gerar informacao disponivel para todos, devendo esta ser partilhada e empregue com o intuito de melhorar o conhecimento individual e consequentemente coletivo. Nesse sentido, uma estrategia de gestao do conhecimento incorpora dois niveis antagonicos: pessoal e organizacional, suscetiveis de gerar potenciais tensoes. Estas tensoes podem derivar da interacao da gestao do conhecimento com a cultura organizacional e a etica, o que de acordo com a literatura origina os seguintes dilemas: acesso ao conhecimento, autonomia, dignidade, privacidade, propriedade intelectual, e justa compensacao (eticos); confianca versus cultura organizacional (sociais). Nesse sentido, este projeto de investigacao assume uma atitude descritiva e explanatoria atraves de um estudo interpretativo e critico. A utilizacao de multiplos casos de estudo e grounded theory (multi-metodo) permitira percecionar a complexidade e a natureza do estudo, contudo existem desafios consideraveis no que respeita aos metodos de recolha de dados (entrevistas e questionarios). Sendo assim, optou-se por elaborar pre-testes e testes piloto com o objetivo de promulgar maiores niveis de confianca relativamente aos casos de estudo, cujos resultados empiricos (pre-testes e testes piloto) demonstram de forma clara que existem os dilemas eticos e sociais referenciados, assim como os gestores tendem a ignora-los ou negligencia-los.