Stakeholders and their involvement in ethical decision-making (a)

Managerial practices determine the organisational culture and hence the value that the organisation has the potential to develop. Therefore, ethical managerial practices are crucial in ensuring relevance of a company in the market.

Following is a list of stakeholders of NewAge Pty Ltd, based on power and interest matrix (Aapaoja & Haapasalo, 2014).

Stakeholder power	Keep satisfied	Key players Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper
· Government · Local authorities Ø City council authorities (LivingCity) and mayor Hon. Joseph Luck	· Employee (decision maker) Ø Mrs McDonald · Customers Ø XYZ Pty Ltd
Minimal effort	Keep informed
· Indirect consumers Ø Badluck Bank Ø The company, victim of burning of office due to tablet burst	· Employees Ø Mr McBright · Other employees
	Interest to impact

Table 1: Stakeholders of NewAge Pty Ltd

(Created by Student)

The stakeholders that had the power to prevent the accidents by applying ethical decision-making approaches were Mrs McDonald, Mr McBright and the city council authorities including the mayor. Mr McBright applying the utilitarian approach decided to report the bug to Mrs McDonald (Kaptein, 2017). On the other hand, Mrs McDonald failed in applying the approach adequately and emphasized on the schedule (Trevino & Nelson, 2016). Mrs McDonald also failed in applying the ethical approach of fairness while performing the recruitment process for NewAge Pty Ltd. The virtue approach emphasises on values and morals while making decisions.

Utilitarian approach of ethical decision-making asks to find the least harmful option by comparing alternatives. Here both Mrs McDonald and Mr McBright faced the dilemma of choosing between the schedules and resolving the identified bug. As can be seen from the consequences of the decision, resolving the bug should have received the prime significance. Therefore, the ethical response to the dilemma should have been asking the client for minimum amount of additional time, needed to debug the operating system and delivering the product as promised (Weiss, 2014).  

The city council authorities faced the moral dilemma of taking action against NewAge Pty Ltd for the mishap and protecting the employment of its citizens (Iphofen, 2016). Here the employment of its citizens received precedence from the authorities of city council, while the ethical response should have been a legal action against the perpetrator, adhering to the approach of justice as the city council is expected to avoid partiality in its practices.  

The ACS code of primacy of the public interest, and enhancement of quality of life inspires emphasis on quality over any other requirements as it directly affects the end customer (Acs.org.au, 2018). Failure in achieving that in the given case not only breached the contract but also caused tangible damage to the clients of XYZ Pty Ltd, which was further worsened by the lack of honesty. The transparency of information about the existence of bug in the operating system could discourage XYZ Pty Ltd from launching the tablets with the faulty software, avoiding the accidents.

Finally, the given case highlights Mrs McDonald’s reluctance towards hiring qualified employees and enhancement of own and other employees’ competencies. It also marks the favouritism practiced by Mrs McDonald during recruitment process, which limited the organisation’s ability to develop relevant products. Therefore, henceforth, every decision of the organisation concerning human resource should be competency centric.

Mr McBright identified the bug but failed to insist on its consequences during the decision. Cognitive moral development theory explained such behaviour as indication for the management to single out such individuals and assign them autonomy of decision. Lack of judgement in part of Mrs McDonald led to an inadequate decision of delivering the product with the bug, which caused both the accidents. Here rise the question of bounded ethicality. Mok, Shen and Yang (2015) identified bounded ethicality as the psychological process, where an individual takes ethically questionable decisions that agree with a preferred ethics. Here to meet delivery schedule they delivered the product with the bug.

Ethical dilemma and their responses (b and c)

Conclusion 

The ability to assume the consequences of different options and reaching an ethically sound decision is crucial in maximising value for stakeholders. Failure in achieving this not only reduces the value of products or services delivered by an organisation but also threatens the wellbeing of its stakeholders.

SFIA is a common reference framework for job aspirants and job providers to conduct a simplified yet accurate recruitment process. It provides a two-dimensional framework with skills on an axis and seven different levels of responsibilities on the other. Using this framework in this report career development plan is generated for accessing IT profession at the end of graduation.

This particular report focuses towards identification of the professional skills that are required for unhindered transition into IT profession upon graduation. Using SFIA 6 suitable responsibility levels are identified and skill development plans are generated with timeline.

SFIA 6 contains 97 skills spread across seven levels of responsibility. To simplify the navigation SFIA 6 has structured the skills into six different categories each of which contain several sub-categories (Sfia-online.org. 2018).

Such distribution of skills across the framework is useful for aspiring individuals to identify their existing position on the chart and the position that they intend to be in. SFIA 6 also avails an insight to the skills that is required to reach a particular level in the framework. This insight helps the individual to identify and develop essential skills adequately so it helps them in acquiring the desired job. I, through this report intend to develop a career plan, using SFIA 6, to ensure my unhindered transition into an IT professional upon my graduation.

The developed career plan would be targeted to achieve the responsibility level 3 of SFIA version 6. For entry, level IT professional upon graduation the level of responsibility spans from 1 to 3 (Sfia-online.org., 2018). One of the major reasons behind selecting the responsibility level 3 is that although it requires the individual to work under general direction and schedule, plan and monitor own work, unlike level 2; it also avails frequent reviews, unlike level 4. This is expected to help me in developing as an IT professional. Constructive feedbacks and regular review of my work would help me in identifying industry best practices, which is essential for the professional growth.

As the preferred functional area is strategy and planning of information system, the skill required for entering the field upon graduation is information security level 3. This skill includes sub-skills such as demonstration of effective communication with management, identification of the need for escalating security measures and application of specific information security measures (Mcs.open.ac.uk., 2018). The following table avails an insight to the measures that need to be taken for acquisition of skills:

Areas of development	Reason	Actions	Resource requirement	Evaluation process	Time
Knowledge on information security	Extensive knowledge is required on information security to ensure that after graduation such knowledge can be sued during application of information security measures at workplace	· Completing the course assignments successfully · Studying information security measures · Learning through internship	· Books · Coursework	The feedback from seniors during internship might be used for understanding the level of competency.	2 years
Risk analysis skills	This skill is essential to identify the loopholes in existing information security system and for reporting the need for escalation of the security system	· Studying current information on information security · Joining a course on data security and information breach	· Contemporary articles, books and news on data security · Classes on data security	Test results of data security courses	1year
Communication skills	Effective communication skills would help in conveying information and enhance overall performance quality in workplace.	· Conducting 360 degree evaluation of own communication skills · Joining a communication skill development class	· Feedback from peers and professors · Communication course	After completing the course another 360 degree evaluation would be conducted to track the development	6 months

Table 2: Skill set acquisition plan

(Created by Student)

The following table provides a career development timeline with milestones:

Time Milestones	Year 1	Year 2
Month 1-2	Month 3-4	Month 5-6	Month 7-8	Month 9-10	Month 11-12	Month 13-18	Month 19-24
Information security skills	Information acquisition on data security in class	ü	ü	ü	ü	ü	ü
Joining internship							ü
Feedback on performance							ü
Rectification and filling knowledge gap							ü	ü
	Implementation								ü
Risk analysis skills	Information on data security from class	ü	ü	ü
Joining a course	ü
Learning	ü	ü	ü	ü	ü
Tests and feedback						ü
Rectification						ü
Practice						ü
Communication skills	360 degree evaluation	ü
Identification of issues	ü
Joining communication course	ü
Learning	ü	ü	ü
360 degree valuation after course completion			ü
rectification			ü

Table 3: Career development timeline with milestones

(Created by Student)

Conclusion 

SFIA 6 is a useful medium to identify one’s skill requirement for achieving a career goal. Applying it, I have realised skills that I need to develop to become an IT professional upon my graduation.

References

Aapaoja, A., & Haapasalo, H. (2014). A framework for stakeholder identification and classification in construction projects. Open Journal of Business and Management, 2(01), 43-55

Acs.org.au (2018). ACS Code of Professional Conduct. [online] Available at: https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/acs-documents/ACS%20Code-of-Professional-Conduct_v2.1.pdf [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018]

Bazerman, M. H., & Sezer, O. (2016). Bounded awareness: Implications for ethical decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 136, 95-105

Iphofen, R. (2016). Ethical decision making in social research: A practical guide. Springer

Kaptein, M. (2017). The battle for business ethics: A struggle theory. Journal of Business Ethics, 144(2), 343-361

Mcs.open.ac.uk. (2018). Framework Guide. [online] Available at: https://www.mcs.open.ac.uk/80256EE9006B7FB0/(httpAssets)/D5ACA267626B3A51802573270034BEFE/$file/SFIABookletProdFinal.pdf [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].

Miles, S. (2017). Stakeholder theory classification: A theoretical and empirical evaluation of definitions. Journal of Business Ethics, 142(3), 437-459

Mok, K. Y., Shen, G. Q., & Yang, J. (2015). Stakeholder management studies in mega construction projects: A review and future directions. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 446-457

Sfia-online.org. (2018). framework summary. [online] Available at: https://www.sfia-online.org/en/framework/sfia-6/framework-summary [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018]. 

Sfia-online.org. (2018). Levels of responsibility level 3. [online] Available at: https://www.sfia-online.org/en/framework/sfia-6/busskills/levels-of-responsibility-level-3 [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].

Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right. John Wiley & Sons

Weiss, J. W. (2014). Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers