Ethical Challenges of Information Systems: The Carnage of Outsourcing and Other Technology-Enabled Organizational Imperatives

Abstract

This chapter reviews the historical, technological and economic factors driving IT organizational design and resulting staffing patterns within the IT organization as a backdrop to reviewing the ethical aspects of outsourcing and other technology-enabled organizational imperatives. It examines the effect of developing a business model based on core competency analysis and examines IT sourcing alternatives from the viewpoint of three groups of stakeholders: individuals, the corporation and society. The chapter demonstrates that sourcing choices an IT manager makes result in ethical dilemmas, delineates various aspects of the dilemmas and provides some simple but effective resolution principles. The author hopes that the IT manager reading the chapter will be better prepared to apply ethical decision principles when choosing how to staff their organization and be aware of the possible negative and positive results of their decision-making.