Engineering Ethics And Changing Jobs

Engineers have become fairly adept, in recent years, with ethical dilemmas concerning rights to continued employment in the aftermath of events such as “whistle blowing.” In fact, since relationships in the aftermath of whistle blowing have been codified, they reveal legal, rather than ethical dimensions. Similarly, ethical dilemmas concerning proprietary information and intellectual property have been considered and written into statutes and employment contracts, spelling out employer and employee obligations upon termination. But what ethical rights and obligations concerning the end of employment is the engineer or the engineer’s employer morally obliged to respect, how are those rights affected by investments or personal behavior, and ought ethical rights limit or supercede contractual stipulations? This paper will examine the moral dynamics of changing jobs in the engineering marketplace from the ethical perspectives of virtue, duty, utility, and care. Examples will be drawn from Herbert Hoover’s career as a mining engineer. Suggestions will also be made concerning the integration of this discussion into a lecture or module of instruction on engineering ethics. Engineers seldom stay with the same employer for an entire career. Corporate downsizing and the loss of employment is not just a remote possibility, limited to a few, well-known, volatile segments within the engineering profession. Certainly, engineering jobs never held the realistic expectation of lifetime employment. Alternately, since “promotion from within” presents the engineer with problems of shifting relationships and resentment, “fast-tracking,” by changing jobs, has become an important means of career advancement. Accepting a new job or a new employee entails cost, both emotional and financial. How do these costs affect ethical considerations when the engineer’s employment is ended? How are the obligations of employment altered by the provision of continued professional development (for example, by employers who pay outside vendors to meet the general professional education needs of their engineers), or by engineers who devote personal resources to develop skills needed by their employer? How are obligations affected by the costs of relocation (again, both financial and emotional, whether assumed by the engineer or reimbursed by the employer)? Does the engineer’s age, health, or competence; or the firm’s market share, changing ownership, or product obsolescence change the ethical responsibilities inherent in the employment relationship? As engineering educators, we have the responsibility to mentor our students toward their first professional steps. But their continued professional growth will be as an ancillary of their practice—working with new mentors and colleagues. To develop the needed depth and breath— as technical specialists and management generalists—most of them will need to change jobs. Session 3261