CIV402 Sec22 & 66 4/20/2020

CIV402 Sec 22 and 66

Engineering Ethics, 6 ed.

Chapter 4

Engineers in Organizations
Dr. Manish A. Kewalramani

Main Ideas in This Chapter …

• Communication and culture are vital components within the
organization, and employees need to understand them well.
• Employees should take advantage of organizational resources
in order to enhance their own integrity and independence.
• Organizational and management practices may be unchanged
for years, which can result in blind spots, or obstacles to
ethical decision-making. Understanding the obstacles and
remedies for these obstacles can improve the organization’s
communication and ethical decision-making..
• Many organizations hire an ethics and compliance officer to
study inappropriate policies and procedures and to assist
employees in appropriate communication and daily ethical
choices at work.

Dr. Manish A. Kewalramani 1

CIV402 Sec22 & 66 4/20/2020

Main Ideas in This Chapter …

• Engineers and managers have different perspectives, both
legitimate, and it is useful to distinguish between decisions that
should be made by managers, or from a management perspective,
and decisions that should be made by engineers, or from an
engineering perspective.
• Differences of opinion can be expected within the organization
between engineers themselves and between engineers and
management. Careful verbal and written communication can be
utilized to work through disagreements.
• Whistleblowing sometimes becomes a necessary option for an
employee when other avenues of communication fail. An employee
should explore numerous ways of solving an organizational problem
before whistleblowing. However, new federal regulations are in
place to assist employees who believe they have exhausted all
other means of solving the workplace problem.

Case Study
VALUING THE CUSTOMER ENABLED Ray C. Anderson to change his
very profitable business into an even more profitable one and one that
serves as model of values that go far beyond monetary gains.

Anderson’s firm, Interface Carpets Global, is in the business of

manufacturing modular carpet tiles. Anderson was the founder and 38
years chief executive officer (CEO) of Interface Carpets. (Anderson died
in 2011 still holding those titles.)

He had an engineering background as an honors graduate from Georgia

Institute of Technology School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
and founded Interface Carpets in 1973.

Twenty years later, Anderson’s personal and professional attitude

toward the customer was changed when engineer Jim Hartzfield, from
the research division, relayed a question from a sales associate: Some
customers want to know “What Interface is doing for the Environment.
How should we answer?”

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CIV402 Sec22 & 66 4/20/2020

Case Study…continue..
Initially, Anderson said, he wasn’t as worried about the harms to the
environment as he was concerned about his client. He commented, “I
wasn’t about to ignore any customer’s concerns or to turn my back on
any piece of business. If we didn’t answer the question Jim had relayed,
I knew we stood to lose other sales”. So, Anderson insisted, Interface
needed to focus on its customers needs.

Anderson began by reading Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce.

The book transformed Anderson’s customer-driven goals into a series of
environmentally friendly business practices.

Mission Zero, was a promise initiated by Anderson and Interface to

eliminate any negative impact the company might have on the
environment by the year 2020. In 2009, Anderson estimated Interface
was half-way to its goal of redesign of processes and products, the
pioneering of new technologies, and efforts to reduce or eliminate waste
and harmful emissions while increasing the use of renewable materials
and sources of energy.

The Natural Conflict : Engineers and Managers

“There is a natural conflict between management and professionals
because of their differences in educational background,
socialization, values, vocational interests, work habits, and outlook.”
—Management theorist Joseph Raelin
• Most engineers are corporate employees rather than self-employed.
This means that their role-responsibilities are a function of
relationships they have with, not only other engineers but also their
managers and, ultimately, with the aims and goals of the
organizations within which they work.
• Nevertheless, engineers often experience a conflict between loyalty
to their employer and loyalty to their profession.

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