Government-Society

China’s Social Credit Score

Case Background
As CNBC recently reported, China is on its way to developing a “social credit
score” that would be applied to every one of its citizens. Several pilot programs have
already been implemented, and a single nation-wide program is scheduled to begin in
2020:
Part financial credibility indicator and part compliance mechanism, the social credit
system aims to generate a score for individuals and institutions in China based on data
like tax filings and driving demerits. And while consumers may reap rewards, the score
also functions as a signal mechanism for authorities about whom or what deserves to
be penalized.
Eight private companies have been approved to test social credit score systems—
including a subsidiary of Alibaba. They compile information from various sources in
order to assign citizens a score. Alibaba’s Sesame Credit uses what it describes as a
"complex algorithm" to do that; in a statement to the BBC, the company however
rejected “persistent rumours that the organization monitors users' social media activity
when assessing their social credit.” (Many companies outside of China have
incorporated the use of social media data in decision about extending credit. More
recently, however, the usefulness of such data in credit determinations has been
questioned.)
The CNBC article describes both current benefits arising from the implementation of the
Chinese social credit score systems (such as waivers of security deposits for various
rentals) and potential future drawbacks related to privacy and social control. Its author
adds that in spite of the ongoing debate concerning data privacy, netizens in China
appear to have taken the system's kinks in stride. A scan of Chinese social media site
Weibo reflected that the most popular discussions about Sesame Credit involved people
brainstorming how scores could be used to improve a shared bicycle scheme.
Last October, however, a Washington Post article about the social credit rating quoted a
Chinese novelist calling it “like Big Brother”; the article went on to explain that the
writer’s criticism of the government won him millions of followers on Weibo, China’s
equivalent of Twitter, until the censors swung into action. He fears the new social credit
plan could bring more problems for those who dare to speak out. “My social-media
account has been canceled many times, so the government can say I am a dishonest
person,” he said. “Then I can’t go abroad and can’t take the train.”
In response to the Washington Post piece, an op-ed in the Chinese newspaper The
Global Times argued that the social credit system “won’t be Orwellian”; it pointed out
that the system is still a work in progress, and that lessons are being learned from the
pilot projects: for example, that people’s political opinions should not be included in the
scoring. “The range of the system must be meticulously restricted,” the article said, “and

1
it should only stay effective in people's economic life and part of their social life where
laws and principles are clearly defined and widely recognized.”
However, the Chinese government’s Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social
Credit System, issued in 2014 and comprehensive it its scope, includes the following
provision:
Establish online credit black list systems, list enterprises and individuals engaging in
online swindles, rumour mongering, infringement of other persons’ lawful rights and
interests and other grave acts of breaking trust online onto black lists, adopt measures
against subjects listed on black lists including limitation of online conduct and barring
sectoral access, and report them to corresponding departments for publication and
exposure.
The Planning Outline and other related documents speak of the need to establish “a
sincerity culture” and argue that the social credit score system would be “an effective
method to strengthen social sincerity, stimulate mutual trust in society, and reducing
social contradictions…”
Source: Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

Questions

 Would such a social credit scoring system be ethical? Why, or why not?
 How might such a system impact the common good? How might it impact
individual rights?
 What impact might it have on citizens’ virtue?
 Could China’s system be made more ethical by the establishment of certain
clarifications and limits, as the Global Times article suggests?

Case Discussion 

After reading and analyzing the case, it made clear to me that Social
Credit Scoring in China is ethical. Eventually, these scores will be used to
determine eligibility for everything from employment and credit to various social
benefits. In practice, private company tests of the system are already using
similar scores on dating sites, and acknowledging that even legal activities like
playing too many video games all day or buying socially unacceptable products
could incur penalties. Among individuals, sharing scores may help give strangers
confidence to do business, or even go on a date.
Morover, there is a might beyond this score, through sharing score, people
in China can draw back most incidents of callous, dishonest and immoral
behavior, such as pedestrians refusing to help seniors who have fallen down,
because they fear being sued by elderly extortionists, and motorists who

2
accidentally strike pedestrians intentionally hitting them again to ensure they're
dead, otherwise, the motorist would have to pay lifelong compensation for
injuries like what I’ve watched some recent news and videos in YouTube.
However, one that comes to my mind is that there is inadequate
transparency around which inputs determine a credit score, which could mean
that users are being judged based on factors they did not consent to sharing for
this specific purpose. China’s social score system can be made more ethical by
the establishment of certain clarifications and limits. To me the biggest concern is
about to whom the data-collecting companies share citizens’ personal
information with third parties.

3
Staff with Colleagues

Integrity and Professional Behaviour

Case Background
A junior member of staff has just returned to work after taking special leave to
care for her elderly mother. For financial reasons she needs to work full-time. She has
been having difficulties with her mother’s home care arrangements, causing her to miss
a number of team meetings (which usually take place at the beginning of each day) and
to leave work early. She is very competent in her work but her absences are putting
pressure on her and her overworked colleagues. You are her manager, and you are
aware that the flow of work through the practice is coming under pressure. One of her
male colleagues is beginning to make comments such as “a woman’s place is in the
home”, and is undermining her at every opportunity, putting her under even greater
stress.

Question:
How should you proceed so as not to discredit yourself, your profession  or the practice
for which you work and at the same time maintaining integrity and confidentiality in your
actions?

Discussion
The situation before the manager present the conflict between professional
duties of completing the task efficiently on time and having empathetic attitude towards
the genuine personal problems of the team member. The junior staff member should be
told to give her best efforts towards the assigned work responsibilities. The meetings
should be scheduled at an appropriate hour so that all the team members can attend it.
She should be asked to take some work home with her. If possible, and make up for the
lost office hours during her spare time at home. She should also be counselled to
relieve her stress and get her motivated to sail through the tough times. The manager
should also let her know that since she is being given some relaxations it is her
responsibility to prove it before other team members that she is performing her tasks
well so that the integrity of manager will not be compromised. As far as the male
colleague is concerned he should be made aware that such behavior towards fellow
women employees will not be tolerated and if such incidences are repeated then strict
disciplinary actions would be taken against him.
Moreover, since her problems are legitimate and there is no question on her
capability and commitment towards work, and her problems are temporary as it’s just a
matter of time, management should be flexible in accommodating her. As far as missing

4
team meeting is concerned, they can be shifted in noon or at other such time which is
convenient to every member of the team. If this is not feasible, one of her colleagues
can fill her in about the proceeds of the meeting or she can be temporarily replaced with
someone from other dept. Also, she must be counselled regarding her situation and
should be told that these concessions are temporary and she should complete job
assigned to her within prescribed time limit and any laxity will be reflected in her
quarterly evaluation Also, her colleagues must be taken into confidence about her
problems so that any future indignation and voices of impartiality is addressed and it
should be ensured that the current arrangement is to everybody’s satisfaction. The
colleague who has been making indecent demands should be made aware of her
predicament and be reprimanded for his sexist remarks and should be given formal
warning to mend his ways or face disciplinary committee.

5
Staff with Colleagues

Annie and her VP’s attention

Case Background
Annie has been recently hired full time at a major tech company where she
interned for two summers during her college career. Annie loves her job and has
established many strong relationships with her co-workers over the time she has
worked there. The company encourages the interns and new hires to interact with VPs
and upper management in order to create an open and friendly atmosphere.
During her time as an intern, Annie began to notice that one of the VPs paid her
extra attention. When he was around he would always make an extra effort to stop by
Annie’s cubicle and chat: something he did not do with any of the other interns. He
reached out to her over social networking sites and even invited her to a gathering at his
house. Some of her co-workers began to make offhand comments to Annie about the
extra attention.
Now that she was in a full time position, Annie began to dread that she would
soon have to work with this VP directly. While he has not done or said anything explicitly
inappropriate, the extra attention and the fact that her co-workers noticed it, made her
very uncomfortable and undermined her concentration on work. When she was hired,
she was told that she should always speak to her manager if she was uncomfortable or
had issues with the work environment. While at the same time, she is afraid to come
across like a tattletale since the VP hasn’t explicitly done anything wrong.
What course of action should Annie take?

Discussion
While the VP is not explicitly wrong, his behaviour is leading to deterioration of
working environment. To create a vibrant work culture, organisational values are
transferred through socialisation process. But, if undue attention is given to someone it
will create a perception of unfairness in others. It can also lead to the individual trying to
take advantage of the VP for her personal interests. However, offhand comments by co-
workers is also wrong, as it is not aimed at solving the problem, rather is a manifestation
of their insecurities. Since her personal relations with the VP are good, Annie must first
convey him about her apprehensions. She should show the situation from her
perspective and ask him whether his actions would indeed cause trouble to her or not.
They can continue their personal interactions outside the organisation but not during the
work. Next, if her colleagues pass any comment or give wrong cues, she should explain
them that she does not get any unfair advantage from the VP, and their relation outside
the office is of no concern to them. She should also warn them of complaining to the

6
manager. If the behaviour of colleagues still continues, or the VP's behaviour annoys
her, she should go to her manager and explain him the situation. She should stress at
resolving the issue amicably so that there is no problem in the future and working
environment also remains good.

7
Company Supplier

Contracting Ethics and Integrity

You are an experienced contracting officer, newly assigned at a Defense agency
whose contracting organization has experienced a lot of turnover. Your branch consists
of you, two contract specialists who have been with the agency for several years, a
college intern, and “TJ,” a support contractor who recently retired from federal service.
There are also several vacant positions. Your branch manager, John Smiley, is one
year away from retiring from federal service. His office is adorned with a large sign that
reads, “Mission First.” John is normally a pleasant fellow but seems to become easily
irritated whenever a customer calls to complain about the support provided by the
contracting organization. You have been on the job less than a month and have already
overheard John snap at your colleagues on several occasions, saying, “I don’t care.
Just get it done. Mission first.” You’ve just set aside the afternoon to process a new
award document using the agency’s automated contract writing system. While you
focus on the onerous data entry requirements of the new system, your concentration is
broken by the intern’s voice: “John wants us all in his office in five minutes for a
meeting.” At the meeting, John explains that the agency’s annual Operations and
Maintenance budget has received a sizable supplemental appropriation to support
ongoing contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The agency’s senior
leadership wants this funding obligated as soon as possible. The branch has just been
inundated with quickly-prepared purchase requests, and customers are demanding
prompt action. John hands everyone a pile of purchase requests, and announces, “I
want these awarded by the end of next month. Failure is not an option.” Returning to
your desk, you start to review the purchase request folders and become alarmed at
what you see. All are for various service contract requirements but are lacking well-
written Performance Work Statements (PWS). Many seem to have been specifically
written for an incumbent contractor and even have the contractor’s name included in the
PWS. Several folders contain documents labeled “Independent Government Cost
Estimate (IGCE)” and other documents that appear to be contractor quotes in the exact
same amount as the IGCEs. Other purchase request folders have a contractor’s time-
and-materials/labor hour quote and a note from the requesting office’s coordinator (the
agency does not have a dedicated Price Analysis department) saying, “Looks okay.”
Almost all the folders include draft memoranda “Justifications and Approval for Other
Than Full and Open Competition,” but almost all are poorly supported and legally
insufficient. As you walk to John Smiley’s office to discuss your concerns, you note that
TJ, your support contractor, has already begun processing his assigned workload and is
preparing award documents for John’s execution. You glance down and notice that the
first one is made out to the same company that employs TJ. As if reading your mind, TJ
shouts, “No worries. It’s all good. I don’t have execution authority.” As you continue past
the contract specialists, you are amazed at the progress they have already made in

8
preparing award documents. You are concerned that your colleagues appear not only to
be disregarding requirements for publicizing contract actions but also to be carelessly
using the agency’s contract writing system in selecting 1 Case Study 2 clauses and
preparing the prospective solicitation and contract documents. You also suspect they
are not bothering to read the associated pricing memoranda and supporting draft
justifications and approvals. In John Smiley’s office, you express your concerns that
these purchase requests cannot be processed in a timely fashion as received. John
listens and then says, “Look, we do not have the luxury of time to cross all the t’s and
dot all the i’s here. Our mission is too important. Do the best you can. Just remember,
we have never failed to meet our obligation targets.”
Source: http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap

Question:
1. Identify the contracting ethics and integrity issues that are presented in this case.
2. Describe WHAT you would do and WHY you would do it.
3. Describe WHY it is important for members of the acquisition community to have a
shared sense of professional integrity.

9
Employer-Employee Case

The letter to the newspaper:

Background
James is a project management at TL Consulting Limited. James is a very
principled guy – he has high standards and sticks to them, he is always ready to defend
someone who has been unfairly maligned and believes in fairness and equity in the
workplace. However, sometimes this philosophy gets him in to trouble. A couple of
months ago, James believed his manager was ‘bullying’ another staff member called
Ruth who is 20 years old. James came to her aid, helped her to seek assistance from
the union and informed management of this bullying situation. It seems that
management were aware that this manager had in the past bullied her staff but had
chosen to take no action. Although most employees were pleased that James had
become involved in Ruth’s situation, some were not. These staff preferred not to ‘rock
the boat’ and tried to avoid involvement in any potentially confrontational situations.
Some members of management were also unhappy with James’ involvement in what
they viewed was a ‘staff issue’. They saw James as a troublemaker and believed that in
the past James had been overtly critical of management decisions. This management
dissatisfaction with James’ involvement in the ‘Ruth issue’ led to many emails being
sent back and forth between management and James. Of course, James wanted
everyone in the company to know what management were up to and always provided a
copy of the emails to all employees. This further upset management, but things
eventually settled down and work carried on as usual. However, last week James heard
about another ‘bullying’ incident between the same manager and another young new
employee. He confronted management about it and they told him to mind his own
business. James decided to write to the local newspaper outlining the situation. The
letter James sent to the local newspaper was published last Thursday. When
management became aware of the letter, James was told that this was a serious
misconduct matter. Management want to have a meeting with James to discuss the
letter. James has agreed to such a meeting provided that the actions of the manager
who bullies staff and the actions of management in allowing this to happen are also on
the agenda. Developed by: Dr Linda Liddicoat Trish Keeper Nelson Marlborough
Institute of Technology Victoria University of Wellington Email: lliddicoat@nmit.ac.nz
Email: Trish.Keeper@vuw.ac.nz
Questions:
1. Why do you think management considered James’s actions ‘serious misconduct’?
2. If you were management, would you agree to meeting with James on the conditions
he has outlined? Give reasons for your answer.

10
3. Assume James’s position was terminated as a result of the allegation of serious
misconduct. He then files a personal grievance claim on the basis of unjustified
dismissal. You are a mediator for the Employment Service, discuss how you would
moderate this case.

Conflicts and Question of Trustworthiness among Couple

Save my marriage
 
Background

Akbar and Sajda came to me for counseling.  Their first comment was please help us
save our marriage. We think we have come to a road block. Both of us want to stay
together but the arguments are becoming unbearable.  Both Akbar and Sajda are
professional and between the two make over quarter of a million dollars per year. Both
are financially independent and pitch in on a percentage basis in the home expenses.
They maintain their own bank account as they felt there was no need for a joint account.
I was surprised and totally taken aback when in one of the sessions they told me, “We
talked about this before we got married and felt that this way it is a clean break in case
we decide to break up and divorce”.
After the sixth session when it seem that they are coming on board in resolving their
issues  I asked if they were ready to start tackling the main issues, they agreed but
would not stop bringing the small petty issues back in the discussion. I realized that
there is something else that they are keeping from me. I decided to talk to them
individually instead of as a couple.
My next session was with the wife and she once again talked about the issues that we
had discussed before.  She went on and on with all the life problems and how she has
struggled to reach this status. She has seen tough time growing up and had to support
herself and siblings. Her father had anger issues and was not supportive of their mother
or children.  That resulted her being very protective of what is hers and did not trust
anyone including her husband Akbar.
When it was husband’s turn one issue that came out was that it started with a dream
that she had about her husband having an affair with another woman. When she told
him about the dream, he (according to him) jokingly said that he was and he is seriously

11
thinking about a second wife and that he is seeing someone. That flared Sajda so much
that they have not talked to each other with a straight face for months now.  The
husband assured me that he loves his wife and that was only a joke.
I also found out that despite the fact that they were only married for two and half years
their marital relations were not healthy. According to her she allows him to have the
marital relation but she is frigid and shows no response or emotions to his approach or
during the course. Her mind wonders about all the negativity and bad things that have
happened in the past and presently between them.
He on the other hand was a passive person, especially when it came to defending his
wife. His family members would take a jab at his wife, or pass negative remarks towards
her and he always would ignore saying they are just joking.  That time and time again
would bring back horrible memories to Sajda of her childhood the treatment of her father
toward her mother.  This has been the case well before the dream, but came out in the
open after the dream. She  wants to have children from him.
Source: Khalid Iqbal – Founder Rahmaa Institute

QUESTIONS
1. How can they resolve their marital issues?
2. What is your advice for the Sajda?
3. What is your advice for the Akbar?
4. What are the real issues?
5. Can their marriage survive without loving marital relationship between them?
6. How can they bring sparkle in their marriage?
 

12