research-article

Does ACM’s code of ethics change ethical decision making in software development?

Authors:

Andrew McNamara,

Emerson Murphy-HillAuthors Info & Claims

ESEC/FSE 2018: Proceedings of the 2018 26th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

Pages 729 - 733

https://doi.org/10.1145/3236024.3264833

Published: 26 October 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Ethical decisions in software development can substantially impact end-users, organizations, and our environment, as is evidenced by recent ethics scandals in the news. Organizations, like the ACM, publish codes of ethics to guide software-related ethical decisions. In fact, the ACM has recently demonstrated renewed interest in its code of ethics and made updates for the first time since 1992. To better understand how the ACM code of ethics changes software-related decisions, we replicated a prior behavioral ethics study with 63 software engineering students and 105 professional software developers, measuring their responses to 11 ethical vignettes. We found that explicitly instructing participants to consider the ACM code of ethics in their decision making had no observed effect when compared with a control group. Our findings suggest a challenge to the research community: if not a code of ethics, what techniques can improve ethical decision making in software engineering?

References

[1]

2018. About the ACM Code of Ethics. (2018). https://www.acm.org/about-acm/ code-of-ethics. 2018. World’s Largest Computing Association Affirms Obligation of Computing Professionals to Use Skills for Benefit of Society. (July 2018). https://www.acm. org/media-center/2018/july/acm-updates-code-of-ethics.

[2]

Janet S. Adams, Armen Tashchian, and Ted H. Shore. 2001. Codes of Ethics as Signals for Ethical Behavior. Journal of Business Ethics 29, 3 (2001), 199–211. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25074455

[3]

Tim Barnett, Ken Bass, and Gene Brown. 1994. Ethical ideology and ethical judgment regarding ethical issues in business. Journal of Business Ethics 13, 6 (June 1994), 469–480.

[4]

Steven RH Barrett, Raymond L Speth, Sebastian D Eastham, Irene C Dedoussi, Akshay Ashok, Robert Malina, and David W Keith. 2015. Impact of the Volkswagen emissions control defeat device on US public health. Environmental Research Letters 10, 11 (2015), 114005.

[5]

Yoav Benjamini and Yosef Hochberg. 1995. Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the royal statistical society. Series B (Methodological) (1995), 289–300.

[6]

Arthur P. Brief, Janet M. Dukerich, Paul R. Brown, and Joan F. Brett. 1996. What’s wrong with the treadway commission report? Experimental analyses of the effects of personal values and codes of conduct on fraudulent financial reporting. Journal of Business Ethics 15, 2 (Feb. 1996), 183–198.

[7]

Margaret Anne Cleek and Sherry Lynn Leonard. 1998. Can corporate codes of ethics influence behavior? Journal of Business Ethics 17, 6 (April 1998), 619–630.

[8]

John B. Cullen, Bart Victor, and James W. Bronson. 1993. The ethical climate questionnaire: An assessment of its development and validity. Psychological reports 73, 2 (1993), 667–674.

[9]

Reeshad S. Dalal. 2005. A meta-analysis of the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior. American Psychological Association.

[10]

Robert C. Ford and Woodrow D. Richardson. 1994. Ethical decision making: A review of the empirical literature. Journal of Business Ethics 13, 3 (01 Mar 1994), 205–221.

[11]

Donelson R. Forsyth. 1985. Individual differences in information integration during moral judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49, 1 (1985), 264.

[12]

Omar S Gómez, Natalia Juristo, and Sira Vegas. 2014. Understanding replication of experiments in software engineering: A classification. Information and Software Technology 56, 8 (2014), 1033–1048.

[13]

Susan J. Harrington. 1996. The Effect of Codes of Ethics and Personal Denial of Responsibility on Computer Abuse Judgments and Intentions. MIS Quarterly 20, 3 (1996), 257–278.

Digital Library

[14]

W. Harvey Hegarty and Henry P. Sims. 1979. Organizational philosophy, policies, and objectives related to unethical decision behavior: A laboratory experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology 64, 3 (June 1979), 331–338. 0021-9010.64.3.331

[15]

Dove Izraeli. 1988. Ethical beliefs and behavior among managers: A cross-cultural perspective. Journal of Business Ethics 7, 4 (April 1988), 263–271.

[16]

Timothy A. Judge, Brent A. Scott, and Remus Ilies. 2006. Hostility, job attitudes, and workplace deviance: test of a multilevel model. Journal of Applied Psychology 91, 1 (2006), 126.

[17]

Jennifer J. Kish-Gephart, David A. Harrison, and Linda Klebe Treviño. 2010. Bad apples, bad cases, and bad barrels: meta-analytic evidence about sources of unethical decisions at work. American Psychological Association.

[18]

Theo Leggett. 2017. VW papers shed light on emissions scandal. (Jan. 2017). https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38603723.

[19]

Sheri Lynn Leonard. 1991. Can corporate codes of ethics influence behavior? Master’s thesis. Sacramento State University Library, Sacramento, California.

[20]

Nazanin Mansouri. 2016. A Case Study of Volkswagen Unethical Practice in Diesel Emission Test. International Journal of Science and Engineering Applications 5, 4 (2016), 211–216.

[21]

Douglas R. May and Kevin P. Pauli. 2002. The role of moral intensity in ethical decision making: A review and investigation of moral recognition, evaluation, and intention. Business & Society 41, 1 (2002), 84–117.

[22]

Donald L. McCabe, Linda Klebe Trevino, and Kenneth D. Butterfield. 1996. The Influence of Collegiate and Corporate Codes of Conduct on Ethics-Related Behavior in the Workplace. Business Ethics Quarterly 6, 4 (1996), 461–476.

[23]

Gael M. McDonald and Raymond A. Zepp. 1989. Business Ethics: Practical Proposals. Journal of Management Development 8, 1 (Jan. 1989), 55–66.

[24]

Alexander Nill and John A. Schibrowsky. 2005. The impact of corporate culture, the reward system, and perceived moral intensity on marketing students’ ethical decision making. Journal of Marketing education 27, 1 (2005), 68–80.

[25]

Sean O’Kane, Andrew J. Hawkins, and Sarah Jeong. 2018. Waymo and Uber reach a surprise settlement. (Feb. 2018). https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/9/16995254/ waymo-uber-lawsuit-trial-settlement.

[26]

John O. Okpara. 2003. Can corporate ethical codes of conduct influence behavior? An exploratory study of financial managers in a developing economy. In Academy of Business & Administrative Sciences (ABAS) XI International Conference: Brussels, Belgium.

[27]

Joseph GP Paolillo and Scott J. Vitell. 2002. An empirical investigation of the influence of selected personal, organizational and moral intensity factors on ethical decision making. Journal of Business Ethics 35, 1 (2002), 65–74.

[28]

Alan R. Peslak. 2007. A Review of the Impact of ACM Code of Conduct on Information Technology Moral Judgment and Intent. The Journal of Computer Information Systems; Stillwater 47, 3 (2007), 1–10. https://search.proquest.com/ docview/232575060/abstract/B5D6957065734F75PQ/1

[29]

Dane K. Peterson. 2002. Computer ethics: the influence of guidelines and universal moral beliefs. Information Technology & People 15, 4 (Dec. 2002), 346–361.

[30]

Jan Schwartz and Victoria Bryan. 2017.

[31]

VW’s Dieselgate bill hits $30 bln after another charge. (Sept. 2017). https://www.reuters.com/article/legal-uk-volkswagen-emissions/ vws-dieselgate-bill-hits-30-bln-after-another-charge-idUSKCN1C4271.

[32]

James Y. L. Thong and Chee-Sing Yap. 1998. Testing an Ethical Decision-Making Theory: The Case of Softlifting. Journal of Management Information Systems 15, 1 (1998), 213–237. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40398379

Digital Library

[33]

Linda Klebe Trevino. 1986. Ethical decision making in organizations: A personsituation interactionist model. Academy of management Review 11, 3 (1986), 601–617.

[34]

Linda Klebe TreviÃśo, Kenneth D. Butterfield, and Donald L. McCabe. 1998. The Ethical Context in Organizations: Influences on Employee Attitudes and Behaviors. Business Ethics Quarterly 8, 3 (1998), 447–476. 2307/3857431

[35]

Bart Victor and John B. Cullen. 1988. The organizational bases of ethical work climates. Administrative science quarterly (1988), 101–125.

[36]

Greg Wood and Malcolm Rimmer. 2003. Codes of Ethics: What Are They Really and What Should They Be? International Journal of Value - Based Management; Dordrecht 16, 2 (May 2003), 181–195. https://search.proquest.com/docview/ 195803009/abstract/21D0D4BF65164968PQ/1 Abstract 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Methodology 3.1 Study Design 3.2 Analysis 4 Results 5 Threats to validity 6 Conclusion References

Cited By

Lambrecht FMoreno M(2024)What is AI Ethics?American Philosophical Quarterly10.5406/21521123.61.4.0761:4(387-401)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.5406/21521123.61.4.07
Kim ELee Y(2024)A Study on the Development of AI Ethics Sensitivity ScaleThe Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education10.32431/kace.2024.27.3.01427:3(155-168)Online publication date: 31-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.32431/kace.2024.27.3.014
Sposini L(2024)Impact of New Technologies on Economic Behavior and Consumer Freedom of Choice: from Neuromarketing to Neuro-RightsJournal of Digital Technologies and Law10.21202/jdtl.2024.52:1(74-100)Online publication date: 20-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.21202/jdtl.2024.5
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Does ACM’s code of ethics change ethical decision making in software development?
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing profession
      1. Codes of ethics

Recommendations

An ethical decision-making process for computing professionals

Our comments focus on the ACM Code of Ethics and situate the Code within a general ethical decision-making process to specify the five steps which logically precede human action in ethical matters and determine that action, and the individual difference ...
ACM Code of Ethics: Looking Back and Forging Ahead
SIGCSE '19: Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

This special session will involve three related components. It will begin with a history of the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (the Code), its evolving presence in the computing curriculum guidelines over time, and its documented use ...
Ethical decision making in technology development: a case study of participation in a large-scale information systems development project

Advanced systems engineering has traditionally paid little attention to ethical concerns relative to other technical and non-technical issues. This is particularly evident in systems analysis, design, and development methodologies. This paper asks if it ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ESEC/FSE 2018: Proceedings of the 2018 26th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

October 2018

987 pages

ISBN:9781450355735

DOI:10.1145/3236024

General Chair:
Gary T. Leavens
University of Central Florida, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Alessandro Garcia
PUC-Rio, Brazil
,
Corina S. Păsăreanu
NASA Ames Research Center, USA

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 October 2018

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

ESEC/FSE '18

Sponsor:

SIGSOFT

ESEC/FSE '18: 26th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

November 4 - 9, 2018

FL, Lake Buena Vista, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 112 of 543 submissions, 21%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

141
Total Citations
View Citations
3,159
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)534
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)27

Reflects downloads up to 06 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Lambrecht FMoreno M(2024)What is AI Ethics?American Philosophical Quarterly10.5406/21521123.61.4.0761:4(387-401)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.5406/21521123.61.4.07
Kim ELee Y(2024)A Study on the Development of AI Ethics Sensitivity ScaleThe Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education10.32431/kace.2024.27.3.01427:3(155-168)Online publication date: 31-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.32431/kace.2024.27.3.014
Sposini L(2024)Impact of New Technologies on Economic Behavior and Consumer Freedom of Choice: from Neuromarketing to Neuro-RightsJournal of Digital Technologies and Law10.21202/jdtl.2024.52:1(74-100)Online publication date: 20-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.21202/jdtl.2024.5
Arbelaez Ossa LLorenzini GMilford SShaw DElger BRost M(2024)Integrating ethics in AI development: a qualitative studyBMC Medical Ethics10.1186/s12910-023-01000-025:1Online publication date: 23-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-023-01000-0
Stinson CVlaad S(2024)A feeling for the algorithm: Diversity, expertise, and artificial intelligenceBig Data & Society10.1177/2053951723122424711:1Online publication date: 8-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231224247
Connolly R(2024)Public Computing Intellectuals in the Age of AI CrisisACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/370316224:4(1-26)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3703162
Mehrotra SDegachi CVereschak OJonker CTielman M(2024)A Systematic Review on Fostering Appropriate Trust in Human-AI Interaction: Trends, Opportunities and ChallengesACM Journal on Responsible Computing10.1145/36964491:4(1-45)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3696449
Kallina ESingh J(2024)Stakeholder Involvement for Responsible AI Development: A Process FrameworkProceedings of the 4th ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization10.1145/3689904.3694698(1-14)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689904.3694698
Chivukula SGray CLi ZPivonka AChen J(2024)Surveying a Landscape of Ethics-Focused Design MethodsACM Journal on Responsible Computing10.1145/36789881:3(1-32)Online publication date: 17-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678988
Jantunen MMeyes RKurchyna VMeisen TAbrahamsson PMohanani R(2024)Researchers’ Concerns on Artificial Intelligence Ethics: Results from a Scenario-Based SurveyProceedings of the 7th ACM/IEEE International Workshop on Software-intensive Business10.1145/3643690.3648238(24-31)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643690.3648238
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents