Comm Ethics Introduction (12!8!06)

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    ** Draft ** Ethics Module Introduction Business Communication

    whom may not see writing and speaking as primary job functions. Consequently, they

    may underestimate the importance of writing and speaking and fail to see the ethical

    stakes.

    Although both professional communicators and professionals who communicate

    many make ethical decisions, many tend to exercise ethical judgment intuitively (Faber,

    1999). In doing so, people unconsciously reify a system of values and beliefs. Although

    communication is always value-laden, some critical distance is required for

    communicators to see how the values and beliefs implicit in a text potentially conflict

    with those belonging to their readers (Kienzler, 2001). When they do so, communicators

    are more likely to recognize ethical issues and other areas of particular ethical concern,

    including:

    Uses and misuses of visual information

    Culturally-biased communication

    Plagiarism

    Audience vs. Employer Advocacy

    Cognitive burden of communicative choices

    The above issues are important points of consideration for professional

    communicators, especially with regard to how they ply their trade. Numerous published

    accounts (Allen, 1995; Bryan, 1996; Dombrowski, 1999; Dragga 1996; Sims, 1993;

    Webber, 1995) address these issues. Most of these sources and others like them carefully

    situate their recommendations for best practices in a more comprehensive discussion of

    the rhetorical activities involved in responding to a communicative situation. Rhetorical

    activity is the focus of this module as well. The scenarios in this module encourage

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    readers to consider the work that reports, memos, emails, conversations, and

    presentations do. Readers should consider the impressions that texts create and how texts

    help encourage relationships between communicators, organizations, and their audiences.

    The subject of this module is ethics in business communication. The audience,

    however, includes any student of professional communication or any student in a

    business-related field where writing and speaking form part of a core set of skills that one

    must exercise in the workplace.

    Ethical Conflicts in Context

    Central to the discussion of ethics in this module is a communicators sometimes-

    conflicted relationship with an audience and with the people on whose behalf they are

    communicating. Communicators must negotiate between two different roles (Faber,

    2002): as members of a profession and as advocates for their audiences. This dual

    position can, but does not necessarily, result in a conflict of interest that clouds other

    ethical decisions one may need to make.

    On one hand, a professional communicator works for the maintenance and betterment

    of a given profession. The communicator supports a professions interests by producing

    documents to reify that professions provenance over a particular body of knowledge or

    set of skilled practices. Communicators in all manner of professional settings become

    skilled at producing texts that their colleagues use to exercise their professional duties

    (e.g., study protocols, contracts, design forms, and proposals). In other words,

    communicators have a vested interest in promoting the interests of their employers. On

    the other hand, a communicator is also an advocate for the audience, one who makes

    information usable to those who need it. Fulfilling this role, the communicator is

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    responsible for making information accessible and usable for the purposes that the

    audience brings to it.

    In some cases, the motives of professionals and audiences do not match, and

    herein is seed of many potential ethical conflicts. As communicators make information

    more accessible and directly usable by their audiences, they change the nature and

    necessity of the relationship between the audience and the professional(s) whose interests

    are ideally served by those texts. To preserve a professionals role, communicators must

    selectively overlook their responsibilities to audiences. How should communicators

    serve both constituencies when different values are at stake? Situations like these present

    clear ethical conflicts without obvious solutions. They are the subject of this module, and

    thinking through these problems will encourage readers to understand how to apply the

    best practices of professional communication.

    A Code of Ethical Business Communication

    To this point, we have portrayed communication ethics as complex, uncertain,

    context-dependent, and frequently driven by conflicting motivations. This is not to say

    that communication ethics cannot be guided by philosophical notions of ethical conduct.

    A number of authors have suggested that it can, by subscribing to philosophies that

    propose universal (see Markel 1993; 1997) situated (Markel 1997) or cross-cultural

    (Dragga, 1999) approaches to applying ethical standards. In the abstract, however, these

    guidelines stand apart from the contexts in which communicators actually make and bear

    the consequences of their decisions. Considering that communicators serve professions,

    readers may find it useful to examine the code of ethics supported by the International

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    Association for Business Communication (http://www.iabc.com/about/code.htm), which

    offers a more detailed set of guidelines. From the website:

    1. Professional communicators uphold the credibility and dignity of their profession

    by practicing honest, candid and timely communication and by fostering the free

    flow of essential information in accord with the public interest.

    2. Professional communicators disseminate accurate information and promptly

    correct any erroneous communication for which they may be responsible.

    3. Professional communicators understand and support the principles of free speech,

    freedom of assembly, and access to an open marketplace of ideas; and, act

    accordingly.

    4. Professional communicators are sensitive to cultural values and beliefs and

    engage in fair and balanced communication activities that foster and encourage

    mutual understanding.

    5. Professional communicators refrain from taking part in any undertaking which the

    communicator considers to be unethical.

    6. Professional communicators obey laws and public policies governing their

    professional activities and are sensitive to the spirit of all laws and regulations

    and, should any law or public policy be violated, for whatever reason, act

    promptly to correct the situation.

    7. Professional communicators give credit for unique expressions borrowed from

    others and identify the sources and purposes of all information disseminated to the

    public.

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    http://www.iabc.com/about/code.htmhttp://www.iabc.com/about/code.htm
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    8. Professional communicators protect confidential information and, at the same

    time, comply with all legal requirements for the disclosure of information

    affecting the welfare of others.

    9. Professional communicators do not use confidential information gained as a result

    of professional activities for personal benefit and do not represent conflicting or

    competing interests without written consent of those involved.

    10. Professional communicators do not accept undisclosed gifts or payments for

    professional services from anyone other than a client or employer

    11. Professional communicators do not guarantee results that are beyond the power of

    the practitioner to deliver

    12. Professional communicators are honest not only with others but also, and most

    importantly, with themselves as individuals; for a professional communicator

    seeks the truth and speaks that truth first to the self. (IABC, 2006, Articles)

    While the IABC may provide a code of ethics that is most topically suited to the

    scenarios in this module, others publish applicable codes as well. For example:

    Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW):

    http://english.ttu.edu/attwtest/ATTWcode.asp

    Society for Technical Communication (STC): http://216.35.212.183/code.html

    American Medical Writers Association (AMWA):

    http://www.amwa.org/about/ethics/html

    Association for Computing Machinery (ACM):

    http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html

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    http://english.ttu.edu/attwtest/ATTWcode.asphttp://216.35.212.183/code.htmlhttp://www.amwa.org/about/ethics/htmlhttp://www.acm.org/constitution/code.htmlhttp://english.ttu.edu/attwtest/ATTWcode.asphttp://216.35.212.183/code.htmlhttp://www.amwa.org/about/ethics/htmlhttp://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html
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    Many of the codes from the IABC specify how a communicator should act in the

    abstract. They exhort the communicator not to use information without appropriate

    attribution, to provide accurate information, to promote the free flow of information, and

    to maintain the confidentiality of information to which they have been entrusted. The

    guidelines also recommend that communicators attempt to understand and accommodate

    their various audiences, to provide information that is timely, to respect the welfare of

    others, and to understand their legal obligations. While these codes do specify

    communication practices, they are equally useful as heuristics for assessing a situation

    and determining what could be an ethical course of action. For this reason, readers will

    find the guidelines helpful when considering the scenarios included in this module.

    In this module, we do not present cases where there are obvious and egregious

    breaches of ethical conduct. Although many textbooks that cover communication ethics

    present such situations, those presented here attempt to complicate ethical decisions by

    sketching a more detailed picture of the motivations and interests that are in conflict.

    Readers are encouraged to consider the complexities of making an ethical

    decision. Each scenario poses a problem regarding how a communicator should handle

    an exchange of information. We have attempted to provide enough information about the

    writer, the form of communication, the organization, and the audience to add a degree of

    realism. Against each context of complicated motives, readers can consider which

    actions would be the most ethical. In other words, these scenarios attempt to highlight

    ethical dilemmas, where no decision is obvious and no decision is free of consequences.

    Even when all factors are weighed, the ethical decision may not always be the easiest one

    to make.

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    We expect these decisions to be difficult to make, and we expect to uncover

    disagreements, which may reveal how closely readers identify with different parties in the

    scenario. To encourage consideration and discussion of alternatives, we have included

    answers from others who have considered the scenarios. Immediately following each

    scenario is a summary of responses from 29 students enrolled in MBA or Executive MBA

    programs. Where available, we have included their written comments. Following these

    comments is an extended discussion/interview with Professor Paul F. Williams, a

    business ethicist at NC State University. In these interviews, Professor Williams

    discusses the nature of the ethical dilemma in each scenario and then offers a course of

    action.

    Concluding each scenario is a list of discussion questions that ask readers to

    consider both why they choose the response that they did and how they might craft a text

    to carry out their decisions. Overall, the discussion is intended to move readers from a

    consideration of what constitutes an ethical response in the abstract to considering how to

    act on that decision in the form of a piece of written or spoken communication.

    Scenario 1

    1. Topics to lead into Scenario #1 (Kelly and her decision to include default loans

    during a particularly bad year)

    a. What is the Professional Communicators Role: as Reader Advocate

    (State) or Professions Advocate (NPO)

    b. Kelly as the readers advocate

    c. Kelly as a member of and advocate of a profession/organization

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    2. Topics that lead into Scenario #2 (reveal Angel funding to VCs before the

    funding has been fully secured).

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    References

    Allen, N. (1996). Ethics and visual rhetorics: Seeings not believing anymore. TechnicalCommunication Quarterly, 5(1): 87-105.

    Bryan, J. (1995). Seven types of distortion: A taxonomy of manipulative techniques usedin charts and graphs. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 25(2): 127-179.

    Devitt, A.J. (1991). Intertextuality in tax accounting: Generic, referential, and functional.In C. Bazerman and J. Paradis (Eds.) Textual Dynamics of the Professions: Historical

    and Contemporary Studies of Writing in Professional Communities (pp. 336-357).

    Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Dombrowski, P.M. (1999). Ethics in technical communication. New York: Longman.

    Dragga, S. (1996). Is this ethical?: A survey of opinion on principles and practices ofdocument design. Technical Communication, 43 (3), 255-265.

    Dragga, S. (1999). Ethical intercultural communication. Technical CommunicationQuarterly, 8(4): 365-382.

    Faber, B. (1999). Intuitive ethics: Understanding and critiquing the role of intuition inethical decisions. Technical Communication Quarterly, 8 (2), 189-202.

    Faber, B. (2002). Professional identities: What is professional about professional

    communication? Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 16(3), 306-337.

    Kienzler, D. (2001). Ethics, critical thinking, and professional communication pedagogy.Technical Communication Quarterly, 10(3): 319-339.

    Markel, M. (1993). An ethical imperative for technical communication. IEEE

    Transactions on Professional Communication 36(2): 81-86.

    Markel, M. (1997). Ethics and technical communication: A case for foundational

    approaches. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication40(4): 284-289.

    Sims, B. (1993). Linking ethics and language in the technical communication classroom.

    Technical Communication Quarterly, 2(3): 285-299.

    Webber, J. H. (1995). Ethics in scientific and technical communication [Electronicversion]. WISENET Journal, 38:2-4. http://www.jeanweber.com/about/ethics.htm

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