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You often hear about required ethics courses for engineers, but it strikes me that it is management that most requires this. The whole MBA thing & the implied n

by jgeada 7y ago

You often hear about required ethics courses for engineers, but it strikes me that it is management that most requires this. The whole MBA thing & the implied notion of managerialism has been a straight up disaster to everything it has touched (other than, of course, the enriching of the 0.1%)

dba7dba 7y ago
Couldn't agree more. MBA grads in place of power have done so much damage to social fabric of US.
- pstuart 7y ago
  Economic strip mining.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
clairity 7y ago
your ire is poorly targeted. ethics is taught in mba programs. whether that translates into more ethical companies is certainly debatable, but don't simply assume mba holders are bad people (and engineers are good people). the reasons for the paucity of corporate ethical behavior is complex and varied, but certainly one cause is we've collectively capitulated to the supremacy of the profit motive, and there's just not enough perceived (direct) benefit in doing so.
- human20190310 7y ago
  The ire is pointed in the right direction, but the issue isn't not rooted in ethics, it's rooted in measurability. Management decisions were made as if things that could not be measured could be disregarded. Surely someone must have had a vague sense that relying on $9 per hour software development might not be a wise choice, but in a "managerialistic" environment, the concrete cost savings are taken into account, and the vague sense is not.
  - kazen44 7y ago
    is this not the result of there being very little ideological differences between MBA graduates? I would even attribute this to a lack of ideological differences in (US) society as a whole. Economic and managerial schools only seem to teach one ideological viewpoint, which in term results in there being very little recourse on what would be the right way to tackle a situation, philosophically and ideologically speaking.
- jeffk_teh_haxor 7y ago
  Misaligned incentives cause good people to make bad decisions.
Traster 7y ago
I would argue that the mba program is basically irrelevant. The problem is that the incentive structures for management in these companies is overwhelmingly to produce short term gains in order to secure promotion and bonuses, since the metric of success is to not stay in your role very long. The ideal situation for a manager is to be promoted through/across the company every few years. Long enough to deliver some large project (that was certainly already in the pipeline) but short enough not to be responsible for the long term impact of that project. You don't fix that by giving the management lectures on morality, you fix it by reducing their ability to hide the issues that happens in their organisation so that when lines are crossed the manager can't be confident they can sweep it under the rug.
- windexh8er 7y ago
  > You don't fix that by giving the management lectures on morality, you fix it by reducing their ability to hide the issues that happens in their organisation so that when lines are crossed the manager can't be confident they can sweep it under the rug. You also don't fix this by overlooking the fact that all publicly traded organizations are performing for the street, not the customer. How much can we sell them is the mantra now, more so, than ever. Instead of being the best we've decided that lobbying and paying the board/shareholders is the best for everyone. Those people just happen to be the 0.1% as well.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  >I would argue that the mba program is basically irrelevant. It is definitely relevant. The programs will pump students full of notions of "corporate social responsibility", right before they send them off to consulting gigs for the summer where short-termism is how you get the offer. It's a self reinforcing system. It would maybe be different if MBA programs weren't a cash cow for universities (especially universities that cater to international students), and instead were essentially apprenticeships at the companies themselves. I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, but I'm not ready to forgive the MBA programs' part in this.
- cryptonector 7y ago
  You measure what you can, and in management that's often short term things. Intangibles can't get measured, thus intangibles don't get measured -- not even estimated. The result is a distorted view of everything.
jonas21 7y ago
Most MBA programs have required ethics courses, so it's clear that simply having a course requirement is insufficient. Ethics courses teach frameworks that can make it easier to rationalize commonsense unethical decisions as being ethical, so I'm not convinced they're actually the right answer
- rolltiide 7y ago
  The incentives need to addressed and they're missing, there arent meaningful economic and reputational consequences for management And software engineers do plenty of unethical things when the consequences are removed and the payoff is good. How many of us operate under the immunity of “lol they’ll blame russia”
- charles_f 7y ago
  Professional Engineers in Canada (and in some states in the US AFAIK) are required to have a valid licence, that can be revoked on ethical breach. Although it's rar to see it as a requirement in software (most software developers aren't engineers anyway), it is more common to see it required when public safety is on the line. When breaching ethics will cost you not only your job, but your employability altogether, that's a strong incentive to act ethically.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    I was a member of the Institute of Directors and they try to espouse the importance of ethics: https://www.iod.org.nz/Portals/0/Publications/Founding%20Docs/Code%20of%20Practice.pdf https://www.iod.org.nz/Portals/0/Publications/Founding%20Doc... And, in my country's law at least, some ethics are codified into legal requirements for directors: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0105/latest/DLM319570.html http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0105/latest/D... s131 to s138a Of course, in both the ethics are basically "Work in the best interests of the company". Which may not ethically align with the greater good of society. But that's where criminal law comes into it, hopefully. As for professional engineers, sadly, there's no requirement in my country that an engineer be a member of IPENZ, as notoriously demonstrated by the case of Alan Reay, who was responsible for a substandard building that killed 115 people in the Christchurch 2011 earthquake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_Building#Royal_Commission_of_Inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_Building#Royal_Commission_... He simply resigned from IPENZ to avoid their ability to censure him, and sadly, our corporate manslaughter laws were found to be woefully lacking around this (and a coal mine explosion): https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/345102/corporate-manslaughter-law-on-cards-minister https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/345102/corporate-manslau... Question remains too, how would you define ethics for a programmer? Some programmers consider it unethical to work in adtech or porn, yet plenty of others don't. What about facial recognition techology? It's like the old joke - no ethical programmer would write a function called bombBaghdad(), instead they'd write it as bomb() and pass the city as a parameter.

by jgeada 7y ago

dba7dba 7y ago

Couldn't agree more. MBA grads in place of power have done so much damage to social fabric of US.

pstuart 7y ago
Economic strip mining.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

clairity 7y ago

your ire is poorly targeted. ethics is taught in mba programs. whether that translates into more ethical companies is certainly debatable, but don't simply assume mba holders are bad people (and engineers are good people). the reasons for the paucity of corporate ethical behavior is complex and varied, but certainly one cause is we've collectively capitulated to the supremacy of the profit motive, and there's just not enough perceived (direct) benefit in doing so.

human20190310 7y ago
The ire is pointed in the right direction, but the issue isn't not rooted in ethics, it's rooted in measurability. Management decisions were made as if things that could not be measured could be disregarded. Surely someone must have had a vague sense that relying on $9 per hour software development might not be a wise choice, but in a "managerialistic" environment, the concrete cost savings are taken into account, and the vague sense is not.
- kazen44 7y ago
  is this not the result of there being very little ideological differences between MBA graduates? I would even attribute this to a lack of ideological differences in (US) society as a whole. Economic and managerial schools only seem to teach one ideological viewpoint, which in term results in there being very little recourse on what would be the right way to tackle a situation, philosophically and ideologically speaking.
jeffk_teh_haxor 7y ago
Misaligned incentives cause good people to make bad decisions.

Traster 7y ago

I would argue that the mba program is basically irrelevant. The problem is that the incentive structures for management in these companies is overwhelmingly to produce short term gains in order to secure promotion and bonuses, since the metric of success is to not stay in your role very long. The ideal situation for a manager is to be promoted through/across the company every few years. Long enough to deliver some large project (that was certainly already in the pipeline) but short enough not to be responsible for the long term impact of that project. You don't fix that by giving the management lectures on morality, you fix it by reducing their ability to hide the issues that happens in their organisation so that when lines are crossed the manager can't be confident they can sweep it under the rug.

windexh8er 7y ago
> You don't fix that by giving the management lectures on morality, you fix it by reducing their ability to hide the issues that happens in their organisation so that when lines are crossed the manager can't be confident they can sweep it under the rug. You also don't fix this by overlooking the fact that all publicly traded organizations are performing for the street, not the customer. How much can we sell them is the mantra now, more so, than ever. Instead of being the best we've decided that lobbying and paying the board/shareholders is the best for everyone. Those people just happen to be the 0.1% as well.
remarkEon 7y ago
>I would argue that the mba program is basically irrelevant. It is definitely relevant. The programs will pump students full of notions of "corporate social responsibility", right before they send them off to consulting gigs for the summer where short-termism is how you get the offer. It's a self reinforcing system. It would maybe be different if MBA programs weren't a cash cow for universities (especially universities that cater to international students), and instead were essentially apprenticeships at the companies themselves. I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, but I'm not ready to forgive the MBA programs' part in this.
cryptonector 7y ago
You measure what you can, and in management that's often short term things. Intangibles can't get measured, thus intangibles don't get measured -- not even estimated. The result is a distorted view of everything.

jonas21 7y ago

Most MBA programs have required ethics courses, so it's clear that simply having a course requirement is insufficient. Ethics courses teach frameworks that can make it easier to rationalize commonsense unethical decisions as being ethical, so I'm not convinced they're actually the right answer

rolltiide 7y ago
The incentives need to addressed and they're missing, there arent meaningful economic and reputational consequences for management And software engineers do plenty of unethical things when the consequences are removed and the payoff is good. How many of us operate under the immunity of “lol they’ll blame russia”
charles_f 7y ago
Professional Engineers in Canada (and in some states in the US AFAIK) are required to have a valid licence, that can be revoked on ethical breach. Although it's rar to see it as a requirement in software (most software developers aren't engineers anyway), it is more common to see it required when public safety is on the line. When breaching ethics will cost you not only your job, but your employability altogether, that's a strong incentive to act ethically.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  I was a member of the Institute of Directors and they try to espouse the importance of ethics: https://www.iod.org.nz/Portals/0/Publications/Founding%20Docs/Code%20of%20Practice.pdf https://www.iod.org.nz/Portals/0/Publications/Founding%20Doc... And, in my country's law at least, some ethics are codified into legal requirements for directors: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0105/latest/DLM319570.html http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0105/latest/D... s131 to s138a Of course, in both the ethics are basically "Work in the best interests of the company". Which may not ethically align with the greater good of society. But that's where criminal law comes into it, hopefully. As for professional engineers, sadly, there's no requirement in my country that an engineer be a member of IPENZ, as notoriously demonstrated by the case of Alan Reay, who was responsible for a substandard building that killed 115 people in the Christchurch 2011 earthquake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_Building#Royal_Commission_of_Inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_Building#Royal_Commission_... He simply resigned from IPENZ to avoid their ability to censure him, and sadly, our corporate manslaughter laws were found to be woefully lacking around this (and a coal mine explosion): https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/345102/corporate-manslaughter-law-on-cards-minister https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/345102/corporate-manslau... Question remains too, how would you define ethics for a programmer? Some programmers consider it unethical to work in adtech or porn, yet plenty of others don't. What about facial recognition techology? It's like the old joke - no ethical programmer would write a function called bombBaghdad(), instead they'd write it as bomb() and pass the city as a parameter.