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This needs to be in *management* ethics. It was the *management* that ignored warnings. The "compromises" were demanded by *management*. Boeing is not an engin
by kevin_b_er 3y ago
This needs to be in *management* ethics. It was the *management* that ignored warnings. The "compromises" were demanded by *management*.
Boeing is not an engineering culture, it is an MBA culture. This is the result.
It is clear, by deadly example, that Boeing *management* is not capable of running a company that produces a safe plane. It is, after all, difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
All the engineering ethics in the world does nothing against the greed of Boeing's management.
- janice1999 3y agoAgreed. I only mention engineering students as my only experience with ethics classes are in that domain. However it's still a good example for engineers, particularly how the design failures resulted in deaths, the role of whistleblowers and how disastrous self-certification can be.
- paledot 3y agoI would be utterly shocked if any MBA program in the world had a mandatory ethics component, for all that an unethical MBA is in a position to kill many more people than an unethical engineer.
- dbattaglia 3y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if they had some ethics classes. I doubt any class is going to have instill ethics in someone who has none.
- numpad0 3y agoI've seen fiduciary duty to shareholders in publicly traded companies and how it force managers to chase unsustainable immediate gains repeated as cliche, template, criticisms in this types of topics. Privately owned companies of course aren't much different OTOH, so personally it feels to me that incentive design that rewards ethical corporate behaviors is an open question passed from the modern era to the post-modern world(or is that one label behind this one? I'm totally out of my depth).
- klempner 3y agoI will remark that, excluding cases where some idiot is offering several times what the company is worth, it is rare that the fiduciary duty issue would force the management of a company to choose unsustainable immediate gains. The value of a company's equity is based on the net present value of future returns. That means that while short term earnings are important, so are earnings in the moderately distant future. (depending on risk free interest rates) If a company like Boeing were properly managed, they'd give suitable priority to engineering excellence, at least to the point of not having critical failures like these, because that's core to their ability to compete with Airbus/etc in the future. The real issue you're concerned about is that it is very difficult to align the interests of corporate managers with the interests of the company. It is relatively easy to align senior management with short term stock prices, but it is difficult for the public to figure out that the gains they see (less engineering cost, faster turnaround time, etc) come at the expense of the longer term viability of the company, so the former gets priced into the short term stock price (and so executive compensation) and the latter does not.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago"All the engineering ethics in the world does nothing against the greed of Boeing's management. " Sure managers are guilty. But managers did not write the code. "Engineers" did. As long as there are engineers writing that code (also see VW and #Dieselgate) there will be managers who do this. Engineers need to take a stand and don't do everything. Like professionals. "He made me do it" is not an excuse for hundreds of dead people.
- knifie_spoonie 3y agoManagers are the ones with the authority to tell engineers what to do. If an engineer refuses, they'll simply be replaced with someone more pliable. See the Challenger disaster for a high profile example.
- oefnak 3y agoOkay, then that replacement should also refuse or go to jail.
- knifie_spoonie 3y agoCrazy idea, but maybe the manager trying to force engineers to do these things should be held accountable.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago"replaced with someone more pliable." If I don't rob the bank, someone else will! Yes, and then the other engineer is responsible for the dead people, not you. But if your job is more important than other peoples lifes, I guess, yes, you do as you have been told.
- knifie_spoonie 3y ago"If I don't rob the bank, someone else will!" Or maybe we stop people from trying to force others to rob banks. Nip the problem in the bud. Why do you want to let managers get away with toxic behavior and then blame the subordinates?
- pella 3y ago> it is an MBA culture. The MBA program should include more ethics courses and perhaps an adapted version of the Hippocratic Oath. --> MBA Oath : https://mbaoath.org/ https://mbaoath.org/