Activity 4: Engineering Ethics

Your Name/ID: Pitipat Fongsarun 6438141821

Instruction
● Download this Word document “Activity 4-Engineering ethics” worksheet in the
zipped folder of the same name from CourseVille.
● Discuss the situations among your group members, but answer as many questions
individually in the empty boxes. Prepare to volunteer and present your work at
around 3pm. Revise your work after the class after you hear some ideas from your
classmates. Save/print the file into the PDF format and upload a single PDF file to
CourseVille by 6pm today.

Situation 1: Reaping the benefits vs. Being an honest person

You and your teammates have participated in an international competition for the best
business models. Your team has made it through the final round of the competition,
wherein your team will compete with other three teams from three other countries. There
is about one more week to the final presentations and your team are content about your
work and the progress.
Nevertheless, you, by yourself, happened to accidentally overhear an opponent team’s
conversation about their business model in a coffee shop without them being aware. You
discovered that their idea is superior to that of your team and your team will probably lose,
had your team still pursued the same idea. Nevertheless, the idea you overheard could be
applied to improve the work of your team making it much better. What will you do?
A) Do nothing and stick with the original plan, as you are not even supposed to know
about this new information to begin with.
 B) Tell this to your teammates. Make an agreement with them that your team will not
copy the idea from the other team, but strive to seek a better and different one
even with a very slim chance of finding it in a week.
C) Do not tell this to your teammates, but propose the overheard idea as your own
idea to make your work better than that of the other team.
Please elaborate somewhat on why you choose a particular decision and why not the other
ones. Account for perspectives of as many stakeovers surrounding the issue as possible.
B. Although it was an accident, we can account it as gaining insight so that we can further
improve our knowledge and apply it to our own.

Situation 2: Freedom vs. Responsibility

A university student is applying for a scholarship to study abroad from a renowned corporate
and makes it through the final round with the highest test score among all the leftover
candidates. Every member in the corporate evaluating committee is satisfied with this
student’s knowledge, ability and personality in every aspect; hence, is about to agree to
award the student with the scholarship.
However, only a few days before the announcement of the winning candidate, the
committee members come to know from the HR department that this student has often
expressed strong and blunt opinions and criticisms about the student’s university, faculty
and instructors in Social media. Many times, these expressions are quite harsh and generate
further unending responses and comments.
Even though, many of these opinions and criticisms are based on sound argumentation,
many committee members feel that these actions are quite immature and may adversely
affect the corporate reputation in the future. On the other hand, some other members
argue that the evaluation process for the scholarship has nothing to do with such personal
issues of the candidate. As the (presumed) chairman of the evaluating committee for the
scholarship, what would you do?
 A) Award the candidate with the scholarship, as the student’s social media engagement
is a personal matter, through which the student has the rights to express personal
opinions and criticisms as long as these expressions are based on facts.
B) Do not award the candidate with the scholarship. The corporate reserves the rights
to choose their best candidate with the most fitting values including the candidate’s
social media engagement. Had the student inquired about the committee
justification for the unfavorable decision, the committee should explain their
decision honestly, even with the risk of prosecution from the student, that despite
the candidate’s top score and qualification, the candidate’s social media
engagement does not fit well with the corporate culture.
C) Do not award the candidate with the scholarship without explaining the underlying
reasons behind the committee decision. Just inform the student that there is a
better candidate.
Please elaborate somewhat on why you choose a particular decision and why not the other
ones. Account for perspectives of as many parties surrounding the issue as possible.
A. I think that social media is a personal matter, however, the committee may inform the
candidate to post less harsh and controversial comments in the future.

Situation 3: Short gain vs. Long-term reputation

You just graduated from the ICE program at the ISE. You wished to find the best possible
position in respected technology companies in Thailand, so you applied for many positions
at various target companies simultaneously. Unfortunately, the country has undergone an
economic downturn and you had not been able to find any suitable position so easily.
Time went by for a couple of months. Suddenly, two companies, say Company A and B,
contacted you for interviews for suitable positions. You went for both interviews at about
the same time and then waited to hear from them. Later, a company, say Company A,
offered you a position in an email in which you were asked to reply if you would accept the
position. You felt like you would not get an offer from Company B, as you did not do as
well in the interview as you expected. You began to think that if you passed up and
declined the offer from Company A, then it is likely that you will not get any position and
will stay unemployed for quite some time in the future.
So you replied to Company A that you would accept their offer. While you were waiting
for the paperwork, e.g., employment contract, to be completed, Company B suddenly
emailed you that they also offered you a position, which is more interesting than that of
Company A. What would you do?
A) Accept the offer from Company B. Tell Company A that you changed your mind
without telling them that you would go work at Company B instead.
B) Accept the offer from Company B. Tell Company A that you changed your mind and
that you would go work at Company B instead.
C) Decline the offer from Company B honoring your verbal acceptance of the offer from
Company A (even with no legal binding yet, as the paperwork has not be completed)
with the thought that you could go work at Company A as promised for a while (one
or two years) and later could apply for other positions including that of Company B
again, should you realize that you do not really like the job at Company A too much.
Please elaborate somewhat on why you choose a particular decision and why not the other
ones. Account for perspectives of as many parties surrounding the issue as possible.
A. It is our choice that we can choose which place we are going to work for. However,
telling which company you are choosing should be of a personal matter and should be
told to Company A.

Situation 4: Facts or Friends

One of your friends has a novel business idea for a startup venture leveraging on unfulfilled
needs and a significant gap in a significant market. You and your friend agree that all the
initial startup funding will come from your friend, while you will become the partner
contributing your IT expertise; the startup equity shares will be vested to both of you after 3
years given that you both give continual commitment to the startup growth with the hope
to make it profitable then.
 After two years, your startup is still far from being profitable, but there is a foreign
company approaching your startup for a takeover. The return from the takeover will make
up for all your startup funding and give all the partners with enough funds to start new
ventures, but all your startup intellectual properties, technologies and assets will be sold to
the company. You think it is a good time to sell, because your lost over the last two years,
while your startup main shareholder friend still think we can make the startup profitable and
are against the takeover. Acknowledging this dissent between both of you, your friend
agrees to loan some funds to buy your shares back from you.
The foreign takeover-to-be company directly contact you and gave you an appealing
offer to help them build products that your startup is supposed to build that they can
readily sell through their existing customers to create a new rapidly growing business line.
Personally, you view this as a great opportunity to make up for the last two years and earn a
fortune for your family.
A) Tell your friend the truth and give your startup equity shares back to him with no
return in order to go work for the foreign competitor helping them build a competing
solution.
B) Continue to work for the startup as in the initial agreement for another year to
complete the three-year agreement. If the situation will not become better after a
year, you can break free with your friend then.
C) Another decision, which is neither A) nor B).
Explain your decision (if you answer C)) and provide some justification.
A Since its agreed on a 3 year continual commitment it is best to return your equity to your friend before pursuing
further actions.