Information warfare and ethics

This paper examines the ethics of the practice of information warfare at both the national and corporate levels. Initially examining the present and past actions of individual hackers, it moves to the more organised, future military and economic warfare scenarios. It examines the lack of legal or policy initiatives in this area.

Codes of ethics: what are they really and what should they be?

Codes of ethics are prevalent in major corporations around the world. They are seen as the first tangible commitment to being ethical. This paper examines codes of ethics and tries to establish what they are, how they are developed and their net utility. We then proffer the idea of codes as the first part of a five-stage process that leads to an overall corporate commitment to being ethical in one's business dealings.

A taxonomy of penetration testing ethics

In an environment where commercial software is continually patched to correct security flaws, penetration testing can provide organisations with a realistic assessment of their security posture. Penetration testing uses the same principles as criminal hackers to penetrate corporate networks and thereby verify the presence of software vulnerabilities. Network administrators can use the results of a penetration test to correct flaws and improve overall security. The use of hacking techniques, however, raises several ethical questions that centre on the integrity of the tester to maintain professional distance and uphold the profession. This paper discusses the ethics of penetration testing and presents our conceptual model and revised taxonomy.

A construct of the cross-cultural ethos of corporate codes of ethics (ECCE) : Australia, Canada and Sweden

The objective of this paper is to develop and describe a construct of the ethos of the corporate codes of ethics (i.e., an ECCE-construct) across three countries, namely Australia, Canada and Sweden. The ECCE-construct makes a contribution to theory and practice in the field as it outlines a theoretical construct for the benefit of other researchers. It is also of managerial interest to marketing organizations as it provides a grounded framework of areas to be considered in the implementation in organizations of corporate codes of ethics.

Gender and ethics

Men and women lawyers value ethics differently, according to a study into law students' values.  About 700 final year law students responded to a questionnaire on hypothetical ethical situations which gave a snapshot understanding of the values of Australian students in their last year of law school.

The use of codes of ethics in the corporate marketplace: the case of Australia and Sweden

Business ethics is a subject that recently has been thrust again into prominence in industrialised economies around the world, due to the revelations of the practices of some of the major corporations operating within the USA. In Australia, corporate collapses such as HIH and Onetel and in Sweden, the scandals with the top executives of Skandia and also Systembolaget have brought in to sharp focus that these practices are not confined to the USA. Since the early 1960s, codes of ethics have been in evidence in many organisations in the USA, whilst in Australia, as in Britain, the interest in codes of ethics was piqued by the stock market crash of 1987. In Sweden, however, this concept of the use of codes of ethics in the corporate sector had not been investigated prior to this study. This paper examines the use of codes of ethics in the marketplace by the top companies operating in corporate Australia and corporate Sweden. The outcome of this research shows that in both Australia and Sweden that large organisations indicate a substantial interest in codes of ethics and value the use of their codes in the marketplace. There are, however, differences in the ways that the companies in each country implement their codes of ethics in the marketplace and the benefits that they see as being derived from them.

Stem cell research and ethics : a socio-economic and marketing perspective

This paper addresses the ethical and moral issues surrounding stem cell research (SCR) and development within the socio-economic and macro marketing environments. A two dimensional conceptual framework is developed towards broadening the understanding of the complexities of these issues in an international context. The conceptual model captures the two dimensions of narrow moral/ethical to broader imperatives and the cost-benefits realm of SCR. Four quadrants emerge within these two dimensions which are likely to help identify the dominant views and the people associating themselves with these views in terms of their demographics and psychographic characteristics. These findings have important socio-economic and marketing implications which are highlighted in the paper.

Almost there : empirical insights into clinical method and ethics courses in climbing the hill towards lawyers' professionalism

Results of a study into the relationships between values and ethical behaviour for early-career legal practitioners - effect of gender, clinical experience and prior ethics education - implications for ethics education in tertiary institutions and after admission to legal practice.

Ethics for IT : a short Weberian excursus

The paper uses the famous conclusion of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism to open up the debate about ethics and the role of the professional. The paper identifies the key concerns of Weber in his conclusion and considers the implications for the development of IT ethics and the IT professional and the development of a professional response.

Gathering collecting: art and the ethics of 'care at a distance'

Catalogue essay 2 in a catalogue of an exhibition held at SASA Gallery, Adelaide, 8 May-1 June 2007. He addresses the notion of what it is to collect and how art objects survive the transposition associated with collecting.

Philosophy, business and ethics

Our desire to be creative and the need for ethics in life can come together in excellent business practices. Ideas from Hegel and Nietzsche show that the intrinsic worth of these practices depends upon the stakeholder life-work ethic (motivation), business ethics (relationships) and responsible corporate governance (authority for decision-making)

Literature and environmental ethics

This thesis contends that literature which reflects, and is informed by (whether consciously or not), reconstructive postmodern ecology is not a static literature but by representing and confronting the underpinning causes that have led humanity to violence, literature generates new engagements and the potential to reconstruct - ethically, cognitively, perceptually- alternative ways of being-in-the-world for political ends.

Seeing 'things' differently : recognition, ethics, praxis

This essay focuses on the recent introduction by the Australian Federal Government of standardised literacy testing in all states across Australia (that is, the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy, or NAPLAN), and explores the way this reform is mediating the work of English literacy educators in primary and secondary schools. We draw on data collected as part of a research project funded by the Australian Research Council, involving interviews with teachers about their experiences of implementing standardised testing. These interviews indicate that the introduction of standardised testing does not merely constitute an additional part of teachers” workloads, but that it is having a significant impact on their identity as language educators, their understanding of curriculum and pedagogy, and the relationships they seek to maintain with their students. By introducing the NAPLAN tests, the Australian Federal Government is going down the path of other neo-liberal governments around the world. No doubt the story we tell will be familiar to readers in other countries. Our aim, however, is more than simply to give yet another account of the tensions experienced by committed language and literacy teachers as they implement neoliberal policy mandates. Key questions for us include: Why is the Australian government persisting with such policies, even when they have had such dubious consequences (teaching to the test, dumbing down, and so on.) in other national settings? How might educators resist these reforms? What intellectual resources might enable us to articulate an alternative vision of language education to that imposed by neoliberal reforms?
We present an account of conversations with a group of teachers in a primary school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, not in order to make large claims about how the profession in Australia as a whole judges standards based reforms, but because their talk prompts reflection about the possibility of resisting such policy initiatives. Our impulse is largely a philosophical one – we are raising questions about how neoliberal reforms construct teachers and their students, what they presuppose about the nature of life and its potential, and how educators might dissent from the world view that is being imposed. And rather than simply investigating how teachers are grappling with standards-based reforms, as though it is yet again a matter of putting teachers under the spotlight, we also raise questions about the responsibility of academics and teacher educators to maintain a critical standpoint within the policy environment created by such changes.