Should Companies Be Responsible for the Unemployment Caused by Their Information Systems - Assignment Example

Name: Topic: Information systems and unemployment Institution: Instructor: Course: Date of Submission: Should companies be responsible for the unemployment caused by their information systems? Types of information system in a business and ethical theories Information system is comprised a collection of hardware, software, persons and procedures that are structured to generate information that is often used in facilitating day to day, long range as well as short range activities of employees in an organization. Business managers can use ethics theory they regard most appropriate for use in their management operations. On the other hand, terminating employees is one the most difficult tasks for the human resource manager. Making a decision to terminate the employment relationship is often a tough, unless one has a clear reason to remove a person from the firm. Under the normal circumstances, when one an employee is terminated from work, the acts affect the life of the staff but the employee’s immediate family as well. Staff terminations also impact the current employees. Therefore, with much at stake, human resource manager responsible from terminating employees from work often struggle with the some ethical dilemmas that come with the terminations (Wright, 2013, p. 34). Cultural relativism Business is entrenched in our society and therefore, for a society to flourish there is a need for good independent relations between employees and their employer. However, different societies tend to exercise distinct cultures. They often tend to uphold their own way of life, beliefs, habits, as well as attitudes. For any company to be entrenched in a given society, it has to conform at least to the key traits of the existing cultures and beliefs. Relativists propose that good moral principles tend to vary from one community to another. Moreover, morality, they assume, is dependent on cultural beliefs. Cultural relativism tends questions our general certainty in the objectivity as well as universality of moral truths. People believe that a fair compromise can always be reached through negotiations. When companies try to advantage of the modern information systems and deploy employees, they should be accused of increasing unemployment in the society (Yoshizawa & Sasaoka, 2013. P. 96). For instance, For instance, computers make human life become machine dependent. For example, the automated IVR systems are receiving and sending pre-recorded machines rather than having someone to provide information to the caller. Furthermore, computers have made some jobs unnecessary. For example, for the last few decades, companies used to employ significant numbers of typists as well as stenographers. However, today, computers have made such positions unnecessary. Similarly, many businesses only needs one to two secretaries to carry out the office work compared to previous years, whereby organizations needed more than three secretaries to perform a lump-sum. These jobs included keeping records, receiving calls, attending to the boss as well as assisting the victors among others (Bryant, 2013, p. 44). It has been proposed that capitalisms tend to benefit the most powerful at the expense of the poor people. Public pressures of such acts have therefore generated mixed reactions from various people with the regard to unemployment caused the existing informational systems (Cordner & Brown, 2013, p. 473-474). It is also necessary that such principles that promote unemployment to have limits. Initially, the a manual transaction processing systems was replaced by computerized systems that often allowed for faster processing, thus leading to reduced clerical expenses as well as improved customer service. Today, most of the transaction processing systems tend to apply online transaction processing. However, some routine processing activities such as calculating the paychecks as well as printing invoices are often carried out more efficiently on a batch basis. As a matter of fact, companies should ensure that all the unemployed people should come up with strategic plans to keep them peaceful and satisfied by enrolling them into new upcoming companies. They should also form a habit of adapting to norms that morally best for business practices (Caughron, 2013, p. 502-504) Utilitarianism theory This theory argues that morality is based on creating as much happiness in people as possible. Therefore, the moral responsibility of companies should entail creating more jobs by diminishing dependence on the computers as well as other office information systems. Actually, it is better to have a tedious job rather than not have one at all. This creates more satisfaction and happiness compared to unemployment, whereby one lacks a source of income to sustain the basic needs. I tend to agree with Mill when he stated ‘‘it is better for one to remain a human being and feel dissatisfied rather than becoming a satisfied pig. Utilitarianism theory focuses on the long-term issue of pleasure and pain. It does not emphasize on the relative amount of both pain and pleasure in particular circumstances Mill further argues that the collective experience of humanity, as seen in our cultures, ethical precepts and laws often tend to determine what acts provides the best results for everyone. Similarly, companies should note the negative impacts of over-dependence of machines on employment (Vranceanu, 2014, p. 53-55). Kantianism theory Immanuel Kant argues that it the moral responsibility of every man to act in particular way that promotes the good of everyone. He believes that for an action to get meaning, the person committing should do it freely and willingly without any external conviction. One should also be in a position to ask themselves questions like; what will real happen if I made the aphorism of this act an international law. According to Kant, if one is already confined to carry out a certain act, then are more likely to naturally seek to create positive outcomes such as pleasure, then as a result, the person is not acting freely and hence not morally responsible. Kant also argues that the consequences of one’s actions tend to be out of one’s control, and so one cannot be responsible for those outcomes or become charged on them in reference to this, there is no denying the increased of information systems by many companies has accelerated unemployment. In short, though these systems make the work simpler, they tend to cause unemployment by reducing the need for more manual effort. With respect to Consequentialism, companies should diminish their dependence on office information systems and adopt the use of manual systems in some sectors (Yoshizawa & Sasaoka, 2013, p.22). More and more companies are now searching for more opportunities to replace the existing personnel with robots. Actually, the breathtaking innovation of the information systems since the beginning of the industrial period has generated growing living standards of many people across the globe. This has resulted to notably bouts of accelerating inequality and endless debate on the same. The modern information systems are continuously making many employees unable to change and hence becoming obsolete. Consequentialism theory argues one should always put in consideration the consequences of action before making any ethical decision to act. He further points out those results have the potential of being hypothetical (Segal & Lehrer, 2013, p. 104-106). Social contract theory This theory argues that morality entails a set of rules that governs one’s behavior. It further suggests that rational individuals tend to accept depending on whether other people will accept them as well. Thomas Hobbes proposes that there is need for people to seek equality as an essential need of human power. Social Contract Theory argues that governments and companies to come up with rules for attaining ethical morality that entails a set of rules that help facilitate the social living for its people. I can affirm that the existing information systems are responsible for the existing lackluster job growth. The financial crises of the early 2000s could affirm for the relative slowness of employment decrease since the beginning of the century. Therefore, companies should avoid replacing most of its workforce with the increasing use of information since it only causes more pressure on employment as well as resulting inequality in societies (Bryant, 2013, p. 88). Digital technologies fueled with information systems that make human resource obsolete will only result to more crisis in the coming centuries. This science fiction is continuously being increasingly changing the business sectors into machine depended operations that result to plausible unemployment. Just like the changing one’s bad habits, it would be foolish to that the increase use of information systems that are organizationally friendly will have little impact on the unemployment in society. Therefore, it is important for organizations to generate business ethics based on the social contract theory regarding accountability regarding employment (Vranceanu, 2014, p. 70-71). Contractarian ethic theory Similarly, Companies tend to adopt the Contractarian ethic theory which is because people should focus on pursuing their self-interest as well as human self-preservation. It argues that individuals should pursue their best interests and goals in life regardless without worrying about the impacts on the other party. Hardly do companies implement any rule that prohibits over-dependence on machines. Yet, there is a relative replacement of human effort by machines in almost all levels of information systems. Hobbes further states that since people fear misery, therefore, end up pursuing their self-interest. In business, business owners fear making less profit, and so their desire for using manual effort is diminished, which naturally forces them to deploy manual labor and adopt machines instead. Moreover, this theory assumes that human beings naturally tend to strive for achieving a state of peace as well as psychological contentment therefore, unrestrained by material concerns(Zafar, 2013, p. 117-118). On the contrary, Hobbes concludes that human beings should agree on some basic moral policies and laws that will allow them escape the state of nature of self-seeking. For instance, with an office automated machine, the employees’ carry out tasks electronically using computers along with other electronic devices rather than performing the tasks manually. Similarly, with the use of office information system, the personnel working in the registration department can mail a class timetable to all the students or even post the schedule on the internet and update when necessary. On the other hand, in a manual system, the employees working in the registration department may be required to photocopy the class timetables and mail it to every student. He therefore, justifies the existence of rules, policies, and governments. In reference about theory, companies should enable a supportive venture whereby every person is entailed for employment to enable them pursue their egotism in a fair manner whereby both burdens and benefits are shared equally (GrublješIČ & Jaklič, 2013, p. 34). Conclusion In general, the information systems are classified into five key categories, they include; office and management information systems, decision supporting frameworks, transaction processing systems as well as expert information systems. On the other hand, business ethics theories entail the moral principles that the business implements to ensure that all employees in the organization practice acceptable behavior. It is true that the emergence of the use sophisticated information has significantly led to unemployment in society. Therefore, companies should adopt appropriate ethical theories such as Utilitarianism theory by diminishing use of machines and adapting to more manual systems to increase employment. They should not seek Contractarian ethic theory which seems to promote self-interest but rather seek the interest of everyone by practicing the Utilitarianism theory. Bibliography Bryant, R. J. (2013). Identifying single points of failure in your organisation. Journal of business continuity & emergency planning. Caughron, J. J., Antes, A. L., Stenmark, C. K., Thiel, C. E., Wang, X., & Mumford, M. D. (2013). Competition and sensemaking in ethical situations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 43, 1491-1507. Cordner, A., & Brown, P. (2013). Moments of Uncertainty: Ethical Considerations and Emerging Contaminants. Sociological Forum. 28, 469-494. Segal L., & Lehrer M. (2013). The Conflict of Ethos and Ethics: A Sociological Theory of Business People's Ethical Values. Journal of Business Ethics. 114, 513-528. Vranceanu, R. (2014). Corporate profit, entrepreneurship theory and business ethics. Business Ethics: A European Review. 23, 50-68. Wright C.S. (2013). Developing ethical leaders: Is there inconsistency between theory and practice? Journal of Human Values. 19, 29-38. Yoshizawa, S., & Sasaoka, N. (2013). Special section on smart multimedia & communication systems. IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences. 96. Zafar, H. (2013). Human resource information systems: Information security concerns for organizations. Human Resource Management Review. 23, 105-113. GrublješIČ, T., & Jaklič, J. (2013). Measuring use behavior in the context of business intelligence systems. IS&IM 2013. Volume 1. Read More