There have been many different ethical problems in the
engineering world such as people getting paid to turn their head and look the
other way, not sticking to the designed plans or bribery. Bribery is one of the
biggest ethical issues in the engineering field. When you are a multi country
business you are dealing with many different cultures. With the United States there
is no briberies aloud with trying to get jobs. In other cultures and countries
briberies are able to get a project. This were the issue begins with ethics in
engineering. We will look at examples of where this has been brought up and
what the final outcome has been.
With globalization and with us engineering firms working
with different cultures we see a lot more bribery issues. In the United States
companies are not allowed to take bribes due to the code of ethics. The ASCE
code of ethic is very clear about engineers are to do when this comes in to
taking any compensation from a contractor. Civil Engineers in the United States
have to abide by these codes even when outside of the United States. It then
comes in to question what is the engineers morals and how they are to live
there life.
Some examples of previous bribes that were taken by engineer
in the United States and there punishment for what they did will help everyone
understand the seriousness of ethics in Civil Engineering. In Los Angeles, California
was a suspected case of where a building engineer was signing of on deals that
were not making much sense and was believed to have been taking money in the
process of these projects. The issue
here begins with why he wasn’t checking the plans before signing them and then
taking money for the plans to get through to the building stage.
In another case of bribery we see an engineer who was
working for the US Army Corp of engineers received $80,000 dollars for a
personal project that was paid for by a contractor. In this case the engineer
was found guilty and first had to spend some time in jail and a $50,000 fine.
He then after getting out of jail was on a supervised return, which meant he
was supervised 3 years after getting out of jail. In cases like this the
engineer holds a lot of power. The contractor works for the government but if
the engineer wants a bribe a contractor may feel obligated to give the bribe
for fear of not getting contracts in the future. As an engineer you need to
know that bribes are not ok to take and the penalty for the crime is going to be
huge.
In many cases of bribery in engineering around the word is
acceptable. The issue comes when you are dealing with the United States. The
United States up holds one of the strongest ethics codes in the world. I
believe that bribes are not very moral but in other countries where they want
to make sure they get paid and rewarded other jobs is important to them. I
agree strongly with bidding jobs and the best bid wins, instead of the biggest
bribe wins. A lot of bribery comes when engineers in the United States go to
other countries and have o deal with cultures who openly accept bribery. In any
case it comes down to are you going to follow the rules of the ASCE and uphold
a strong moral values?
Here are the links:
http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/tag/u-s-army-corps-of-engineers/
http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_4061d952-760f-11e2-968f-001a4bcf6878.html
http://www.asce.org/leadership-and-management/ethics/code-of-ethics/
This was an enlightening post, I never knew that bribery was a big thing with engineers. From what I got from this post I would say bribery is a bad thing especially if you are a part of ASCE, because then in that case you are breaking the rules right out. Also in my mind bribery and black mail seem very similar.
ReplyDeleteThat's crazy to think people would bypass safety just for some extra cash. I would rather have it done right! I also did not know that the US government regulates things such as this.
ReplyDeleteNot having any engineering background, I had no idea that bribery was an issue in that field. I like the point you make at the end about how the biggest bid wins, not the biggest bribe. I did not know that the US had such strict codes and that other countries of the world allow bribes. I'm glad the US has a good code of ethics-like you said, keeps people honest. Lots of good, new information in this post, great job.
ReplyDeleteKind of ridiculous that one of the highest paid starting salary careers has this problem. People just can't have enough money I guess. Good article, great read.
ReplyDeleteGreat article and great choice of issue. Something like this surely plays a bigger role in engineering than many outside of the field realize. I agree with Will that it is a little ridiculous that an already high paying field would have a problem like bribery, but it was good to see that the US is aware of this and handling it better than most other countries. Once again, great article.
ReplyDelete