The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Quote:
“Most thinking people know where they have to go, but letting go of their beliefs and abandoning their “zones of comfort” and familiarity are not easy.”
Learning Expectation:
The poor cannot participate in the benefits of globalization without an active engagement and without access to products and services that represent global quality standards. They need to be exposed to the range and variety of opportunities that inclusive globalization can provide. The poor represent a “latent market” for goods and services. Active engagement of private enterprises at the BOP is a critical element in creating inclusive capitalism, as private-sector competition for this market will foster attention to the poor as consumers. It will create choices for them. They do not have to depend only on what is available in their villages.
Review:
These characteristics of a market economy, new to the BOP, can facilitate dramatic change at the BOP. Free and transparent private-sector competition, unlike local village and shanty-town monopolies controlled by local slum lords, can transform the “poor” into consumers (as we illustrate with examples). Poverty alleviation will become a business development task shared among the large private sector firms and local BOP entrepreneurs.

Lessons Learned:
In this chapter BOP markets must become an integral part of the work of the private sector. They must become part of the firms’ core businesses; they cannot merely be relegated to the realm of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Successfully creating BOP markets involves change in the functioning of MNCs as much as it changes the functioning of developing countries. BOP markets must become integral to the success of the firm in order to command senior management attention and sustained resource allocation.
Integrative Questions
1. What are the policies of government?
2. What is BOP?
3. What is right and moral?
4. Is there are as many rural rich as there are urban poor?
5. Is difficult to give up for individuals, political parties, and sections of the bureaucracy?

THE PRACTITIONER FROM WITHIN: REVISITING THE VIRTUES

Cyber Ethics
THE PRACTITIONER FROM WITHIN: REVISITING THE VIRTUES
Quote:
“Information revolution” has altered many aspects of life significantly: commerce, employment, medicine, security, transportation, entertainment, and so on.”
Learning Expectation:
Consequently, information and communication technology (ICT) has affected — in both good ways and bad ways — community life, family life, human relationships, education, careers, freedom, and democracy (to name just a few examples). “Computer and information ethics”, in the broadest sense of this phrase, can be understood as that branch of applied ethics which studies and analyzes such social and ethical impacts of ICT. The present essay concerns this broad new field of applied ethics.
Review:
The more specific term “computer ethics” has been used to refer to applications by professional philosophers of traditional Western theories like utilitarianism, Kantianism, or virtue ethics, to ethical cases that significantly involve computers and computer networks. “Computer ethics” also has been used to refer to a kind of professional ethics in which computer professionals apply codes of ethics and standards of good practice within their profession. In addition, other more specific names, like “cyberethics” and “Internet ethics”, have been used to refer to aspects of computer ethics associated with the Internet.

Lessons Learned:
In laying down a foundation for information ethics, Wiener developed a cybernetic view of human nature and society, which led him to an ethically suggestive account of the purpose of a human life. Based upon this, he adopted “great principles of justice” that he believed all societies ought to follow. These powerful ethical concepts enabled Wiener to analyze information ethics issues of all kinds.
Integrative Questions:
1. What is the revisiting virtue of ethics?
2. What are the human nature and society?
3. What are the ethical concepts of revisiting virtues?
4. What is the moral?
5. Define ethical virtues?

ETHICAL ISSUES IN BUSINESS COMPUTING

Cyber Ethics
ETHICAL ISSUES IN BUSINESS COMPUTING
Quote:
“Businesses operate and enlarging the opportunities available to them to reach and service customers.”
Learning Expectation:
To provide a comprehensive overview of the most important ethical issues associated with the expanding world of e-business. Grounded solidly in the most recent scholarship in business ethics, the book will apply the most relevant theoretical frameworks to ethical issues in all significant areas of e-business.
Review:
Grounded solidly in the most recent scholarship in business ethics, the book will apply the most relevant theoretical frameworks to ethical issues in all significant areas of e-business. The book will be written for scholars, professionals, and students interested in gaining a better comprehension and appreciation of the moral issues encountered in the multifaceted world of e-business. It will provide readers with a clear knowledge of the complex ethical issues involved in e-business and improve their understanding of widely discussed current issues in e-business such as those of privacy, information management, data mining, intellectual property, and consumer tracking.
 
Lessons Learned:
It is important to understand and respond to the unique ethical issues associated with e-business. As e-business models become more common in the world of business, there must be an effort to integrate e-business more fully into the field of business ethics so that scholars and professionals working in the field can better appreciate and respond to these ethical issues. There thus exists a clear need for an edited collection of articles that provides a comprehensive and thorough treatment of ethical issues in e-business. The target audience of this book will be composed of researches and professionals working in the field of e-business and business ethics in various disciplines, e.g. business and management, information technology, philosophy, communication sciences, computer science, and consumer studies. In providing a broad overview of the various ethical issues involved in all aspects of e-business, the book will also provide a useful resource for all persons involved in e-business. The book will also provide a useful tool for educators and students studying e-business, business ethics, and related topics.
Integrative Questions:
1. What are the ethical issues?
2. What is business computing?
3. What is e-business?
4. What is the system to computing?
5. What is the issue in business computing?

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CODE OF ETHICS: APPROVED!

Cyber Ethics
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CODE OF ETHICS: APPROVED!
Quote:
For Aristotle, on the other hand, the purpose of moral rules was to promote individual moral virtues and the development of a good will or moral character. Put in more general terms, the rights/obligations ethicist starts with rules stating obligations about how one should behave and rights about how I am to be treated, while the virtue ethicist starts with the human character and its ethical dispositions. Virtue ethics does not lie in following a set of well defined rules but it lies in one’s character; you have to see what is the right action and then choose to do it.
Lesson Expectation:
How were these two approaches to ethics reflected in the initial development and responses to the Code? There are several purposes of a code of ethics. Several principles that were suggested for the code used imperative language.
Review:
In 1993, the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS) and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) formed a joint committee to help organize software developers and engineers into a profession. As part of this project, a sub-committee of professionals, academics, and members of ACM and IEEE-CS began work drafting a code of ethics for software engineers through electronic mail. After four years of online discussion and revision, version 5.2 of the Software Engineer’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice was adopted by IEEE-CS and ACM in 1998, and since then, the code has been adopted by software engineering and computer societies worldwide.
The IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics Archive documents the drafting, debate, and final adoption of the joint IEEE Computer Society /ACMSoftware Engineering Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice. Indirectly, the archive illustrates how software engineering developed from an occupation to a profession. The drafting and approval of the Software Engineering Code, carried out in substantial part by email, has produced a detailed record of the development of a professional code of ethics. This correspondence, as well as related documents, interviews, and publications, make up the contents of the IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineer’s Code of Ethics Archive.
Lesson Learned:
Addressing computer ethics issues for the professional and in the classroom needs to include both of these approaches. The software engineer as a practicing professional acts from a higher level of care for the customer (virtue ethics) and conforms to the development standards of the profession (right/obligations ethics). Both types of ethics are needed for the Professional engineer.
Integrative Questions:
1. What does IEEE-CS stands for?
2. What does ACM stands for?
3. Why did they develop a joint force ethical approach for software engineering?
4. Enumerate and explain the short version of the software engineering ethics.
5. What is Virtue Ethics?

SUBSUMPTION ETHICS

Cyber Ethics
SUBSUMPTION ETHICS
Quote:
“Subsumption Ethics” published in Computers and Society,
Learning Expectation:
Subsumption ethics is the process by which decisions become incorporated into the operation of information technology (IT) systems, and subsequently forgotten. IT systems, by nature, repeat operations over and over. If those operations have unethical impacts, the system will continue to execute them anyway.
Review:
Unlike a human operator, there is no point in the cycle where the machine pauses to ask, “Should I do this?” Subsumption in general is the process of building larger components from smaller ones. In this sense, a cell subsumes DNA function, American common law subsumes judicial decisions, and a hairdryer subsumes an electric motor. Subsumption in computers is different because there is so much more of it going on than in simple machines.
In computer systems, small components are developed and tested, and once they are working reliably they are subsumed into larger systems. This is the enabling technique of object oriented programming. The larger systems, in turn, are subsumed into still larger systems. Once components, subsystems and applications are operating, the subsumed process becomes invisible and unavailable to the user, what James Moor calls the “invisibility factor.”
 
Lessons Learned:
Information systems subsume design, policy and implementation decisions in programming code and content. Code segments and content become “subsumed objects.” While it is demonstrable that systems are built from subsumed components, it is less easy to show exactly how decisions are subsumed. This axiom posits that the decisions themselves, including many subtle factors, are incorporated into systems operation.
Integrative Questions:
1. What is sumbsumption ethics?
2. What is ethics?
3. What is Moral in the sumbsumption?
4. What is psychological ethics ?
5. What is subsumed objects?