risks in banks
STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN ETHICS AND ICT GOVERNANCE
Graeme Pye & Matthew J. Warren
School of Information Systems,
Faculty of Business and Law,
Deakin University,
Geelong, Victoria, Australia, 3217
Email: mwarren@deakin.edu.au
ABSTRACT
Ethics and Information Communication Technology (ICT) Governance both have their place in today’s business organisations, but can their practical applications present an ethical ambiguity for the IT professional employed within the business organisation?
The guidelines contained within various codes of ethics recommend principles regarding the ethical behaviour of individual IT professionals. In contrast, IT
Governance as outlined in the new Australian Standard for Corporate Governance of
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides ICT governance advice for business. This paper explores the difference between these viewpoints.
Keywords: Ethics, IT governance, ICT and ACS.
INTRODUCTION
Depending on your personal perspective, ethics can have a number of relevant meanings. In general terms ethics is regarded as the moral rationales that influence a person’s behaviour or the carrying out of an activity or alternatively, ethics can also refer to the area of knowledge that deals with moral principles (Pearsall, 1998). However, from an information technology (IT) business domain perspective, Clarke’s (1999) view was that the term ethics is intended to refer to the guiding principles of doing what is right or wrong from a moral perspective, in reference to ethical behaviour of both the individual IT professional and the governance of an IT department within a business organisation. As an overview, this research seeks to investigate and philosophically appreciate the ethical perceptions, interpretations, principles and professed tenets of the Australian Computer Society’s
(ACS) Code of Ethics (2003), while also investigating the genesis and potential influence of IT governance in light of the
Graeme Pye & Matthew J. Warren
School of Information Systems,
Faculty of Business and Law,
Deakin University,
Geelong, Victoria, Australia, 3217
Email: mwarren@deakin.edu.au
ABSTRACT
Ethics and Information Communication Technology (ICT) Governance both have their place in today’s business organisations, but can their practical applications present an ethical ambiguity for the IT professional employed within the business organisation?
The guidelines contained within various codes of ethics recommend principles regarding the ethical behaviour of individual IT professionals. In contrast, IT
Governance as outlined in the new Australian Standard for Corporate Governance of
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides ICT governance advice for business. This paper explores the difference between these viewpoints.
Keywords: Ethics, IT governance, ICT and ACS.
INTRODUCTION
Depending on your personal perspective, ethics can have a number of relevant meanings. In general terms ethics is regarded as the moral rationales that influence a person’s behaviour or the carrying out of an activity or alternatively, ethics can also refer to the area of knowledge that deals with moral principles (Pearsall, 1998). However, from an information technology (IT) business domain perspective, Clarke’s (1999) view was that the term ethics is intended to refer to the guiding principles of doing what is right or wrong from a moral perspective, in reference to ethical behaviour of both the individual IT professional and the governance of an IT department within a business organisation. As an overview, this research seeks to investigate and philosophically appreciate the ethical perceptions, interpretations, principles and professed tenets of the Australian Computer Society’s
(ACS) Code of Ethics (2003), while also investigating the genesis and potential influence of IT governance in light of the
References: ACS 2003, Australian Computer Society Code of Ethics, (Online), Australian Computer Society, Available from: (May 2005). Blackburn S. 1994, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford U.K. Clarke R. 1999, Ethics and the Internet: Cyberspace Behaviour of People, Communities and Organisations., (Online), ANU, Available from: (June 2005). Melser P. Byrne-Armstrong H. 2000, 'Corporate Voices, Personal Voices: The Ethics of the Internet. ' in 2nd Australian Institute of Computer Ethics Conference (AICE2000), Australian Computer Weill R., Ross J. W. 2004, IT Governance, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts.