ENGINEERS AS MANAGERS

ENGINEERS AS MANAGERS

1 Characteristics

The characteristics of engineers as managers are:

1. Promote an ethical climate, through framing organization policies, responsibilities and by personal attitudes and obligations.

2. Resolving conflicts, by evolving priority, developing mutual understanding, generating various alternative solutions to problems.

3. Social responsibility to stakeholders, customers and employers. They act to develop wealth as well as the welfare of the society. Ethicists project the view that the manager’s responsibility is only to increase the profit of the organization, and only the engineers have the responsibility to protect the safety, health, and welfare of the public.

But managers have the ethical responsibility to produce safe and good products (or useful service), while showing respect for the human beings who include the employees, customers and the public. Hence, the objective for the managers and engineers is to produce valuable products that are also profitable.

2 Managing Conflicts

In solving conflicts, force should not be resorted. In fact, the conflict situations should be tolerated, understood, and resolved by participation by all the concerned. The conflicts in case of project managers arise in the following manners:

(a) Conflicts based on schedules: This happens because of various levels of execution, priority and limitations of each level.

(b) Conflicts arising out of fixing the priority to different projects or departments. This is to be arrived at from the end requirements and it may change from time to time.

(c) Conflict based on the availability of personnel.

(d) Conflict over technical, economic, and time factors such as cost, time, and performance level.

(e) Conflict arising in administration such as authority, responsibility, accountability, and logistics required.

(f) Conflicts of personality, human psychology and ego problems.

(g) Conflict over expenditure and its deviations.

Most of the conflicts can be resolved by following the principles listed here:

1. People

Separate people from the problem. It implies that the views of all concerned should be obtained. The questions such as what, why, and when the error was committed is more important than to know who committed it.

2. Interests

Focus must be only on interest i.e., the ethical attitudes or motives and not on the positions (i.e., stated views). A supplier may require commission larger than usual prevailing rate for an agricultural product. But the past analysis may tell us that the material is not cultivated regularly and the monsoon poses some additional risk towards the supply. Mutual interests must be respected to a maximum level. What is right is more important than who is right!

3. Options

Generate various options as solutions to the problem so that there is no time lag in decision making. This helps a manager to try the next best solution should the first one fails.

4. Evaluation

The evaluation of the results should be based on some specified objectives such as efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction. More important is that the means, not only the goals, should be ethical.

CONSULTING ENGINEERS

The consulting engineers work in private. There is no salary from the employers. But they charge fees from the sponsor and they have more freedom to decide on their projects. Still they have no absolute freedom, because they need to earn for their living. The consulting engineers have ethical responsibilities different from the salaried engineers, as follows:

1. Advertising

The consulting engineers are directly responsible for advertising their services, even if they employ other consultants to assist them. But in many organizations, this responsibility is with the advertising executives and the personnel department.

They are allowed to advertise but to avoid deceptive ones. Deceptive advertising such as the following are prohibited:

(a) By white lies.

(b) Half-truth, e.g., a product has actually been tested as prototype, but it was claimed to have been already introduced in the market. An architect shows the photograph of the completed building with flowering trees around but actually the foundation of the building has been completed and there is no real garden.

(c) Exaggerated claims. The consultant might have played a small role in a well-known project.

But they could claim to have played a major role.

(d) Making false suggestions. The reduction in cost might have been achieved along with the reduction in strength, but the strength details are hidden.

(e) Through vague wordings or slogans.

2. Competitive Bidding

It means offering a price, and get something in return for the service offered. The organizations have a pool of engineers. The expertise can be shared and the bidding is made more realistic. But the individual consultants have to develop creative designs and build their reputation steadily and carefully, over a period of time. The clients will have to choose between the reputed organizations and proven qualifications of the company and the expertise of the consultants. Although competent, the younger consultants are thus slightly at a disadvantage.

3. Contingency Fee

This is the fee or commission paid to the consultant, when one is successful in saving the expenses for the client. A sense of honesty and fairness is required in fixing this fee. The NSPE Code III 6 (a) says that the engineers shall not propose or accept a commission on a contingent basis where their judgment may be compromised.

The fee may be either as an agreed amount or a fixed percentage of the savings realized. But in the contingency fee-agreements, the judgment of the consultant may be biased. The consultant may be tempted to specify inferior materials or design methods to cut the construction cost. This fee may motivate the consultants to effect saving in the costs to the clients, through reasonably moral and technological means.

4. Safety and Client’s Needs

The greater freedom for the consulting engineers in decision making on safety aspects, and difficulties concerning truthfulness are the matters to be given attention. For example, in design-only projects, the consulting engineers may design something and have no role in the construction. Sometimes, difficulties may crop-up during construction due to non-availability of suitable materials, some shortcuts in construction, and lack of necessary and adequate supervision and inspection. Properly-trained supervision is needed, but may not happen, unless it is provided. Further, the contractor may not understand and/or be willing to modify the original design to serve the clients best.

A few on-site inspections by the consulting engineers will expose the deficiency in execution and save the workers, the public, and the environment that may be exposed to risk upon completion of the project. The NSPE codes on the advertisement by consultants provide some specific regulations.

The following are the activities prohibited in advertisement by consultant:

1. The use of statement containing misrepresentation or omission of a necessary fact.

2. Statement intended or likely to create an unjustified expectation.

3. Statement containing prediction of future (probable) success.

4. Statement intended or likely to attract clients, by the use of slogans or sensational language format.

ENGINEERS AS EXPERT WITNESS

Frequently engineers are required to act as consultants and provide expert opinion and views in many legal cases of the past events. They are required to explain the causes of accidents, malfunctions and other technological behavior of structures, machines, and instruments, e.g., personal injury while using an instrument, defective product, traffic accident, structure or building collapse, and damage to the property, are some of the cases where testimonies are needed. The focus is on the past.

The functions of eye-witness and expert-witness are different as presented in the Table below.

Eye-witness and expert-witness

The engineers, who act as expert-witnesses, are likely to abuse their positions in the following manners:

1. Hired Guns

Mostly lawyers hire engineers to serve the interest of their clients. Lawyers are permitted and required to project the case in a way favorable to their clients. But the engineers have obligations to thoroughly examine the events and demonstrate their professional integrity to testify only the truth in the court. They do not serve the clients of the lawyers directly. The hired guns forward white lies and distortions, as demanded by the lawyers. They even withhold the information or shade the fact, to favor their clients.

2. Money Bias

Consultants may be influenced or prejudiced for monitory considerations, gain reputation and make a fortune.

3. Ego Bias

The assumption that the own side is innocent and the other side is guilty, is responsible for this behavior. An inordinate desire to serve one’s client and get name and fame is another reason for this bias.

4. Sympathy Bias

Sympathy for the victim on the opposite side may upset the testimony. The integrity of the consultants will keep these biases away from the justice. The court also must obtain the balanced view of both sides, by examining the expert witnesses of lawyers on both sides, to remove a probable bias.

Duties

1. The expert-witness is required to exhibit the responsibility of confidentiality just as they do in the consulting roles. They can not divulge the findings of the investigation to the opposite side, unless it is required by the court of law.

2. More important is that as witness they are not required to volunteer evidence favorable to the opponent. They must answer questions truthfully, need not elaborate, and remain neutral until the details are asked for further.

3. They should be objective to discover the truth and communicate them honestly.

4. The stand of the experts depends on the shared understanding created within the society. The legal system should be respected and at the same time, they should act in conformance with the professional standards as obtained from the code of ethics.

5. The experts should earnestly be impartial in identifying and interpreting the observed data, recorded data, and the industrial standards. They should not distort the truth, even under pressure. Although they are hired by the lawyers, they do not serve the lawyers or their clients. They serve the justice. Many a time, their objective judgments will help the lawyer to put up the best defense for their clients.

ENGINEERS AS ADVISORS IN PLANNING AND POLICY MAKING

Advisors

The engineers are required to give their view on the future such as in planning, policy-making, which involves the technology. For example, should India expand nuclear power options or support traditional energy sources such as fossil fuels or alternative forms like solar and wind energy? In the recent past, this topic has created lot of fireworks, in the national media.

Various issues and requirements for engineers who act as advisors are:

1. Objectivity

The engineers should study the cost and benefits of all possible alternative means in objective manner, within the specified conditions and assumptions.

2. Study All Aspects

They have to study the economic viability (effectiveness), technical feasibility (efficiency), operational feasibility (skills) and social acceptability, which include environmental and ethical aspects, before formulating the policy.

3. Values

Engineers have to posses the qualities, such as (a) honesty, (b) competence (skills and expertise), (c) diligence (careful and alert) (d) loyalty in serving the interests of the clients and maintaining confidentiality, and (e) public trust, and respect for the common good, rather than serving only the interests of the clients or the political interests.

4. Technical Complexity

The arbitrary, unrealistic, and controversial assumptions made during the future planning that are overlooked or not verified, will lead to moral complexity. The study on future is full of uncertainties than the investigations on the past events. On the study of energy options, for example, assumptions on population increase, life style, urbanization, availability of local fossil resources, projected costs of generating alternative forms of energy, world political scenario, world military tensions and pressures from world organizations such as World Trade Organization (W.T.O.) and European Union (EU) may increase the complexity in judgment on future.

5. National Security

The proposed options should be aimed to strengthen the economy and security of the nation, besides safeguarding the natural resources and the environment from exploitation and degradation.

For the advisors on policy making or planning, a shared understanding on balancing the conflicting responsibilities, both to the clients and to the public, can be affected by the following roles or models:

1. Hired Gun

The prime obligation is shown to the clients. The data and facts favorable to the clients are highlighted, and unfavorable aspects are hidden or treated as insignificant. The minimal level of interest is shown for public welfare.

2. Value-neutral Analysts

This assumes an impartial engineer. They exhibit conscientious decisions, impartiality i.e., without bias, fear or favor, and absence of advocacy.

3. Value-guided Advocates

The consulting engineers remain honest (frank in stating all the relevant facts and truthful in interpretation of the facts) and autonomous (independent) in judgment and show paramount importance to the public (as different from the hired guns).

MORAL LEADERSHIP

Engineers provide many types of leadership in the development and implementation of technology, as managers, entrepreneurs, consultants, academics and officials of the government. Moral leadership is not merely the dominance by a group. It means adopting reasonable means to motivate the groups to achieve morally desirable goals. This leadership presents the engineers with many challenges to their moral principles.

Moral leadership is essentially required for the engineers, for the reasons listed as follows:

1. It is leading a group of people towards the achievement of global and objectives. The goals as well as the means are to be moral. For example, Hitler and Stalin were leaders, but only in an instrumental sense and certainly not on moral sense.

2. The leadership shall direct and motivate the group to move through morally desirable ways.

3. They lead by thinking ahead in time, and morally creative towards new applications, extension and putting values into practice. ‘Morally creative’ means the identification of the most important values as applicable to the situation, bringing clarity within the groups through proper communication, and putting those values into practice.

4. They sustain professional interest, among social diversity and cross-disciplinary complexity. They contribute to the professional societies, their professions, and to their communities. The moral leadership in engineering is manifested in leadership within the professional societies. The professional societies provide a forum for communication, and canvassing for change within and by groups.

5. Voluntarism: Another important avenue for providing moral leadership within communities, by the engineers is to promote services without fee or at reduced fees (pro bono) to the needy groups. The professional societies can also promote such activities among the engineers.

This type of voluntarism (or philanthropy) has been in practice in the fields of medicine, law and education. But many of the engineers are not self-employed as in the case of physicians and lawyers. The business institutions are encouraged to contribute a percentage of their services as free or at concessional rates for charitable purposes.

6. Community service: This is another platform for the engineers to exhibit their moral leadership.

The engineers can help in guiding, organizing, and stimulating the community toward morally- and environmentally-desirable goals. The corporate organizations have come forward to adopt villages and execute many social welfare schemes, towards this objective.

The Codes of Ethics promote and sustain the ethical environment and assist in achieving the ethical goals in the following manner:

1. It creates an environment in a profession, where ethical behavior is the basic criterion.

2. It guides and reminds the person as to how to act, in any given situation.

3. It provides support to the individual, who is being pressurized or tortured by a superior or employer, to behave unethically.

4. Apart from professional societies, companies and universities have framed their own codes of ethics, based on the individual circumstances and specific mission of the organizations.

These codes of conduct help in employees’ awareness of ethical issues, establish, and nurture a strong corporate ethical culture.