Abstract
This study determines a social contract for a form of university–industry collaboration to a project-based learning environment in close collaboration with industry. The author’s previous studies on moral conflicts in a project-based learning (PjBL) environment and his 5-year engagement in the PjBL environment are used as background knowledge, and John Rawls’ veil of ignorance is used as a method in the contract formulation. Fair and impartial treatment of actors is strived for with the contract which constitutes of sets of obligations for each party, students, clients, and university (instructors) in the chosen project course. With the contract fair and impartial treatment of actors is strived for and the most dilemmatic moral conflicts are tried to be avoided. The forming of the social contract is evaluated, and implications for research and collaborations in practice are offered.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, R. E., Johnson, D. G., Gotterbarn, D., and Perrolle, J. 1993. Using the New ACM Code of Ethics in Decision-Making, Communications of ACM (36)2: 98–107.
Brown T.L. 1985. University-Industry Relations: Is There a Conflict? Journal of Society of Research Administrators 17(2): 7–17.
Buchholz, R.A., and Rosenthal, S.B. 1999. Social responsibility and business ethics. In: Frederick, R.E. (ed.) A Companion to Business Ethics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. pp. 303–321.
Carroll, A.B., 1991. The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility: Toward the Moral Management of Organizational Stakeholders. Business Horizons 34(4): 39–48.
Carroll, A.B. 1999. Ethics in Management. In: R.E. Frederick (Ed.) A Companion to Business Ethics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. pp. 141–152.
Dunfee, T., and Donaldson, T. 1999. Social contract approaches to business ethics: bridging the “is-ought” gap. In: Frederick R.E. (ed.) A Companion to Business Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. pp. 38–55.
Helle, L., Tynjälä, P., and Olkinuora, E. 2006. Project-Based Learning in Post-Secondary Education: Theory, Practice and Rubber Sling Shots, Higher Education (51)2: 287–314.
Johnson, D.G. 1995. Professional ethics. In: D.G. Johnson, H. Nissenbaum (eds.) Computers, Ethics, and Social Values. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. pp. 559–572.
Kaptein, M., and Wempe, J. 2002. The Balanced Company, A Theory of Corporate Integrity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kenney M. 1987. The Ethical Dilemmas of University-Industry Collaborations. Journal of Business Ethics 6: 127–135.
Kymlicka, W. 1991. The social contract tradition. In: Singer, P. (ed,) A Companion to Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. pp.186–196.
Nagel, T. 1987. The fragmentation of value. In: C.W. Gowans (ed.) Moral Dilemmas. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 174–187.
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. London: Oxford University Press.
Slotte, V., and Tynjälä, P. 2003. Industry-University Collaboration for Continuing Professional Development. Journal of Education and Work 16(4): 445–464.
Smith, H.J. 2002. Ethics and Information Systems: Resolving the Quandaries. The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems 33(3): 8–22.
Smith, H.J., and Hasnas, J. 1999. Ethics and Information Systems: The Corporate Domain. MIS Quarterly 23(1): 109–127.
Stankiewicz, R. 1986. Academics and Entrepreneurs, Developing University-Industry Relations. London: Frances Pinter Publishers.
Tuckman, B.W. 1965. Developmental Sequence in Small Groups, Psychological Bulletin, 63(6): 384–399, American Psychological Association.
Vartiainen T. 2005. Moral Conflicts in a Project Course in Information Systems Education. Dissertation thesis. Jyväskylä Studies in Computing 49. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä.
Vartiainen T. 2006a. Moral problems in industry-academia partnership – the viewpoint of clients on a project course. Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Information Systems Development (ISD’2006), Budapest, Hungary.
Vartiainen T. 2006b. Moral conflicts perceived by students of a project course. In: A. Berglund and M. Wiggberg (Eds.) Proceedings of 6th Baltic Sea Conference on Computing Education Research, Koli Calling 2006. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Vartiainen T. 2007. Moral Conflicts in Teaching Project Work: A Job Burdened by Role Strains. Communications of the Association for Information Systems 20(article 43): 681–711.
Vartiainen T. 2009. Moral Problems Perceived by Industry in Collaboration with a Student Group: Balancing between Beneficial Objectives and Upholding Relations. Journal of Information Systems Education. Spring Issue, 20(1): 51–66.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for insightful feedback.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this paper
Cite this paper
Vartiainen, T. (2011). A Social Contract for University–Industry Collaboration: A Case of Project-Based Learning Environment. In: Song, W., et al. Information Systems Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7355-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7355-9_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-7205-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-7355-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)