Assignment no.

1
Ethics & Practice II/ Professional Ethics II/ Social & Ethical Aspects in Engineering
Total Marks: 15
Each student will choose a case study of ethical dilemmas according to last digit of his
roll/registration no from the list given below. Due date for the submission of assignment is one
week after it has been uploaded. Copying the material is strictly prohibited, write in your own
words. Assignment should be written in proper format like using font size 12, font style Times New
Roman, and Justified along with line spacing of 1.5 lines. These things will be considered while
grading as well.

Case O:
A junior member of staff has just returned to work after taking special leave to care for her elderly
mother. For financial reasons she needs to work full-time. She has been having difficulties with
her mother’s home care arrangements, causing her to miss a number of team meetings (which
usually take place at the beginning of each day) and to leave work early. She is very competent in
her work but her absences are putting pressure on her and her overworked colleagues. You are her
manager, and you are aware that the flow of work through the practice is coming under pressure.
One of her male colleagues is beginning to make comments such as “a woman’s place is in the
home”, and is undermining her at every opportunity, putting her under even greater stress.
Case 1:
You are one of three partners in a firm of accountants. Five years ago the firm was appointed as
external accountants to a young, successful and fast-growing company, engaged to prepare year
end accounts and tax returns. The business had started trading with a handful of employees but
now has a workforce of 200, while still remaining below the size of company requiring a statutory
audit. Due to your close relationship with the directors of the company (who are its owners) and
several of its staff, you become aware that staff purchases of goods manufactured by the company
are authorized by production managers, and then processed outside the accounting system. The
proceeds from these sales are used to fund the firm’s Christmas party.
Case 2:
Margaret is a school counselor who has been assigned a trainee from the local university for the
academic year. As she observes Noah work with elementary school children, she is increasingly
impressed with his skills. She asks him to work with Peter, a nine-year-old, who has not adjusted
well to his parents’ recent divorce. Again, she is impressed with Noah’s skill, his warmth and
understanding, and ultimately, with the success he has in working with Peter. Margaret is a single
parent who is concerned about her nine-year-old son. She decides to ask Noah to see him. Noah is
complimented by her confidence in him. Margaret’s son attends a different school, but she arranges
to have Noah see him after school hours.
Case 3:
You are a trainee accountant in your second year of training within a small practice. A more senior
trainee has been on sick leave, and you are due to go on study leave. You have been told by your
manager that, before you go on leave, you must complete some complicated reconciliation work.
The deadline suggested appears unrealistic, given the complexity of the work. You feel that you
are not sufficiently experienced to complete the work alone. You would need additional
supervision to complete it to the required standard, and your manager appears unable to offer the
necessary support. If you try to complete the work within the proposed timeframe but fail to meet
the expected quality, you could face repercussions on your return from study leave. You feel
slightly intimidated by your manager, and also feel pressure to do what you can for the practice in
what are challenging times.
Case 4:
You are the treasurer of your student organization and in that role, you are responsible for
fundraising. A large portion of the fundraising money goes to student scholarships. In order to
award the advertised number of scholarships next semester, the student group needs to raise a
substantial amount of funds in the next 2 months. During your struggling fundraising campaign,
an unsavory donor and local business owner with some questionable hiring and bookkeeping
practices, has offered up a significant amount of money close to the final deadline. There is no
overt expectation that you will be expected to return a favor in exchange for the donation. Do you
accept the donation?
Case 5:
To raise awareness for a cause you care about deeply, you wish to coordinate public demonstration.
The space you want to use requires a lengthy application to reserve but you anticipate no problem
with your application being approved. You submit the application well in advance, start planning
the public demonstration, and rallying local community members. 2 weeks go by and you have
received no word about the status of your application, so you follow up. The only information you
can get is that the application is still pending. Five days before your event is scheduled, you receive
word that your application has been rejected. You feel that the rejection is politically-motivated.
Do you go ahead with your event as a form of civil disobedience even though you are directly
violating a law?
Case 6:
The contractor you have engaged to design your non-profit’s website has put together a series of
incredible, impactful personal narrative videos to illustrate the type of work your group does and
the potential it has for making a difference. Your plan is to have these available for fundraising
and partnership appeals as well as evidence to stakeholders of how you can support progress.
Knowing that your funds for marketing are limited, the contractor has given your organization a
substantial discount on their services. However, the individuals featured in the videos are actors
who have never had a relationship with your organization and the situations referenced in the
narratives never occurred. The dramatizations, while effective, represent an “extreme” of what you
might actually encounter in your day-to-day work. Do you go ahead and approve the content?
Case 7:
A software engineer discovers that a colleague has been downloading restricted files that contain
trade secrets about a new product that the colleague is not personally involved with. He knows the
colleague has been having financial problems, and he fears the colleague is planning to sell the
secrets or perhaps leave the company and use them in starting up his own company. Company
policy requires him to inform his supervisor, but the colleague is a close friend. Should he first
talk with the friend about what he is doing, or should he immediately inform his supervisor?

Case 8:
During an investigation of a bridge collapse, Engineer A investigates another similar bridge, and
finds it to be only marginally safe. He contacts the governmental agency responsible for the bridge
and informs them of his concern for the safety of the structure. He is told that the agency is aware
of this situation and has planned to provide in next year’s budget for its repair. Until then, the
bridge must remain open to traffic. Without this bridge, emergency vehicles such as police and fire
apparatus would have to use an alternate route that would increase their response time by
approximately twenty minutes. Engineer A is thanked for his concern and asked to say nothing
about the condition of the bridge. The agency is confident that the bridge will be safe.

Case 9:
A cafeteria in an office building has comfortable tables and chairs, indeed too comfortable: They
invite people to linger longer than the management desires. You are asked to design uncomfortable
ones to discourage such lingering.