Assignment paper

Conference paper

Code of Ethics for a Community of Practice (CoP)

Why a code of ethics?

As a professional, I have a Code of Ethics to guide me in relationship to Others. I have a personal code of ethics and code of interaction with others and when I join a new group of friends or professionals or a CoP I have to compare and contrast the ethical position of each to adjust and find my way around. If I am to discuss tacit knowledge, provide information, resources and support, I want to know what the rules of engagement are. I want to know that respect, privacy and ownership, are decided up-front and that the things we are going to do are culturally and ethically acceptable to me.
I have not seen any implicit or explicit ethics for CoPs as yet and that is a bit like the spider inviting me into his den. If it is a CoP of like minded professionals there are some basic rules, professional codes of practice. I also understand the UN charter of human rights, but Australia does not have a constitutional charter of human rights. Legal issues pertaining to the CoP are rarely discussed before the initial stages an you are well and truly into the middle of it, perhaps facing a dawning ethical problem before you realise that there are no rules and no boundaries.

Can a CoP have a moral responsibility?
Only humans can have moral agency because they alone have the capacity to think,choose and experience emotions. Thus CoPs are amoral even though they are responsible to the law economic forces and government control. You have to watch that individuals don't project moral responsibility onto the CoP and that the CoP doesn't shirk responsibility by blaming individuals. To separate individual from the collective is probably a reflection of western philosophical thought. This atomic individualism is reflected in our language, community structure and relationships. Holistically the CoP and the individual are one indivisible construct. Despite this individuals can enter and leave the CoP and this does not alter the moral responsibility of the CoP. Thus a CoP is a dynamic construct with shared responsibility. Individuals within a CoP vary as to their moral responsibility dependent upon age, experience, education, development and level of self control. CoPs will also vary in their ethical positions dependent upon such variables as for-profit, not- for-profit, government, NGOs, cultural norms, history, investment horizons, dynamism, heterogeneity and hostility patterns.
The ecological fallacy states that the CoP does not extrapolate to an individuals ethics due to Groupthink, the Hawthorne effect, pragmatics and utilitarianism. Although the individual is still making the choices, they may be coerced or altered by the CoP culture.
The Individual fallacy implies that individuals do not equal the collective ethic. Each person has free will, choice and intention and therefore other members of the CoP are not responsible for their actions. It follows the line of the fallacy of False Reification, the CoP is not overriding the individual, it is a tool for the welfare and sustainability of people.
The Association fallacy implies that the CoP is the sum total of the collective of all individual ethics overriding individual ethics. The Autonomy fallacy treats the CoP as indivisible so that the individual acts as agent for the CoP but accepts no individual responsibility.
There is a dynamic nature of multiple factors implying a complexity theory approach. Using a systems theory, each party takes responsibility as does the CoP. Using a blame and punishment model creates this dichotomy. Perhaps it is more reasonable to accept that mistakes happen and we can learn from them.

What kind of Code of Ethics
I would prefer a code that it real, not a list of fancy words and lofty ideals that take a dictionary to understand. I would like the ethics to be embedded in all the frameworks used and all the goals of the CoP. I have taken part in business based CoPs that may have different goals than my health lobby CoP or my art CoP. Are universal rules, absolute moral codes or relativistic( culturally, socially, philosophical, historical and personal)ones better?
There are Philosophical, social and psychological aspects to most codes of ethics

Philosophy theories
Justice (Distributory ethics Non-maleficence;Beneficence; freedom of choice/ liberty)
Rights, for example, free speech, free consent, privacy, free conscience. And the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Duties ( duty to elders, God)
Virtues ( Aristotle talked about thought and emotions being in balance, like Kelly's construct theory). For example- respect, distributive justice, truthfulness, friendliness, gentleness, equality, modesty and self control.

Social theories
values
culture, social contract theory, Rousseau, relationship theory, Buber, Foucault, Richoeu
law
the prisoner's dilemma
political
globalisation/ the global village
religions

Psychological theories
behavior theories, Pavlov, Skinner.
reasoning, logical and otherwise, Descartes, Habermas, Hegel, Spinoza, Kant, Descartes, Pragmatics , James, Dewey.
emotional brain functioning, humanism, feminisms, intuitive theories
epistemology or learning
development theories, Piaget, Kohlberg, Vygotsky

Again we see a complex set of theories and ideas to choose from and this is by no means a complete picture. Theories can detract from ethics. Prescriptive approaches require no thinking but descriptive approaches offer no practical solutions. A code implies dichotomies and paternalism. It also implies argumentation and single positions Codes lead to exclusion rather than inclusions. I prefer a non-code, anti-theory, feminisms approach.

Feminist virtues include narrative approaches to diversity, caring, respect, valuing, nurturing and networking. This is about not only the Other people but also the environment and history- past and future. It is about consciousness raising rather than rigidity. It respects people to be equal adult sand I think that if you treat people as adults they will more likely act as adults.

Feminist Ethics in a CoP.
In a Cop, the feminist values of diversity, care and networking are integral to collaborative work. This is not a prescriptive or rigid set of morals. It implies virtues, in balance.
Diversity
A CoP that contains a homogeneity offers no alternate thoughts, resources or challenges and creates the category error. Admittedly, too much diversity means that there is little attachment between participants, but six degrees of separation in the world means that I have never found it hard to find something in common.
Care
If you use care for others, this implies respect, support, assistance, collaboration and listening for, culture, gender, race, religions and sex differences. Thee are competing values however, allowing for diversity, that mean one needs to have a balanced view of care.
Care implies an emotional attachment to members of the CoP. It also implies an intuitive capacity to understand other people and empathy.
Networking
It goes without saying that this is the basic structure of a CoP. One is not just networking with the participants but with the network of each individual member of the CoP. The boundaries become somewhat blurred in this model. Collaboration is not just for the CoP but for the outcomes which is for the betterment of others. This gives us the positive liberty to acknowledge the needs of others as well as our own.

Problems for discussion
1.
Can we make it simple?
Would the universalist, monotheory-
Do unto others as you would have done unto you,
suffice?
What potential problems are there with this adage?
2.
How do ethics relate to the designed, fast paced innovative profit-driven CoP?

Case-study- software designers CoPs create programs and to launch them so that they can grab marketshare, get some profit before free shareware pirates the program and move onto the next idea.
What about the consumer that has to find all the bugs and report them and do the research for the company at their expense?

Would this be acceptable for a pharmaceutical company?

3
Someone talks about their unethical/illegal behavior outside the Cop within in the privacy of the CoP .
Case studies- all true ones I might add.

They are having an affair with the boss.

They bought a large number of shares in a rival company.

They tell you that their brother, well known community member and driver of the school bus is a pedophile

What do we do?

Is there a slippery slope?

4
What do men do in a CoP with feminist ethics? ]
What do we do if someone in the CoP doesn't want to embrace such ethics?

5
Someone leaves our CoP , takes all the shared soft knowledge and plans for future research and development and gos to a rival company. What ethical principles apply?
For a full discussion on the ethical issues relating to 'who owns knowledge' see our next module.

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