Information Ethics in a Multi Cultural World.

Ethics, we all have our individual belief systems. We all have a core value system which may guide our ethics. What happens when someone's is different? This question started my gears to turning. What happens when we are dealing with someone from another country or culture. Many people assume these are the same as their own. So I decided to look for more information.

Employees are facing this dilemma more frequently as the workforce is global (Fleischmann, 2011).  Each culture handles these circumstances differently and according to their own ideas. This is important to know as we must prepare our students for these situations. We must teach diversity along with information ethics. It is now critical to involve students in decision making skills involving ethics (Fleischnann, 2011). These scenarios must be from various perspectives and cultures(Fleischmann, 2011). 

James Rest has developed a 4 component model to help resolve these ethical dilemmas (Fleischmann, 2011).  This sounds like a great plan; however, I am sure there are still some circumstances that are not perfect. Each individual person makes a decision on personal beliefs. Americans have different beliefs than Brazilians. Even when looking at Americans ethics they can differ person to person. Two people with the exact same ethical system would be difficult to find. So image how many versions of ethics may be traveling around the world. The key is teaching tolerance and how to resolve these dilemmas despite the differences.  We must function and co-exist in the global marketplace. 

The research conducted basically studied different cultures and how they make decisions. The group was given scenarios and ask to respond to the situation based on their ethics. The answers may have been different but the exercise was and educational success. The participants were able to hear others responses and determine how to handle the situation (Fleischmann, 2011). The students learned there may be more than one way to handle an ethics issue (Fleischmann, 2011). The participants were also able to learn from each other.

The probability of one person knowing how to handle every ethical situation is small. However, students can learn where to find information when dealing with someone from another culture. Students can also learn to make those ethical decisions based on this information. There is no reason a person should not know more about the people they are working with. In the year 2050, working with people from all over the world will be commonplace. The diversity and ethical backgrounds of these people will not be. We are teaching students to be accepting of those that are different. That is still a work in progress. However, we are not focusing on how to cope with people who are different. More importantly we are not teaching how to handle the differences in information ethics.

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Reference
Fleischmann, K. R., Robbins, R. W., & Wallace, W. A. (2011). Information Ethics Education for a Multicultural World. Journal Of Information Systems Education, 22(3), 191-201.