William Slater's CIS 537 Blog

William Slater's CIS 537 Blog
CIS 537 - Introduction to Cyber Ethics

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Post 003 - CIS 537



Discussion Question 1
Table 1-3 in Chapter 1 is a checklist for managers for establishing an ethical work environment.
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Question (with answers for my employer, CACI International)
  1. Does your organization have a code of ethics? - Yes
  2. Do employees know how and to whom to report any infractions of the code of ethics? - Yes
  3. Do employees feel that they can report violations of the code of ethics safely and without fear of retaliation? - Yes
  4. Do employees feel that action will be taken against those who violate the code of ethics? - Yes
  5. Do senior managers set an example by communication the code of ethics and using it in their own decision making? - Yes
  6. Do managers evaluate and provide feedback to employees on how they operate with respect to the values and the principles in the code of ethics? - Yes
  7. Are employees aware of sanctions for breaching the code of ethics? - Yes
  8. Do employees use the code of ethics in their decision making? - Yes
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(Reynolds, 2012)
Think about your current or previous employer. How would that employer fare with this checklist?
My employer is CACI International. It fares very well on this checklist. CACI has a well-established code of ethics in the document titled Code of Ethics and Business Conduct (CACI, 2010). Its ethics and values are also echoed in each the following:
CACI Operational Philosophy –http://www.caci.com/about/corp_gov/ethics.pdf
CACI Employee Culture Statement -http://www.caci.com/job/culture.shtml
CACI Business Values Statement -http://www.caci.com/job/values.shtml
CACI Golden Rules of Client Consulting Statement -http://www.caci.com/job/gold_rules.shtml


CACI has an EXTREMELY ethical culture that it spends a lot of time and energy working on to ensure that all employees understand it, adhere to it, and that it permeates every facet of our daily lives, inside and outside of work.
Besides applying CACI values in its everyday business practices, reinforces its code of conduct with required training and literature that must be reviewed at least annually.
There are at least two unique code of ethics challenges that CACI has that differentiate it from many other companies.
1) CACI’s primary customer is the U.S. Government (both military and civilian departments) (CACI, 2011). All CACI employees who work on U.S. Government contracts are required to be trained on the code of conduct and behaviors required by the U.S. Government entity for which they work. To run afoul of the policies of the U.S. Government can not only get you fired, you could possibly be subject to federal penalties that include fines and /or imprisonment. This makes compliance with CACI policies and those of the U.S. Government doubly important in my opinion.
2) CACI is now a 50-year old company with about 14,300 employees and an annual income of about $3.5 billion. One of CACI’s aggressive corporate growth strategies has been to acquire companies that are also in the same vertical industry of supplying premium technical services to the U.S. Government. This is good because it allows CACI to leverage the people and services of these companies without having to have the delay of services development in-house at CACI. But it represents a challenge because each of these companies are are assimilated into CACI must now learn the CACI way, and the CACI culture. But as far as I am aware, every company that CACI has acquired has successfully made the culture transition into CACI. I can also state that as a relatively new CACI employee, it is one of the best and most moral companies I have ever worked for. In fact, I wish I had started at CACI 10 to 15 years ago. I would be much better off in my career and in my personal life if that had been the case.
References:
CACI. (2010). Code of Ethics. Retrieved from the web at http://www.caci.com/about/profile.shtml on September 15, 2011.
CACI. (2011). CACI Corporate Profile. Retrieved from the web at http://www.caci.com/about/corp_gov/ethics.pdf on December 4, 2011.
Landy, G. K. (2008). the IT/Digital Legal Companion: A Comprehensive Business Guide to Software, IT,
Internet, Media, and IP Law. Burlington, MA: Syngress.
Reynolds, G. W. (2012). Ethics in Information Tehnology, 4th edition. Boston, MA: Course Technology.
Thiroux, J. P. and Kraseman, K. W. (2009). Ethics: Theory and Practice, 10th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

William Favre Slater, IIICIS 537 Blog: http://cis537-wfs.blogspot.comhttp://billslater.com/careerChicago, ILUnited States of America

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