This Ethics Writing Assignment is meant to encourage you, the aspiring engineer, to examine how you will deal with potential ethical conflicts you will encounter in your career. You are encouraged to be thorough in developing your answers and discussion. While there is no single correct answer for this assignment, there are wrong answers, as well as incomplete answers.

Your response must fully address the questions below and should be 1-2 single-spaced pages. 

Read the case study below and answer the questions.  Justify your responses using the specific canons/principles/rules of practice in the NSPE Code and/or the Code for your discipline

New Company

a) John works for your firm on a design project as part of team and develops an innovative solution to the problem.  John then leaves your firm to work for a competitor.  The competitor posts John's resume online which states that he 'designed' the solution.  John's resume does not mention that this work was done at your firm or that he was part of a team that worked on the project. 

Was it ethical for John to take credit for the 'design'?

Was it ethical for John to not mention that the work was done while employed at your firm (a competitor of his current employer)?

b) It turns out that at your firm, every project is assigned to a 'team' that includes a design engineer and his/her immediate supervisor.  In John's case, the immediate supervisor had very little input to the design and simply signed off on the design.  All of the engineering decisions were made by John and the supervisor simply approved them.  Discuss how this might change your response.