Virtual Ethics?

The term virtual means something that appears to exist but does not exist in fact. A virtual private network (VPN) is an electronic network that appears to be private, but in fact operates on a public network (more on this in Chapter 6). The term virtual meeting describes a meeting in which everyone is present, but via an information system and not face-to-face. However, and it is a big however, "Is everyone present?"

Is the person who signed on as Lynda Rickey truly Lynda Rickey? Or is it someone else? Or is it Lynda Rickey with a staff of seven people, all of whom are anonymous to the rest of the group? What if none of them was really there? What if, in fact, it was a chat session among Ashley, Haley, and Jordan, but none of them knew the others were spoofing (pretending to be someone they are not)?

What if Jordan was actually Bill's son sitting in his organizational behavior class at college, giving noncommittal answers, while Bill played golf? Suppose you run a consulting company and you want to send less experienced consultants out on jobs. During an initial meeting (held electronically, using text chat) with a potential client, you tell the client that he is meeting with Drew Suenas, a new and inexperienced employee.

But, the meeting actually includes Drew and Eleanor Jackson, your most experienced and senior consultant. During the meeting, all of the remarks attributed to Drew were actually made by Eleanor. The client is most impressed with what it thinks are Drew's perceptive comments about its situation and agrees to hire Drew, even though he is inexperienced. You keep using Eleanor this way, spoofing several of your young associates to get jobs for them. You justify this by saying, "Well, if they get into trouble, we'll send Eleanor out to fix the problem." Consider another possibility. Suppose you set up a virtual, synchronous meeting and you disagree with the position held by one of your team members, whose name is Bill.

If you are setting up the meeting, what if you decide not to send Bill an invite? He does not know the meeting is scheduled, so he does not appear. Much to your joy, issues on which you disagree with him go unaddressed. During the meeting, you remain silent when people ask, "I wonder why Bill isn't here?" Or, suppose you have an archrival, Ashley. You and Ashley compete for a future promotion, and you just cannot stand the idea of her moving ahead of you. So you set up a sequence of virtual meetings, but you never invite Ashley. Then, just before a crucial meeting, one that involves senior members of your organization, you invite Ashley to be your silent helper. You tell her you do not have the authority to invite her, but you want her to have a chance to express her thoughts.

So you attend the meeting and you incorporate Ashley's thinking into your chat comments. People think you are the sole author of those ideas and are impressed. Ashley's work is never attributed to her.

Or, let's bring it closer to home. Suppose you take online tests as part of your class. What keeps you from taking the test with your brother, who happens to work for Google as a product manager for Google Docs? Suppose you take the test by yourself, but you believe others are taking their tests with silent helpers. Given that belief, are you justified in finding your own helper? What do you think? Are your ethics virtual?

Discussion Questions

1. Is it illegal to spoof someone? Does it matter whether you have that person's permission to spoof them?

2. Is it ethical to spoof someone? Does it matter whether you have that person's permission?

3. Under what circumstances do you believe it is ethical to spoof someone?

4. Consider the meeting in which everyone was spoofing and no one knew it. What are the consequences to the organization of such a meeting? What happens when Bill meets Lynda in the hallway and Lynda asks, "What did you think of our meeting?" Who has the knowledge of the meeting? Who knows that they have that knowledge?

5. Considering Eleanor's spoofing of young associates, what is different between text chat and a speaker phone? Haven't we always had these problems, except Eleanor was passing notes and making comments while the phone was muted? What behavior should you follow when talking with someone who is on a speaker phone?

6. Is it ethical not to invite Bill to the meeting? Assume no one has asked you if you sent the invitation to him.

7. Is it cheating to have a helper on an online test? Are you justified if everyone else is doing it? What control is possible for online tests? Should such tests be used at all?