HPR Chapter 8 - Engineers as Employees -  Reading and Discussion Questions

1. What are some of the types of employer/employee conflicts that can occur when engineers try to follow all of the canons of a code such as the NSPE code? (Sect. 8.2)

2. What are "employment at will" and the "public policy exception"? What are the limits on the public policy exception currently? (Sect. 8.3, 184-85) What statutory protections do employees have, especially through "whistle-blower" laws? (185-86)?

3. What are three key "differences in perspective between managers and engineers" (186)?  How do ethical considerations factor in to these differences? (8.4, 186-87)

4. What are the characteristics that Jackall's study  found that lead to disrespecting "moral commitments of conscientious professionals" according to HPR? (187-88) What are the three characteristics that would be helpful in "analyzing the manager-engineer relationship that come from Jackall’s study? (188) What do you think should engineers take away from HPR’s discussion of Jackall’s study in terms of their own jobs?

5. What are the findings of the Hitachi Foundation study? (188-89) How do these differ from those of Jackall? What do you think engineers should take away from HPR’s discussion of the Hitachi study in terms of their own jobs?

6. What key points do HPR make about the functions of engineers and managers? (190-92) What are PED’s and PMD’s? (191) What strengths and weaknesses did you find with HPR’s paradigmatic and nonparadigmatic examples? (192-94)

7. Critique HPR’s analysis of the Challenger Case. (194-97)

8. Why is loyalty such an important issue? And what distinctions do HPR suggest between critical and uncritical loyalty? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each type in your view? (8.7, 197-200). Again, what do you want to take away from this discussion for your own use?

9. In what areas might engineers engage in organizational disobedience? HPR discuss disobedience by contrary action, disobedience by nonparticipation, and disobedience by protest. In what contexts would you find each appropriate? (8.8,200-06)

10. Evaluate DeGeorge’s criteria for morally justified whistle-blowing as described by HPR and HPR’s suggested list of considerations for responsible dissent (204-06).

11. What are employee rights and how should they be implemented according to HPR? (8.9, 206-09) Do the mechanisms suggested seem as if they would work?