A shift to outsourcing moves employment from the company to its outsourcing vendor, and may move employees as well. The outsourcing vendor is "stealing" employment from people in the company. Is this ethical? It doesn't feel like a good thing to do, but our economy is not driven by acts of goodness and mercy. The question remains: Is it ethical?

Answering the question drives us back to a Code of Ethics. My own preference is for a simple code. It can be boiled down to five basic, ethical injunctions -

• I will not place my interests or those of colleagues above those of employers or clients, nor will I place any interest above those of the public.
• I will not knowingly lay claim to a level of competence I do not possess and will do my best to exercise competence at least to the level claimed.
• I will act with complete loyalty when entrusted with private or confidential information by an employer, client or colleague.
• I will act with impartiality when undertaking to give independent advice and will fully disclose any potential conflicts of interest.
• I will continue my professional development throughout my career, and will provide opportunities for the professional development of my colleagues.

This is my own distillation. Similar Codes of Ethics can be found in professional IT societies throughout English speaking counties. CIPS would do well to consider simplifying its own Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice and adopting a similar Code.

The benefit of a simple Code of Ethics is that it gives us a relatively clear measure against which to judge ethical questions. None of the injunctions can be absolute, but they do provide a useful starting point. Codes of Ethics are properly silent about competing - that's the accepted driver in our economy. It's ethically acceptable to compete. It may be personally distastefull to enter into a competition which is a clear win-lose (rather than a win-win), but there is nothing ethically wrong with such competition.

Outsourcing vendors are ethically free to compete for business. One ethical danger does lurk in the requirement to not claim a level of competence that is not possessed. On an individual level, that imposes a clear standard. What happens when presenting the competence of an employer? I hold that a Code of Ethics forbids presenting anyone as having (professional) competence they do not possess, and that includes fairly presenting the competence of an employer.

Consultants claiming to offer independent advice face difficult ethical questions. If I offer to provide independent advice about outsourcing to a client, it is my responsibility to hold myself as independent as possible from any and all vendors of outsourcing. Certainly it's unethical to enjoy hidden "finder's fees" from vendors - that's a form of clearly unethical kick-back. What about the benchmarking consultant whose business depends on maintaining good relations with outsourcing vendors? Such consultants need to exercise great care in presenting themselves as independent.

Employees working for a company considering outsourcing also face ethical questions. Fundamental to any good Code of Ethics is a requirement to not put your personal interests above those of your employer. You're obligated to work for the best interests of your employer, even when that might not be in your personal best interest. It's not ethical to skew the outcome of outsourcing contract talks just because you don't want to be a personal part of outsourcing.

That may be true in general, but what happens if the benefit of outsourcing, to your employer, is very low, but the cost, to you, is very high? And what happens if your personal view of the benefits of outsourcing differ from the views of management? This moves into murky territory. None of these ethical injunctions is an absolute. Judgement is required about when an employee's interests are so much more important than an employer's interests that the first injunction can be suspended.

What about off-shore outsourcing vendors? In many cases, they are effectively importing labor of people who have no right to work in the country. Thanks to the wonders of telecommunications, a telephone can be answered anywhere in the world. What does that do to immigration policies? What are the policy implications for the development of skilled local workers? I can find no clear ethical principles to use as a guide in this area.

Our economy is an increasingly interdependent part of the global economy. We expect to freely export goods and services produced locally. We get uncomfortable, however, with importing the "wrong" kinds of goods or services from other countries. Technology may be pushing interdependence further than we are prepared to accept. It's not an ethical question, but it is a vitally important question about local values and their appropriate role in the global economy.

reprinted from

Winter 2004
(with permission)