Our original Engineering Ethics Toolkit case study, Business growth models in engineering industries within an economic system, addresses the ethical issues of justice, corporate social responsibility and accountability and examines situations that professional engineers need to consider, such as company growth, communication, and public health and safety.
Our original This case study involves the CEO of a newly formed company that makes devices detecting water leaks. The CEO has been working hard to secure contracts for her new business and has a personal dilemma in structuring her business model. She must balance the need to accelerate growth by working with high revenue global corporations, with her desire to bring a positive impact to the communities with greatest need. By working with less wealthy local authorities, the company risks slower business growth.
Now, as well as the activities within the original case study, we have provided an expansion on one of the activities in the form of a Case enhancement: defending a profit-driven business versus a non-profit-driven business.
We’ve provided this, and other case studies and case enhancements for you to use and adapt in your teaching. If you’re new to ethics, we have a growing library of guidance articles available to support you, and an Ethics Explorer to get you started. Please take a look and give us your feedback.
If you would like to give feedback on this or any other Engineering Ethics resource, or submit your own content, you can do so here. We also have a newly created community of practice that you can join, where we hope that educators will support each other, and share their success stories of teaching engineering ethics. You can join our Ethics Ambassadors community here.
