What Would You Do?
1. In Italy, raccomandazione is the custom of seeking and receiving special treatment from people in power or from people who are close to someone in power. The ability to solicit favors from someone in a higher place, be it through the chief of police or the chief of police’s chauffeur has been part of the Italian art of getting things done for over 2000 years. In April 2001, Italy’s highest court of appeal ruled that influence padding is not a crime. The judges did rule, however, that it is a crime to overstate one’s power in order to exert influence.
Your firm is opening a new sales office in Rome and will be using a local employment agency to identify and screen candidates who will then undergo employment testing and interviews by members of your organization. What guidelines would you provide to the agency in regard to the practice of raccomandazione to ensure that the employment agency operates ethically and effectively?
Answer:
Guidelines to provide to the agency in regard to the practice of raccomandazione
· Establish a good employee-employer relation by building a good relationship settling a professional relationship limitations.
· Give proper orientation to all members of organization to know the aim of using raccomandazione
· Give a fair and equal treatment to all members.
· Sort or filter through qualification’s need.
2. Kim is more than your boss. She’s the one who recommend you for your fast-track new job. You regularly have lunch with her and you even play tennis together. Over lunch one day, while talking about the pending desktop computer upgrade, she lets it slip that ABCXYZ Computer donated $5,000 to “my favorite charity”. Two weeks later, you learn that ABCXYZ has won the contract, even though your company has had reliability problems with ABCXYZ’s products in the past. What would you do?
Answer:
As a professional I will suggest to review again the contract to the ABCXYZ. Even though they have been a problem from their past product, we have to look again if they are qualify or satisfying to their proposal. And even Kim has slip about donating ABCXYZ to “her favorite charity” we should not jump to conclusion that she is the one who recommend to won in the contract. Because before we judge we should have a justify evidence.
3. Jacob is the vice president of sales and an important ally of your IT department. He’s gone to bat for you before the CEO on important IT projects, such as a big sales automation system, and has valuably assisted in advocating for the use of the latest software packages within the sales organization. Jacob has played a major role in your success so far. You’ve just learned that Jacob and his support staff have acquired and are using an unlicensed Lotus software suite on their desktops, while the rest of the company is standardized on Microsoft’s Office Suite. You’ve talked to him and the rest of the company’s leadership team about the need for standardized software and the risks the company runs if it uses unlicensed software, but no action has been taken. What would you do?
Answer:
Being an IT professional they should set their selves as an example and enforce policies regarding software piracy. We should avoid to do this because it will cost a negative impact to entire global economy. Regarding with what will I do, even they ignore my warning at first I will tell it for the second time. But if there’s no action has been taken again. Maybe I will be the one who make to standardized the software. If they will stop me, maybe it’s time for me to tell to the head office. Even they think I’m a whistle blower, I don’t care because I know that I am right and didn’t do anything and I already given my warnings.
4. You are the new CIO at a small manufacturing company with 500 employees located at one plant, two warehouses, and a headquarters building. Your manager is the chief financial officer (CFO) and she has asked that you make it a high priority to establish a set of policies and guideline on the use of IT resources – the firm currently has none. How would you proceed with this?
Answer:
Be knowledgeable and resourceful because through this I can proceed in everything to establish one’s relationship as CIO and employees having unity in my company.
Cases
1. Online Brokers Experience Problems
In January 2001, The Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a report calling for brokerage firms and securities dealers to evaluate their online trading programs – especially their processing capabilities. The most common complaints submitted to the SEC by users of Web trading sites are related to inadequate operational capabilities – failures or delays in processing orders online, difficulty in accessing online accounts, and errors in processing orders. As a preventive measure, the SEC recommended that online brokers maintain detailed records of capacity evaluations, system slowdowns, and system outrages, including information about the causes and impacts of problems. The SEC also urged companies to use every reasonable effort to notify customers when they are experiencing operational difficulties.
On February 12,2001, Charles Schwab & Co. was forced to switch its online trading Web site to a backup server for six hours. During this time period, the discount broker’s customers were unable to either receive trade confirmation messages or view previous transaction records. As a backup process, Schwab customers were notified to contact Schwab representatives by telephone. Customer database problems were caused by a glitch in off-the-shelf software or a homegrown system, not processing capacity limitations. This disruption occurred barely one month after the SEC issued its warning to brokerage firms and securities dealers; however, no SEC fines or sanctions were levied against Charles Schwab as a results of this incident.
In the same month as the Charles Schwab incident, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) fined online brokerage TD Waterhouse Investor Services $225,000 and censured it for problems related to Web site failures that temporarily stopped it from filling online stock orders and for inadequate customers service related to the outages. According to a NYSE statement, TD Waterhouse was unable to process online customer orders on 33 different trade days over an 18-month period starting in late 1998. During this time period, TD Waterhouse had approximately 250,000 online customer accounts placing an average of 48,000 trades per day with webBroker, it’s online order entry system. The Web site failures raged from a couple of minutes to nearly two hours.
The NYSE also said in its decision that TD Waterhouse didn’t maintain adequate telephone routing systems to handle orders that would have been placed online, resulting in lengthy telephone hold times for customers. Furthermore, TD Waterhouse failed to adequately advise customers of an alternative touch-tone telephone order entry system, TradeDirect, that was available during all webBroker outrages. As a result, many customers were unable to place orders.
To further compound their problems, it is alleged that TD Waterhouse failed to report some 18,000 verbal and 2300 e-mail complaints related to these outages to the SEC as required by Exchange Information Memorandum 98-3. The statistical information on customer complaints is important because the information discloses trends and issues that may be used in determining the focus of future SEC examinations.
TD Waterhouse accepted the penalties without admitting or denying its guilt. A TD Waterhouse spokesperson said that the firm was sanctioned for the way it handled the outages, not the actual outages. The software issues that caused the outages have been corrected and no webBroker outages have been reported since April 2001.
Questions:
1. What material differences exist between the outage experienced by Charles Schwab versus those of TD Waterhouse? Do you think that the differences were significant enough that it fair that the one firm received no fine or sanctions while the others was heavily fined? Why or why not?
Answer:
Differences exist between the outage of Charles Schwab and TD Waterhouse:
Charles Schwab:
· Forced to switch it’s online trading Web site to a back-up server for six hours.
· Notified to contact Schwab representations by telephone.
TD Waterhouse:
· Unable to process online customers orders in 33 different trade days over an 18 month period.
· Didn’t maintain adequate telephone routing system to handle orders.
· Accepted the penalties without admitting or denying it’s guilt.
No, because being in the position of law we should have a fair treatment to different company, even if it is big or small. And once they already made a law it should be applicable to each and every company.
2. Do any elements of negligence present themselves in the actions of Charles Schwab? TD Waterhouse? Which company might be at greater risks of a negligence lawsuit on behalf of its customers? Why?
Answer:
In Charles Schwab there’s no negligence actions because they have concern’s in everything especially to all customers to know what behind them while in TD Waterhouse they neglect the law that they should to do, they work on name of company not to the needs of customers as long as their company was in good they don’t even care what was around them that why they got a lot of problems.
3. Imagine that you are an outside consultant assigned to a TD Waterhouse team charged with responsibility to “put an end” to customer service interruptions. One focus area you wish to explore is the need for a professional code of ethics, licensing, and/or certification of employees that have anything to do with the online brokerage systems. How would you assess if such actions are appropriate?
Answer:
In order to do a responsibility to “put an end” to customer service interruptions in TD Waterhouse, we should know what are the laws of the government (e.g. SEC), company and as a professional (e.g. ACM Code and Software Engineering Code). So that we can know our scope and limitation to do our certain work and take an appropriate action.
2. IT Usage Policy
Read the proposed policy on the use of IT technology for the University of Cincinnati and use the manager’s checklist to answer the following questions:
General Policy on the Use of Information Technology Proposed September 2000
Introduction
As an institution of higher learning, the University both uses information technology and supplies it to the members of the university community. This policy sets forth the general rights and responsibilities common to all uses of information technology, from the simple stand-alone PC to the complex systems that create virtual classrooms, workplaces and recreational facilities in the University.
The policy applies to all members of the University community, including guests who have been given accounts on the University’s information technology systems for specific purposes. It also applies whether access is from the physical campus or from remote locations. In addition, there may be specific policies issued for individual systems, departments, colleges and the like. While these policies must be consistent with this general policy, they provide more detailed guidance about what is allowed and what is prohibited on each system. All members of the University community are responsible for familiarizing themselves with any applicable policy prior to use.
Questions:
1. Are all of the key issues covered by this policy? If not, which ones need to be addressed?
Answer:
Yes all key issues covered by this policy.
2. Is the statement of enforcement clear and strong? If not, how would you reword this section of the policy?
Answer:
Yes, the statement of enforcement clear and strong because it say’s everything that you need to know.
3. How would you ensure that this policy is communicated and understood by the broad group if IT users at the university – students, professors, contractors, and part-time workers?
Answer:
I ensure that this policy is communicated and understood by the broad group of IT users at the university-students, professors, research people, administrative support staff, contractor’s and part- time workers because it has a general rights and responsibilities common to all uses of information technology and through this they can communicated to each other by using the account’s given and in this policy they have respects that truly shows to have a good relationship.
4. Examine the IT usage policy in effect at your school. Write a paragraph identifying its strengths and weaknesses.
Answer:
The strength was continuing establish the policy to elaborate and enhance all students to know the worth of Information Technology in our lives. While the weakness are not seen to the school policy because it’s depend on the students who knows what are going to do.
