CHAPTER FIVE:

RESPONSIBILITY FOR
SAFETY
 INTRODUCTION
Till now, we have come across many reasons why an
engineer needs to be responsible. The responsible
engineers follow the codes of ethics to avoid
unnecessary problems. The problems majorly occur in
two different ways.
One of them is when you can assess and the other is
when you cannot.
A mistake made by an engineer at work may result in
huge losses.
 CONTINUE…

An engineer is supposed to assess the risks of his

experiments. The disasters do occur at times,
though enough care is taken, But knowing all the
possibilities, if an engineer neglects the
precautions, the results can be really disastrous.
So, let us tyro analyze the importance of safety
in engineering.
 Safety and Risk
The terms of safety and risk are inter-related. It is
amazing to know that what may be safe enough for one
person may not be for someone else. It is because of
either different perceptions about what is safe or different
predispositions to harm.
For better understanding, let us explore safety and risk
further
 Safety
According to William W Lowrance, the famous consultant of those
times, Safety was defined as “A thing is safe if its risks are judged to
be acceptable.”
To be clearer on this, let us consider three cases.
Let the first case be where we seriously underestimate the risks of
something. Buying a non-brand electric dryer from a local market
without any guarantee, may eventually send us to a hospital with a
severe electric shock or burn. While buying this dryer, according to
Lowrance definition, this is quite safe, as the risks are judged to be
acceptable.
Let the second case be where we grossly overestimate the risks of
something. If we suddenly know that the consumption of carbonated
beverages like cola are the cause of cancer for 5% of the world’s cancer
patients, then we start worrying considering Cola as a poisonous drink.
So, in this case, according to Lowrance definition, the Cola becomes
unsafe the moment we judged the risks of using it to be unacceptable for
us.
Let the third case be a situation wherein, a group makes no judgment at
all about whether the risks of a thing are acceptable or not. As defined by
Lowrance, this is the position where the thing is neither safe nor unsafe
with respect to that group. Just like using the products of certain brands
are considered safe, while others are not where nothing seems to differ.
Safety is frequently expressed in terms of degree and comparisons.
The words like fairly-safe and relatively-safe are used where an
individual is judged on the basis of settled values and it is further
decided that the risks of anything are more or less acceptable in
comparison with the risks of the other thing. For example, the
consideration that road travel is safer than air-travel.
 Risk
Any work which might lead to harm us and is not considered safe, can be
understood as a risk. According to a popular definition, “A risk is the
potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur.” According to
William D Rowe, potential for the realization of unwanted consequences
from impending events.
Risk is a broad concept covering many different types of unwanted
occurrences. When it comes to technology, it can equally well include
dangers of bodily harm, of economic loss or of environmental
degradation. These in turn can be caused by delayed job completion,
faulty products or systems or economically or environmentally injurious
solutions to technological problems.
With the advancement in technology, people are now aware of all
that goes into a process. Further, risks are understood as those that
can be identified. Overall, the public perception has also
undergone a change
 Acceptability of Risk
Lowrance in his definition observed safety as
acceptable risk. Let us relate to this and further
see the definition by William D. Rowe, “a risk is
acceptable when those affected are generally no
longer apprehensive about it”.
Influential factors that lead to such apprehension are −
• Whether the risk is accepted voluntarily.
• The effects of knowledge on how the probabilities of harm (or benefit) are
known or perceived.
• If the risks are job-related or other pressures exist that cause people to be
aware of or to overlook risks.
• Whether the effects of a risky activity or situation are immediately
noticeable or are close at hand.
• Whether the potential victims are identifiable beforehand.
The acceptability of risk depends upon the types of risks such as voluntary and
involuntary risks, short term and long-term consequences, expected probability,
reversible effects, threshold levels for risk, delayed and immediate risk, etc.
 Voluntarism and Control
In our daily life, we come across many such things where the scopes of
risk might or might not be low. The person who breaks a red signal, is
prone to be a victim of an accident, but risks. A person who lives near a
dumping yard is prone to ill-health, but neglects. A boy who rides a
vehicle at a high speed cannot rely on the perfect functioning of the
brakes. But these people take voluntary risks thinking they can control.
In this manner, they may well display the characteristically unrealistic
confidence of most people when they believe hazards to be under their
control. Enthusiasts worry less about the risks they might face and hence
neglect the dangers behind them. The chance of getting affected is
unpredictable in such cases.
 Effective information on Risk assessment
The acceptance of risks also depends on the manner in which
information necessary for decision making is presented. A person can be
motivated to violate the safety rules by explaining the higher probability
of success, whereas the same person can be demotivated from such task,
by explaining the probability of failure and the fatal effects of it.
Hence, options perceived as yielding firm gains will tend to be preferred
over those from which gains are perceived as risky or only probable.
Emphasizing firm losses will tend to be avoided in favor of those whose
chances of success are perceived as probable. In short, people tend to be
more willing to take risks in order to avoid perceived firm losses than
they are to win only possible gains.
 Job-related Risks
In some jobs where the workers are exposed to chemicals,
radiations and poisonous gases etc., they are not informed about
the probable risks the workers would be facing, in doing their jobs.
These are such dangers where the toxic environments cannot
readily be seen, smelled, heard or sensed otherwise.
The workers at such places are simply bound to their work and
what they are told to do. The health condition of a person who gets
affected under such environments cannot be neglected because that
will be the future condition of co-workers.
 Magnitude and Proximity
It is unfortunate that most of us, realize the magnitude of risk only when we ourselves or
the person who is in our close proximity or a relative, gets affected. A group of 20 friends
including us, if gets affected or if had a narrow escape from death, affects us more than the
incident occurred to a group of 50 strangers, in a group of a 1000. This proximity effect
arises in perceptions of risk over time as well.
A future risk is easily dismissed by various rationalizations including −
• The attitude of “out of sight, out of mind”.
• The assumption that predictions for the future must be discounted by using lower
probabilities.
• The belief that a counter-measure will be found in time.
A continuous enthusiasm that fosters us to do such task without thinking is really
dangerous. Either the attitude that everything is under control and nothing is going to
happen or the negligence upon the number of accidents occurred is equally risky. It is
important that engineers recognize as part of their work such widely held perceptions of
risk and take them into account in their designs
 Risks Analysis
The study of risk analysis covers other areas such as risk identification, risk
analysis, risk assessment, risk rating, suggestions on risk control and risk
mitigation. In fact, risk analysis can be deeply discussed with a view on risk
management study. The risk management study also includes residual risk
transfer, risk financing, etc.
A step-wise risk analysis includes −
• Hazards identification
• Failure modes and frequencies evaluation from established sources and
best practices.
• Selection of credible scenarios and risks.
• Fault and event trees for various scenarios.
• Consequences-effect calculations with work out from models.
• Individual and societal risks.
• ISO risk contours superimposed on layouts for various scenarios.
• Probability and frequency analysis.
• Established risk criteria of countries, bodies, standards.
• Comparison of risk against defined risk criteria.
• Identification of risk beyond the location boundary, if any.
• Risk mitigation measures.
All of these again depend on how the risk is compared with the benefit in
doing the work with some risk. How far it is beneficial to risk also counts
the actions of a person while coming out of the safety bounds.
 Risk Benefit Analysis
As per the famous saying, “A Ship in harbor is safe. But that’s not
what ships are built for” risk is somewhat common to be accepted.
The most common risk we all take is driving an automobile in a
traffic. Though we are not sure about the perfect functionality of the
brake system and the timings of other drivers’ responses, we take
risk. The controlling factor appears to be their perception of their
individual ability to manage the risk-creating situation.
Just like the above instance, people mostly calculate the ratios of
risk to benefit, while accepting the risks. The risk to benefit analysis
is made depending on the types such as the ones mentioned below.
• The risk to be occurred in future is completely known after it gets fully
developed. It is called as Real future risk.
• If the idea of risk is developed using current data, such one is called as
Statistical risk.
• The risk which is analytically based on system models structured from
historical studies is called as Projected risk.
• The risk which is intuitively seen by individuals is called as Perceived
risk.
If risks of traveling on an air-plane is considered for observation, then the flight
insurance. company can observe it as a statistical risk, while the risk the
passenger faces is Perceived Risk and the Federal aviation administration, faces
a Projected risk. Hence, the view of accepting the risk and the idea of risk to
benefit ratio motivates the individual.
 Risk Reduction

The risks we generally face can be reduced to a great extent by proper analysis with
steps. as mentioned below −
• Define the Problem.
• Generate Several Solutions.
• Analyze each solution to determine the experts and confident of each.
• Test the solutions.
• Select the best solution.
• Implement the chosen solution.
• Analyze the risk in the chosen solution.
• Try to solve or move to next solution.
 The Government’s Approach
The risk management has to be viewed in a wider angle at times when sudden
disasters occur due to lack of proper care and assessment. The government which has
the responsibility to take care of all the public needs to take some risk. The
government’s approach towards the public lies in saving as many lives as possible.
The two major approaches of the government are −
• Lay person − Wants to protect himself or herself from risk.
• The government regulator − Wants as much assurance as possible that the
public is not being exposed to unexpected harm.
For example, at the times of flood or some fire accident, the government of any place
should aim at protecting as many lives as possible rather than looking for a benefit or
protecting some property. It will count as a successful attempt towards facing risk if
the authority is able to protect its people even after the destruction of property.
 RESPONSIBILITIES OF ENGINEERS
In our previous chapters, we discussed many things about the ethics to be
possessed by an engineer. The responsibilities of an engineer, if not taken
proper care of, results in the adverse effects just like the above discussed
incidents. In this chapter, we will discuss the responsibilities of an engineer.

Loyalty to corporations, respect for authority, collegiality and other

teamwork are a few important virtues in the field of Engineering.
Professionalism in engineering would be threatened at every turn in a
corporation driven with powerful egos. Robert Jackall, a Sociologist
criticizes professionalism saying, “what is right in the corporation is what the
guy above you want from you. That’s what morality is in the corporation.”
In order to understand how good, the ethical factors in a corporate
world should be, let us consider the following points −

• Ethical values in their full complexity are widely acknowledged

and appreciated by managers and employees alike.
• In an ethical corporate climate, the use of ethical language is
honestly applied and recognized as a legitimate part of corporate
dialogue.
• Top management sets a moral tone in words, in policies and by
personal example.
• The procedures should be followed for conflict resolution.
 LOYALTY
Loyalty is the faithful adherence to an organization and the employer.
Loyalty to an employer can be either of the two types −
• Agency-loyalty − Agency-loyalty is acting to fulfil one’s contractual
duties to an employer. This is entirely a matter of actions, such as doing
one’s job and not stealing from one’s employer, irrespective of the motive
behind it.
• Attitude-loyalty − Attitude-loyalty has a lot to do with attitudes,
emotions and a sense of personal identity as it does with actions. It can be
understood that people who work grudgingly and spitefully are not
loyal; in spite of the fact they may adequately perform all their work
responsibilities and hence manifest agency loyalty.
 COLLEGIALITY
Collegiality is the term that describes a work environment where
responsibility and authority are shared among the colleagues. When
Engineering codes of ethics mention collegiality, they generally cite acts that
constitute disloyalty. The disloyalty of professionals towards an organization,
reflects the attitude they have towards the work environment for the salaries
they are paid and the trust the company has for them.
The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Code, for example,
states that “Engineers shall not attempt to injure, maliciously or falsely,
directly or indirectly, the professional reputation, prospects, practice or
employment of other engineers. Engineers who believe others are guilty of
unethical or illegal practice shall present such information to the proper
authority for action”.
The main factors that help in maintain harmony among members at a
workplace are −
• Respect
• Commitment
• Connectedness
In detail, the colleagues are to be respected for their work and
contribution towards the organizational goals and should be valued for
their professional expertise and their dedication towards the social goods
promoted by the profession. Commitment observed in the sense of
sharing a devotion to the moral ideals inherent in one’s profession. The
coordination among all the members at a workplace or the awareness of
participating in cooperative projects based on shared commitments and
mutual support, also encourages the quality of the work.
 RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY

In order to meet the organizational goals, the professionals should possess respect for
authority. The levels of authority maintained by the organization provides a means for
identifying areas of personal responsibility and accountability.
Following are the major types of authority −
• Executive Authority − The corporate or institutional right given to a person to exercise
power based on the resources of an organization.
• Expert Authority − This is the possession of special knowledge, skill or competence to
perform a particular task or to give sound advice.
According to the goals of the company, the hierarchical authority is distributed. A service
oriented or engineer-oriented company concentrates on the quality of the products which are
decided by the engineers as they are the subject matter experts. Whereas a company when it is
customer-oriented company, focuses primarily on the satisfaction of the customers. Hence the
goal of the company decides the power between a General Manager and a Technical Manager
or an Engineer.
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
It is the responsibility of an organization to look into the welfare of the section of
people working in it. Their issues need to be discussed. When we discuss issues,
there can be issues which need to be discussed among the employees themselves
and resolutions can be found for the same. However, there can be issues which
might require the intervention of the management. In order to deal with such
complex situations, an Employee Union is formed wherein, each employee
becomes a member and a leader is elected to represent the group whenever
needed.
At the time of conflicts or arguments, there will arise the need for negotiation
between the parties. Conflicting situations which call for negotiation might occur
on areas related to pay scales, working hours, training, health and safety,
overtime, grievance mechanisms, rights in work places or company affairs, etc.
The process of voluntary negotiations between the employers and a group of
employees to resolve the conflicts is called Collective Bargaining.
The parties often refer to the result of the negotiation as a Collective
Bargaining Agreement (CBA) or as a Collective Employment
Agreement (CEA).
The underlying idea of collective bargaining is that the employer and
employee relations should not be decided unilaterally or with the
intervention of any third party. Both the parties must reconcile their
differences voluntarily through negotiations, yielding some concessions and
making sacrifices in the process. Both should bargain from a position of
strength. There should be no attempt to exploit the weaknesses or
vulnerability of one party.
With such an awareness, the necessity of formation of Unions was observed
in all the organizations and the idea was strengthened to form larger labor
unions. Both parties have, more or less, realized the importance of peaceful
co-existence for mutual benefit and continued progress.
 TYPES OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Let us now discuss the types of collective bargaining. There are four main
types of collective bargaining −
• Distributive Bargaining − In this, one party’s gain is another party’s loss.
Example − Wages
• Integrative bargaining − In this, both the parties may gain or none of
the parties may face a loss. Example − Better training programs
• Attitudinal Structuring − When there is backlog of bitterness between
both the parties then attitudinal structuring is required to make smooth
industrial relations.
• Intra-organizational Bargaining − There can be conflicting groups in both
management and unions also. So, there is need to achieve consensus in these
groups.
 CONFIDENTIALITY

The other important responsibility of an employee

or an engineer is to maintain the confidentiality of
the organization or the employer. To understand
confidentiality, we need to understand what is
Intellectual Property.
 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
This term is often used in the world of business. Intellectual property refers to
creations of mind such as inventions; literary and artistic works, designs; and
symbols, names and images used in commerce.
The ideas and formulations in one’s mind are put in action or may not be done so, but
that idea is the result of one’s intelligence and it cannot be stolen. Such problems are
mostly encountered by scientists, engineers, business people or the upcoming
entrepreneurs, and such. Intellectual Property, i.e., IP is protected by the law; patents,
trademarks and copyrights enable people to earn recognition from what they invent
or create.
While being associated with an organization, an engineer is expected to follow a few
moral rules and avoid affecting the intellectual properties of anyone. These when
adopted by an organization, through some agreement, it becomes the responsibility
of every employee to maintain the confidentiality throughout that project.
 CONFIDENTIALITY
When the word confidential is added to any information, it means that it
should not be shared with one and all. It is mostly a trade secret.
Maintaining confidentiality and avoiding harmful conflicts of interest are
especially important aspects of teamwork and trustworthiness.
Confidentiality is that practice which helps to keep secret all information
deemed desirable to keep secret. The maintenance of secrecy refers to the
unrevealing of any data concerning the company’s business or technical
processes that are not already in public knowledge. Every company has
some knowledge and can identify the individuals and groups that might
have access to a particular set of information. The members of such
groups share the responsibility of maintaining confidentiality.
 TYPES OF INFORMATION
The confidential information can be understood as Privileged Information and
Proprietary information. Privileged information means “available only on
the basis of special privilege” such as a privilege accorded an employee
working on a special assignment. Proprietary information is the information
that a company owns or is the proprietor of, and hence is a term carefully
defined by property law. It is simply called trade secret.

The patents legally protect the products from being manufactured and sold by
other competitor unless a patent holder grants permission. Whereas the trade
secret, has no such legal protection. Hence a reverse engineering can be done
by analyzing a product to estimate its manufacturing so as to duplicate it or to
develop something more than that, without any kind of permissions.
 CHANGING JOBS
The obligation to protect confidential information does not cease
when employees change jobs. The former employees are bound by
moral rules and are not supposed to indulge in revealing or selling
such information to the new employers. An employee may change his
job for his personal financial or career-oriented growth. But that
should never effect the old company, which he used to work for.
An engineer’s knowledge base generates an intuitive sense of what
designs will work and will not work, and trade secrets form part of
this knowledge base. It is usually considered a better deal, if the
employee is not allowed to change the job until the project finishes;
this helps in avoiding unnecessary revelation of information.
 MANAGEMENT POLICIES
To protect the personal interest and rights of engineers and other employees while
recognizing the rights of employers, employment contracts with a few restrictions
imposed, helps. Usually, those restrictions centered on the geographical location of future
employers, the length of time after leaving the present employer before one can engage in
certain kinds of work and the type of work it is permissible to do for future employers.
But such contracts threaten the right of individuals to pursue their careers freely and hence
courts tend not to recognize them as binding. The employers might try different plans such
as an agreement not to work for similar project for few years or to be an outside consultant
for the same project until it finishes so as to make them abide morally. Other tactics like
restricting trade secrets to employees where absolutely essential might result in lessening
the knowledge base of engineers involved in research and development.
One potential solution for employers might be generating a sense of professional
responsibility among the staff that reaches beyond merely obeying the directives of current
employers.
 JUSTIFICATION
The primary justification is to respect the autonomy
(freedom, self-determination) of individuals and
corporations and to recognize their legitimate
control over some private information concerning
themselves. The rights and duties of autonomy
along with its utilities are to be observed. The trust
and trustworthiness can grow once confidentiality is
maintained properly.
 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
A person may have different types of interests. Such interests can be pursued
according to the will, convenience and the laws prevailing. A person working
in an organization might have multiple interests related to the job he is doing;
if he does some side business which means he might be a competitor or he
might work with a competitor, it might pose a problem for the employer.
Such an employee is usually fired from the organization.
Thus, we can refine our definition of conflicts of interest by saying that they
typically arise when the following two conditions are met −
• The professional is in a relationship or role that requires exercising good
judgment on behalf of the interests of an employer or client.
• The professional has some additional or side interest that could threaten
good judgement in serving the interests of the employer or client.
 DILEMMA
There occurs a usual dilemma between conflicts of interest and
conflicting interests. To get a clear understanding between both, let us
consider two examples.
Example 1
Let us consider a girl who needs to choose from among her interests in
order to fit in her timetable. She wants to attend the exam in college, to
attend the music class, to go out for a movie, to deliver a seminar and
also go visit her friend. As she is falling short of time, it is her interest
to choose what to do and what not. The term used to mention this can
be “Conflicting interests” and this cannot be morally wrong.
 Example 2
If another instance is considered where a man works for a
company, being in some crucial position where he has access
to all the confidential information and if he works as an
unofficial adviser to his wife’s company, it would be morally
wrong, where a moral conflict definitely arises. This can be
termed as “Conflict in interests”.
Hence, the two concepts are different.
There arise very subtle situations with various conflicts of
interests. Let us see the most common ones
 GIFTS, BRIBES AND KICKBACKS
The following definitions will help us understand this −
• A bribe is a substantial amount of money or goods offered beyond a stated
business contract with the aim of winning an advantage in gaining or keeping the
contract and where the advantage is unfair or otherwise unethical.
• Gifts can be small gratuities offered in the normal conduct of business.
• Prearranged payments made by contractors to companies or their
representatives in exchange for contracts actually granted are called Kickbacks.
At times, if the money or gifts offered are substantial enough to threaten the
fairness of competitive situations, then such gifts turn out to be bribes. They cannot
be accepted as simple gratuities. Hence there is a thumb rule stating such condition
as, “If the offer or acceptance of a particular gift could have embarrassing
consequences for your company if made public, then do not accept the gift”.
 INTEREST IN OTHER COMPANIES
An Employee while working in his company, if supports another
company, during his leisure time to earn more or for some other career
aspects, can be understood as committing an immoral act. Such an act
is called Moonlighting which usually creates conflicts of interests.
Instances creating such conflicts can be working for competitors,
suppliers or customers.
The want of additional income or the need for personal and
professional growth might foster one to pursue such ideas, which
usually creates problems. A special kind of conflict of interest arises,
however, when moonlighting leaves one exhausted and thereby harms
the job performance.
 INSIDER INFORMATION
The insider information might concern one’s own company or another
company with which one does business. Leakage of the information
for the interest of some other benefits is like digging one’s own pit.
The interest in other’s companies makes a person morally low and lets
him to go beyond moral boundaries and this might create an impact on
the confidentiality for the reception of special privileges. When a
person crosses his moral grounds, even the beneficiaries stop trusting
him further.
Employee conflicts of interest occur when employees have interests
that if pursued can keep them from meeting their obligations to serve
the interests of the employer or client for whom they work.