Guías Éticas Para La Ido

Omega 37 (2009) 1044 -- 1050

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Omega
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Ethical guidelines and codes in operations research
Saul I. Gass
Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20854, USA

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A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 17November 2008 Accepted 20 November 2008 Available online 25 December 2008 Keywords: Codes of ethics Professional guidelines Philosophy of OR

We review past endeavors by ORSs to establish ethical guidelines or codes to which their members must subscribe to. We contrast such activities with those of the international community of related professional societies. It is clear that ORSs world-wide donot exhibit the important basic characteristic of a profession, that is, the adoption of and adherence to ethical guidelines and codes. Such adoptions by OR professional organizations are rare. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Ethical guidelines and codes For professional societies, we differentiate between guidelines and codes in the following manner. Ethical guidelines stategeneral principles of conduct that members of a profession are expected to follow in carrying out their professional duties be it practice, research, or teaching (see, for example, [1]). As noted in [1]: The formulation of these Guidelines is not meant to codify a set of rules, but to make explicit patterns of scientific practice that have been developed over many years and are followed by the vastmajority of scientists, and to provide benchmarks when problems arise. Guidelines are standards or principles by which to make a judgment or determine a policy or course of action [2]. In contrast, a professional society's ethical code is an official statement to which the society's members agree to adhere to in accomplishing all aspects of their professional life (see, for example, [3]). They are aset of principles or rules of conduct [2]. Thus, both guidelines and codes are sets of principles of conduct governing an individual or group; their difference, with respect to a professional organization, being their official status. In this paper, we tend to use the word

code, recognizing that in most instances guidelines and code can be used interchangeably. Two question come to mind: (1) IsOR a profession? and (2) Why should a profession have a code of ethics? For question (1) we have from [2] that the characteristics of a profession are “A vocation or occupation requiring advanced education and training, and involving intellectual skills, as medicine, law, theology, engineering, teaching, etc.”. Further, as Johnson [4] notes, professional characteristics include: Professionsrequire mastery of an esoteric body of knowledge, usually acquired through higher education. Members of a profession typically have a good deal of autonomy in their work. Professions usually have a professional organization that controls admission to the profession and sets standards for practice. Professions fulfill an important social function or are committed to a social good. We may conclude, asdoes Johnson [4] with respect to the computer profession, that the OR profession “ . . . does not fit the classic paradigm. That is, it is not a profession in the same way as that law and medicine are”. But that, OR professionals “ . . . are much closer to the paradigm of special professionals than, say, stockbrokers or carpenters or mail carriers”.

This article was processed by Associate EditorB. Lev. E-mail address: sgass@rhsmith.umd.edu 0305-0483/$ - see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.omega.2008.11.005

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For question (2), the rationale for why a professional organization should have a code of ethics is given by Johnson [4], Anderson et al. [5]: A code clarifies and states ethical requirements...