Ethical issues in engineering design - 3TU.Centre for Ethics and ...

Ethical issues in engineering design
All the case-studies were performed in the Netherlands. There seem to be large
differences in the importance of hierarchy and the way people interact and
communicate with each other between countries. Although the different business
cultures of different countries have been studied and have been given scores on
scales for several dimensions, making well-informed hypotheses about the
influence of different cultures on the way engineers deal with ethical issues is
very difficult (cf. for differences in (company) cultures [Luegenbiehl, 2004],
[Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars,1993], [Hofstede, 1991] and [Van der Vaart,
2003]). Large differences in company cultures were observed even between
North-European countries (see [Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner 1999] and
[Hofstede, 1991]). Besides the difficulty of making hypotheses on the influence of
different cultures on the way engineers deal with ethical issues, it is necessary to
limit the number of variable parameters as the number of necessary case-studies
increases with the number of variable parameters at play in the case-studies [Yin,
1989]. I therefore chose to perform all my case-studies in the Netherlands.
3.3 Acquisition of empirical data
The DutchEVO design team was followed for over a year (from June 2000 to July
2001). Extensive observations were made during meetings (see appendix 1). This
case-study was used as a pilot study to develop ideas for the research presented
here.
The case-study piping and equipment consisted of interviews with engineers
working at an engineering company, an interview with an engineer who had
worked in the petrochemical industry, an interview with an inspector from
Lloyd’s register Stoomwezen, an interview with an advising engineer, coupled
with reading of background information regarding codes and legislation etc. The
interviews were held between February and May 2002 (see appendix 1). It was
not possible to observe a design team at work because the customers of the
engineering company would not allow someone form outside to observe a design
process for a (petro)chemical installation.
The bridge case-study lasted from January 2004 to April 2004, the design
meetings were observed and the engineers and the architect involved were
interviewed (see appendix 1).
The trailer design process was also observed; the observation period lasted
roughly from March 2003 to August 2003. The engineering company designed
the trailer for a customer, and design meetings and meetings with the customer
were observed. The engineers in the design team and the customer were also
interviewed.
46