Selling packaged software: an ethical analysis

Adam, A; Light, BA

Abstract

Within the IS literature there is little discussion on selling software products in general and especially
from the ethical point of view. Similarly, within computer ethics, although there is much interest in
professionalism and professional codes, in terms of accountability and responsibility, the spotlight
tends to play on safety-critical or life-critical systems, rather than on software oriented towards the
more mundane aspects of work organisation and society. With this research gap in mind, we offer a
preliminary ethical investigation of packaged software selling. Through an analysis of the features of
competition in the market, the global nature of the packaged software market and the nature of
product development we conclude that professionalism, as usually conceived in computer ethics, does
not apply particularly well to software vendors. Thus, we call for a broader definition of
professionalism to include software vendors, not just software developers. Moreover, we acknowledge
that with intermediaries, such as implementation consultants, involved in software selling, and the
packaged software industry more generally, there are even more “hands” involved. Therefore, we
contend that this is an area worthy of further study, which is likely to yield more on the question of
accountability.

Citation

Adam, A., & Light, B. (2004, June). Selling packaged software: an ethical analysis. Presented at 12th European Conference on Information Systems, Turku, Finland

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: 12th European Conference on Information Systems
• Conference Location: Turku, Finland
• Start Date: Jun 14, 2004
• End Date: Jun 16, 2004
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2004
• Deposit Date: Sep 1, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Keywords: Packaged software, software vendors, ethics, accountability
• Publisher URL: http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/ecis/ecis2004.html
• Related Public URLs: http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/ecis/ecis2004.html
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference