Ethical Implications of Technological Advances on Business Communication

Technological advances have enabled dramatic change in organizational designand communication as expressed through such actions as corporate downsizingand increased telecommuting. Technology fosters these changes because computers and telecommunication technology minimize the impact of time and place onorganizational communication. However, with new technology channels forcommunication come new challenges to the ethical standards for social conduct.Many times, employees and other individual members of the electronic communications community do not use technology in the manner that its developersenvisioned. In this paper, we explore ethical issues heightened by the use oftechnology as well as examining some of the means for managing these ethicalconcerns. We advance the argument that ethical problems are not inherent intechnological advances. Instead, it is how human beings choose to use, appropriate, and interact with one another by incorporating these new tools that maylead to ethical dilemmas in business contexts.