Ethics "Upfront" Generating an organizational framework for a New University of Technology

Abstract

2019 OCT 14 (VerticalNews) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Journal of Engineering -- Investigators publish new report on Ethics - Science and Engineering Ethics. According to news reporting originating from Cape Town, South Africa, by VerticalNews correspondents, research stated, "A powerful set of projections has constructed post-apartheid higher education in South Africa. Among these is the expectation that technikons (institutions similar to the British polytechnics) would become universities of technology, with a mission to drive the technology of national reconstruction and development." Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, "In this paper, one of the new universities of technology serves as a case study to explore organizational structure and to highlight the ethics of university management and leadership. Building a new university provides the opportunity to place ethics 'upfront', rather than as an afterthought, by constructing an organizational framework that makes ethical issues integral to management and decision-making processes. In imagining the structure of a university of technology, the authors were inspired by future scripting methods developed by Bastiaan De Laat, and by Duncan Den Boer, Arie Rip and Sandra Speller. The research process firstly involved the identification of themes related to values and ethics through an analysis of the environment. These themes were incorporated into three scenarios of possible futures for this new university type. Using these scenarios, the ethical issues that emerged (according to how the university of technology might choose to organise itself), are compared with the original themes." According to the news editors, the research concluded: "Conclusions are then drawn with regard to management structures that are hierarchical and entrench compliance, or that are traditionally collegiate and expertise-based, or that might enable mutual appreciation and allow for leaders to emerge within any functional space at a university of technology."