Ethics, Politics, and Whistleblowing in Engineering


Book Description

The aim of this book is to generate a strong operational ethic in the work of engineers from all disciplines. It provides numerous examples of engineers who sought to meet the highest ethical standards, risking both professional and personal retaliations. In short, it presents the fields of engineering ethics in the context of actual conflict situations on the job, and points to an urgent need for a strong ethical framework for the profession. This book is about engineering students and practitioners truly understanding, valuing, and championing their wider critical role. Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and champion of engineers, wrote the preface. Presents various viewpoints which hail from a wide variety of disciplines in the engineering, science, and technology communities. Includes a mix of historical and contemporary examples, a list of relevant television series and documentaries for engineers, as well as links to informative websites for practicing engineers and engineering students. Examines engineering professionalism as related to the imperative of sustainable development. Provides numerous examples of corporate whistleblowing and ethical dilemmas in engineering. Includes a foreword written by consumer advocate Ralph Nader.







Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager


Book Description

Software startups make global headlines every day. As technology companies succeed and grow, so do their engineering departments. In your career, you'll may suddenly get the opportunity to lead teams: to become a manager. But this is often uncharted territory. How can you decide whether this career move is right for you? And if you do, what do you need to learn to succeed? Where do you start? How do you know that you're doing it right? What does "it" even mean? And isn't management a dirty word? This book will share the secrets you need to know to manage engineers successfully. Going from engineer to manager doesn't have to be intimidating. Engineers can be managers, and fantastic ones at that. Cast aside the rhetoric and focus on practical, hands-on techniques and tools. You'll become an effective and supportive team leader that your staff will look up to. Start with your transition to being a manager and see how that compares to being an engineer. Learn how to better organize information, feel productive, and delegate, but not micromanage. Discover how to manage your own boss, hire and fire, do performance and salary reviews, and build a great team. You'll also learn the psychology: how to ship while keeping staff happy, coach and mentor, deal with deadline pressure, handle sensitive information, and navigate workplace politics. Consider your whole department. How can you work with other teams to ensure best practice? How do you help form guilds and committees and communicate effectively? How can you create career tracks for individual contributors and managers? How can you support flexible and remote working? How can you improve diversity in the industry through your own actions? This book will show you how. Great managers can make the world a better place. Join us.




Electoral Engineering


Book Description

From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ?electoral engineering?. Reformers have sought to achieve either greater government accountability through majoritarian arrangements or wider parliamentary diversity through proportional formula. Underlying the normative debates are important claims about the impact and consequences of electoral reform for political representation and voting behavior. The study compares and evaluates two broad schools of thought, each offering contracting expectations. One popular approach claims that formal rules define electoral incentives facing parties, politicians and citizens. By changing these rules, rational choice institutionalism claims that we have the capacity to shape political behavior. Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on the primary motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and also their assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt to, deeply embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior.




Handbook of Research on Politics in the Computer Age


Book Description

Technology and particularly the Internet have caused many changes in the realm of politics. Aspects of engineering, computer science, mathematics, or natural science can be applied to politics. Politicians and candidates use their own websites and social network profiles to get their message out. Revolutions in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa have started in large part due to social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Social networking has also played a role in protests and riots in numerous countries. The mainstream media no longer has a monopoly on political commentary as anybody can set up a blog or post a video online. Now, political activists can network together online. The Handbook of Research on Politics in the Computer Age is a pivotal reference source that serves to increase the understanding of methods for politics in the computer age, the effectiveness of these methods, and tools for analyzing these methods. The book includes research chapters on different aspects of politics with information technology, engineering, computer science, or math, from 27 researchers at 20 universities and research organizations in Belgium, Brazil, Cape Verde, Egypt, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, and the United States of America. Highlighting topics such as online campaigning and fake news, the prospective audience includes, but is not limited to, researchers, political and public policy analysts, political scientists, engineers, computer scientists, political campaign managers and staff, politicians and their staff, political operatives, professors, students, and individuals working in the fields of politics, e-politics, e-government, new media and communication studies, and Internet marketing.




Political Power and Corporate Control


Book Description

Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases. This book differs sharply from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another.




Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management


Book Description

This book presents the proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management (ICMSEM2016) held from August 30 to September 02, 2016 at Baku, Azerbaijan and organized by the International Society of Management Science and Engineering Management, Sichuan University (Chengdu, China) and Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan. The aim of conference was to foster international research collaborations in management science and engineering management as well as to provide a forum to present current research findings. The presented papers were selected and reviewed by the Program Committee, made up of respected experts in the area of management science and engineering management from around the globe. The contributions focus on identifying management science problems in engineering, innovatively using management theory and methods to solve engineering problems effectively and establishing novel management theories and methods to address new engineering management issues.




Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management


Book Description

This book gathers the proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management (ICMSEM 2020). Held at the Academy of Studies of Moldova from July 30 to August 2, 2020, the conference provided a platform for researchers and practitioners in the field to share their ideas and experiences. Covering a wide range of topics, including hot management issues in engineering science, the book presents novel ideas and the latest research advances in the area of management science and engineering management. It includes both theoretical and practical studies of management science applied in computing methodology, highlighting advanced management concepts, and computing technologies for decision-making problems involving large, uncertain and unstructured data. The book also describes the changes and challenges relating to decision-making procedures at the dawn of the big data era, and discusses new technologies for analysis, capture, search, sharing, storage, transfer and visualization, as well as advances in the integration of optimization, statistics and data mining. Given its scope, it will appeal to a wide readership, particularly those looking for new ideas and research directions.




Interactive Political Leadership


Book Description

Drawing on recent theories of interactive governance and political leadership, this book develops a concept of interactive political leadership that aims to capture what political leadership looks like in a society of active, anti-authoritarian, and politically competent citizens.