From 2016 - 2021 the In­sti­tu­te for IS & So­cie­ty has sup­por­ted the Value-​based En­gi­nee­ring with ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-​7000ef­fort; that was the pro­ject set­ting out to de­ve­lop the world’s first ethi­cal sys­tem en­gi­nee­ring stan­dard. This stan­dard, re­leased in Sep­tem­ber 2021, es­tab­lishes a pro­cess model by which en­gi­neers and tech­no­lo­gists can ad­dress ethi­cal con­side­ra­ti­ons th­roug­hout the va­rious sta­ges of sys­tem in­itia­ti­on, ana­ly­sis and de­sign.

Prof. Spie­ker­mann has been the vice-​chair of this stan­dard since its in­itia­ti­on and has phi­lo­so­phi­cal­ly groun­ded it in ma­te­ri­al value ethics; that is the phe­no­me­no­lo­gy of va­lues de­ve­lo­ped by Max Sche­ler (1). The ap­proach cho­sen in Value-​based En­gi­nee­ring with ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-​7000 is cal­led “Value-​based En­gi­nee­ring”; early de­scrip­ti­ons of which can be found in the text­book “Ethi­cal IT In­no­va­ti­on” (2). Value-​based En­gi­nee­ring builds on and ex­tends two de­ca­des of ap­p­lied re­se­arch cal­led Value Sen­si­ti­ve De­sign (3). Alt­hough being a vir­tue ethi­cal ap­proach to­wards ethics, Value-​based En­gi­nee­ring em­braces a broad spec­trum of other ethi­cal theo­ries (uti­li­ta­ria­nism, duty ethics and other glo­bal ethics) to eli­cit sta­ke­hol­der va­lues.

Prof. Spie­ker­mann has sup­por­ted the Value-​based En­gi­nee­ring with ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-​7000 set-​up, ser­ved as vice-​chair th­roug­hout the whole crea­ti­on of the stan­dard, let the sub­group for the ethi­cal sec­tions in this stan­dard and draf­ted the in­iti­al stan­dard do­cu­ments that ser­ved as the basis for fur­ther de­ve­lo­p­ment. Over 100 in­ter­na­tio­nal calls took place bet­ween 2016 and 2021, in­vol­ving over 150 ex­perts, 34 of which were of­fi­cial­ly part of the work­group.

Ph.D stu­dents of the In­sti­tu­te for IS & So­cie­ty, na­me­ly Till Wink­ler and Kath­rin Bed­nar have sup­por­ted the stan­dar­diza­ti­on pro­cess as well. In par­ti­cu­lar they hel­ped to set-​up and ana­ly­ze sever­al case-​studies ac­com­pany­ing this stan­dar­diza­ti­on ef­fort. Kath­rin Bed­nar has pu­blished a working paper de­scribing some of the real ef­fects of using the stan­dard (4).

A sum­ma­ry of the ef­fort can be found in the Sep­tem­ber issue of the IEEE Tech­no­lo­gy & So­cie­ty Ma­ga­zi­ne (5).

Re­fe­ren­ces

1. Sche­ler, M. (1921 (1973)). For­ma­lism in Ethics and Non-​formal Ethics of Va­lues: A New At­tempt To­ward the Founda­ti­on of an Ethi­cal Per­so­na­lism. USA, Nor­thwes­tern Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

2. Spie­ker­mann, S. (2016). Ethi­cal IT In­no­va­ti­on - A Value-​based Sys­tem De­sign Ap­proach New York, Lon­don and Boca Raton CRC Press, Tay­lor & Fran­cis.

3. Fried­man, B. and P. Kahn (2003). Human va­lues, ethics, and de­sign. The Human-​Computer In­ter­ac­tion Hand­book. J. Jacko and A. Sears. Mah­wah: NY, USA, Law­rence Erl­baum As­so­cia­tes.

4. Bed­nar, Kath­rin, Spiekermann-​Hoff, Sarah. 2020. On the power of ethics: How value-​based thin­king fos­ters crea­ti­ve and sus­tain­able IT in­no­va­ti­on. Working Pa­pers / In­sti­tu­te for IS & So­cie­ty. URL: https://bach.wu-​wien.ac.at/d/re­se­arch/re­sults/97385/

5. Spie­ker­mann, S. (2021), What to ex­pect from IEEE 7000TM - The first stan­dard for buil­ding ethi­cal sys­tems, IEEE Tech­no­lo­gy & So­cie­ty Ma­ga­zi­ne, Sep­tem­ber 2021