Ethics and Social Responsibility

Abstract

Ethics is an important social and technological issue. The powerful computer capabilities provide new frontiers of economic and social human activities. Information, about employees, consumers, and markets, becomes more relevant when it enables economic decisions and impacts on the organization's competitiveness. Recent examples such as fake news show a necessity of a comprehensive and multidimensional economic and social approach to frame the use of algorithms and technologies to guarantee suitable ethical patterns in the information society. It is important to analyze the sensibility of economic stakeholders to the ethical limits of information collection and treatment about consumers and technology users. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the proposed model for ethical analysis through a proof of concept applied to a Portuguese energy operator, framing the identification and mitigation of the ethical risks associated with the continuous digital transformation process.