Studying Technology Workers’ Ethics Work in Organizational Contexts

 

Do you work in the technology industry and think about the social or ethical implications of the products & services you work on? We'd like to interview you!

We are conducting interviews for a research project at Georgia Tech to learn more about how (1) technology professionals think about and address issues related to social or ethical implications in their professional practices; (2) the pathways, strategies, tools, and processes that people use to approach these issues; and (3) the social and organizational barriers they face.

Background

The principal investigator, Professor Richmond Wong, has done some prior research studying how technologists and their tools approach ethics in different organizational contexts. This project builds on this prior research. Summaries of results from past research can be seen here:

This study is being conducted by Professor Richmond Wong at the Georgia Institute of Technology and has been approved the Georgia Tech Institutional Review Board (IRB).

  • The purpose of the study is to understand how technology professionals think about and discuss issues related to social and ethical implications in their work.
  • Interviews will last approximately 60-90 minutes via Zoom video chat, or in person.
  • As part of the interview, we may do a mapping activity on paper or on a digital whiteboard to understand the flow of different types of work processes.
  • Risks and/or discomforts should not be greater than everyday life.
  • We will pseudonymize individuals' and companies' names in published material resulting from this research.
  • Participants must be 18 years old or older
  • Research participants are not paid; there is no direct benefit to you. However, the results from the study may help engineers and designers build technologies in ways that account for social values and their potential social impact.

For more information, please see our Study Information Form (.pdf).

About the researcher: Richmond Wong is an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology's Digital Media Program. His background is in human computer interaction and design, and he has previously conducted research about how UX professionals address ethics in their work, and creating new design-oriented methods to address privacy and ethical issues. He previously worked at the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity and received his PhD at the UC Berkeley School of Information.

Interested?

Send an email to Richmond Wong at rwong34 {at} gatech.edu with the subject line Tech Study.

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