As technology has advanced more and more discussion has revolved around ensuring it develops in an ethical way and to the benefit of all of society.  The latest contribution to this effort comes via a recently published paper from Henley Business School, which explores how businesses can engage with digital technology in a responsible manner.

The paper was the output of a series of extended interviews undertaken with senior managers from sectors such as telecoms, entertainment, real estate and banking, and establishes a series of guiding principles to help companies act responsibly in the digital economy.

The interviews revealed an environment whereby managers are generally positive about the impact of digital technologies in the workplace.  They strongly believe them capable of boosting efficiency, delivering cost savings and increasing profits.  This general optimism doesn’t shield them from the societal risks presented by the technology however, whether it’s the risk to jobs, privacy or the erosion of work-life balance.

Responsible usage

To overcome some of these challenges, the researchers suggest a number of approaches.  For instance, they advocate clearly defining people or departments who are best placed to deal with the organizational responsibilities pertaining to each digital technology.  They also urge organizations to allow sufficient time to adequately reflect on the impact of adopting certain technologies, and how KPIs can be structured to take account of the ethics associated with technology.

The paper also highlights a number of principles that can help to guide company’s adoption of digital technology:

• Respond to new areas of responsibility by acknowledging societal risks and vulnerabilities
• Establish ways in which the organisation can be more responsible, such as ensuring there are specific staff who are able to develop policy relating to digital technology use
• Take action to reduce the negative impact of digital technology on internal or external stakeholders
• Learn about negative impacts of technology from stakeholders and in turn educate stakeholders about these impacts and how they can be mitigated or avoided.

“The negative unintended consequences of technology use are now routinely reported in the media,” the researchers conclude. “We wanted to understand how managers experience technology and in doing so find ways to ensure organisations are both better aware of these new responsibilities, and able develop approaches to deal with them.”