Social responsibility in engineering based commercial organizations

Ethics of the engineering profession have evolved with the development of the technical side of this field. Engineering-based commercial organizations (EBCO)s are now showing that they are socially responsible by adding an environmental component or some other non-profit similar dimension to their activities. However, questions of how successful or effective these efforts are and what impact they have on society, are still to be answered. This paper looks more closely into the motivations and intended effect of this trend to allow for a better understanding of its effectiveness and to help identify potential future direction. To announce effort showing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), EBCOs use a variety of tools, among which is the corporate website which is the most prolific. Used as a powerful marketing and advertising tool, the website always shows the newest, and most carefully positioned, image intended for the society to perceive. Therefore, a study of websites as powerful indicators of socially responsible engineering organizations was implemented. The fact that engineering firms include social responsibility projects could lead to a possible change of the organizations' public perception. However, a closer look to the cumulative efforts from the different engineering organizations was needed to find out how the links between these efforts and society in general, and links to engineers in specific. Data of the study were collected and analyzed following pre-set criteria, from different angles, like the geographical location of the organization, and its size, in relation to its local cultural norms and engineering ethical standards. Results indicate that whereas in developed countries importance was given to sustainability and goodwill, developing countries paid more attention to the community access to natural resources like water, and primary sector activities such as agriculture. Results also show that the economic and business aspect of the locality, where these EBCOs operate, continues to be a significant factor in what they do towards CSR.