Management Information Systems, 14e (Laudon)
Chapter 4 Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems
1) Which of the following best describes how new information systems result in legal gray
areas?
A) They work with networked, electronic data, which are more difficult to control than
information stored manually.
B) They result in new situations that are not covered by old laws.
C) They are implemented by technicians rather than managers.
D) They are created from sets of logical and technological rules rather than social or
organizational mores.
E) They are little understood by politicians or lawyers.
2) Which of the following best describes the effect that new information technology has on
society?
A) It has a dampening effect on the discourse of business ethics.
B) It has a ripple effect, raising new ethical, social, and political issues.
C) It is beneficial for society as a whole, while raising dilemmas for consumers.
D) It has a waterfall effect in raising ever more complex ethical issues.
E) It has a magnifying effect, creating increasing numbers of ethical issues.
3) The moral dimension of ________ can be described as the obligations that individuals and
organizations have concerning rights to intellectual property.
A) property rights and obligations
B) system quality
C) accountability and control
D) information rights and obligations
E) quality of life
4) In the information age, the obligations that individuals and organizations have regarding the
preservation of existing values and institutions fall within the moral dimension of
A) family and home.
B) property rights and obligations.
C) system quality.
D) accountability and control.
E) quality of life.
5) Which of the following is not one of the current key technology trends that raises ethical
issues?
A) data storage improvements
B) data analysis advancements
C) increase in multimedia quality
D) increase in use of mobile devices
E) advances in networking technology
6) The central business activities of ChoicePoint raise which of the five moral dimensions?
A) property rights and obligations
B) system quality
C) accountability and control
D) quality of life
E) information rights and obligations
7) The routine violation of individual privacy is made more difficult by advances in data storage.
8) In today’s legal environment, business managers who violate the law through the misuse of
information systems are still unlikely to be fully prosecuted.
9) Identify the five moral dimensions that are involved in political, social, and ethical issues and
briefly describe each. Of these, which do you think is the most difficult for society to deal with?
Support your opinion.
10) Describe three technology trends that pose ethical issues, giving an example for each of its
ethical or moral impact.
11) ________ means that you accept the potential costs and obligations for the decisions you
make.
A) Responsibility
B) Accountability
C) Liability
D) Due process
E) Duty
12) ________ is a feature of social institutions that means mechanisms are in place to determine
responsibility for an action.
A) Due process
B) Accountability
C) The courts of appeal
D) The judicial system
E) Liability
13) ________ is a societal practice of having laws that are known and understood, along with the
ability to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that the laws are applied correctly.
A) Liability
B) Due process
C) The courts of appeal
D) Accountability
E) The judicial system
14) As discussed in the chapter, all of the following are steps in the process for analyzing an
ethical issue except
A) assigning responsibility.
B) identifying the stakeholders.
C) identifying the options you can reasonably take.
D) identifying and clearly describing the facts.
E) identifying the potential consequences of your options.
15) A peer at work takes small amounts of office supplies for her own use at home, saying that
this is a tiny loss to the company. You tell her that if everyone were to take office supplies, then
the loss would no longer be minimal. Your rationale expresses which historical ethical principle?
A) Kant’s Categorical Imperative
B) The Golden Rule
C) The Risk Aversion Principle
D) The “No free lunch” rule
E) The slippery-slope rule
16) A man steals from a grocery store in order to feed his starving family. Which of the
following best expresses the Utilitarian Principle in evaluating this situation?
A) His action is acceptable, because the grocer suffers the least harm.
B) His action is acceptable, because the higher social value is the survival of the family.
C) His action is wrong, because the man would not want the grocer to steal from him.
D) His action is wrong, because if everyone were to do this, the concept of personal property is
defeated.
E) His action is wrong, because the grocery store owner is harmed.
17) Which of the following describes Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative?
A) If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, then it is not right to be taken at any time.
B) One should take the action that produces the least harm or incurs the least cost.
C) One can put values in rank order and understand the consequences of various courses of
action.
D) If an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right for anyone to take.
E) You should act towards others as you would like them to act towards you.
18) The ethical “no free lunch” rule states that
A) if an action cannot be taken repeatedly, then it is not right to be taken at any time.
B) one should take the action that produces the least harm or incurs the least cost.
C) one can put values in rank order and understand the consequences of various courses of
action.
D) everything is owned by someone else, and that the creator wants compensation for this work.
E) anything of value should not be taken.
19) Taking the action that produces the least harm best describes the
A) Categorical Imperative.
B) Risk Aversion Principle.
C) Utilitarian Principle.
D) Golden Rule.
E) “no free lunch” rule.
20) As per the ________, if an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all.
A) slippery-slope rule
B) lemming rule
C) high-failure cost rule
D) utilitarian principle
E) Golden Rule
21) Identifying the stakeholders—people who have a vested interest in the outcome of the
decision—is the last step in analyzing an ethical issue.
22) Because of their special claims to knowledge, wisdom, and respect, professionals take on
special rights and obligations.
23) The European Parliament has yet to ban unsolicited commercial messaging.
24) Ethics describes the principles of right and wrong that can be used by individuals to make
choices to guide their behavior.
25) Liability is a feature of political systems and allows individuals to recover damages done to
them by others.
26) The ethical guideline that asks you to put yourself in the place of others, and think of
yourself as the object of the decision, is called the Utilitarian Principle.
27) What are the steps in conducting an ethical analysis?
28) Identify and discuss the six ethical principles discussed in the chapter.
29) Define the basic concepts of responsibility, accountability, and liability as applied to ethical
decisions. How are these concepts related?
30) ________ is the use of computers to assemble data from different sources to create electronic
dossiers of detailed information about individuals.
A) Profiling
B) Phishing
C) Spamming
D) Targeting
E) Spyware
31) ________ is a new data analysis technology that finds hidden connections between data in
disparate sources.
A) HIPAA
B) FIP
C) NORA
D) COPPA
E) Spyware
32) In 2010, the FTC added all of the following recommendations to its privacy guidelines
except
A) firms should build products and services that protect privacy.
B) firms should increase the transparency of their data collection.
C) firms should require consumer consent and provide clear options to opt out of data collection.
D) firms should limit the length of time that any personal data is stored to six months or less.
E) consumers should be able to review and contest the accuracy and completeness of data.
33) ________ restricts the information that the U.S. federal government can collect about an
individual and regulates what it can do with the information.
A) The Privacy Act of 1974
B) The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999
C) The Freedom of Information Act
D) The FIP set of principles
E) COPPA
34) Which of the following best describes the basis for the FIP principles?
A) the accountability of the record holder
B) the responsibility of the record holder
C) the mutuality of interest between the record holder and the individual
D) the privacy of the individual
E) the difference between the interests of the individual and commercial organizations
35) The Federal Trade Commission FIP principle of Notice/Awareness states that
A) customers must be allowed to choose how their information will be used for secondary
purposes other than the supporting transaction.
B) data collectors must take responsible steps to assure that consumer information is accurate
and secure from unauthorized use.
C) there must be a mechanism in place to enforce FIP principles.
D) consumers should be able to review the data collected about them.
E) Web sites must disclose their information practices before collecting data.
36) Which of the following U.S. laws gives patients access to personal medical records and the
right to authorize how this information can be used or disclosed?
A) HIPAA
B) Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
C) Privacy Protection Act
D) Freedom of Information Act
E) COPPA
37) Privacy protection in the United States is ________ in Europe.
A) more far reaching than
B) more liable to laws than
C) much more stringent than
D) much less stringent than
E) at about the same level of strictness as
38) U.S. businesses are allowed to use personal data from EU countries if they
A) have informed consent.
B) create a safe harbor.
C) develop equivalent privacy protection policies.
D) make their privacy protection policies publicly available.
E) register their activities with a central EU government databank.
39) Cookies created during Web site visits are stored
A) on the Web site’s server.
B) on the user’s computer.
C) on servers owned by advertising networks.
D) in the browser’s application settings.
E) nowhere, because they are only used during a visit and are discarded once a visitor leaves the
Web site.
40) The ________ framework developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce allows U.S.
businesses to legally use personal data from EU countries.
A) COPPA
B) P3P
C) PGP
D) bilateral
E) safe-harbor
41) The Online Privacy Alliance
A) encourages self regulation to develop a set of privacy guidelines for its members.
B) protects user privacy during interactions with Web sites.
C) has established technical guidelines for ensuring privacy.
D) is a government agency regulating the use of customer information.
E) is a lobbying organization promoting the online privacy interests of consumers.
42) In the ________ model of informed consent, personal information can be collected until the
consumer specifically requests that his or her data not be collected.
A) opt-in
B) opt-out
C) P3P
D) PGP
E) IPA
43) Which of the following is not one of the types of information gathered by Web site tracking
tools?
A) health concerns
B) birthplace
C) income
D) purchases
E) marital status
44) The limitation of trade secret protection for software is that it is difficult to prevent the ideas
in the work from falling into the public domain when
A) the courts become involved.
B) hackers are able to break into the source code.
C) the software is widely distributed.
D) a new version of the software is released.
E) the software’s programming code is released.