Are Information Technology Professionals Moral?: a Study of the Cognitive Moral Development of It Professionals

Information Technology (IT) is creating serious ethical dilemmas. Increasing numbers of firms are involved in scandals enabled by IT and related computer based-technologies. This study investigates the factors of gender, age, career stage, education and ethics training on the cognitive moral development of IT professionals, as measured by the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2). Based on previous literature, this study utilizes Kohlberg's Theory of Cognitive Moral Development (TCMD). The study fills a gap in the literature on the interrelationships among the determinant variables that influence an individual?s ethical choices by providing additional direction for future research. Future research will include the replication of this study with larger samples over different regions, as well as, investigating other factors of interest to determine possible significance with the level of cognitive moral development as measured by the P-score from the DIT-2 instrument. Determining the significant factors that measure the level of cognitive moral development of IT professionals provides an important baseline for future ethics-based research within the IT industry.