Explain why a conflict of interest can be damaging to your professional activities.
Differentiate and explain an example of proprietary and nonproprietary employer information.
Explain how someone's unethical behavior can affect others working in your market location.
Discuss whether commissions or kickbacks are permissible based on professional association's code of conduct.
Discuss why ethical behavior is important for anyone working in the interior design profession, regardless of association affiliation.
Discuss what you should do if you discover that a colleague has breached or behaved in contradiction to the code of conduct of one of the professional associations.
Name the three specific reasons discussed in the text why people behave unethically. Discuss how these actions negatively affect dealing with clients.
NCIDQ COMPONENT
Based on the best information available, some material in this chapter might appear as part of the NCIDQ examination. The reader should not depend solely on this text for study material.
ETHICAL STANDARDS
You have no doubt heard about the ethical standards of attorneys and those in the medical profession. When we hire this type of professional, we expect them to behave in an ethical manner. Ethical standards define what is right and wrong in relation to the professional behavior of any group that considers it to be a profession. It expects the members of that profession to conduct itself in an ethical manner.
Ethical standards and behavior have always been a concern of the interior design profession and professional associations. Adherence to the “Code of Ethics and Professional Practice” was expected of members of the AID in its earliest years.1 In fact, the AID Code of Ethics and Professional Practice was published in a professional practice manual at least as early as 1961.2
Establishment of ethical standards is not limited to associations that expect ethical behavior of their members. Jurisdictions that pass legislation for title registration, practice acts, or other legal recognition often include ethical standards and usually disciplinary standards for those who violate the statutes. Furthermore, those in the profession—regardless of association, legislative edict, or choice to be part of this profession—should feel an obligation to behave in an ethical manner and abide by an ethical standard.
Ethical standards and behavior affect interior designers in many ways. Naturally, they have an impact on the relationships between the designer and his or her client. However, serious ethical situations may arise between the designer and those with whom the designer must work in the interest of the client. It is not inconceivable for ethical issues to arise between an interior designer and contractors, vendors, craftspeople, and others in the trade and the wider design–build industry.
Many situations involving ethical standards and behavior affect the business of design. Some of these situations include the creation of contracts, marketing activities, budgeting, employee management, and financial activities. The interior design professional also owes a duty of ethical behavior toward others in the profession, whether they are other employees, the employer, or colleagues at other design firms.
The teaching and discussion of ethics and an enforceable code of ethics from professional associations provide definable and enforceable standards for this profession. However, a code of ethics cannot by itself produce ethical behavior. Ethical behavior must come from individual designers themselves in their daily dealings with clients, peers, the public, and allied professionals.
ETHICS IN THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
If a design business operates within the law, is it also operating within an ethical business environment? You could reverse that and ask: If a company operates ethically, is it also operating within the law? Most people believe that ethics involves “doing the right thing.” Operating within the law, to most people, means abiding by the legal statutes that apply to the business. Sometimes these concepts overlap, but they are not identical.
Clause 3.1 in the IIDA Code of Ethics says, “In performing professional services, Professional and Associate Members shall exercise reasonable care and competence, and shall conform to existing laws, regulations and codes governing the profession of interior design as established by the state or other jurisdiction in which they conduct business.”3 Other associations generally have similar clauses in their code of conduct. Thus, legal behavior in practice goes hand in hand with ethical behavior in the profession.
Ethics Definitions
Following are a few definitions of ethics from a variety of sources.
Ethics are “moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior; the moral correctness of specified conduct.”*
“Ethical standards are not the standards of the law. In fact, they are a higher standard. Sometimes referred to as normative standards in philosophy, ethical standards are the generally accepted rules of conduct that govern society…. Ethics consists of those unwritten rules we have developed for our interactions with each other.”**
“Ethics in a business context; a consensus of what constitutes right or wrong behavior in the world of business and the application of moral principles to situations that arise in a business setting.”***
*Oxford American College Dictionary, 2002, p. 463.
**Jennings, 2006, p. 3.
***Miller and Jentz, 2006, p. 47.
The preceding definitions provide a variety of meanings, and you might find others if you do an online search. However, they will have similar qualities and views.
Making ethical decisions in the general business environment often comes down to making choices. For example, making a choice that favors the design firm rather than the client. In legal terms this can sometimes be construed as a conflict of interest. According to Black's Law Dictionary, conflict of interest is “a real or seeming incompatibility between one's private interests and one's public or fiduciary duties.”4 Fiduciary duties, by the way, are responsibilities assumed when one person acts in a position of trust or confidence for someone else. When a client hires an interior designer, the designer has fiduciary duty to act in the client's best interests.
In many instances, conflict of interest hinges on some sort of monetary issue or motive. An example is the designer asking for a special price from a vendor in exchange for a promise of future business. Another might be consistently recommending to clients a specific vendor who happens to be a relative of the designer. Putting personal gain above the good of the person or the organization that the designer is supposed to represent is an example of unethical behavior.
Interior designers in the course of a project learn many private things about the client or the client's business. This information is considered proprietary. Proprietary information comprises a wide variety of data or information, graphics, or designs that belong to a particular person or business. Information about the family and the family residence is also proprietary to the client. It is expected that this information not be shared with anyone who is not authorized to learn the information.