Moral Problems Perceived by Industry in Collaboration with a Student Group: Balancing between Beneficial Objectives and Upholding Relations

Authors

Tero Vartianen, Turku School of Economics

Abstract

Industry-university partnerships are conunon in the IT field. This paper reports on moral problems perceived by client representatives collaborating with student groups taking part in a project course in information systems education in a Finnish university. Twenty-two client representatives from IT organizations were interviewed during the course of one project, phenomenography was used in the analysis, and a collective description was determined. The moral problems in collaboration relate to business-directed (gaining benefit) and relations-directed (upholding relations and taking care) intentions, and also relate to interpersonal issues, the project task, and external parties. The results also indicate that the relationship between the clients and the students resembles the dirty-hands dilenuna of the corporation, and that client representatives experience role confusions. Forming a reflective conununity between collaborators is reconunended to handle the moral problems.

Recommended Citation

Vartianen, Tero (2009) "Moral Problems Perceived by Industry in Collaboration with a Student Group: Balancing between Beneficial Objectives and Upholding Relations," Journal of Information Systems Education: Vol. 20 : Iss. 1 , 51-66.
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/jise/vol20/iss1/7