Beyond the “I“: Framing a model of participatory ethical decision-making for international engineering communication

The article reports on findings of an ethics education unit in a cross-institutional partnership—an American university and an Indian university—that uses noncooperative gaming theory to extend ethics education to take on a global, group/systems perspective. Authors assert that a role of engineering communication at the global level is to position stakeholders to see ethical decision-making as participatory. The authors also comment on four deliberative challenges that students face as they assume participatory roles in ethical decision-making: (1) anticipating and imagining cultural interaction; (2) coordinating the group decision processes primarily through quantitative means of persuasion; (3) cultivating trust; and (4) coping with the challenges of articulating fairness. To address the communication challenges related to fostering participatory ethical decision-making, the authors conclude by opening a conversation about potential avenues for pursuing participatory ethical decision-making in international engineering contexts.