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Unfair
Competition |
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Before
the 1980s, most engineering codes contained provisions
severely limiting advertising and price competition by
engineers in private practice. Since then, the U.S. Supreme
Court has issued decisions relaxing such restrictions
in advertising and competitive bidding. Advertising can
help a potential client become more knowledgeable about
the services engineers provide, and competitive bidding
may benefit the public by lowering costs for professional
service. Canon 5 interpretations do not provide a standard
of what constitutes "unfair" competition in advertising
and competitive bidding.
If you are an engineer in private practice and you wish
to advertise your service, what should you do? Examples
of proper advertising, together with the interpretation
of the NSPE's Board of Ethical Review, can be found in
http://www.onlineethics.org/.../AdvertisingBER.aspx.
These two cases address the appropriateness of giving
calendars and pencils imprinted with the names of engineering
service providers to potential clients.
Consider the following situation (Case Two, http://www.onlineethics.org/.../SlogansBER.aspxl):
Alfred is a sole practitioner in search of a new advertising
slogan. He hires Francy, a professional marketing executive,
to help him out. Francy suggests that Alfred market himself
as "The Everything Engineer" in his promotions. But Alfred
is concerned the slogan implies that he can do everything;
that is, that he is competent as an engineer in all disciplines,
contexts and areas. This might be misleading. On the other
hand, there are no limits placed on a practitioner's ability
to practice several disciplines in several contexts. Should
Alfred use this slogan for his campaign? Are there any
other relevant factors that Alfred did not think of? Can
Alfred market himself as "The Everything Engineer?"
Alfred should not use the slogan "The Everything Engineer"
for his advertising campaign. This slogan does imply that
he has prior professional experience in all areas of engineering,
and would be in violation of Interpretation (c) which
states engineers "shall not misrepresent or exaggerate
their degrees of responsibility in or for the subject
matter of prior assignments." |
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