
AI Ethics and Transparency in Operations Management: How Governance Mechanisms Can Reduce Data Bias and Privacy Risks
- 1 Hong Kong Polytechnic University
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in operations management holds the key to efficiency, precision and agility in business decision-making, yet it also involves ethical challenges such as fairness, accountability, transparency and privacy that can undermine trust in AI. This paper examines the ethical considerations of AI use in operations, paying particular attention to data bias, privacy risks and governance. Drawing on major governance frameworks such as the OECD AI Principles and the EU’s Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI, this paper proposes a hybrid governance model to address the unique challenges of operational contexts. A case study in the financial sector is used to further explain how privacy-preserving techniques can safeguard the sensitive customer data needed for AI-driven customer service. Extensive experimentation conducted in that case has shown that privacy-preserving methods such as differential privacy and federated learning can reduce the incidence of unauthorised data-access events by as much as 30 per cent and can improve customer satisfaction by more than 20 per cent. This paper contributes to the dynamic discourse on ethical AI by offering practical recommendations to organisations on how to conduct AI operations in a way that is responsible and compliant.
Keywords
AI ethics, operations management, data bias, privacy risks, governance frameworks
[1]. Venkatesh, V., Raman, R., & Cruz-Jesus, F. (2024). AI and emerging technology adoption: A research agenda for operations management. International Journal of Production Research, 62(15), 5367-5377.
[2]. Heyder, T., Passlack, N., & Posegga, O. (2023). Ethical management of human-AI interaction: Theory development review. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 32(3), 101772.
[3]. Attard-Frost, B., De los Ríos, A., & Walters, D. R. (2023). The ethics of AI business practices: A review of 47 AI ethics guidelines. AI and Ethics, 3(2), 389-406.
[4]. Camilleri, M. A. (2024). Artificial intelligence governance: Ethical considerations and implications for social responsibility. Expert Systems, 41(7), e13406.
[5]. Cebulla, A., Szpak, Z., & Knight, G. (2023). Preparing to work with artificial intelligence: Assessing WHS when using AI in the workplace. International Journal of Workplace Health Management, 16(4), 294-312.
[6]. Saeidnia, H. R. (2023). Ethical artificial intelligence (AI): Confronting bias and discrimination in the library and information industry. Library Hi Tech News.
[7]. Giovanola, B., & Tiribelli, S. (2023). Beyond bias and discrimination: Redefining the AI ethics principle of fairness in healthcare machine-learning algorithms. AI & Society, 38(2), 549-563.
[8]. Sham, A. H., et al. (2023). Ethical AI in facial expression analysis: Racial bias. Signal, Image and Video Processing, 17(2), 399-406.
[9]. Akinrinola, O., et al. (2024). Navigating and reviewing ethical dilemmas in AI development: Strategies for transparency, fairness, and accountability. GSC Advanced Research and Reviews, 18(3), 050-058.
[10]. Albahri, A. S., et al. (2023). A systematic review of trustworthy and explainable artificial intelligence in healthcare: Assessment of quality, bias risk, and data fusion. Information Fusion, 96, 156-191.
[11]. Elendu, C., et al. (2023). Ethical implications of AI and robotics in healthcare: A review. Medicine, 102(50), e36671.
Cite this article
Li,Z. (2024). AI Ethics and Transparency in Operations Management: How Governance Mechanisms Can Reduce Data Bias and Privacy Risks. Journal of Applied Economics and Policy Studies,13,89-93.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Journal:Journal of Applied Economics and Policy Studies
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).