Ethical code of conduct
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1.0 Introduction
The new product manager of CI Miguel opened his first day of work with some zest and willingness to serve best in his new position. Unfortunately his excitement was not long lasting after he was called by his boss and given the information about their biggest competitors. This file contained very vital and sensitive information about their competitor. Some of the information found in this file includes products designs, pricing strategies and partnership agreements. Miguel’s boss had revealed that he acquired this information through illegal process. Miguel’s boss had intentionally tapped to their competitor’s intranet and sipped information. Miguel is left uneasy by his boss actions and is confused on how to handle the new found information. The case study ends with Miguel being unsatisfied since he feel that information can be of much help. They can use this new acquired diligent information to counter and outdo their competitors completely. However the biggest worry by Miguel is whether the methodologies used to acquire the information were conducted as per the law and the ethical code of ethics (Safa, et al,2016).
1.1Summary
This case study takes a critical look at the practice of industrial espionage.by majoring on the case of the boss of CI Company doing an industrial espionage on his competitor. He achieved this through tapping to the competitor’s intranet, the case study will reveal some decency on planning of competitive intelligence sector and the ethical challenges and barriers encountered. The query is argued that, from an ethical perspective, industrial espionage can be can be evaluated on basis of three divisions, which include ,the methodology of information capture, the privacy of information and the outcomes for the public interest after the information is disclosed .by the spying partner.
1.2 Major draw backs
Miguel is confused on usage of the information given. Miguel seems to be very insecure when he remembers the great risks associated with the tapped information
There is potential of summary dismissal from work if the information leaks to the administration or the authoritative.
The company is at high stakes of risk in case the information about the hacking goes viral and everyone knows that they had hacked into their competitor’s private network
There is possibility of a quarrel between Miguel and his boss if he defies his boss instructions and directions
1.3 Problem statement
What will be the gains for Miguel’s obeying his boss commands, or rather what would be the consequence of differing with his commands and opinions
SWOT ANALYSIS
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|
| Competitive advantage Ability to predict competitor moves increase profits Customer retainance | Wash-down of company ethics and codes Conflict of interest in company Conflict within the employees Illegal activities in the company Reforms in management |
| Opportunities | Threats |
| Superior business analytics potential for expansion Dominance of market segment Best marketing strategies Best product designs | Potential legal threats Risk of heavy fines and punishments Suspension of business license Possible takeover Termination of jobs |
1.5 Recommendations
It’s interesting on how Miguel’s boss is determined to do anything to see the company’s goals and objectives came to reality. Miguel is taking his job on holistic terms and is devoted to work as per his efforts for the company to achieve success, Miguel’s biggest dream is to outdo their competitors and dominate the market segment. However the methodologies and techniques used by Miguel to capture intelligence business information is not ethically right or allowed by the law. What Miguel boss did is termed as computer fraud and is punishable by the law. I would recommend Miguel’s boss to use another way of capturing competitor’s information through data mining (Ferreira, et al,2015).
1.6 Corrective measures
1.6.1 Employees discipline management
A disciplinary management system is required in most companies. In order for any corporation to have a good public image and maintain the employees on their expected working norms and code of ethics. An employee disciplinary management is a system that controls employers and facilitates them in reaching company goals and objectively easily and faster. An employee disciplinary system should clearly visualize all the expected rules, policies, fines and the respective consequences to face if the employees breach them. For the Ci Company, a disciplinary management system is lacking. The boss of the company is capable of breaching the ethical code of ethic because there is no disciplinary body to discourage him. if there was an EDM in CI company, the body could have clearly explained the ideal techniques of gathering intelligence information on their competitor instead of tapping to their competitors intranet. A disciplinary management systems applies two types of techniques while disciplining their
Employees. The first method is the positive method whereby they amicably talk to their employee’s apologies. The alternative method is more severe since it’s by imposing some fines, seeking for written apologies and warnings and lastly job termination (Magani &Tobing, 2018).
1.6.2 Strategic and competitive intelligence professionals (SCIP)
It is advisable to consult with strategic and competitive intelligence professional’s body before passing full judgment on Miguel’s boss. Strategic and competitive intelligence professionals will check on their current set of code of ethics and see whether Miguel’s boss has breach any of them. These codes consist of the following
1.6.3Recognition and respect of the profession
This is to evaluate whether the industrial espionage and tapping into their competitors intranet act is an ideal employees conduct. This will also help in scrutinizing whether the Act dirties or maintains the company’s reputation to the public.to give the centrality of clarity on this matter, Miguel’s boss has betrayed the trust of their company by tapping into another company private network. Miguel has conducted in a way that breaches their professional’s code of ethics. He has do so by failure to pay respect to parameters between employee’s relationships and malicious competitiveness (jacobsen, et al,2017).
1.6.4 Domestic and international laws
According to domestic and international laws hacking into a company’s or a person’s private network is a crime. It’s called “computer crime and act”. It is can be considered a federal crime given the fact that 7 offenses have been committed. Some of these offense broken in Miquels case include; 1.taking information without the company’s consent 2. Computer espionage 3.fraud. Failure to report the crime is an offense and would still be a breach of domestic laws and can lead to Miguel being charged in court for such offenses.
1.6.5Avoiding conflict of interest
In this case and according to the case study, “conflict of interest” scenario is witnessed when the employee wants to move ahead with his career. Circumstances such as an employee’s dilemma and dis continuation of his or her work can affect the judgment of the case hence give the wrong judgment of the case. This can have negative impacts to the company.
1.6.7 Promote company code of ethics
It is without doubt that the company’s code of ethics will disagree with the deeds of this worker with strong grounds and evidence that what he did is illegal and against the law and can be severely punished by the law. This is because of the damaging nature of the action done of robbing one’s hard work and time spend in research and resource in developing their company. This tarnishes the reputation of the company and can lead to loss of market.
1.6.8Abide to company’s policies
Miguel’s boss failed to adhere to the company’s policies and guidelines when he went and hacked into a competitor’s internet information which is against the law. Using information illegally acquired to compromise a competitor can easily compromise your own company’s image instead. This can also lead to severe suffering due to breach of law such as cancellation of the company’s running license and even loss of work to those involved (kaptein,2017).
1.6.9 Using the documents
The information in the document can of great use to the company. This will depend largely on the strategy Miguel and his boss will employ in applying the information. One of the best strategies to make the information in the document of great benefit to the company is by making advancements on it and applying it to the company while maintaining a high secret of source of information between both of them. They should twist some of the information acquired and employ it with boldness and confidence like they were the master minds. The twisting will make their competitor company unable to notice that their information was illegally acquired without their consent hence make the company flourish in the market without much obstruction.
1.7 Suitability, acceptability, feasibility, economical (SAFE)
According to me hacking into a company or someone’s internet in order to get their information and strategies so that you can compete them in the market is not the best, is not suitable, should not be relied on and is against the law. It is not suitable because companies have different goals to achieve by the end of every financial year, and the goals of the company might differ with the goals of the competing company. Therefore, the illegally acquired information can easily mislead a company hence making it lose its focus.
I also find it unsuitable because the two competing companies may not be in the same financial status. Miguel and his boss company may have less financial muscles and sources of funds compared to the company they are competing with. This means that the information they acquired will be of less important to them since they have no enough finances to facilitate the strategies. Those and other objecting facts including the illegality of the matter makes it very unsuitable for Miguel and his boss company.
Acceptability. First of all let me state here that competition between people, institutions and companies is allowed by the law given that it’s healthy competition and does not break the laws put into place to govern that. According to the case study, Miguel hacked into another company’s internet to acquire information and strategies so that they can use the information acquired to easily compete their opponent that deed itself is a breach of the law and is illegal and unacceptable.
1.8 Conclusion
The company should draft strong human resource policies to be followed by their esteemed employees. With strong human resource policies, there will be elimination of ethical dilemma within the employees. Company policies are used to retain integrity by clearly stating out what employees should expect from the firm and deliverables expected by the company from its employees. Ethical issues has costed a lot of money in the previous occasions. Some of ethical dilemmas has led to employee’s turnover, bad company’s reputation and different lawsuits which are pain in the wallet. A company can only save itself by having a considerable user-friendly human resource policy which guides to a good working environment (vardaman, et al, 2014).
1.9 References
Vardaman, J. M., Gondo, M. B., & Allen, D. G. (2014). Ethical climate and pro-social rule breaking in the workplace. Human Resource Management Review, 24(1), 108-118.
Matacic, C. (2017). Stealing industrial secrets pays off—at first.
Jacobsen, O., & Van Vugt, M. (2017). BOOK REVIEW: INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE IN A MODERN-DAY PERSPECTIVE.
Murphy, C. (2016). Competitive Intelligence: Gathering, Analysing and Putting it to Work. Routledge.
Trong Tuan, L. (2017). Organizational social capital as a moderator for the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on competitive intelligence. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 25(4), 301-315.
Safa, M., Shahi, A., Haas, C. T., Fiander-McCann, D., Safa, M., Hipel, K., & MacGillivray, S. (2015). Competitive intelligence (CI) for evaluation of construction contractors. Automation in Construction, 59, 149-157.
Ferreira, J . C., de Almeida, J., & da Silva, A. R. (2015). The Impact of Driving Styles on Fuel Consumption: A Data-Warehouse-and-Data-Mining-Based Discovery Process. IEEE Trans. Intelligent Transportation Systems, 16(5), 2653-2662
Moscoso-Zea, O.,& Luján-Mora, S. (2016, September). Data warehouse design for educational data mining. In Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), 2016 15th International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE