A Question of Ethics

A Question of Ethics

If an employee leaves a company to work for a competitor, there are ethical standards that are put into place to protect against vital information being shared with the competition. These are often included in the company's Code of Ethics Policy. Because the basis of a business is to gain or make profit, there are specific ethical guidelines to protect the company in all the areas that could hinder profit gaining.

If a person changes companies they take with them knowledge they obtained from working with the previous business. The information could just be a matter of general, public knowledge or it could be public knowledge as well as non-public knowledge information.

Ethically it is acceptable to share knowledge about the previous business that is available to the public because the information can't cause harm to that business' profit.

On the other hand, however it is not ethical to share non-public information to a competing company because it can cause major downfalls in different aspects of the business.

Non-public knowledge information about a business consists of trade secrets such as manufacturing techniques, financial strategies and other information that allows the company to profit and the public is not aware of .

In my opinion if the information is public knowledge, then the employee does not need to share it with the competitor because the competing business can find it out on their own and more than likely already know it.

In conclusion, if a person is thinking about going from one business and working for the competition, it is up to them to decide whether they can protect the previous company by keeping quiet on the trade secrets while in their new place of employment. Secrets are meant to be kept.

Works Cited

Bovée, Courtland L., John V. Thill, and Michael H. Mescon. "Chapter 2." Excellence in Business. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005. 67-68. Print.

Bovée, Courtland L., John V. Thill, and Michael H. Mescon. "Chapter 2." Excellence in Business. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005. 88. Print.