Business Competitiveness

PID is the new in for business

COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE PREDICAMENT

S110045

Principles of Management

Prof. Efren C. Laxamana

COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE PREDICAMENT

RECOGNITION OF THE PROBLEM

Gathering, storing, manipulating, and communicating data are revolutionizing the use and spread of information. Along the way, they are also creating ethical dilemmas. The speed and efficiency of electronic information systems, which include local and global networks, databases, and programs for processing information, force people to confront entirely new rights and responsibilities in their use of information and to reconsider their standards of conduct.

When using an information system to gather information about a competitors and customers, it is important to know ethical issues that can be questioned. Many companies believe it is important to gather information about competitors in order for them to have competitive advantage.

Miguel Vasquez, through his boss, got a competitive intelligence report of their closest competitor. He didn’t feel good about using these materials, knowing that they were illegally obtained.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Is it right and ethical for Miguel to use competitive intelligence which is illegally and questionably sourced?

ANALYSIS

Many people see unethical behavior as a cancer working on the fabric of society in too many of today's organizations. This challenge is especially difficult because standards for what constitutes ethical behavior lie in gray areas where clear-cut right-versus wrong answers may not always exist.

There are many ethical issues in which people are faced with on a day to day basis in the business world. The sources and methods of competitive intelligence are matters typically hidden from public scrutiny, yet clearly worthy of public debate and ethical attention. Recent academic studies of intelligence that have had any intentional...