Study case

Ethics Issue

You are looking on the shared network drive and discover that your boss’s entire hard drive has been copied to the network for everyone to view. What do youdo?
First of all we must analyze the situation. Ask our self what are the consequences of not informing the case and/or telling immediately to the network administrator. Ifwe inform the network administrator or inform the boss directly, the information will be removed for the good of the company. In the other hand, if we keep it quiet theinformation will flow as news soon.
We know that companies have their strategies especially if they are big. These strategies help companies to create a competitive advantage. Acompany could have a trade secret. A trade secret is information or a process giving a business an advantage over competitors who do not know the information or process. Itconsists of customer list, plans, marketing techniques, pricing information, anything that makes a company unique. For example, Coca Cola has a formula that only two personknows. If that formula would be revealed, then many others would start using it, therefore Coca Cola would lose a big advantage. A trade secret is very important and essential forbusiness.
So having this information in mind we know that if we keep silence and do not tell anybody that the boss’s hard drive has been copied to the network, someone couldtake advantage of it and tell important information about the company to another company so they can use the information for their company and have advantage.
An ethicalbehavior would be informing the network administrator or the boss so they can fix the problem and avoid the possibility of any bad intentions against the company and their members.