Should Corporates be ethical to survive in the tough world of business? Answer the question after reading the incident which prompted the question.
Cut to two years earlier, Carly Fiorina is angry that news of her differences with the board members at HP is made public. What was supposed to be a secret was made public. Naturally, even at her last few meetings, she was more interested in finding the source for the leak rather than her own position in the board. Of course this contributed to her downfall.
Patricia Dunn, another of the board members at HP finds that part of HP’s plans for the future are revealed to the news media(CNN) She decides to take action and hired a private investigating agency to track the source of the leak. During the course of the investigation, the detective agency laid claim to be part of the company and obtained phone records of certain members. The information was tracked to one of the board directors George Keyworth.
When confronted in the next board meeting with the evidence, George only stated, ‘all you had to do was ask and I would have told you it was me’
He was sent out of the meeting and a discussion ensued. Tom Perkins, another board member was the only one who strongly objected to this. He objected to the way the information was obtained. It was illegal to obtain the information through this fashion and as the head of Corporate governance within HP, he was standing by it. He resigned stating that the right to privacy had been breached and if companies start spying on their employees, it was unethical.Now blogspots were discussing the below points.
Was it right for HP to spy on its employees?
Must Patricia Dunn go?(She has)
Unfortunately I have to say that morons like Paul Kedrovsky(another blogger) gets quoted by Cnn for extreme views without considering the facts.
To answer a few, no corporate house can survive on ethics alone. They must possess or utilize the know how to survive challenged internal or external even if the help comes from outside. Now what Patricia done is clearly not done by any HP employee. It was done by a third party investigating agency. What methods investigating agencies employ are best left unanswered. Simply because substitute HP for a nation and the leak to be a spy and all of you would be baying for his blood.
Just because he is an employee of HP does not mean Corporate governance comes into the picture. Hello! *At that level, you just cannot afford to have secrets leaked*.(Earlier it was Fiorina’s differences with the board members, now the future road map of HP, guess what it would be tomorrow?) *Already other businesses have contemplated aligning a part of HP’s future roadmap into their own. Tomorrow a new product release might just be leaked out!
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Now would all this have been possible without the know how of the Corporate CEO Mark Hurd? He did know of the investigation and also knew about the results. It appears that he informed Dunn on how best to handle it. If the leadership is aware of it, then it makes sense for Mark to take the fall, why Dunn? She dunn nothing, except follow a precedent, not establish a new one.(https://money.cnn.com/2006/09/07/technology/fastforward_hp.fortune/index.htm)
At the Corporate board level, you cannot afford to have leaks. Anything made public is made after deliberate consideration, not leaks. If there is a leak it might affect your business tomorrow unless it is plugged now!
If you are still thinking that it was unethical, then what would you say to the leak in the first place? Was that ethical?Secondly, George Keyworth the source of leak stated that after he was confronted with overwhelming evidence. Would he have stated that if there was no evidence?
For ex., now would Osama say, I bombed Twin Towers if there was no evidence? Even now I doubt if he has ever said that. He has only stated that there would be more such bombings. He is only saying that more such incidents would occur. Why draw attention when he can bomb a few more! The only difference is that here the terrorist is a corporate leaker playing with investors money, not lives. Lastly does it make sense to make the Corporate board room more answerable first before setting trends for its employees? The leak occurred once again… this time with the quarterly results of HP.