Ethics, which can be described as the rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or group (Drafke), can have great influence on an individual who chooses to end their current job so that they may go to work for a competitor. Likewise, ethics can also affect both organizations that employee/employed the individual. These ethics are more commonly known as corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility can be described as the idea that business has certain obligations to society beyond the pursuit of profits (Drafke). For instance, the company loosing the individual should not create problems for that individual or their new employer. Whether their motives would be fear of loosing trade secret or simply out of spite, neither is a reason to create complications for the employee or new employer. Additionally, the new orginization should not hire he or she in hopes of stealing trade secrets from their competitor. When determining what is right or wrong, it is necessary for all parties to apply ethical decision making in the situation.
For the individual, they are faced with several tough ethical decisions. One of the major decision is deciding what types of information should be given to the new employer. Although legally there are factors that would ultimately take precedence over ethical decisions. Factors such as whether the person signed confidentiality or any secrecy agreements. If he ore she did, then they are obligated legally to keep all knowledge, know how and trade secrets private to their new employer. However, privacy agreements like these could also create ethical decisions. What if the individual did sign agreements and then chose to divulge trade secrets anyway? That in it’s self would be a bad ethical decision. It is clearly a form of deceit and illegal. In the same way, if the new employer chose to use that information for gain, that too would be considered bad ethics. Recently Hooters of America LLC agreed to an...