Essay on Secrecy in Business
Added on 2020-04-21
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Running head: SECRECY IN BUSINESSSECRECY IN BUSINESSName of the Student:Name of the UniversityAuthor Note:
SECRECY IN BUSINESS1The essay discusses the reasons why many companies conduct their strategic planningsecret from all but the executives of their firms. In this world of increasing competition andlitigation, privacy on the part of a company is a mandatory issue. Failure for securing andprotecting confidential information of the organisation may lead to danger for the health ofthe company (Smither, Houston and McIntire 2016). In the evil hands, the confidentialinformation may be misused to commit any illegal activities such as fraud and discrimination.Many countries have laws for protecting the organizational secrecy and confidentiality ofcertain information in the workplace. Revelation of any sensitive issue associated with anemployee led to loss of loyalty and confidence which eventually led to lagging inproductivity.Olympic group is a group of companies operating in Egypt. It mainly operates in thefields of domestic appliances. It also trades on IT fields and real estates. The company’s 98%products are of their own manufacture (Electroluxgroup.com 2017). The key internationalsuppliers, partners and licensors of the company are Electrolux, Philips and Merloniinternationals. The company maintains high secrecy regarding its business policy. Thereasons are:Reasons New technology- the reason for ascendency of the company’s trade secret is that thetechnology has made the access and misappropriation easier. Previously the companies usedto store the information physically (Siponen, Mahmood and Pahnila 2014). They used to hidethe blueprints of their new products in a locked room. Now in this digital world thecompanies store blueprints in the digital files on the computer networks. They encrypt the fileand keep it password protected but for a disgruntled worker it is easy for him to download, e-mail or post on internet (Leonardi, Huysman and Steinfield 2013). He can also save the file
SECRECY IN BUSINESS2his mobile and leaves office undetected. Therefore, it can be said that digital world does notprovide benefit to the trade secrets.Changing work culture – with the growth the company, the prosperity increases. Inthis process, many current as well as former employees get fired for misappropriation of thetrade secret of the company. Now this changing work environment employees no longer areloyal to one company. They leave one organization whenever they get better opportunities.They value for entrepreneurism and mobility (McGrath 2013).These employees carry theirprevious employers’ trade secrets at the time of leaving the company. The research revealsthat layoffs, automations, outsourcing, shortening contracts have given rise to the employeedisloyalty. This increasing mobility of the workers is one of the most important reason whythe companies keep secrecy about their future plans.The perception of secrecy is different in different age groups. The IP law bases on theidea of information ownership. The law associated with trade secrets bases on ownership ofconfidential information (Wade 2013). The recent file sharing culture has decreases the valueof secrecy in any aspect. The changing social norms for protection important information aswell as privacy can be the reason of increasing trade secret misappropriation.Increasing value of business secretes- as the international al companies shift toservice and knowledge based economy, the competitiveness of the firms has started to dependon their intangible assets. The trade information has become intellectual properties of thecompanies. The importance on maintaining secrecy about the trade has resulted in growinglaws to criminalize the trade secret misappropriation (Luftman et al. 2012). The currentknowledge based economy is quite different from the previous one where the physical assetslike natural resources, capital goods were protected. The value of trade secret in recent timehas replaced these physical assets. Data leaks can cost a company more than $2 trillion.
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