Ethical Dilemma: You are a top manager of a small company that has pioneered the

Question

Ethical Dilemma: You are a top manager of a small company that has pioneered the development of software that allows Web users to interface in real time online. A major rival recognized the value of your product and offered to buy your company at a price you think is inadequate. When you refused to sell your company, the rival began recruiting your top software engineers in order to obtain their specialized knowledge. One engineer left and others have banded together, threatening to leave if demands aren't met. Consequently, you stand to lose your competitive advantage. Is it ethical for you to apply for a court order preventing engineers from leaving to join your competitor? Is it ethical for your competitor to recruit your employees to obtain their knowledge? Given your answers to these questions, should you let the differentiator buy your company and take over your market niche?

Explanation / Answer

It is not ethical to apply for court order in order to prevent engineers from leaving the organization and joining the rival because each employee has the right to choose the organization to work with and the employer should be able to retain the employees by adopting appropriate strategies. The company should offer attractive salaries and benefits to the key employees to retain them and else they may leave the organization. It is very difficult to retain the competitive advantage in today’s competitive world and small firms have most chances to lose their position in the competition. There are no ethical issues in recruiting competitor’s employees to achieve knowledge and competitive advantage in the market and the employees join the organization as per their wish. In my opinion it would be good if we let the competitor to take over the company as we have already lost our key employee and we are going to lose our competitive advantage. Hence before losing completely in the market it will be wise to start negotiating with the rival company to increase the price offered by them and sell the company before they take over our market niche using our key employees. Else we should find another way to make competitive advantage but it will be difficult in the case of small company.

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