Business Ethics: Hewlett Packard - Case Study Example

ASSIGNMENT Introduction to Hewlett Packard: Hewlett Packard is a United s based corporation that is engaged in the business of information technology all across the world. The company is dexterous in manufacturing, assembling and selling of personal computers, computer accessories and softwares, scanners, storage devices, various types of printers including desktop, laser, ink jet, plotters etc, home servers, monitors, calculators and handhelds, laptops, mini notebooks and computer services. The corporation has established a global sales and business network, has sound market reputation, goodwill and consumer acceptance. It is the first IT corporation that achieved a landmark of over 100$ billion sales in a year that showcase its financial, managerial and marketing strength in comparison to its major global competitors including Dell, Apple, IBM etc. The company merged with Compaq in 2002 that further intensified its strength and business position among the rivals. Business Case: This paper aims to throw light over a scandal that involved the corporation’s board chairperson Ms. Patricia Dunn and an outside investigative firm in an attempt to determine who among the company’s directors leaked the company’s secret information discussed in a board meeting to the media personnel. The board meeting was originally held to discuss the sensitive issues faced by HP at that time, however, an online technology site CNET published an online article about ‘the long-term strategic plans of HP’ that contained sensitive information that could only be revealed or disclosed by a director or any other well-informed top executive. This further endorsed the fact that someone at the top was deliberately engaged in publicizing the information about Hewlett Packard’s would-be strategies. This act of irresponsibility would have sabotaged the corporation’s long-term objectives and interests by making the rivals aware of company’s policies well-before time. The CEO Carly Fiorina scolded the board of directors but failed to figure out the person behind the game. She was later ousted from HP and was replaced by Mark Hurd and the chairperson Patricia had initiated the move to find the culprit hiring private investigators to determine the source of those leaks. (Krazit, 2006) More specifically, the investigative firm employed the controversial in fact an illicit technique of Pretexting (which means to sham one’s original identity in order to gain access to someone else’s private information such as phone numbers, social security numbers, credit card and bank account details etc. It is, more precisely, viewed as an attempt to fraud or cheat another person through misleading) to determine who was responsible for that information leak to Wall Street Journal and others. The detectives namely Ronald DeLia, Matthew Depante and Bryan Wagner not only indulged in spying on the phone records of directors but also disguised themselves as directors to track down their own records. They also spied the records of nine journalists who were working at The New York Times and Wall Street Journal during 2005. In addition, when Mr. Hunkaser (HP senior council responsible) inquired Mr. Gentilucci (HP global security officer) about the legitimacy of Pretexting, Ronald DeLia confidently replied that the activity had not called illegal by any ‘Federal laws’ which was absolutely false since Pretexting is illegitimate exercise. (Jennings, 2008) However, the investigative firm successfully identified Mr. Keyworth as the leaker of information who was then forced to resign. The case finally led to criminal charges against the board’s chairperson Ms. Petricia Dunn, Mr. Hunkaser, Ronald DeLia and Matthew Depante. Ms. Dunn at last survived from those accusations but forced to resign to completely settle down the dispute that ‘threatened to derail the Silicon Valley icons momentum’ after the ouster of high-profile CEO Carly Fiorina. (Krazit, 2006) Ethical Considerations: This case is very rich when we talk about ethical concepts and considerations. Basically, the ethical issue as concluded from the above summary of this case is the fact that directors, employees and journalists were misguided by the people within and outside of HP. In simple words, the privacy rights of an individual were violated besides the state law. But the question that I would be focusing on is should Patricia Dunn be forced to resign and was that ethically correct or not? First of all, it was Mr. Hunkaser who confirmed about the legitimacy of the investigative technique after receiving the reply from Ronald. Ms. Petricia Dunn endorsed the idea to discover the director who revealed the confidential information through private investigators, mainly because she believed it was destructive for HP and ‘it destroyed the trust between people and if they don’t trust each other, they can’t function as a board.’ (Schorn, 2006) Actually, Petricia Dunn was of the view that confidential information about the company’s long-term strategies related to products, changes in management and organizational structure and culture, budgeting and forecasting, market potential, internal disputes, monetary and volumetric sales targets, expected mergers and acquisitions could make the major rivals of the HP such as Dell, Apple, IBM and others aware of the ongoing policies who would then replicate, alter, adjust, innovate and improve their policies, strategies, internal organizational strengths and weaknesses to get a competitive advantage over Hewlett Packard. Obviously, this would be destructive for the accomplishment of both short-term and long-term goals and would compel HP to revise all the policies and strategies since they would no longer be useful and effective than they were before the leak. This shows that Petricia was loyal to her company since she took that initiative in better interest of the corporation and its employees because they would have been the direct affectees if HP had failed to come up with new effective decisions that could facilitate the company in competing with its competitors. Petricia’s initiative to nail the leaker was in greater corporation’s interest despite the fact the leaker was discovered through the employment of some inappropriate techniques and tactics. According to Utilitarian theory, the alternative that yields the greatest benefit to the majority is the alternative that is ethically correct and that must be used. One benefit of this ethical theory is that the utilitarian can compare similar predicted solutions and use a point system to determine which choice is more beneficial for more people. This point system provides a logical and rational argument for each decision and allows a person to use it depending on the context and situation. Based on the above explanation of theory, we could say that Petricia Dunn’s decision was in favor of her corporation and its employees so she was interested in her company’s survival and growth which would result in more jobs opportunities and economic well-being of her country. As far as the employment of Pretexting is concerned, it was quite truly unethical and a violation of privacy rights. Yet, it must not be forgotten that the detectives had no option other than Pretexting in that organizational settings for reasons such as reluctance of the director to accept his blunder, chances of retaliation by employees who might not support the investigation process and would lose trust over its top management. Therefore, the detectives had to use that technique to determine the culprit behind the scenario. Similarly, Ms. Petricia should have not been forced to resign from her position of being a chairperson because she did everything in favor of HP and her sin for allowing detectives to use Pretexting as a technique could have been forgiven by the board after comparing the fact that benefits from her decision to secure HP were greater than the costs of employing Pretexting as a technique to achieve the results. References Schorn, Daniel. (2006). “Patricia Dunn: I Am Innocent”. Cbsnews.com Available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/05/60minutes/main2069430.shtml Gonsalves, Antone. (2008) “HP Settles Spying Case With N.Y. Times, BusinessWeek Reporters.” InformationWeek Available at http://www.informationweek.com/news/globalcio/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206504249   Wong, Grace (2006). “Now, HP is a criminal case” Money.cnn. Available at http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/05/news/companies/hp_california/index.htm Krazit, Tom (2006). “FAQ: The HP pretexting scandal” News.cnet Available at http://news.cnet.com/FAQ-The-HP-pretexting-scandal/2100-1014_3-6113011.html Jennings, Marianne Moody (2008). “Business Ethics: Case Studies and Selected Readings”. Pp. 184-187 Available at http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=nWZSKxfVVYIC&pg=PA184&dq=Peter+Dunn+case+of+Pretexting+at+HP&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Peter%20Dunn%20case%20of%20Pretexting%20at%20HP&f=false Read More