Should the Theft of valuable Secret Business Information Be Considered Legally - Essay Example

Should the theft of valuable secret business information be considered legally the same as the theft of military information? Introduction Organizational knowledge refers to the knowledge that is unique to an organization and which is used to enhance its competitive advantage. The mightiness and superiority of nations is most of the times measured according to the strength of their military and in extremely few cases is it measured in terms of economic developments (Nonaka 14). The competitiveness of an organization is largely based on the organizational knowledge that is contained within its human resource. Even though the organizational knowledge is far much valuable than it can be quantified in terms of daily output, when properly and fully exploited can enhance the competitiveness of that organization by saving on time and the amount of resources used (Choo 608). Since it is considered a crime by most of the nations to have military knowledge, attack or defense maps being stolen, and yet they have extremely few in terms of returns, the theft of business plans and ideas should also be considered a crime. According to U.S commerce secretary, many business corporations face risks of cyber security attacks unless legislations are enacted to control such crimes. Cyber espionage has made U.S products less attractive in the international markets due to theft of intellectual property rights and business secrets. Cyber attacks have targeted every sector of U.S economy including defense infrastructures. The U.S government should enact cyber security legislations in order to secure the property rights and business innovation in the country (Nonaka 15). The ideas, knowledge and expertise that individuals possess aid them in enhancing their competitive advantage. Since knowledge refers to ideas that are workable and which when employed can transform an individual, organization or even country, it should be protected as much as possible. Countries focus more on their national security and that is why any theft of military information is considered to be a criminal offence so should be any theft of business plans or business information. With the rapid growth of globalization and the link that is associated between economic growth and military, governments should come up with regulations that aim at protecting valuable business information that is held by individuals, organizations or even countries (Chen 280). As already mentioned, there are strong ties with economic development and military prowess in that the more developed a country is in terms of economy the higher chances of developing or acquiring stronger military equipment. Information that is held by an individual is also referred to as tacit knowledge and it is in most cases intangible and extremely difficult to communicate or even to be stolen (Nonaka 16). Tacit knowledge is usually contained in the brain of the holder hence the reason why it is difficult to be stolen. Tacit knowledge is usually associated with the experience that a person has gained for doing something repeatedly and over extensive period of time. This form of knowledge does not require to be guarded by law since leave alone being stolen; it is hard to have it communicated ( Choo 611). Explicit knowledge refers to the knowledge that has been codified and swiftly passed from one person to another. In Military this is the kind of knowledge that when stolen it is referred to as legal. Missile designs, attack plans, and defense plans among others are usually some of the military information that has been codified and which can be stolen (Chen 81). In other words they form some of the military information that has to be extremely protected otherwise when stolen can create a lot of national security concerns. Individual knowledge can either be explicit or tacit. Explicit means that the information is still within the person’s mind while explicit means that the person has already been documented some where only that it has not been shared with any other person (Nonaka 16). Just like it is within the military, research studies have shown that individuals who gain breakthrough in certain research issues do not share that information with others with the aim of ensuring that they hoard to reputation rewards. Even though holding onto information and especially that has been developed as a result of collaborations between many organizations or individuals from different states can be hard to protect it under any law, efforts should be made at least for organizations or individuals who feel their information is under threat (Hannah 72-73). Looking at the practices of the military, the most secure way of storing information is by ensuring that it is known to as few people as possible (Levin 1480). This is because even though military information is most of the times well guarded, and people of the public as well as those who are in the military know that is secret, there are times when some of it has leaked to the public but also to the hands of the enemies. This means that it is extremely hard to protect information that is explicit and the best way is when as few people as possible know about it. Coming up with policies, regulations and laws to ensure that theft of business information is regarded as illegal will not eradicate the vice totally but will play a big role on reducing its occurrence (Hannah 74). Since nowadays global competition is more economic as opposed to military protecting business information under the law would be a significant boost that will ensure that individuals, organizations and countries greatly benefit from the information that they have. In incidences where the business information that needs to be safeguarded has been developed by several members of an organization, it is hard to fully trust them (McEvily, Perrone and Zaheer 93). This is because members have been found to trust one another in terms of competence but trust only themselves when it comes to personal interests. In other words, while conducting the research none of the members tend to doubt the competence of the other but when it comes to think about the benefits that are associated with the outcome of the research they begin doubting one another ( Choo 619). Research studies have shown that one way of ensuring that explicit knowledge and especially that could benefit organizations or individuals in an economic manner is safe is by the use of transactive memory system (Levin 1480). This is a system that I applied to manage who knows what and who else know who knows what. This is the principle that is used I the military such that in the event there is leakage of information, then it can easily be traced to where it was leaked, stolen or sold and to whom. With government rules and regulations put in place to strengthen such a principle then economic information can be secured (Hannah 79). As already mentioned, economic empowerment goes hand to had with military empowerment and some of the information that could be thought to be economic in natured could turn out to be of significant concern as far as national security is involved (McEvily, Perrone and Zaheer 97). For example, now that the whole world is looking for greener, cheaper and sustainable means of producing energy, and a person through research finds out a means which turns out to be a viable business plan that ends up being stolen. It would a big concern to the government if the same technology is modified and turned into military weapons especially if it was stolen by enemies. In other words, there would be no legal ground that the government can use to claim that the technology was developed in their country. Conclusion In a recap, it is extremely essential for the government to come up with legislation that will protect economic ideas the same way that military information is protected. There are three forms of knowledge, tacit knowledge which is found within a persons mind and which cannot easily be communicated or stolen, explicit knowledge which is the knowledge that is codified and can easily be communicated and stolen and personal knowledge which can either be tacit or explicit. Explicit knowledge should be the one greatly guarded by law since it can easily be communicated, stolen and implemented even with the absence of the owner. By coming up with regulations, theft of knowledge will ever be eradicated but will only be minimized. Works cited Chen, N. K. Andrew and Edgington, M. Theresa. Assessing value in organizational knowledge creation: Considerations for knowledge workers, MIS Quarterly, 29.2, (2005) 279-309  Choo, Chun Wei. The strategic management of intellectual capital and organizational knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 Print. pp 608- 630 Hannah, R. David. “Should I keep a secret? The effects of trade secret protection procedures of employees’ obligations to protect trade secrets”, Organizational Science 16.1 (2005) pp 71-84 Levin, Z. Daniel. “The Strength of Weak Ties You Can Trust: The Mediating Role of Trust in Effective Knowledge Transfer”, Organizational Science, 50.11 (2004) pp 1477-1490 McEvily, Bill; Perrone, Vincenzo and Zaheer, Akbar. “Trust as an organizing principle”, Organizational Science 14.1 (2003) pp 91-103 Nonaka, Ikujiro. "A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation," Organizational Science 5:1 (1994), pp. 14-37. Read More