Terri L. Rittenburg
Lynne, who had just received a master’s degree in marketing, was in her first professional marketing job. Although she’d been prepared to move to another city, she landed a position in her hometown with a nonprofit organization. Her title, Marketing Specialist, entailed working with various people in the organization to market its services to various client groups. Lynne was excited about putting her training to work and considered herself a “one-woman show” for marketing within the organization. It was up to her to determine where market research was needed, how to promote the organization and its programs, and how to evaluate the success of its marketing efforts, both in traditional media and online platforms.
Lynne had joined the local American Marketing Association chapter and served on the board as membership chair. She found this a good way to network with others in the community and also to learn about what marketing practitioners were discussing at the chapter meetings.
In addition to some of the marketing faculty from her university, she met a number of people from local businesses. Lynne was impressed by Judy, a marketing department professional at a large pharmaceutical company. Whereas Lynne was somewhat introverted and worked at being more outgoing, Judy was poised, confident, and seemed to be a natural leader. Judy was elected president of the AMA chapter, and Lynne was pleased to serve on the board with her.
After about a year on the job, Lynne decided it would be useful to take additional courses in research methods. She had taken at least one class in marketing research, but believed that enhancing her skills would assist in the market research necessary to do her job. In fact, she worked with several people at the nonprofit who were pursuing doctoral degrees on a part-time basis.
Once back in the classroom, she started thinking about doing the same thing herself, and soon was admitted to a marketing Ph.D. program, which she was able to attend part time while working. Although her job was full time, some of her classes were at night, and even in semesters when they were not, she was allowed to arrange her work hours around one or two classes per semester. Lynne’s Ph.D. program adviser, Dr. Milbank, was not only an excellent academic scholar, but also an upstanding professional and role model whom she trusted.
Lynne juggled her job, studies, and work on the AMA board; she enjoyed all she was doing. She was single with no family of her own and found her life challenging and fun. Through her involvement with the AMA chapter, Judy became an informal mentor to her. Judy was a member of an ethnic minority, and Lynne learned that she had faced some racism by colleagues at the pharmaceutical company, though no blatant discrimination during her core job function.
She exuded self-confidence and business acumen; her positive attitude and strong work ethic, under the circumstances, seemed all the more impressive.
One day Lynne was at her desk working and received a call from Judy, who explained she needed to do some research on a competitor Judy asked, rather casually, whether she could use Lynne’s name as a student to ask for the information. Lynne was taken quite by surprise. She trusted and looked up to Judy and never would have expected such a request.
She was on the telephone and needed a response. What should she say? She stalled for a few moments by asking what kind of information Judy was trying to obtain. Though Lynne was using the time to think, it was clear Judy wanted proprietary information that the competitor would never give to her if they knew who she really was. If she were a student working on a project, the company might be more forthcoming. Lynne recognized that she was a neophyte working in the nonprofit sector with no real corporate experience. Maybe this was just “business as usual.” Was she overthinking the situation? Maybe she should help out her mentor.
She quickly tried to recall the framework one of her professors had provided regarding questionable and illegal methods of competitor intelligence (CI) gathering. She remembered a Leonard Fuld quotation, because it had seemed funny when she read it, but now it had newfound meaning to her: “To learn about the spy business, do what I do: pick up a Le Carré, Forsyth, or Ludlum novel. There is fact behind the fiction.
Just don’t apply too much fiction to the facts of your business.” Although she didn’t know much about the Strategic and Competitor Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) organization, she had heard of it, suggesting that this was a common enough problem that an organization was formed to encourage professionalism and a code of conduct to provide guidelines for conducting CI activities. She spent a few minutes on the Internet to learn more about industry norms and standard practices.
Lynne had stalled as long as she could. Since she had high regard for Judy and the call caught her by surprise, Lynne asked if she could call Judy back the following day. In the meantime, she thought over the request and wondered whether it would be appropriate for her to contact the company because Lynne was in fact a student. Lynne also had time to consult the SCIP website and found these guidelines listed there (see Table 4.1).
After a restless night’s sleep, Lynne knew that she needed to phone Judy the next morning. What should she say in response to Judy’s request? Should Lynne make the call to the competitor as a favor to Judy? Should she acquiesce and let Judy use her name? What would her professor advise? Should she call him before responding to Judy? Should she ask for more time to think about it? Or was the fact that she was experiencing uncertainty an answer in itself?
Questions
How would you answer the questions posed at the end of the case?
What issues arise with Judy’s request of Lynne? Is there an ethical dilemma here? What ethical principles from Chapters 1 and 2 relate to this case?
Who are the stakeholders? And how should Lynne assess the situation?
How does the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) Code (Table 4.1) relate to this case? Which bullet points might help Lynne in deciding what to tell Judy?
