When are you allowed to share private information about a company that could be potentially damning to them? I'm not talking whistle blowing, nor anything that would need a confidentiality agreement, but little things that paint a big picture of the company.
My dad works at a print shop that also acts as a warehouse for a big local bank. The bank doesn't house just the stuff printed and sold by the shop, but also numerous items that the bank buys from outside companies and has shipped to the shop. As such, we get to see what types of items they buy. Mostly, it's just annoying that my dad has to act as middleman for their toilet paper (the bank has recently built their own warehouse, but has not transferred the items they were already storing at the shop).
The questionable information we have is that they had the choice to buy American made pencils or Chinese pencils. For two cents less per pencil, they went with the Chinese ones even though they are of known lesser quality. What would be the ethical thing to do? I mean, I could tell people what this bank chooses to do, but at the risk that they'd see it as a breech of implied confidentiality. And really, while I think that this bank in particular are annoying, the odds are that my own bank does something completely similar to some other print shop and also buy their pencils in China.
So I guess the answer to this ethical question is for me to do exactly this. Tell the public that there's at least one bank doing exactly what some people claim that companies would never do and let the un-involved do the "dirty work". In other words, if you have a problem with your bank buying their goods from China and other countries, ask them. Who knows, your bank might be the one I know about, and when they need more pencils they will see the error of their ways.
My dad works at a print shop that also acts as a warehouse for a big local bank. The bank doesn't house just the stuff printed and sold by the shop, but also numerous items that the bank buys from outside companies and has shipped to the shop. As such, we get to see what types of items they buy. Mostly, it's just annoying that my dad has to act as middleman for their toilet paper (the bank has recently built their own warehouse, but has not transferred the items they were already storing at the shop).
The questionable information we have is that they had the choice to buy American made pencils or Chinese pencils. For two cents less per pencil, they went with the Chinese ones even though they are of known lesser quality. What would be the ethical thing to do? I mean, I could tell people what this bank chooses to do, but at the risk that they'd see it as a breech of implied confidentiality. And really, while I think that this bank in particular are annoying, the odds are that my own bank does something completely similar to some other print shop and also buy their pencils in China.
So I guess the answer to this ethical question is for me to do exactly this. Tell the public that there's at least one bank doing exactly what some people claim that companies would never do and let the un-involved do the "dirty work". In other words, if you have a problem with your bank buying their goods from China and other countries, ask them. Who knows, your bank might be the one I know about, and when they need more pencils they will see the error of their ways.
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