Sep
15
The Ethics of Jumping Ship in Silicon Valley
Posted by: douglasfeltham | September 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Recently there has been a shake up in the world of IT management when the CEO of HP Mark Hurd left under a cloud of potentially falsified expense reports and sexual harassment suits. Then weeks later Mark Hurd was given a job on the board of Oracle a competitor of HP. Although whether or not he gets the job is up to the California court system the question I want to ask is whether what Mr. Hurd did is ethical for a manager. The ethical dilemma in this case is that in his potential new role on the board of Oracle he might disclose trade secrets gleaned at HP. I think in this case what he did is ethical for two reasons. First is the way he left HP. He did not chose to leave the company and when someone is pushed out, expecting them to not try to find work is unreasonable. This move was not opportunistic on his part. In a wider sense however it seems unreasonable to put to many restrictions on executives changing jobs. Although in a case like this the executive in question might have to refrain from voting on certain issues, in an era of lessened job security, and a more fluid labour market they should be able to work.