A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

ETHICS, HONOR, INTEGRITY, AND THE LAW ■ 119
4. The competitor’s representative is coming to a local college to
recruit employees. Researcher poses as a student job-seeker in order
to learn recruiting practices and some other general information
about the competitor.
a. Would your company use this technique? Yes / 33%
b. Would you personally use this technique? Yes / 38%
c. Do other companies use this technique? Yes / 81%
5. The researcher is asked to verify rumors that the competitor is planning
to open a new plant in a small southern town. The researcher
poses as an agent from a manufacturer looking for a site similar to
the one that the competitor supposedly would need. Researcher
uses this cover to become friendly <strong>with</strong> local representatives of the
Chamber of Commerce, newspapers, realtors, etc.
a. Would your company use this technique? Yes / 36%
b. Would you personally use this technique? Yes / 36%
c. Do other companies use this technique? Yes / 80%
6. Researcher corners a competitor’s employee at a national conference,
such as the one sponsored by the American Marketing
Association, and offers to buy drinks at the hotel bar. Several drinks
later, the researcher asks the hard questions.
a. Would your company use this technique? Yes / 63%
b. Would you personally use this technique? Yes / 60%
c. Do other companies use this technique? Yes / 91%
7. Researcher finds an individual who works for the competitor to
serve as informant to researcher’s company.
a. Would your company use this technique? Yes / 35%
b. Would you personally use this technique? Yes / 36%
c. Do other companies use this technique? Yes / 80% 3
Without doubt, a great many of these techniques were being used
twenty-five years ago. These techniques, called “pretexting,” were all considered
legal at the time. However, in the Hewlett-Packard case of 2006,
the Chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, discovered that pretexting might not