Kathleen Edmond, Best Buy's Chief Ethics Officer

As the world’s largest retailer of consumer technology, Best Buy is frequently at the center of highly anticipated rollouts of the latest and greatest gaming systems, phones and computer devices. Passionate “gotta have it” consumers constantly roam the Internet looking for rumors, leaks or speculation that might help them land one of these products on launch day, before the shelves are emptied. With roughly 4000 affiliated stores and 180,000 employees around the world, it is an enormous challenge to keep all of the pertinent and proprietary details under wraps and we almost always succeed. Once in a while, however, an employee gets caught up in the excitement and – either intentionally or not – shares things not meant for public consumption.

Case in point, some proprietary information about an upcoming product introduction recently appeared on a popular Internet forum. From there, it spread to another online forum, and then another. The post provided details about Best Buy’s plans for a very high-profile launch, information that had been communicated privately within our retail channel. The blogger remained anonymous but made it clear she was a store employee and had the “inside scoop.” The situation quickly came to the attention of the appropriate team within Best Buy and, using a little investigative ingenuity, the source of the leak was identified. When confronted with the issue, the employee admitted to posting the information online and was ultimately terminated for a breach of our Confidentiality Policy.

The story doesn’t end there, though. Our vendor partner was justifiably furious about the leak, creating significant friction within a business relationship critical to both companies’ long-term success. As a result, several parties within Best Buy wanted to pursue the matter further and urged us to present the evidence to local authorities for prosecution. (Note: The employee’s actions constituted a clear-cut theft of trade secrets, a serious crime punishable by equally serious fines and jail time.) Doing so was certainly within our legal right and would undoubtedly send a strong message – both to our employees and our vendor partners – that Best Buy takes confidentiality seriously. However, as noted by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, ethics are often about not doing what you have the right to do:

There is a big difference between the thing you have a right to do and what is actually the right thing to do.

Best Buy ultimately decided that termination was punishment enough and chose not to pursue legal prosecution of the employee. Instead, we focused our energy on devising controls that will prevent similar leaks in the future. The question is, what would you have done?

1.    If it was your company and one of your employees did this, what would you do? Please explain.

2.    There is evidence to suggest the employee in this case didn’t fully understand the severity of her actions or that it was actually a crime. Does that matter? Why or why not?

3.    What if the employee had been bribed by some outside party to provide the leaked information? Would that change your point of view in any way? If so, how?

4.    Thankfully, the vendor partner trusted Best Buy to deal with the matter and didn’t attempt to pressure us into making an example of the employee. However, what if they had? Should a company ever alter the disciplinary actions it takes regarding its own employees to appease a prominent business partner? Why or why not?

(As an interesting sidebar, you may want to ponder this question in relation to the recent investment bank scandal or the ongoing BP oil spill tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico.)