Hershey's ethical dilemma
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A marketing manager for Hershey's stumbled upon an important piece of competitive intelligence when visiting a local printer near the company's plant. While waiting to speak with the sales representative who handled the Hershey's account the manager noticed some glossy advertising proofs for one of Hershey's competitor's products highlighting some new lower prices. When she mentioned the prices to the printer she was told they were part of a new advertising campaign. Upon her return to headquarters, the marketing manager called a meeting of Hershey's management. As a result of that meeting, the company initiated a preemptive price-cutting campaign of its own that effectively neutralized the competitor's strategy. Did the marketing manager act ethically in reporting the information back to Hershey's? (This sounds like a simple question, but what would you really do?) Would your judgment be different if the proofs were in a folder and the marketing manager casually and somewhat inadvertently opened the folder? Was it ethical for Hershey's management to act on the information?
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Solution Summary
An ethical dilemma relating to a Hershey's manager is discussed in a structured manner in this response. The related references are also provided
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First, from the perspective of deontology, the marketing manager must follow the law. According to US law, competitive intelligence is essential for businesses to survive and means identification, compilation, and ethical analysis of Hershey's competitor's data. From the perspective of Hershey, this was a competitive analysis. The argument is that in today's dynamic marketplace remaining one step ahead of competitors can strongly impact the bottom line of Hershey. However, during competitive analysis, several actions are illegal. These include impersonating as an employee or joining the competitor as an employee and stealing information, unauthorized hacking into another corporation's computer system, and researching about competitors to tarnish their image, bribery, infringement of patents, and blackmail are not allowed (Calof, J. 2020).
In the case of the Hershey's manager, she had come across "open company data" at the printer's office, asked the printer about the new prices, and had reported them back to the management of Hershey. From the point of ...
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- BSc , University of Calcutta
- MBA, Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management
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