Ethical Issues And Competitors

Presented By:-
Siddhartha Goyal
Paukhanmang Khaute
 Ethical Issues And Competitors

Ethical issues in dealing with competitors can relate to two distinct

problems :-
a) Overly aggressive Competition.
b) Insufficient competition.
 Overly Aggressive Competition

Where a company goes beyond acceptable behavior in its direct relationship with a
competitor , thereby harming the competitor in a way that is seen as unethical.
 Problems of Overly Aggressive Competition
a) Questionable Tactics
b) Private or Confidential Information
c) Public Interest
 Questionable Tactics

Questionable tactics may take many forms, from the clearly illegal, such
as:-
a) Breaking and entering a competitor’s office to steal information.
b) Installing tapping devices, to rather more grey areas.
c) Infiltrating competitor’s organizations with industrial spies, Etc.
 Private or Confidential Information

Private or confidential information may refer to any kind of information

which the organization feels should not be freely available to outsiders
and which therefore should have some kind of moral or legal protection.
 Public Interest

Public interest issues can arise when the information gleaned through
espionage is put to purpose such as :-
a) Anti-competitive behavior.
b) Deliberate removal or ruin of competitors.
c) Price hikes.
d) Entrenchment of a monopoly position.
 Dirty Tricks
Dirty tricks can include various tactics such as:-
a) Negative advertising : Where the firm deliberately sets out to
publicly criticize their competitors, their products, or any product or
performance claims the competitors may have made.
b) Stealing customer: Where a rival’s customer are specifically
approached in order to encourage them to switch suppliers,often
using underhand methods.
c) Predatory pricing: This involves the deliberate selling of prices
below cost in order to initiate a price war and force weaker
competitors out of market.
d) Sabotage: This can take many forms but basically involved the direct
interference into a competitor’s business in order to obstruct, slow
down, or otherwise derail their plans.