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How Competitive Intelligence Rules Encourage Cheating

Harvard Business Review

Yet when it comes to lower-level employees responsible for gathering competitive intelligence, those same lawyers impose Draconian rules that prevent employees from speaking with a competitor directly, or even engaging a third party to speak with a competitor on their behalf.

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Case Study: Follow Dubious Orders or Speak Up?

Harvard Business Review

She understood that gathering competitive intelligence required “creativity”—after all, you were seeking information that your rivals wanted to keep private—but this seemed like it might be crossing the line. “When I saw him speak, he talked about how important ethics were in this field.”