An examination of the professional literature reveals a wide a variety of competitive intelligence (CI) practices, including those which might be considered unethical. Some CI reference books label unconsented-to surveillance as a questionable activity. But others argue CI professionals should be able to engage in certain forms of misrepresentation in order to gain information about a competitor, as long as the misrepresentation does not harm others by forcing them to participate in activities that violate their ethical duty. Because of competing viewpoints, it is imperative that the profession develop its own sense of ethics. Moreover, CI professionals can find guidance in corporate codes of conduct-and make significant contributions to the ongoing development of corporate codes. 1 0 i w 6 John W ~C Y & jonc. IIN
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In a recent survey of nienibers of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), Prescott and Bhardwaj (1995) found that 35% of the respondents indicated that there were ethical problems in their industry, and another 20% were unsure of ethical problems in their industry. Additionally, the survey found that only 38% of the firms in the sample had a fornial code of ethcs governing their conipetitive intelligence (CI) activities. Paine (1991) voiced a concern that there is a "darker side" to the growth of the business intelhgence industry; questionable collection methods have increased in use in the past decade.
The purpose of this article is to offer a review and discussion of ethical issues confronting the CI profession. It is