E-business fundamentals and applications

E-Business Integrity at Lockheed-Martin

The intent of this memo is to discuss the many strategies Lockheed-Martin continues to take with regard to ensuring ethical business behavior, in addition to legal and regulatory compliance. Specifically focusing on the policies and procedures of the company to ensure the integrity and further development of best practices in ethical use of e-business activities, this memo highlights the steps Lockheed-Martin has taken to become a front-runner in these specific areas of compliance to ethical standards. In addition, the stance the company has taken on intellectual property rights and the ethical use of online data collected from employees' use of e-mail and Web browsing are also presented. Recommendations for improving these policies within Lockheed-Martin are also presented in the final section of this memo.

Lockheed-Martin's Defining Best Practices in Online Ethics

For many companies in the Aerospace and Defense (a&D) industry the ethical challenges of selling to foreign governments and winning contracts over competing vendors located in these host countries leads to bribery and unethical offers of assistance in an attempt to win new business. The many ethical lapses of Boeing including their many harassment scandals (Atkins 2006) have become common knowledge, with extensive U.S. government of the entire a&D industry occurring as a result. Lockheed-Martin has however been cited by researchers including Pollach (2003) for their open and upfront attitude to defining their ethical position online, and reinforcing it with their many online initiatives and communication strategies. Further, Lockheed-Martin has also created a series of best practices on the topic of compliance over and above the minimum requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002). This effort is described in detail by Brian Sears (2006, July), detailing how Lockheed-Martin specifically dedicates resources and time internally to seek out processes and procedures that could potentially lead to non-compliance and lack of adherence to their ethical guidelines, over and above SOX reporting requirements. Lockheed-Martin was one of the first companies to require intensive training for all associates, and is often recognized for creating one of the most comprehensive ethics training programs of all a&D companies. Lockheed-Martin requires all employees to attend annual ethics training courses, regularly audits ethical practices of online initiatives, and holds continual ethics training courses. The company also has multiple communication vehicles available to employees to report unethical behavior including e-mail, telephone and mail channels to communicate ethical violations. Those reporting do not have to identify themselves, and cannot be held back from reporting by their superiors either. These points are from a comparison article of ethical programs written by Charles Fombrun, Christopher Foss. (2004). In summary, the a&D industry has been plagued with many ethical violations over the last twenty years, yet Lockheed-Martin is clearly committed to leading best practices in terms of compliance.

Intellectual Property Rights and Ethical use of Online Data

As Lockheed-Martin continues to pursue best practices in compliance to ethical and regulatory requirements, must also guard its intellectual property online and in its many electronic forms. The company's efforts to sell globally make this aspect of their ethics and online initiative programs noteworthy according to Saywell (2002, May). The use of online initiatives to protect intellectual property rights online, in addition to the protection of line data is well documented in the analysis completed by Sears (2006, July) and Pollach (2003) as well. Lockheed-Martin uses a series of proxy servers to protect online data, and also verify identifies before secured areas of the company's website are accessible. In addition the company relies on higher-order security and authentication technologies as required by the U.S. Government to ensure data used on government contracts is not compromised. The company also has a series of governance processes in place to ensure that intellectual property is not compromised over the Internet as well.