Loyalty or betrayal? Information for innovation in the organisation Online publication date: Thu, 27-Jul-2006
by Stuart Macdonald
International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning (IJTIP), Vol. 2, No. 1, 2006
Abstract: Established wisdom is that the organisation benefits from retaining information, and loses if any of this information escapes. The employee who helps guard this information fortress is seen as loyal to the organisation: the employee who leaks information to the outside world as having betrayed it. Each is rewarded accordingly. This paper argues that organisations are dependent on external information for the innovation – the change – critical to their survival. But to receive information, they must first give information. The nature of organisation and the nature of information make this information transaction difficult. Organisations are forced to rely on key employees, trading in information, including the organisation's information, on their own account. A real test of managers is allowing these transactions without interfering in them, and realising that what is currently seen as betrayal of the organisation may actually be loyalty.
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