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Should I Keep a Secret? The Effects of Trade Secret Protection Procedures on Employees' Obligations to Protect Trade Secrets

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  • David R. Hannah

    (Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6)

Abstract

Organizations' trade secrets (which can be chemical formulae, recipes, customer files, machinery designs, or many other types of information) are often valuable, enduring sources of competitive advantage. In this study, the influence of organizations' formal efforts to protect trade secrets on employees' beliefs about their obligations to protect those secrets was investigated. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered by means of survey interviews with 111 employees of two high-tech organizations. Employees' obligations were influenced by their levels of familiarity with, and their perceptions of the enforcement of, two types of trade secret protection procedures (TSPPs): trade secret access restriction procedures (ARs) and trade secret handling procedures (HPs). Employees' levels of familiarity with ARs were negatively related to their felt obligations to protect trade secrets, but the opposite was true for HPs: Employees' levels of familiarity with HPs were positively related to the obligations they felt to protect trade secrets. For both types of TSPPs, the relationship between familiarity and felt obligations was moderated by employees' perceptions of the degree to which the TSPPs were enforced.

Suggested Citation

  • David R. Hannah, 2005. "Should I Keep a Secret? The Effects of Trade Secret Protection Procedures on Employees' Obligations to Protect Trade Secrets," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(1), pages 71-84, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:16:y:2005:i:1:p:71-84
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1040.0113
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Hannah, David R. & McCarthy, Ian P. & Kietzmann, Jan, 2015. "We’re leaking, and everything's fine: How and why companies deliberately leak secrets," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 659-667.
    2. Barros, Henrique M., 2021. "Neither at the cutting edge nor in a patent-friendly environment: Appropriating the returns from innovation in a less developed economy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1).
    3. Hannah, David & Parent, Michael & Pitt, Leyland & Berthon, Pierre, 2014. "It's a secret: Marketing value and the denial of availability," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 49-59.
    4. Langlois, Jonathan & BenMahmoud-Jouini, Sihem & Servajean-Hilst, Romaric, 2023. "Practicing secrecy in open innovation – The case of a military firm," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    5. Müller, Dirk, 2010. "Alliance Coordination, Dysfunctions, and the Protection of Idiosyncratic Knowledge in Strategic Learning Alliances," EconStor Preprints 41039, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Dai, Yanke & Du, Ting & Gao, Huasheng & Gu, Yan & Wang, Yongqin, 2024. "Patent pledgeability, trade secrecy, and corporate patenting," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    7. Zobel, Ann-Kristin & Lokshin, Boris & Hagedoorn, John, 2017. "Formal and informal appropriation mechanisms: The role of openness and innovativeness," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 44-54.
    8. Delerue, Hélène & Lejeune, Albert, 2011. "Managerial secrecy and intellectual asset protection in SMEs: The role of institutional environment," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 130-142, June.
    9. Seip, Marcel & Castaldi, Carolina & Flikkema, Meindert & De Man, Ard-Pieter, 2018. "The timing of trademark application in innovation processes," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 72, pages 34-45.
    10. Gallié, Emilie-Pauline & Legros, Diégo, 2012. "French firms’ strategies for protecting their intellectual property," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 780-794.
    11. Bos, Brenda & Broekhuizen, Thijs L.J. & de Faria, Pedro, 2015. "A dynamic view on secrecy management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 2619-2627.
    12. Sofka, Wolfgang & de Faria, Pedro & Shehu, Edlira, 2018. "Protecting knowledge: How legal requirements to reveal information affect the importance of secrecy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 558-572.
    13. Fedorenko, Ivan & Berthon, Pierre & Edelman, Linda, 2023. "Top secret: Integrating 20 years of research on secrecy," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    14. Robertson, Kirsten M. & Hannah, David R. & Lautsch, Brenda A., 2015. "The secret to protecting trade secrets: How to create positive secrecy climates in organizations," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 669-677.

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