E-Business Integrity at Lockheed-Martin the Term Paper

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.

Opportunities for Improvement

Lockheed-Martin has set the pace in many areas of ethics compliance, regulatory compliance to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements, in addition to ensuring all employees have been trained on ethics processes and procedures once a year. With the best practices the company has pursued, there is room for improvement as well.

First, the company needs to actively pursue creating an employee portal that shows graphically how Lockheed-Martin is doing on compliance relative to its competitors, including having an Ethics Champions program to recognize those employees who have made recommendations to save the company money while also increasing compliance to the SOX Act and government reporting requirements. Recognizing exemplary performance over and above what is required from employees will also further drive ethical behavior into a core value for the company as well.

References

Atkins (2006) - Boeing and Toyota Beef Up Training in Response to Recent Scandals. August 4, 2006. Shanti Atkins. Accessed from the Internet on November 6, 2007 from location:

http://harassmenttraining.elt-inc.com/2006/08/articles/-federal-harassment-training/boeing-and-toyota-beef-up-training-in-response-to-recent-scandals/

Charles Fombrun, Christopher Foss. (2004). Business Ethics: Corporate Responses to Scandal. Corporate Reputation Review, 7(3), 284-288. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 763999691)

Irene Pollach (2003). Communicating corporate ethics and the World Wide Web: A Discourse analysis of selected company Web sites. Business and Society, 42(2), 277-287. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 347640861).

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) - U.S. Senators Sarbanes and Oxley. Passed in 2002 by both U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. Text viewed on the Internet on November 6, 2007:

http://www.aicpa.org/info/sarbanes_oxley_summary.htm

Trish Saywell (2002, May). Gunning for growth. Far Eastern Economic Review, 165(18), 30-32. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 118428466).

Brian Sears (2006, July). A CULTURE of ETHICS and INTEGRITY: LOCKHEED MARTIN MOVES BEYOND SARBANES-OXLEY and the SENTENCING GUIDELINES. Journal of Organizational Excellence, 25(3), 27-36. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from…