Corporation Liability Case Study

Corporation Liability
Third, as an employer, CS had a legal duty to supervise its employees and is responsible for the acts performed within the scope of employment. This is known as the doctrine of respondeat superior according to Nowak (1999). When employees participate in torturous or criminal activity, the company is primarily responsible from these illegal acts and can be held legally accountable for the employee's wrongdoing unless it can be proven that the employee acted clearly out of the scope of his/her job. According to Nowak (1999), "the doctrine of negligent retention forces employers to analyze their potential liability when they allow the Internet into their businesses. This doctrine requires employers to remedy improper activity

Zavoina (1998) notes that "employees should be required to sign a statement specifically acknowledging and agreeing to e-mail monitoring...that they have read and understood your policy. All new users should be required to sign the acknowledgment prior to being granted access to the Internet" (p. 30). This will provide a record for CS which can be used as evidence that it took the necessary steps to ensure employees have a clear understanding of the policy and expected behavior. In addition, annual ethics training and an ethics' hotline can be implemented which will not only help educate and remind employees of acceptable and expected behaviors, but also give them a way to notify officials of potential wrongdoing. As noted by Lau & Johnson, people who report crime are whistleblowers and can protect potential victims or stop the wrongdoing (2014). By expanding the company's view of employee behavior through the lens of the current workforce, and offering a safe way to report wrongdoing, CS can effectively meet their duty to supervise and remedy improper employee

According to New Media Institute, employee's are often under the impression that they can post anything and be protected by their right to free speech (2012). This means that rules need to be set to prevent employees and directors from posting information that could jeopardize the company's duty of care and loyalty. These guidelines must include posting that occur outside of the workplace as well. For example, a director could post proprietary information by sending a congratulatory note employee's of the company on their success in creating a new product before it was released to the public domain, a disgruntled employee could post negative information about the company on his/her Twitter feed, or during non-work hours post harassing comments on another employee's Facebook page. When a company fails to uphold its duty of care and loyalty, it can severely damage the company's ability to remain successful due to substantial fines or the possibility of losing its charter; which is considered a death sentence to the company according to Lau and Johnson (2014). Therefore, clear social media use and guidelines must be set by CS in order to prevent such occurrences from