Employee Activism

Liz O’Sullivan, an employee at a fast-growing technology company called Clarifi, had a moral dilemma: She disagreed with Clarifi’s decision to sell its image-recognition technology to the U.S. Department of Defense for possible use in weaponized drones. This case examines her career to this point and the potential ways in which she can address her concerns. The CEO has been receptive to her ideas, but there is little chance he will cancel the contract. She can either continue to advocate internally, or she can quit. If she quits, she wonders whether she should leak the details of the contract—and her decision to quit—to the media. The case contrasts her dilemma—in the voice-loyalty-exit framework—with that of Jack Poulson, a senior Google employee who quit the company in protest over Google's decision to build a censored search engine for the Chinese market.