Consider the following situation: You are the HR manager at a medium-sized business and the company’s executives have decided that they must cut the workforce by 5%. You don’t want to layoff anyone, so you

“leak” information to a few people in the company that layoffs are imminent, hoping that this might motivate some employees to find jobs elsewhere. If people end up leaving on their own, you will not have to implement layoffs. Do you think that this is an ethical use of the grapevine? Why or why not?