Austin Confidentiality Agreement: Fill & Download for Free

If you're in to mobile, Mutual Mobile probably takes the cake. I've met a few of their engineers and know a couple people that interned or work there now and they all seem to love it. I'm an Android developer, so my bias favors this :POthers:* Blackbaud (though they need to address why everyone thinks they only hire female interns)* HomeAway* Indeed* Spiceworks* RetailMeNot* I'm sure I'm missing someThere's a lot of other companies, but many of the big ones tend to mainly be non-developer jobs. Dropbox famously announced they were opening an Austin office and made a big fuss about it, only for all the jobs to be business/marketing related.IBM and ARM are big names, but I've yet to hear anything positive about working at either.There's of course a lot of smaller companies/startups, but many of them rub me the wrong way for a number of reasons:* Taking themselves way too seriously* Want to chat? Sign this confidentiality agreement first* Hiring "interns" as a form of cheap contract labor* HI I'M A RISING BUSINESS MAJOR BUILD MY IDEA FOR MEIt's mixed bag. I've really only heard good things about the few I mentioned at the top. Generally though, you're not going to see nearly the same amount of "cool" companies as you would in, say, Silicon Valley/Seattle/NYC.That said, Austin is a great place to live and I miss it dearly. If you find a place there that you think you'd enjoy working at, by all means give it a shot. I currently work at a startup called Flipboard in Palo Alto, CA. I like it a lot here and am happy with the decision to work in this area. If they suddenly decided to relocate to Austin though, I would do it in a heartbeat.

If you resign, is a confidentiality agreement enforceable if they tell you company information after resignation?It doesn’t matter if it is enforceable or not. Ethically, you should keep the agreement except in very specific cases. Legal action against you by a company can be very painful whether you are right or not. Read the fine print in your contract if you have one.

This is a great question and can be answered on a multitude of levels depending on the current status of a company’s CSR initiatives. It’s important to clearly understand CSR, have support from leadership, have a focused objective, know your customer/consumer and continue to monitor and manage the progress of the initiatives. I’ll focus on one key area, collaboration, and elaborate with a specific example of Starbucks and how the company utilized these practices to achieve better CSR, in addition to challenges that companies may face as well.One major activity that can drive success of CSR is collaboration between firms. According to “The Sustainable MBA: Second Edition” by Giselle Weybrecht, “Businesses are coming together in networks at the local, national, and international level to share best practices and lessons learnt, to create minimum standards and to push the agenda forward. In fact, a lot of the progress being made is because of the increase in strong and meaningful collaborations.” This may occur between multiple firms with shared interests or through a firm and a single or multiple NGO (non-governmental organization).Different firms have found success through each type of collaboration strategy. For example, according to the article, “The Role of Collaboration in Achieving Corporate Social Responsibility Objectives,” by John Peloza and Loren Falkenberg, McDonalds and Unilever have found CSR achievement/betterment through partnering with a single NGO and Starbucks has seen success with collaboration with multiple NGOs, while Caterpillar and General Motors have found success sharing collaboration with a single NGO and Nike, Eddie Bauer and Nordstrom have all worked together with multiple NGOs. Based on this article, each strategy includes, “collaboration for a broad range of CSR activities, incorporating efforts beyond monetary donations to include the development of social or environmental standards, exchange of expertise or technology for environmental initiatives, or service delivery for social initiatives.” This shows that companies must find how to best pivot, depending on how they’re currently working towards better CSR.Using Starbucks as an example to explain further, collaboration can be a major concern and challenge for larger organizations. According to Harvard Business Review case, “Starbucks and Conservation International,” by James E. Austin and Cate Reavis, while Starbucks was moving toward collaboration with an NGO, there was concern from the director for environment and community affairs at the time as she stated, “The original concern in dealing with an NGO was that the nonprofit organization should somehow expose the company. Because when you engage in a partnership, they don’t sign confidentiality agreements like that, and actually you don’t want them to. This isn't a consulting relationship where you buy somebody’s opinions and their confidentiality. They don’t work for you. They need to maintain their independence as an NGO, otherwise what they say is not really of the same value as it would have been had you gotten them to only agree to say what you’d like them to say.”The former Starbucks director continued by explaining that the Environmental Defense Fund was very professional and savvy, from a business standpoint. There was mutual trust, respect and the teams worked successfully in a collaborative environment. However, this wasn't always the case as the article explains that the relationship with TransFair and an agreement to buy Fair Trade-certified coffee didn't pan out as well. Starbucks agreed to purchase an amount that met consumer demand; however, there was pressure from TransFair to purchase larger quantities. Starbucks was concerned with the quality and demand from consumers, and didn't feel that TransFair was meeting these quality standards.When companies face challenges in collaboration for betterment of CSR, it’s important that they focus on “a more coordinated effort in order to maximize the benefits,” according to Weybrecht. Additionally, showing leadership and being influential in partnership with other companies will also help reach CSR objectives. Weybrecht writes specifically about large companies, such as BT, IKEA, Google and Unilever, which all signed a “joint declaration urging the European Union to set tougher climate change goals.” Though not all business leaders would agree with this type of action being taken, one cannot argue against power in numbers.More information can be found in Weybrecht’s book, “The Sustainable MBA: Second Edition,” which I highly recommend. Furthermore, following companies that have strong CSR initiatives (regardless of your opinions on whether or not they are greenwashing) is important to understand successes and challenges among strategies. These companies include, but aren't limited to Unilever, bp, Starbucks, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, Mary Kay and Timberland.