The paper examines the ways in which the nature of the confidential information protected by trade secrets laws affect employees attitudes toward divulgence of their previous employer's trade secrets. Two dimensions were examined in this paper. The first is the relevancy of the fact that the trade secrets were stored in the head of the employee and not in her personal computer (i.e. tangibility). The second is the relevancy of the fact that the employee herself had part in developing the knowledge while working for her previous employer (i.e authorship). This examination is based both on a theoretical level and on an experimental technique. The paper starts with a description of the law and analysis of the moral perspective and the efficiency arguments with regard to both dimensions.
In a second stage the paper employs experimental approach to examine empirically what is the actual effect of those two dimensions on employees' attitudes toward divulgence of trade secrets.
The main findings of the paper are that while the effect of tangibility was significant across almost all factors measured in the study (e.g. descriptive norms, social approval, career effect, intention to share, moral norms), authorship led to a significant effect only with regard to moral norms. Based on the findings which are discussed in the paper, the paper demonstrates the potential contribution of psychological and emprical approaches to the legal anaylsis of trade secrets.

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