After Leaving: How to Use a Company History You Helped Create
Recently I began sorting through my old work files, hoping to find primary material I could use for research on corporate social responsibility. Almost at once I ran into a question: how am I actually allowed to use these materials?
My work at BlueCity spanned customer service, content moderation, legal, corporate social responsibility, investor relations, media relations, and government relations, as well as communication and coordination across the middle office. As a member of the founding team, I lived through the company's different stages, and much of the original material was something I took part in or produced myself. Now, years after leaving, rereading these records, I see them both as documents left behind by a company's activities and as an important basis for understanding my own working life.
What I want to study is this: starting from an individual's situation, looking back at what effects a company's activities produced, and where corporate social responsibility can actually make a difference. How customer service understands a request, how moderation judges a specific situation, how legal draws boundaries, how different departments coordinate, and whether, in the end, anyone truly responded to a person. These questions left traces in the records of past work.
But drawing questions out of the material and being able to put the material into a paper are two things that have to be considered separately.
As I currently understand the relevant contracts and agreements, including my separation agreement, none of them fully spells out the situation of organizing, analyzing, and citing historical materials for research many years later. For any particular document, the judgment still depends on the full text of the agreements, the nature of the material, and the applicable rules.
In the company's early days, records management was not especially thorough. Who produced a document, how it was classified, which materials had already been made public and which were for internal use only, what could still be done with them after someone left: these questions are scattered across different records.
I am willing to untangle these relationships layer by layer. But what about someone without experience in law, compliance, or records management? Where would they even begin?
That question turned my attention to another issue of corporate social responsibility: after a person leaves a company, how does the company help them understand and handle the materials left behind by an experience the two of them shared?
A document I wrote or compiled can carry several kinds of attributes at once. It contains my own expression and judgment; it also records the company's business arrangements; and it involves colleagues' discussions, partners' opinions, and information that users provided to the company.
So "I wrote it," "the file is with me," and "I was once responsible for this work" each describe part of the facts. None of them alone is enough to decide how the whole body of material may be used.
Copyright is one layer. China's current Copyright Law distinguishes between different situations for works created in the course of employment, and ownership of rights may also be affected by the nature of the work and by contractual terms. One cannot simply assume that everything written on the job belongs to the company; nor can one assume that, because one wrote the words oneself, all of their content may be freely published.
Trade secrets are another layer. Whether an old document still contains information that needs protecting has to be identified case by case. Whether a contract lists items one by one is not the only basis for judging a duty of confidentiality, either. The sources of confidentiality obligations listed in the current Provisions on the Protection of Trade Secrets also include, in certain circumstances, the duty of good faith, internal rules and regulations, and reasonable confidentiality requirements.
The people who appear in the materials form yet another relationship that must be considered on its own. A user who told customer service about their experience did so hoping the company would solve a problem; a colleague who voiced an opinion in an internal meeting was taking part in a discussion within a particular working context. Years later, repurposing that content for an article, a piece of research, or a school application requires a fresh judgment about purpose and boundaries. Nor can the company's consent stand in for a judgment about individuals' rights and interests.
Discussions of corporate social responsibility tend to revolve around business activities that are happening now. But after people leave, some relationships remain: confidentiality, contributions of knowledge, professional experience, historical narrative, and the rights and interests of the other people in the materials. The question is whether someone who has left can be given a clear, workable path for judging and handling these relationships.
If a person wants to study work they once took part in, they need to know whom to contact, what to submit, which materials have already been made public, which parts can be used after being processed, and which content needs further verification. When a company goes through restructuring, staff turnover, or changes in its business, this information may become even harder to find.
For example, an explanation that a person can actually understand is more helpful than a sweeping "Company materials may not be used." It can distinguish between narrating one's own professional experience, citing public information, analyzing internal materials, and content involving personal information or trade secrets. For the parts that cannot be used, it can also explain, as far as possible, why, and what workable alternatives exist.
This is also why the work of organizing materials should keep different versions, records that contradict one another, and outcomes that differ from what was originally envisaged. Research needs to explain these discrepancies, not trim them into a story that only looks reasonable in hindsight.
If a document ultimately cannot be made public, it may still point me toward rules, reports, or other usable evidence that is already public. But I cannot substitute "subject to confidentiality restrictions" for an argument, still less ask readers to accept a conclusion purely on the strength of my having been involved.
Text: Leo | Information and Corporate Social Responsibility
[1] National Copyright Administration of China, Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China, Article 18, among others. Cited to show that works created in the course of employment are subject to different rights arrangements; it does not cover a full determination of ownership for any specific document.
https://www.ncac.gov.cn/xxfb/flfg/flfg_532/202103/t20210309_50530.html
[2] State Administration for Market Regulation, Provisions on the Protection of Trade Secrets, Articles 5 and 12, among others. In force from June 1, 2026. Cited to show that trade secrets must be specifically identified and that the sources of confidentiality obligations are not limited to itemized contractual wording.
https://www.samr.gov.cn/zw/zfxxgk/fdzdgknr/fgs/art/2026/art_a89ca909478b460595670fabe02b21d3.html
[3] Cyberspace Administration of China, Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, Articles 13, 28, and 73, among others. Cited to explain the legal bases for processing, sensitive information, and the difference between de-identification and anonymization.
https://www.cac.gov.cn/2021-08/20/c_1631050028355286.htm
[4] UK Data Service, Anonymisation for text data. Cited to explain the risk of contextual identification in qualitative material; this is guidance on research practice, not a rule of Chinese law.
Theoretical extension: Garriga, E. 2014. Beyond Stakeholder Utility Function: Stakeholder Capability in the Value Creation Process. Journal of Business Ethics 120, 489–507. In this essay the capability approach is used to raise evaluative questions; it is not presented as an already validated model for governing the materials of people who have left a company.
Originally published in Chinese on leozhao.net as 离职之后 如何使用参与创造的公司历史.
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