Competitive Intelligence Review最新文献

The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (the EEA) for the first time makes trade secret theft a federal crime, subject to penalties including fines, forfeiture, and imprisonment, and greatly expands the federal government's power to investigate economic espionage cases. Trade secret theft is broadly defined to cover all acts of trade secret appropriation without authorization. The EEA was intended to fill gaps in the federal law and to create a national scheme to protect U.S. proprietary business information. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

With the opening of formerly communist economies, combined with maturing markets in developed countries, global companies are increasingly targeting emerging markets. In central, eastern Europe and beyond, markets are emerging in a region with a total population of over 400 million. But despite an educated and low-cost labor force, investors often confront heavy government bureaucracy, corruption, and raw material shortages. The limited importance placed on competitive intelligence by local businesses is also a key problem. Although the need for accurate and timely information is growing, a lack of awareness of the unknown remains a major handicap for many local business managers. Global companies with an established need for competitive intelligence often face a difficult task in gaining reliable data for decision making. Compared to competitive intelligence in developed markets, emerging markets require research briefs and methodologies with a wider scope to achieve similar objectives, with relatively larger investments in time and resources. International agencies, banks, and accounting firms can help. Moreover, local authorities, trade chambers, and other local sources can provide useful inputs and insights on their sectors. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

For trade secret owners, the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (the EEA) provides the prospect of greatly improved protection of property rights. For company employees, the EEA means more attention to defending proprietary information. For competitive intelligence gatherers—including outside consulting firms—the EEA brings new legal restrictions backed up by criminal penalties. Under the government's Federal Sentencing Guidelines, prosecutions for trade secret theft are less likely to be brought if the victim company can show it took steps to prevent and detect criminal conduct. Businesses should therefore adopt and implement compliance plans to protect their proprietary trade secrets. These plans should be designed to take account of the specific risks a company faces. Records should be maintained to demonstrate that the company took all reasonable steps to observe activity that might indicate a misappropriation of trade secrets. Ultimate responsibility for defining and enforcing compliance plans should lie with high-level personnel with authority to influence compliance in a meaningful way. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Strategic competitive intelligence is a necessity for corporate decision making in today's highly complex, “hypercompetitive” global markets, where current and potential rivals are encountered on multiple levels of competition. Key strategic decisions regarding diversification, downsizing from past diversification, and strategic alliances must be based on sound assessments of the competitive environment. Strategic CI, for example, can provide a basis for assessing the opportunities, necessities, and risks of present or future alliances, for making decisions regarding appropriate forms and intensities of present or future cooperative arrangements, and to choose among stable or variable forms of cooperation. Similarly, strategic CI can provide relevant knowledge concerning a firm's strategy-related, structure-related, and culture-related challenges with respect to diversification. D'Avini's framework of four cooperative arenas highlights why, with respect to the new competitive realities, corporate-level strategy requires dynamic, multi-level, and multi-arena competitive intelligence to identify and analyze probable threats and opportunities on all levels, and in all arenas, of competition. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Information security professionals and those they support must understand the threat to company secrets posed by foreign intelligence services, and foreign and domestic competitors, who may use legal or illegal means to acquire those secrets. Implementing protection policies and control measures to prevent the exploitation of corporate secrets requires support from senior management. An eight-step counter-competitor intelligence model is proposed for determining what information requires protection; analyzing, assessing and ranking risks; developing security controls; and conducting an effectiveness review. Once this analysis is completed, an information protection program can be developed or revised, and communicated throughout the corporation. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

In the post-Cold War era, foreign economic espionage is a looming threat. The author examines in detail the litigation options for American corporations that fall victim to trade secret theft by a foreign government or agent. These options include a request that criminal prosecution be brought by the U.S. Justice Department under the recently enacted Economic Espionage Act of 1996. The corporation itself may file a civil suit for compensation based on the common laws of trade secrets or the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, as well as the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Among the types of defendants who might be prosecuted or sued are foreign governments that steal or receive trade secrets, private individuals or companies that help a foreign government commit misappropriation, and private entities that knowingly receive the stolen information. Common “litigation shields” used by foreign governments include claims of sovereign immunity, act of state, and diplomatic immunity. Each of these doctrines is examined, and case precedents where they were upheld or found inapplicable are cited. Analyzing these precedents, the author concludes that economic espionage by foreign government agents for delivery to a commercial enterprise should not be held subject to immunity. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.