Global Strategic Management & Ethics
Evaluate each of the following approaches that a business firm could use to gather information about competition. For each approach, mark your felling about its appropriateness using the following scale:
1. definitely not appropriate, 2. probably not appropriate, 3. undecided, 4. probably appropriate, and 5. definitely appropriate.
The business firm should try to get useful information about competitors by:
__careful study of trade journals.
__Wiretappping the telephones of competitors.
__Posing as a potential customer to competitors.
__Getting loyal customers to put out a phone ” request for proposal” soliciting competitors; bids.
__Buying competitors’ products and taking them apart.
__Hiring management consultants who have worked for competitors.
__Rewarding competitors’ employees for useful “tips”.
__Questioning competitors’ customers and/or suppliers.
__Buying and analyzing competitors’ garbage.
__Advertising and interviewing for nonexistent jobs.
__Taking public tours of competitors’ facilities.
__Releasing false information about the company in order to confuse competitors.
__Questioning competitors’ technical people at trade shows and conferences.
__Hiring key people away from competitors.
__Analyzing competitors’ labor union contracts.
__Having employees date persons who work for competitors.
__Studying aerial photographs of competitors’ facilities.
After marking each of the preceding approaches, indicate 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1, why you thought these acts were either appropriate or inappropriate.





