Editors note
Article Type: Editor’s note From: Journal of Business Strategy, Volume 32, Issue 2
Counterfeiting flourishes in the new open global marketplace, in part because consumers love their fake Gucci bags and Fendi sunglasses. Perhaps especially in the recession-battered environment of this just-completed decade, consumers who can’t afford what they used to buy are thrilled to acquire fake designer goods for a quick picker-upper. The lead article in this issue of JBSdiscusses the gap between what consumers say might reduce their counterfeit goods purchases and what managers think would work to reduce the fraud. Measures that might have an impact do exist, but business is not deploying them effectively. Consumers will probably continue to buy billions of dollars of fake products and proudly display their booty as the real thing.
Several of the papers in this issue of JBS focus on how corporate culture affects organization performance, including quality and financial returns. For many years, corporate culture, including communications, has resisted measurement and causality. But researchers now are investigating the links among certain types of corporate culture, strategy and outcomes, finding,in general, that open flexible cultures foster innovation and lead to stronger performance outcomes.
Executives and managers who wish to change their existing cultures and promote cultures more likely to yield desirable results, however, will find that revamping culture in a corporate environment is almost as difficult as in society as a whole. Culture rests upon values and behavior, which are often deeply ingrained and woven into multiple aspects of life and work. Therefore,changing corporate culture may take many months and, even when experts are managing the process, the results may be disappointing.
Our article on platform industries discusses an area that has only recently become a focus of study. We hope readers find the analysis of who wins and who loses in this modern endeavor original and useful.
