GloStra Blog Entries tagged 'political strategy'

Lex Nokia: preventing leaks in corporate IPR vs. employee "privacy"

jaakko.aspara@hse.fi — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

The protection of corporate intellectual properties is an important issue for any firm, and particularly so for globally operating high-tech companies. Unfortunately, part of the firm's challenge is to prevent its own employees from leaking corporate information and secrets to competitors. Even if it was only a fraction of a firm's employees -- perhaps 1-5% -- who might have the unfortunate predisposition to make leaks under certain conditions, the challenge is real.

One might assume that a rather basic way of having some control on the leaking is to be alerted in case a firm's employee is sending mails to the firm's competitors. Think about it: If in year 1995, Coca-Cola Corporation's employee John Smith had every Monday an ordinary-looking mail package in the firm's outgoing mail box -- but addressed to Pepsi Co -- I guess it would have been fairly reasonable and legitimate for John's boss to ask John at some point: "What's going on?". In fact, most of us would probably have considered John's boss to be a complete ass if he/she had not asked the question.

Now, somehow some people seem to think that the arrival of a bit more modern mailing technology completely changes this picture.

I mean: Does it change the picture if John, in year 2009, sends the mail packages to the competitor through email instead of traditional mail? Is it now less reasonable or legitimate for John's boss to be alerted? I really think that no, it isn't any less reasonable nor legitimate.

Yet for instance in Finland, many people indeed seem to think that it is outrageous that firms pay attention to where their employees send emails. The debate has heated up, as the government is going it install legislation that acknowledges firms' rights to oversee the addresses of their employees' emails, sent through the corporate email system. (The law in Finland has been popularly called "Lex Nokia", since it tries to protect the intellectual properties of high-tech companies such as Nokia.)

In Finland, it will -- fairly enough -- continue to be illegal for the firm to open and read the emails, but the firm will indeed have the right to track e.g. the destination addresses of the emails as well as the sizes of the emails. This seems perfectly OK to me. If you hesitate or disagree, just ask yourself if the addition of "e" to the beginning of "mail", or the change from 1995 to 2009, fundamentally changes anything. Again, I really think it doesn't.

Some people might, of course, also be worried that their boss will pay attention to the addresses of the private emails that they send through the corporate email system. Admittedly, it might be embarrassing if your boss comes to know that you're sending regular emails to e.g. naughty.girl@escortservices.com. But then again, you might just send those private mails from your home, using e.g. a free Hotmail or Gmail account, mightn't you. After all, you wouldn't have sent those sensitive private mails through the corporate mail office in 1995 either, would you?

With Bush leaving: Losing excuses in political rhetorics?

jaakko.aspara@hse.fi — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Why the Europeans will miss Bush? An Obama presidency will be greeted in Europe with enthusiasm, but as some Europeans have put it to me, "We realize that we won't have the excuse of George Bush."... [Obama is] going to want Europe to stand up and do more... And Europeans will have a problem, in that they will embrace him, and they will not be able to say: "Well, this is the Bush administration. We have to resist."

-- Daniel Fried, US State Department. In "Welcome to My World, Barack", The New York Times Magazine, November 15, 2008, p.48

As implied in the above extract, European politicians will face a challenge after president Bush is gone: Resistance to policies coming from the US cannot be justified any more just on the simple grounds that they are Bushian.

This might be a challenge particularly for social democratic and left-wing parties in Europe (including Nordic countries) -- in case they have justified their resistance to certain taxing policies or market liberalization projects (or international collaboration projects) on the grounds that those policies/projects are Bushian ones, i.e., with the negative aura surrounding the US president.

Now, if it turns out that many of Obama's policies will not be that different from those of Bush's (at least not from European perspective), European social democrats and left-wing parties will likely be wise enough not to justify resistance to those policies on the grounds of them being Obamian. This is because Obama enjoys such a positive aura among normal people and citizens in Europea. But it also means that the politicians have to come up with new justifications..

Read more about the issue in another article of mine (in Finnish).

The use of academic research results in (political) strategies

jaakko.aspara@hse.fi — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0100

You do not have to spend much time in the USA to note how effortful companies (and sometimes also authorities, parties, and media) are in using academic research results in their political activities. Since political strategies of corporations are a topic of major research interest in GloStra (see e.g. the research area on Corporate Strategy & Society as well as Lamberg et al.'s article, and Mantere et al.'s article) let me present an illustration, an example which I ran into tonight.

The example is conveyed by a news story on CNN's website. In brief, the story describes a new study (by a research group in University of Florida) that tracked alcohol-related deaths in Alaska over 28 years. During this period of time, alcohol taxes were raised two times in Alaska, and the researchers found that after both of these tax raises, there was a reduction in the number of alcohol-related deaths. The conclusion is: "Each time the state of Alaska raised its alcoholic beverage tax, fewer deaths were caused by or related to alcohol". Or, even more simply: "Higher taxes on alcohol can... save lives".

Interestingly, the evidence from the study is, in closer examination, actually not very compelling. For instance, the 2002 tax increase was followed by an 11 percent reduction in deaths, which really is not that much if you think about it. Anything like statistical significance is not discussed at all and, frankly, I don't even know what it means that there were "21 fewer deaths per year after a 2002 [tax] increase".

But what the heck, who cares about scientific details, the overall impression is most important! As CNN is a fairly objective, well-meaning medium - not badly driven by corporate interests - the story has clearly chosen to educate Americans in welfare issues. Perhaps CNN hopes, by reporting about the study, to make public attitude more favorable (or less unfavorable) towards alcohol tax increases.

Indeed consistent with this objective, the story continues by presenting additional evidence -- this time admittedly a bit more compelling, from Finland! It is reported that in Finland, the lowering of alcohol taxes in 2003 led to 20 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths.

As a conclusion, the story cites the authors of the Finnish study: "Raising alcohol tax level has low costs and is effective in reducing alcohol consumption and thus alcohol-related harms." Simple and clear. Period.

The first lesson of this example is, thus, a general one: Academic research results can be effectively utilized in shaping public opinion. Even if the results per se are not very compelling, what matters is to present a compelling story. Also, if the latest study closest to you does not provide impressive evidence, try searching for another study from the past, perhaps even from a far-away country. (Yet be cautioned, like CNN in this story: It is careful not to remind Americans about the fact that Finland is basically a "socialist" country -- unlike one TV channel recently commented Sweden, see More about national 'competitiveness'. Such a reference would immediately make the study irrelevant in the eyes of the American audience.)

The second lesson of the example becomes clear when one reads the end of the article. There, the author of the story reports how representatives of the alcohol industry react to the study. The industry representatives come to present rather strong opinions against the conclusions of the study.

"Based on historical evidence, raising taxes on alcohol beverages would have a highly negative impact on the economy", says one industry representative. (Note the use of word "evidence", without specifying what evidence).

"Raising taxes would penalize more than 100 million responsible alcohol consumers and would not deter the few abusers, who don't cut back when price fluctuates", says another. (Note the use of a attention-grabbing figure, "100 million", as well as the addressing of Joe-the-Sixpacks, the "responsible consumers", with a fear appeal, "penalize").

"Any across the board tax increase would not target the problem drinker but would simply penalize those who enjoy wine and spirits and drink responsibly," says a thir [...]