Student-Faculty Publication

In April of 2023, as part of a student-faculty alliance made possible by the Hatmob Executive Board program, former student, Joshua Finkelstein, along with Dr. A.T. Vogel, Dr. Randall Croom, Dr. James Beasley, and Professor Dale Peterson, among others, published an interdisciplinary article on leadership titled, “Design Piracy: An Interdisciplinary Investigation Into Competitive Industrial Behavior,” in the Journal of Business Research, which has a current impact factor of 10.5, is rated an “A” by the Australian Business Deans Council.

Abstract

In consumptive environments where laws provide little recourse against strategic mimicry related to trademarks of design leaders, such as apparel and accessories, design piracy resulting in highly similar copies is controversial. This research investigates the effects of the practice of design leader imitation via a comprehensive framework that accounts for the consumptive environment of design piracy as well as behavioral audience response. Phase 1 reveals that the existence of a design pirate with a highly similar trademark to the leader reinforces the equity of the leader. Phase 2 investigates whether differences across audience members moderate the effects of the existence of the design pirate, finding that while the presence of the mimicked leaders does not interact with the existence of design pirates, audience integrity moderates these effects. Future research inquiring into the effects of design piracy between both smaller organizations as well as individuals within organizational systems is suggested.