The Make, Buy, or Steal Decision: Entrepreneurial Piracy

What is it about?

When firms require new resources to create a new product or service or to enter a new market, they face a decision regarding how to acquire those resources. Traditionally, this decision has been discussed as the "make or buy decision" that involves the choice between creating those resources internally or buying them from an external market supplier. Our research considers a third alternative to this decision, namely, the decision to steal the necessary resources. Using a case study example from the National Basketball Association (NBA), we demonstrate the market conditions that can generate a "steal decision" and how such a decision is legally executed.

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Why is it important?

Many examples of entrepreneurial piracy exist in today's global economy from computer software piracy, to file-sharing music websites, to illegally downloaded movies, to actual piracy occurring in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. We consider the theft of an NBA franchise, the Seattle Supersonics, as yet another example and a pertinent case study for the phenomenon of legal piracy.