Even Better Than The Real Thing Case Study

Better Than the Real Thing?

This paper concerns the case study entitled, Even Better Than the Real Thing, found in the textbook, Business Ethic, by Brusseau, (2012). The case study discusses the website Finerbags.com, a website that openly sells counterfeit bags; copies of popular luxury bags including, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada. In this paper, I will contemplate the issue of honesty an d how it relates to Finer Bags and their corporate culture. Next, I will examine corporate cultural dissonance and whether it is suspected to be present in the practices of Finer Bags. Then, I will apply a utilitarian argument to justify the practices of Finer Bags and companies like them that produce counterfeit items. Finally, I will offer an argument against the business practices at Finer Bags and others in the same field.

Finer Bags, at the time of the case study, presented itself and the work it does in a straight forward way without falsifying their business practices. In this way Finer Bags offers themselves honestly, the problem arises once you consider the actual work being done. Finer Bags produces counterfeit bags, a practice which is innately dishonest. Counterfeiting products, is to benefit from the work of others for example, for every luxury bag that is made and sold there is a large workforce employed. From the designers and marketers, to the stichers and material acquisitions department, companies like Louis Vuitton spend a lot of time and resources to ensure their product is of a high quality and their brand provides consumers with confidence and reassurance that the bag they buy is worth the price they pay. Finer Bags is both honest and dishonest in their corporate culture; dishonest in what they do, but honest and open in revealing that they