[raganwald]

There's a certain 4 trillion dollar financial services firm I know. They operate like this at a country level: each country is graded against the others on an elaborate score card. The idea is that when a country finds an innovative way to "win" one year, althe others can use the idea the next year.

Only, the winning countries try (nicely) to sabotage the sharing process. For example, Country "U" outsourced part of their self-service web applications to a nice fellow I know living in Country "C." Although it is not in writing, the understanding is that if he so much as has a coffee with anyone from that company in Country "C," his home town, he is out of work.

Furthermore, the Country "C" guys don't really want to hire him, they're afraid he'll report what they're doing back to Country "U," so when they ask him out for coffee, all they really want to do is dangle contracts in front of him while pumping him for information under the guise of establishing his experience.

It sounds like a cheap spy novel, but it's business as usual when some bright person at the top decides that a little competition is healthy :-)