Michael J. Kowalski, chairman and CEO of Tiffany & Co., the world-famous luxury jeweler and specialty retailer, wasted no time correcting what he called a "misperception" about his company's products. "Jewelry is not discretionary," Kowalski began when he recently addressed MBA students in Wharton marketing professor Stephen J. Hoch's marketing class and in four other classrooms participating via videoconferencing hookups. "It fulfills a need for human adornment."
Following a quick burst of laughter, Kowalski and the students returned to the morning's more serious discussion, a case study called "Tiffany & Co.: A New Gold Standard." Written by Wharton second-year graduate student Miriam Zalcman, the study was triggered by Kowalski's open letter advertisement to Dale Bosworth, chief of the U. S. Forest Service, published in The Washington Post on March 24, 2004.
In the letter, Kowalski criticized the government's reliance on an antiquated law used to grant approval for the development of a silver mine – to be called Rock Creek Mine – in Montana's Kootenai National Forest. Kowalski cited the environmental hazards that the proposed copper and silver mine would produce, ranging from millions of gallons of waste water to "vast quantities of mine tailings – a polite term for toxic sludge." As Kowalski wrote in his letter: "Minerals should – and can – be extracted, processed and used in ways that are environmentally and socially responsible. Government and industry each has a role to play in shaping sensible measures to achieve this goal."
Kowalski's letter, noted the case study, was not the first time the company has expressed disagreement with the federal government's decision to permit mining in environmentally sensitive areas. Indeed, over the last decade Tiffany & Co. has "expressed concern over mine suitability, antiquated federal regulation, and the responsibility of the mining and jewelry industry to promote change.
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