Amajor department store chain has a strict policy of banning photographs or videos of its sales floor or back-room operations. it also does not allow academics to conduct studies of it for publication in research journals. in fact, some of its own top managers refer to the management's policies on secrecy as "verging on paranoid." these policies indicate that the top management of the firm believes the organization's core competencies are:

imitable

Explanation:

Imitable means their core competency can be imitated by other companies which may put them at a lesser competitive ability.

Core competency of a company give it a competitive advantage but when these are copied by other companies then their competitive advantage get weakened.

Every company wants to be exceptional in such that no company does what they do in the way they do it ( so that they can succeed in the business market ) , hence we see the company above keeping everything in confidential.

They don't even allow academics to do research and right about their operations because that will expose the way they do things hence risking their operations being copied by other companies .

answer; the edward snowden leaks of nsa classified material;