| Competitive intelligence (CI) is both a process that transforms disaggregated information into actionable strategic and tactical knowledge, and the end product or output of that process. In the field of strategic management, very little attention, if any, has been given to intraorganizational CI processes. The broad purpose of this dissertation, therefore, is to better understand how CI is handled, processed and used internally. The study is motivated by (a) lack of both substantive and measurement streams of research on CI, (b) reports from consultants who feel that most of the intelligence needed by an organization is available internally, but does not always reach decision-makers who need it, and (c) experiences of organizations which have experimented with new CI systems, but have achieved mixed success in integrating CI related activities with the decision-making process.; This dissertation conceptualizes the process of CI as occurring through two "parallel processes," the formal and the informal, and "integration of intelligence" available from the parallel channels is viewed as a necessary and central antecedent condition for having an effective CI system. Preliminary studies undertaken to design the research study indicated that the extent of integration achieved is, to a large extent, a function of four types of factors which impede or facilitate the flow of intelligence. These were construed as being behavioral, political, systemic and interpretive in nature. Given this conceptualization, the focus of this dissertation is on (a) development and validation of constructs that capture these four broad factors, and (b) test of inter-relationships among these and other constructs like "integration of intelligence," "perceived task effectiveness of CI," "perceived psycho-social effectiveness of CI" and "usage of CI."; The research framework for the study was refined through an in-depth field-study conducted with CI practitioners. A self-administered mail survey was used to collect data for the main study. Questionnaires were sent out to 744 members of the Planning Forum (now the Strategic Leadership Forum). After two rounds of mailing and one round of telephone calls, 364 usable responses were received back, for a response rate of 48.5%. Exploratory factor analysis and LISREL algorithms were then used to test measurement models of the constructs. They identified the best indicators for the constructs from among the observed variables and described their measurement properties.; Key findings of this study indicate that the four types of factors (behavioral, political, systemic and interpretive) can be adequately captured in the form of eight sub-constructs, and that these eight sub-constructs are significant predictors of integration of intelligence. Integration of intelligence is a significant predictor of perceived task effectiveness of CI, perceived psycho-social effectiveness of CI, and usage of CI. In addition, variables "sophistication of CI-related activities" and "presence/absence of a champion of CI" were found to be independent predictors of integration of intelligence.; These findings provide a sound theoretical and methodological grounding to a largely practitioner-dominated research area. The findings are used to develop a shorter, rapid-assessment instrument that identifies and measures the strength of facilitators and barriers in actual organizational settings. This shorter instrument is a tool for CI professionals to gauge the extent of integration taking place in their organization, and to identify the types of barriers/facilitators that need attention in their organization, so that appropriate actions can then be taken to harness the two parallel channels in an efficient manner. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
