Competitive intelligence research: an investigation of trends in the literature

: This article looked at competitive intelligence research reported from 1994 to 2014 in the ABI/Inform database to determine the development of competitive intelligence as subject field. This development can be attributed to several factors. Content analysis was used to establish research patterns and the author based the analysis on the extant literature and on the 338 articles that were gathered from the ABI/Inform database. Only peer-reviewed articles were analysed. The most popular term used in the literature is competitive intelligence, followed by business intelligence and marketing intelligence. The journals in which the articles appeared are scattered and few journals have published more than ten competitive intelligence articles. Few authors have published more than five articles.


Introduction
Competitive intelligence is not a new business activity but it is a relatively new academic study field (De Pelsmacker, Muller, Viviers, Saayman, Cuyvers & Jagers 2005, 607).The definition of competitive intelligence is a complicated phenomenon.Similar to many new study fields where coalescence around the domain and scope has not occurred, there are numerous definitions of competitive intelligence but no universal definition (Pellissier & Nenzhelele 2013).According to Pellissier & Nenzhelele (2013) a possible universal definition of competitive intelligence is: "A process or practice that produces and disseminates actionable intelligence by planning, ethically and legally collecting, processing and analysing information from and about the internal and external or competitive environment in order to help decision-makers in decision-making and to provide a competitive advantage to the enterprise." With regard to the concept competitive intelligence, "it would seem that there is no commonly accepted term for referring to internal and external intelligence required for business decision-making.Market (or marketing) intelligence, competitive intelligence, business intelligence and other terms are all used at various times to describe more or less the same concept" (Venter & Tustin 2009, 89).
Competitive intelligence is an interdisciplinary subject field (Walker 1994, 271) and according to Gabriel and Adiele (2012, 27) competitive intelligence is also studied in business management, marketing management, knowledge management and strategic management.Solberg-Søilen (2010, 201) regards competitive intelligence as a subset of integrated marketing communications and Viviers, Saayman, Muller and Calof (2002, 27) say that competitive intelligence is a marketing discipline.
According to Calof and Viviers (2001, 62) competitive intelligence is a subset of knowledge management.
There is little known about the extent of competitive intelligence research and competitive intelligence as an academic study field.This article will look at the competitive intelligence peer-

Contextualising competitive intelligence as subject field
The field of intelligence originated 500 B.C and competitive intelligence originated from military intelligence (Adidam, Banerjee & Shukla 2012, 243).
According to Powell and Bradford (2000, 184) intelligence dates back more than 5 000 years and Fourie (1999)  During the 1990s competitive intelligence grew fast but less attention was given to competitive analysis (Du Toit & Muller 2005, 321).Fleisher (2000, 14) states that the "CI boom of the last decade was driven by the increasingly widespread recognition that good information has a direct impact on the bottom line."During the 1990s research was done that present the watershed between strategic management and competitive intelligence.
Competitive intelligence is favoured at the expense of strategic management as a subject field and has evolved over the years as a result of the need for enterprises to scan the complex external environment.
According to Prescott (1999, 41)   It is difficult to quantify the direct effect of competitive intelligence in an enterprise (Kahaner 1996, 230), since measuring the benefits of competitive intelligence is more qualitative than quantitative (Industry Canada 2006, 25).
 The effect that competitive intelligence has on an organisation is indirect (Kahaner 1996, 230).
According to Prescott (1999, 39), the academic literature of strategic management did not have any impact on the development of competitive intelligence as subject field.The unprecedented growth of competitive intelligence in the last twenty years may be attributed to several factors such as:  The complexity of the external environment (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskinsson 2000, 208).
 Recognition that information has an impact on the success of enterprises (Fleisher 2000, 14).
 The increase in the pace of business (Kahaner 1996, 28).
 The increase on the availability of information due to the development of information technology (Kahaner 1996, 29).
 Recognition that competitive intelligence is an essential ingredient of effective management (Shaker & Gembicki 1999, 18).
 The need for a competitive strategy (West 2001, 28).
Competitive intelligence research has grown in prominence in the last twenty years suggesting that competitive intelligence is a separate function in an enterprise and a separate subject field (Adidam, Gojre & Kejriwal 2009, 669;Calof & Skinner 1999, 20;Fleisher & Bensoussan 2007;Kὒhn 2012).
Competitive intelligence has value to all the business activities of an enterprise and the major attraction of competitive intelligence is that it provides actionable foresight regarding competitive dynamics (Prescott 1999, 42).Only peer-reviewed journals were analysed, and not monographs and other vehicles of scholarly communication, since it is agreed that scientific journals publish a significant portion of scientific knowledge in a subject field (Bryman 2006, 115).
According to Creswell and Garrett (2008, 323)    Competitive intelligence as subject field deals with relativistic, complex and dynamic social constructs that influence a variety of contexts.More empirical surveys published in peer-reviewed journals provide the possibility to best understand and make assumptions about the complex problems of competitive intelligence as subject field.This will enable competitive intelligence researchers to address all the facets of the complex problems they investigate and will provide a potential for theory reviewed articles reported from 1994 to 2014 in the ABI/Inform database.The research question, which is the major focus of this article, is: To what extent has competitive intelligence as an academic subject field developed over the past 20 years as reported in the ABI/Inform database?The rationale of the article is to provide a lens of the development of competitive intelligence as an academic study field over the past 20 years.Insights would contribute to a generally under-researched body of competitive intelligence knowledge.The rationale of the article is to provide a lens of competitive intelligence research during a period of 20 years through which to appreciate the prevalence of competitive intelligence in economic and management sciences as it is reflected in the ABI/Inform database.
regards Porter's work on strategic management and competitiveness as the main contributor to the development of competitive intelligence as an academic subject field.Before 1980, competitive intelligence literature focused mainly on intelligence gathering for decision making and competitive intelligence as a formal function was only institutionalised as a formal function in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s (Begg & Du Toit 2007).
the research emphasis is nowadays on the strategic implications of competitive intelligence.As discussed in the previous paragraphs, competitive intelligence has traditionally been associated with strategic management and knowledge management (Calof & Viviers 2001, 62) but is nowadays a relatively new academic study field.Competitive intelligence is regarded as the crux of strategic management at an enterprise and enterprises that excel have competitive intelligence as a formal function in their enterprises.The key issues with regard to competitive intelligence research today are the development for example Weiss 2011) argue that since the late 1990's only a handful of worthwhile competitive intelligence books have been published.Despite its growing popularity dissenting views still linger today.Weiss (2011) argues that the potential contribution of competitive intelligence is often oversold.The other criticisms of competitive intelligence are as follows: When these professionals complete a Masters or Doctoral degree, they usually publish an article on the research conducted and valuable competitive intelligence literature can be found in the relevant dissertations and theses.To answer the research question, the author examined peer-reviewed competitive intelligence articles in the database ABI/Inform published between 1995 and 2014 and considered the following terms: business intelligence, competitive intelligence, competitor intelligence, marketing intelligence, strategic intelligence and technological intelligence.These terms were published in the title or abstract or subject fields of ABI/Inform.Pendlebury (2010) recommends that when determining the research impact of a subject field, at least five years of research published in publications, should be analysed.Content analysis of the articles was used to establish research patterns of the subject field competitive intelligence (Harrison & Reilly 2011, 10).
database from 1995 to 2014 to determine the extent competitive intelligence has developed as an academic subject field.The domain of competitive intelligence is broad and competitive intelligence is an interdisciplinary subject field.The articles published are mainly descriptive in nature, followed by case studies and few empirical studies were published.Most of the competitive intelligence articles are published by individual competitive intelligence professionals.Few authors have published more than five articles and few journals have published more than ten competitive intelligence articles.Content analysis was used to establish research patterns and the author based her analysis on the extant literature and on the 338 articles that were gathered.Content analysis is not without pitfalls and the research could have benefited from a triangulation of research methods.For example, interviews with the 17 authors who have published more than five articles might have provided insights that have been obscured by content analysis.The interviews might have revealed a deeper understanding of trends in competitive intelligence research.This limitation of the research is an opportunity for further research.

Table 4
also includes the h-index, which is an indicator of the impact of the publications of an author.

Table 4 :
Number of citations of peer-reviewed articles

Table 5 :
Median number of pages for articles retrieved from ABI/Inform for 1995-2014