Intelligence as a discipline, not just a practice

This paper is a call for a new research agenda for the topic of intelligence studies as a scientific discipline counterbalancing the present domination of research in the art of intelligence or intelligence as a practice. I argue that there is a need to move away from a narrow perspective on practice to pursue a broader understanding of intelligence as an organizational discipline with all of its complexities where the subject is seen more critical and is allowed to reflect on itself as a topic. This path will help intelligence academics connect to theoretical developments gained elsewhere and move forward, towards establishing more of an intelligence science. The article is a critic of what the author sees as a constructionist line of thinking. Instead the author presents a theory of intelligence as learning how to “muddle through” influenced more by organizational theory. The author also argues for an independent scientific journal in Intelligence [article was originally presented in 2009, before the appearance of JISIB].


Introduction
In this paper I'm discussing two different perspectives on intelligence research: intelligence as a discipline (1) and intelligence as an art (2), where I argue that both are in need but that research on Intelligence as a discipline is underdeveloped.The current focus on the art has created a strong insider perspective that limits our understanding of what the intelligence domain contains, does and mean to organizations.
In accordance with this reasoning I start by suggesting a more critical stance towards the intelligence cycle (IC), the most used model for explaining intelligence as an example illustrating what is lacking with the arts perspective.IC has clear deficits as it supports a false belief; that an ideal informative flow not only can be created but is of importance to organizations.The false belief that results from this thinking leaves us with an array of Available for free online at https://ojs.hh.se/Journal of Intelligence Studies in Business Vol 5, No 3 (2015) 47-54 intelligence challenges unaccounted for when theory does not fit with reality.
The continuous use of the intelligence cycle is puzzling, but can be explained by its conceptual values (It's easy-to-use and understand) and that it works as a symbol bringing legitimacy both to those organizations implementing formal intelligence activities and to intelligence professionals who aim to manage this idealized informative flow.
I argue that there will never be a true science of intelligence until the field opens up to other research questions and traditions than those currently in favor.Several initiatives can support this development, where I hope for the development of arenas that will allow more dialogue on the topic of intelligence to prosper.To find and agree upon a term depicting our new perspective for the study, free from the narrow focus in use.My suggestion is organized intelligence work.Researchers adhering to this call will strengthen their positions as intelligence academics, counter-balancing the present domination by intelligence scholars.
In addition I argue that we must accept different and complimentary perspectives on the discipline of organized intelligence work.Instead of just supporting formal decision making through an informative flow apparent in the IC, it's possible to view organized intelligence as a discipline for supporting ideal organizational thinking, thus helping to improve the competiveness of the organization (cf.Hoppe, 2013a).Viewing intelligence in different ways will enable researchers to move beyond the focus on a limited number of models, where the IC is a good example.

Research as we know it
Discussing intelligence research one often comes to the conclusion that the present status is everything but satisfying.Solberg Søilen [2005:16] however writes, "The study of private and public intelligence has barely started as a positive area of a research, 'a science' probably being too big a word."Many researchers claim that there's lot to be done.There are often arguments for a more systematic research [e.g.Ganesh, Miree and Prescott 2003;Svensson Kling 1998], more quantitative studies [e.g.Calof 2006], or just better research [e.g.Fleisher, Wright and Tindale 2007].However, there are fewer suggestions as to what this new and better research may be.
Some research areas are also neglected.In the Call for papers to this conference the third European Competitive Intelligence Symposium.(ECIS) in Stockholm 2009 one could read "there has been a tendency to focus on the larger enterprise such as multinationals, with less attention being paid to business development and business creation, or entrepreneurship."And it could be added non-profit organizations and NGO:s.
According to these examples, it seems apparent that there's a need for more (and better) research.But to me, this picture of an immature field of research is not acceptable.The most prominent problem is, in my judgment, that the current research paradigm has limited itself to the art of competitive intelligence and is constructed too close to practice.
The effect is a prevailing emphasis on practicehow to do and organize intelligence -and insufficiently on the creation of organizational theories -what intelligence means and do to organizations.Not to mention societal effects due to the continuous expansion of organized intelligence activities.The current research tradition creates results with only limited value to those researchers and laymen who are not familiar with the subject of intelligence.It neglects the larger issues.
One might argue against this that we have at least over the years developed a deep understanding of how we ought to do intelligence, but I'm not that sure that this is true.Even though current research is focused on how-to-do-intelligence, too often presented studies fall back on definitions of the art that are not solidly grounded in science.Instead the study remains too much of a management practice unconcerned with its internal logic as long as it sells consultant hours.
The abyss of the problem is apparent when for example Jonathan Calof [2006:11-12], summarizing an academic track on a SCIP conference, stating that there is a need to investigate what intelligence managers actually do and that "it's been suggested that the [intelligence] model may be prescriptive, not descriptive."To me this is not only a suggestion but a fact, and in that perspective Even though I agree to some extent with this description, I'd like to pose two questions: Is this all that intelligence does to organizations, and does it really support all kinds of decisions?These questions are of course rhetorical, but still important as they question the normal way of defining intelligence.Intelligence and those creating it does a lot of other things in and with organizations, but current descriptions of intelligence as decision support tend to limit the intelligence subject to more formal decision-making, leaving all other kinds of organizational perspectives unaccounted for.
From this brief overview we can derive a possible explanation to why intelligence appears to be prescriptive instead of descriptive, and why this creates problems for researchers.As long as we chose to describe intelligence in the context of formal decision-making, intelligence will be nothing less than the logic and deductive result derived from an idea that organizations are the result of formal decisions.Intelligence will in this perspective be explained as the process that makes formal decision possible, feeding correct information to the decisionmakers in order for rational choice to be a correct assumption.
Theories come before empirical data, which in consequence allow a poor fit with reality.As a consequence we will only be able to study those aspects that theory permits us to study, at the same time we will be blind to aspects that are not accounted for in the theories guiding our understanding.This deductive way of reasoning favor those aspects that are apparent in the intelligence cycle, the model that comes with favored theories.It will not give a viable account of reality, which is where most research is conducted, why it will also give researchers problems in handling data that do not comply with guiding theories.
For those who still like to limit the field of intelligence to this restricted view on knowledge, the value of formal decision-making has long been discussed and questioned since the upspring of empirically based decision making theories in the late 1950's.Lindbloms [1959] article The science of muddling through and March and Olsens [1979] garbage can theory are just starting points of a discussion of how organizational decisions are really made.We could also add Simons [1945Simons [ , 1982Simons [ , 1991] ] extensive work on bounded rationality leaving all humans with just one option: to seek satisfying decisions instead of ideal decisions.What these theories are saying is that rational decisions can't be made.They are ideals resting on obsolete perspectives on organizations that surfaced about 100 years ago with Weber, Fayol and Taylor.The only places where we find them are in our dreams; and in textbooks on strategy, Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel [1998] would add.
To resolve this troublesome situation we'd better accept the limitations of formal decision-making [see e.g.Brunsson 2002;Mintzberg 1973;Mintzberg et al. 1998], but also accept that most decisions inside organizations are of other types, as Lord and Maher [1991] argues.Besides this, focusing on decisions we will not fully understand what other organizational activities are in need of intelligence, and how they are related to one another (see Hoppe, 2013b, for an example of how scouting is related to intrapreneurship).
Of course there are still formal decisions, and they do count.But, according to my research (interviewing different intelligence professionals and their clients for my PhD) the big formal and strategic decisions are exceptions to the rule.
What my research has brought into light is that the art of intelligence, just like the art of management, is the art (not science) of "muddling through".It's focused on the everyday troubles of the intelligence clients where the intelligence staff struggles to make their clients take more contextual aspects into account in their work, instead of relying on their present limited understanding of things.
It's also a much more symbiotic relationship where information not only is retrieved, analyzed and disseminated.Instead, information is shared in a two way game, and analysis is created within conversations expanding beyond the formal intelligence discipline.As an example, one of my informants let the analysis evolve through letting it pass through different discussions where each discussion added different perspectives to the analysis but also helped to decide what the next step would be and who else to involve.At the same time those involved shared their information and ideas (aka knowledge) of the subject at hand, and in this manner created a common and actionable understanding of aspects important for the organization.

An ideal way of organizational thinking
Judging by my empirical data a complimentary view of what intelligence professionals actually do is to say that they are supporting an ideal organizational way of thinking.This is a thinking that will contribute to the wellbeing of the organization, which can be defined in three dimensions:  Think beyond what's happening right now.
Expand your reasoning into possible future developments. Think beyond those aspects closest at hand and the actors and organizations that are directly affected by each issue.Expand your reasoning to aspects, actors and organizations that are indirectly affected. Think beyond your own and your organizations' interests.Judge the situation from several perspectives and chose the path that's the best for your organization, not for you.
Through their actions, products and tools intelligence professionals I studied aim at making people expand their reasoning in these three dimensions: beyond their own bounded position in time, room and interests.But it's also about making their clients aware of their shortcomings, to never be satisfied with their present understanding of things, and acting to do something about it.The products, the artifacts of intelligence, are just tools to accomplish this changed reasoning.Just because intelligence artifacts exist doesn't mean that they have a real value as ends in themselves.They are means not ends.Regretfully we are likely to view them as ends if we rely on models like the IC for describing intelligence (as many do, according to Ganesh et al. [2003] andTreverton [2004]).
Relying on the IC, it's quite easy to argue that the effectiveness of intelligence can be found in its material output (reports, dissemination), as the cycle defines intelligence as a production process.It's a seductive stance that invites us to think intelligence can be easily described, controlled and measured.As this view rests on an assumption of disciplinal rationality and control one might also claim that intelligence professionals set to work in this process are neutral, putting together objective intelligence for the outspoken need of others.But once again, these are ideas that crumble in contact with reality.All people who deal with information are limited to their own bounded abilities to search, value and analyze information [Simon 1945[Simon , 1982[Simon , 1991]].But that's not all, where Jeffrey Pfeffer [1992] writes: "Our belief that there is a right answer to most situations and that this answer can be uncovered by analysis and illuminated with more information means that those in control of the facts and the analysis can exercise substantial influence.And facts are seldom so clear cut, so unambiguous, as we might think.The manipulation and presentation of facts and analysis are often critical elements of a strategy to exercise power effectively.[247][248]" This is a most troublesome statement for those who believe that intelligence professionals serve decision-makers with non-biased information and analysis [e.g.Furustig and Sjöstedt 2000;Murphy 2005].But if we instead chose to see intelligence professionals as organizational agents for an ideal organizational thinking this problem ceases.According to this perspective intelligence professionals are aiming to influence and power.They are trying to manipulate the information to make their clients change their thinking, reaching beyond their present understanding of things.
My informants engage themselves in war games and workshops.These two examples can be viewed as most effective tools to reach the main objectives of intelligence: to help people think and act better to make better decisions.This is the true mission of intelligence work, not the production of intelligence artifacts.
Viewing intelligence as something that goes beyond the material output and the clear-cut boundaries of the intelligence discipline will open up unexplored dimensions of intelligence.Dimensions that will add to our understanding of what intelligence managers exactly do (to comment on Calof's statement above) and what intelligence does to organizations.These dimensions have no definite end, and intelligence will accordingly never be fully explored, not to say easily defined and measured.

"Intelligence is bubbling"
This calls for another note of caution as most writers in the field of intelligence indirectly suppose that the art of intelligence is restricted to those who have it in their job descriptions.This is not at all true, as I argue above.But I'm far from the first to notice this.John Prescott wrote this 20 years ago [Prescott and Smith 1989] but has also been touched on in later studies [e.g.Gibbons and Prescott 1996].Even more explicit in Sven Hamrefors [1999] who forcefully argues that all people inside an organization seek the meaning in their specific situation creating their own intelligence if no one else helps them with it.
Unfortunately these studies are more or less neglected by researchers.What this research tells us is that intelligence is created everywhere."It bubbles", as one of my informants put it, continuing to explain that it was her job to support this bubbling intelligence.And this is not a small remark at the side of the page.What this tells us is that we can't restrict the intelligence subject just to those who have it in their job descriptions.All employees work to improve their information sets.Al employees are thus working with intelligence.This is the true face of intelligence work, not formalized Business Intelligence Teams etc.
Furthermore it also tells us that at least some intelligence professionals right now strive to support the creation of useful intelligence wherever it might surface.Stating this, it becomes apparent that we no longer can limit the creation of intelligence to some specific formal unit and the use of intelligence to some other formal place.Because if we do, we risk adjusting empirical data so it will fit with our theories or we sell consultancy ideas that will never be implemented because organizational life is never like that.
To raise the stake I'll argue from my observations that for most organizations informally constructed intelligence is much more important than formal intelligence [see also Gibbons and Prescott 1996].This is mainly because informally constructed intelligence is created closer to the user, those who are supposed to act on it.Acting is much more dependent on what we feel and think and not on socalled impartial information, especially if it comes in writing [Brunsson 2002].
With reference to Hamrefors [1999] it can also be argued that informal intelligence activities always precede formal intelligence.Therefore it's not surprising that most of my informants actively seek to involve their clients in the analytical processes of intelligence.Remember, the intelligence processes and artifacts are just tools to support and strive for ideal organizational thinking.To make the organizations members do intelligence, and do it better, is inside the normal definition of the job.
The intelligence I'm describing is the intelligence carried out in live organizations, not theoretically organizations.The live situation is what real intelligence professionals adapt to.They do not adapt to artificially prescriptive ideas of how intelligence is supposed to work according to dominating theories on intelligence.
Furthermore, intelligence is in its adaption a much more emergent task than planned.My informants are pretty much left to themselves to create results that make a difference [see also Treverton 2004, 106].To view them as simply answering to the commands and whims of formal decision makers is not to make them or their profession justice.This is actually also one of Benjamin Gilads [2008] main points when he spurs the new intelligence professionals to go for the fun.
6 The importance of water But how does this agree with the normal way of describing intelligence?Can intelligence still be regarded as restricted to intelligence managers preparing analytical support for formal decisionmaking?
With this question comes a choice.It's quite possible to answer "yes", but with this yes comes an obligation to clearly state that the knowledge searched and gained is only viable within a restricted part of a wider field of research.Those who pursue this path cannot at the same time state that they cover the whole intelligence field.Those who make this choice will also be of little help building an intelligence science, covering other aspects and perspective on intelligence that their outspoken position will hinder them to acknowledge.
As I've argued a more becoming answer is "no", as this will allow us to explore intelligence more candidly.Unfortunately there are many writers and researchers who don't agree with me, where the most outspoken seem to be Benjamin Gilad [e.g. 1988Gilad [e.g. , 1996Gilad [e.g. , 2003]].Even though Gilad often takes a pragmatic stand, his writing usually revolves around formal structures for the creation of formal intelligence for formal decisions at the top levels of organizations.
To carry it further, Gilads works can be viewed as important contributions in a writing tradition that focus on practical advice and analytical aspects of intelligence, according to Solberg Søilen [2005].With this I agree, but I must disagree when Solberg Søilen asserts that we should stick to this tradition in building an intelligence science, especially as Solberg Søilen states "It should be a positive science in the sense that it should not mix science with too much philosophy."[Ibid:14] On the contrary, if we want a true science to emerge we need to accept different philosophical foundations for its knowledge constructs.But that's not all.There will never be a true science of intelligence as long as researchers fail to recognize the existence of different knowledge interests, and/or just keep researching the art and discipline of intelligence.The problem with this path is that it most likely will hinder those pursuing it to create a fertile distance between themselves and the subject they are researching.
As a lot of intelligence research is constructed today it lacks in independence from the practice and in consequence will never gain the trust of academia at large.The how-to-do-intelligence tradition of the field has created an insider perspective that works like a paradigm for how to think and do research on intelligence.Of course people, especially on the inside, might call this a science, but this doesn't mean that those on the outside will agree.
The media theorist Marshall McLuhan [1995:35] once said: "we don't know who discovered water, but we are pretty sure it wasn't a fish."Building on this metaphor it can be argued that as long as most researchers are swimming in the same water as the practitioners, they will never be able to discover how much the water's influencing both their perception and their chances to give a viable account of what intelligence is really about.
Of course there are a lot of good things to be known about the swimming habits of fish, but it will not tell us anything useful about the water or how seagulls regard fish (except that fish better stay clear of the surface).What we need is a reflective division between the practice and the science, where we once again can use the idea to divide between the topic respectively the art and the discipline.
To find ideas about how to make this division we can learn from others who already have done it.My suggestion is that we turn to the subject of marketing.One of the problems slowing down the process was that both practitioners and researchers shared the same theories, models and concepts but due to different knowledge interests put different meanings to the symbols and words used.Tufvesson illustrates this clash of contexts in figure 1. Due to this conflict a lot of time and energy was wasted in disputes over how marketing was to be approached and understood.A conflict that in retrospect could have been resolved sooner if those involved would have shown a more benign attitude towards one another's thinking.

Marketing as a topic
Theories/ models/ concepts

Actor context
Over the years more and more researchers took an interest in marketing, more business schools put marketing on their curriculum and after a while independent periodicals emerged.These periodicals were very important as they allowed researchers to develop their ideas independent from more practical demands from marketing professionals.
Today a situation has developed where business schools, according to Vironmäki [2007], incorporate both "marketing academics" (focusing on marketing as a topic), and "marketing scholars" (focusing on marketing as a discipline).Both are in need as they serve different knowledge interests, Vironmäki concludes.
I believe there are some important things that the field of intelligence can learn from the development of marketing.
First, we must accept that the process of creating a science will take time.
Second, there is most likely a need of both intelligence academics and intelligence scholars, and both have a rightful place in the business school environment not to mention creating knowledge about intelligence.A clear division between scholars and academics is to be regarded as a theoretical simplification for the sake of argument.
This also poses a question how these two balance today?Judging by my research, most of contemporary writing focuses on the art of intelligence, not the science, and therefore can be classified as knowledge constructs for intelligence scholars.The writings and knowledge for intelligence academics are thus in wanting.The situation is worsened by a limited amount of intelligence academics, but also through the lack of independent periodicals and conferences where the topic of intelligence can be discussed without the influence of the more practical aspects and concerns Fleisher, Wright and Tindale [2007] touches upon the problem with present intelligence writing when they encourage researchers to produce better articles: "The field would be better served in both the short and medium term [...], by articles appearing in well-established disciplinary and cross-disciplinary outlets.It could be argued that until, and unless, high level research is carried out and published through well-accepted or well-read outlets, CI will never achieve its place at the board table or in the curriculum of degree-based programs at top business schools.[44]" Although the authors solution is to make intelligence studies fit into already existing outlets, they indirectly argue that most intelligence research today haven't got the right qualities for getting published elsewhere than in SCIP's periodicals.
Another way of putting it is that most of present research isn't interesting enough for other academics.It fails to connect.SCIP's ongoing project of redesigning the Journal of Intelligence and Management, so that it will become more accepted in academia, is a most welcome initiative.[this was written in 2009, before the journal was closed] But, I must regretfully admit that I do not think this will do at all.As long as SCIP is mainly a practitioners' organization, there will always be restrictions for its periodicals to become the main arenas for discussions on the topic of intelligence.
I also like to stress that I don't suggest that neither SCIP nor its periodicals should change.The point is instead that those of us who are interested in the topic of intelligence can't expect someone else to do the job for us.Instead we have to form our own forums but also start to question existing and limiting ideas of the field, the normality that is maintained by the prominent inside perspective.Those who adhere to this call will at the same time attract attention to themselves, and in due time an avant-garde of intelligence academics will form.9 Coming to terms with organized intelligence work Returning to the example of marketing, intelligence is not a field that has come together over one single denominating term.Numerous are the discussions if the intelligence field should be labeled competitive intelligence, business intelligence or something equivalent.
I suggest that we leave all the existing labels of the art to the practitioners.Instead we, the intelligence researchers, have the opportunity to find a term of our own.A term that separates the academic field from the intelligence practice, but also allows us to embrace all intelligence activities that are carried out regardless of the label.Let us focus on what's actually being done instead, and find a term that describes what we study.
My own suggestion is that we should use the term organized intelligence work.Today this term is unaccounted for and relates to one of the first (and still viable) academic works on intelligence: Harold Wilensky's book Organizational Intelligence -Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry [1967].Unfortunately Wilensky's term organizational intelligence is used in a discussion about organizations displaying human like intelligence (smartness), constraining the direct adoption of this particular term.
Picking up the term organized intelligence work we will also free us academics from unnecessary restrictions that epithets as "business" or "competitive" brings to mind.Hence giving us a chance to research the field without being forced to accept, or worse adapt to, current definitions set by practitioners.
10 Out of the water Taking this necessary step out of the water, addressing questions about the meaning of organized intelligence, I've conducted an extensive reading of current CI-literature and literature on organization, decision-making and leadership.
In addition I've collected empirical data of intelligence from four different Swedish multinational companies.These studies were carried out in 2003 and 2006; encompassing twenty semi structured interviews.The final results are presented in my thesis The myth of the rational flow [Hoppe, Myten om det rationella flödet, 2009] October 2nd.Some of the arguments I've put forward in this paper are based on this research and writing, but there is more to be extracted.
I've already discussed the idea of ideal organizational thinking and touched upon the idea of ideal informative flow.I will now expand a bit on the latter as it can help us understand why many organizations use the IC to explain why they chose to implement organized intelligence activities.In this discussion I'm distancing myself from the intelligence discipline, getting closer to the topic of intelligence in general.
11 The idea of an ideal informative flow Supposing decisions makers knew what they needed to know, that sufficient intelligence could be collected to fulfill these needs, that all organizational interests could be satisfied in each decision, that decision makers could agree on the meaning of the collected intelligence and gain a common understanding of things, and that the rest of the organization easily would adhere to the decisions taken -only then would the IC give an exhaustive description of how intelligence is created and used.
As both practitioners and academics know, these occasions are rare.Still, many organizations use the IC for explaining the adoption of intelligence, and one might ask why.
New institutional theory will provide us with an appealing answer.All organizations are in need of symbols that tell their interest holders that the organization is run in a rational way and that the management is in control [Brunsson 2002;Meyer and Rowan 1983;Powell and DiMaggio 1991;Røvik 2000;Sjöstrand 1997].To implement intelligence describing it in accordance with the intelligence cycle -as a discipline for formal decision-making -is just the type of easily used symbols of rationality organizations crave for.That the true organization and true intelligence doesn't live up to this ideal is of less importance to an organization in need of legitimacy.
To the intelligence professional the IC also comes in handy to describe what intelligence conceptually is about and why intelligence professionals, like themselves, are important to the organization.
According to my research these are the most important aspects (besides the un-reflected tradition) explaining the continuous use of models like the intelligence cycle.In this respect the IC follows a political logic, not the logic of empirical description.As the intelligence cycle, the idea of an ideal informative flow, has political value it will also most likely live on for a long time.What we, intelligence researchers, should do is to accept this, but also to recognize that we need other complimentary models and descriptions of intelligence work: models and descriptions that will give us the freedom to develop an empirically grounded intelligence science based in reality, not how things are supposed to be, or we wish they were.The new intelligence science must be descriptive.
12 Summaries In this paper I've compressed a vast and difficult discussion that revolves around some problems with contemporary intelligence research but also the possibility of forming an intelligence science.
With inspiration from the emergence of marketing I've suggested that our understanding of intelligence can become better if we work together exploring the topic of intelligence in all its complexity, hence building a foundation for intelligence as a discipline.
Doing this, the first step would be to acknowledge the existence of different, but still, legitimate knowledge interests and the second to find a term that depicts the unit of study for those interested in researching intelligence.For this second purpose I promote here the term organized intelligence work.
We also need to find other models and perspectives on intelligence that will allow us to view this most important organizational phenomenon in new more realistic ways.The prevailing reliance on models like the IC is most unfortunate as it rests on theoretical ideas that exhibit severe drawbacks when confronted with empirical data and observations.To solve this situation I suggest we'll pay less attention to the material output of intelligence and instead focus on intelligence as a tool for supporting better organizational thinking.
new tool for competitive advantage, New York, NY: American Management Association Gilad B (1996)

Figure 1
Figure 1 Tufvessons model describing the clash of contexts in the development of the marketing subject (Tufvesson 2005: figure 1.1, my translation) Competitive Intelligence : Gathering, Analysing and Putting it to Work, London: Gower Publishing/Ashgate Publishing Pfeffer J (1992) Managing with Power : Politics and Influence in Organizations, Boston, Mass.: HBS Press Powell W W and DiMaggio P J (1991) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis,