Explaining the Dimension of Competitive Intelligence through Utilizing Social Media Capabilities in Iran Non-Alcoholic Beverage Industry.

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Prof., Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, , Iran

2 Associate Prof., Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

3 Prof., Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

4 Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Marketing Management, Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Objective
Harnessing the intellectual power of the organization is a key to success in today's changing business world. It is important to create or acquire competitive advantage through the effective integration of environmental and organizational resources using mental and intellectual capabilities in the organizations which is called organizational intelligence. As a result, it is necessary to accurately describe the status of competitive intelligence in Iranian SMEs in cyberspace and identify and explain the dimensions of competitive intelligence in social networks, and also to identify and provide solutions to improve competitive intelligence and ultimately enhance competitiveness.
 
Methodology
The research is applied in terms of purpose and employs a descriptive approach. The present study uses online ethnography methodology. Considering the evaluation of different social networks and the low activity of companies and brands in non-alchoholic beverage industry in most of these networks, Instagram was selected for data collection during the spring and summer 2018 (depending on the time of publication of the messages). And then, the cyber pages of the active Iranian companies in the non-alchoholic beverage industry were monitored. Qualitative analysis was performed on the messages of the customers and followers. Eventually 293 comments were selected for this study. Selected comments were meaningful, authentic, and relevant to the topic. Grounded theory strategy awas used to analyze the data. Besides, manual analyses were used to increase the accuracy of the analyses.
Findings
In this study, after collecting the data, coding and analyzing the semantic interpretation and content of the comments, six main dimensions were identified as the competitive intelligence that can describe the information related to existing competitive intelligence in the selected social networks. These dimensions include: marketing intelligence; competitor intelligence; social and health intelligence; technological intelligence; and strategic intelligence. Because of the repetition ofcomments on health and wellbeing (some companies' products) as well as social responsibility (some companies), the word health has been added to the social intelligence dimension, which has been rarely observed in previous research. Interacting with consumers clearly provides valuable information about their views and attitudes.
 
Conclusion
The present study identified the descriptive characterstics of competitive intelligence in the non-alchoholic beverage industry as a problem in the social networks due to the intensity of competition in this sector. Surveys show that SMEs are much less active in social media than international companies, and there is a significant gap between the existing and the desired status. The results show that the highest frequency was related to marketing and competitor intelligence and the lowest frequency was related to technological and strategic intelligence. In other words, some of the dimensions undermined. However, "social responsibility" and "health" are among the new components identified in the present study. Besides, in the classification of the dimensions and components of this study, the “human resources” was classified as a component of social and health dimension, which has been classified within other dimensions in other studies. Due to the lack of comments on the “structural and organizational” dimension, it was not included in the identified results of this study.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Journal of Business Management
Volume 11, Issue 4
2019
Pages 742-761

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