An Exploratory Study on the Relationship between the Level of Competitive Intelligence and its Antecedents and Outcomes

Our research intends to explore how antecedents relate to the level of competitive intelligence (CI) and how the level of CI relates to outcomes. The results show that facing greater environmental dynamism and complexity, firms tend to adopt a higher level of CI, and that pursuing more of product or marketing differentiation, firms appear to have a higher level of CI. In addition, the continuous CI, the independent CI unit, the CI code of conduct, the CI support system, and the CI openness turn out to be positively associated with the level of CI. The results further reveal that the level of CI appears to have a positive relationship with discovering new opportunities and threats, discovering competitors' moves and industry trends, and supporting effective decision-making. Additionally, the results show that the level of CI tends to positively influence financial performance. Based on these findings, our research presents some important conclusions and implications.