Knowledge Discovery for Competitive Intelligence: Organizational Processes and Constraints

Knowledge discovery processes, when used to find information on competitor and marketplace activities, enable organizations to mimic their competitors and/or identify new strategic opportunities where valuable firm resources can be exploited. In this way, knowledge discovery processes can help organizations to develop valuable and unique opportunities and resources, a source of competitive advantage. However, the knowledge discovery process is embedded in and constrained by the organization’s institutional context, which impacts the interpretation of novel information. As a result, novel information that is outside an organization’s mental models, norms and assumptions may be interpreted as irrelevant, when it is in fact strategically important. This conceptual study integrates two competing theories, institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm, to develop propositions regarding knowledge discovery for competitive intelligence.