Top Managers Networking Influence on Competitive Intelligence Practices: the Case of Hi-Tech SMBs

Abstract

Introduction While the functions and the operational dimensions of intelligence networks in corporate competitive intelligence practices have been clearly defined and distinctly explained in management literature, the relationship between the social capital of top managers and the level of development of said practices has never been dealt with as a research topic in its own right. Starting from this observation, the aim of this paper is to fill this gap by studying the influence of top management's social capital on the development of competitive intelligence (CI) practices in SMBs. The interest of this study is to scientifically corroborate or refute the decisive role, which has until now only been intuitively asserted, of top managers' social capital in the development of CI in their firms. To do this, we will start with an overview of literature on CI and social capital before defining a theoretical model correlated around four hypotheses. Secondly, the field of study and the sample designed to test the hypotheses are presented. The methods used to test the model are based on a PLS approach with particular attention devoted to defining the epistemic relation between constructs and their items, the methods used to confirm measurement instruments and the test protocol for the structural equations model. Finally, a third section is devoted to results confirming the model, based on a sample of ninety-three SMBs in the west of France. These results are presented and discussed in terms of their contributions and limitations, as well as avenues for further exploration. Competitive intelligence within SMBs: from a structured paradigm to versatile and plural practices While CI is traditionally defined in the literature in reference to practices in large companies (Bournois & Romani, 2000), that is to say, as a full-fledged approach based on the structured organization of three functions--scanning of the environment, protection of intangible corporate assets and influence on the environment--recent research concerning CI in SMBs (De La Robertie & Lebrument 2008, 2009, 2010) reveals that top managers in SMBs are aware of the stakes and contributions of competitive intelligence in increasing their firms' performance and competitive edge. This awareness goes hand in hand with the absence of a structured approach, i.e. formal processes coordinated by and around a central system ensuring control. Thus SMBs develop and update a mix of disparate CI a hodgepodge of surveillance activities, lobbying, protection and security procedures and influence initiatives that are more or less coordinated and involve more or less all employees. Indeed, CI practices in SMBs are not partial but versatile in that they can serve several purposes depending on the processes involved and where they are deployed (De La Robertie & Lebrument 2008, 2009). In this sense, we have observed that the CI practices studied seem to extend well beyond the conceptual field in which theory would confine or even deform them. While the literature on CI (Larivet, 2004; El Mabrouki, 2007) insists on the important role played by information networks within the firm--to the extent they contribute to the intelligence and influence process--the place and role of managers' social resources in the context of an organization's CI practices remains to be explained. Indeed, these studies confer a distinctly significant role to managers' social resources in the development and updating of these practices, specifically in the context of intelligence and influence processes. Organised around the development axes of the firm, the manager's social networks constitute both a means of collecting various sorts of information--eventually transmitted internally to all the persons concerned or interested--and directly or indirectly relaying lobbying initiatives aimed at serving the organization's interests. In SMBs, the social capital of top managers therefore appears to work like a catalyst, triggering certain CI practices. …