The State of Competitive Intelligence within. New Zealand Private and Public Sector Organisations, страница 11

In summary, it is through these relationships that Japan is able to create competitive advantage by applying:

“INTELLIGENT COORDINATION + INTELLIGENT INTRUSIVENESS

= NATIONAL COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE” (Baumard, 1993)

Figure 4.0 illustrates Baumard three levels of economic intelligence which can assist with a countries

Tertiary education institutes

As mentioned in previous sections of this report, in 1991 Hawkins (2004) was only able to find evidence of six competitive intelligence studies completed within New Zealand and of these it was only the Trengrove & Vryenhoek’s (1997) and the Fourie (1998) studies that focused on ‘competitive intelligence’.  Both these studies are academically unpublished.  

To assess the state of competitive intelligence education and awareness by leading tertiary education institutes within NZ (Lincoln, Auckland, Canterbury, Massey, Otago, Waikato and Victoria Wellington universities) for this report, a key word search of “competitive intelligence” on each of the University internet sites was undertaken.

The only universities that returned a result of programs available were:

University of Auckland: 

ƒ A review of competitive intelligence was offered as part of the BBIM–Information Management 294 paper.

ƒ A two day short course, titled “Strategic Marketing of High Technology Products and  Innovations (Auckland University, 2007).

Massey University (Canterbury):

ƒ A one day short course, titled” Wielding the Power of the Internet for Market Research and competitive intelligence (Massey University, 2007).

Victoria University of Wellington:

ƒ Competitive intelligence as a subject was offered in INFO 560 & MMIM 582 papers, with a study duration of 12 weeks in 2007 (Hawkins 2007).  However this course is 

no longer being offered as part of the Victoria University of Wellington Masters of Information Management programme. 

Similarly to the New Zealand search of competitive intelligence in universities, a sample of ten leading Japanese University sites (Ward, 2007) were assessed for competitive intelligence subjects being offered.

All of the Japanese universities include competitive intelligence as part of their tertiary education programs and core subjects.  Interesting to note, that these universities have expanded the role of competitive intelligence into other non business education studies (for example Robotics, technology design etc.), demonstrating that Japanese universities understand the importance and the role of competitive intelligence within their businesses and cultural networks.

Corporate Culture

A major shortfall of companies undertaking competitive intelligence is that competitive intelligence analysts only examine the competitor’s office locations, senior management structure, financial data and do not measure its culture or interpersonal politics (Murphy, 2004, pg 197).   Furthermore, Murphy states that corporate culture is like love, intangible and difficult to define, but is incredibly powerful (2004).  

Corporate culture not only includes its internal rules and traditional ways of working, but also includes the mindsets and assumptions of the staff within that organisation.  Kotter and Hesketh (1992) have defined four key elements (Beliefs, Values, Norms, and Behaviours) of a company’s culture and how they are interconnected.  This is portrayed in Figure 5.0 

Figure 5.0 Elements of a Corporate Culture  

Source: Murphy, 2005

The following description of each element is useful in understanding its relevance to this research: