Assessing the impact of using the Internet for competitive intelligence

The Internet, as an information-rich resource and an interorganizational communications tool, has transformed the way that firms gather, produce and transmit competitive intelligence (CI). Yet, there is little empirical work on the impact of the Internet on CI and the subsequent effects on the organization. This study fills that gap by studying downstream impact of Internet usage on both CI and the organization. A questionnaire survey is used to gather data for the study. The findings indicate that research and external use of the Internet is significantly related to quality of CI information. However, the relationship between internal use and quality of CI information is not significant. The study also provides empirical evidence that quality of CI information is positively related to organizational impact. Implications of the results are discussed.