See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/281452456

Social Media Espionage — A Strategic Grid

Chapter  in  New Technology Based Firms in the New Millennium · June 2015

DOI: 10.1108/S1876-022820150000011020

CITATION READS
1 916

2 authors:

Joni Salminen William Y. Degbey

Qatar Computing Research Institute University of Turku
78 PUBLICATIONS   342 CITATIONS    17 PUBLICATIONS   136 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Digital Marketing Research View project

LoL MENA Analysis View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Joni Salminen on 20 February 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Social Media Espionage – A Strategic Grid
Joni Salminen, Turku School of Economics
[email protected]

William Degbey, Turku School of Economics

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

The changing communication environment transforms social media as a source for obtaining
competitive intelligence on rival firms through ‘social espionage’. This conceptual paper
discusses how the competitive information in the Web, along with the trend of corporate
transparency, has created both opportunity and risk for firms in social media. Among the
opportunities, we discuss 1) tactical marketing campaigns, 2) encouraging switching behavior, 3)
identifying and targeting competitors’ weak points, and 4) learning from their success and failure.
On the other hand, we discuss how engaging in social media results in a loss of total control in
the dialogue between a firm and its customers and, ultimately, leaves a firm vulnerable to the
same opportunistic tactics it may leverage in order to draw benefit from a competitor’s social
media presence. Finally, we provide some recommendations aimed at reacting to social
espionage in the form of a strategic grid.

1. Introduction
In Wikipedia (2011), the collective online dictionary, social media is defined as any form of
online media that enables communication among individuals and organizations. Social media
enables a dialogue between firms and customers through newsfeeds and social media profiles
containing comments, discussions and other types of interaction. The foundation of social media
can be traced back to the Web 2.0 paradigm focusing on user-generated content with technology
platforms (O’Reilly 2005). Theoretically, the notion relates to the concept of customer
participation, a logic emphasizing the co-creation of value and innovations by firms and
companies together (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre 2011).
Consequently, social networks can be seen as marketing channels in which the variables of the
traditional marketing mix can be applied (Cvijikj & Michahelles, 2013). Not only they enable
outbound marketing communications, they also provide insight into consumer thinking, trends
and current topics that can be leveraged in marketing planning as a part of the inbound marketing
function. Furthermore, social media allows firms to harvest information on their competitors as a
part of competitive intelligence activities (He, Zha, & Li, 2013).
A lot of attention has been paid to positive effects of social media. However, the social media
does not only include positive aspects for firms. As one practitioner notes, “the soft and fuzzy side
of social media dominates the spotlight”. Some of the most vexing issues include showing a
1
positive ROI (Töllinen & Karjaluoto, 2011), competing against consumer-to-consumer
interactions for attention in newsfeeds (Libai et al., 2010; Goh, Heng, & Lin, 2013), and reducing
organic visibility guided by platform owners wishing to maximize their revenue by charging
companies for advertising (Stier-Moses et al., 2014). According to Heath and Singh (2012), firms
have lost the control of their message and its dispersion. Consumers communicate their brand
experiences and firms have no power in preventing these discussions taking place in social
media. Linke and Zerfass (2012) argue that the potential of social media is not fully exploited due
to lack of proper governance structures, rules and internal resources.
In particular, although social media has many offers many possibilities such as engaging with
customers and building stronger relationships, there is a “dark side”, resulting from firms’
increased exposure to competitors. Until recently the relationship between customer and firm has
remained private to a great extent. This communication has been in the form of letters, e-mails or
phone calls that cannot be accessed by competitors with legitimate methods (Garrett & Meyers
2005). The proliferation of social media, however, has exposed a central part of the customer
relationship to rival firms – the conversations between firm and its followers are public on the
Internet. As a consequence, this paper will discuss the relevance of a shift from the concept of
‘industrial espionage’ to ‘social espionage’.
This shift has not been in the focus of earlier studies. There is a need for a study that combines a
strategic approach to social media with understanding of competitive intelligence. The purpose of
this paper is to provide firms with a useful framework for approaching the issue of public
relationship information. The research question presented in this paper is: How should companies
react to public information relating to customer relationships? The research question is answered
by conceptual synthesis of strategic thinking, social media and competitive intelligence. The
main contribution is strategic grid presenting four alternative strategies along the dimensions of
“Spy – Not spy” and “Participate – Not participate”.
The structure of the paper is as follows. First, relevant literature on competitive intelligence is
discussed. Second, social espionage is presented as a concept. Third, strategic grid is presented as
a framework for reacting to threats and opportunities associated with social espionage. Finally,
the discussion section includes general discussion, theoretical and managerial contribution,
suggestions for future research and the main limitations.

2. What is competitive intelligence?

The focus of this section of the work is on competitive intelligence (CI) which is seen to offer a
useful perspective in approaching the issue of transparent relationhips. In the literature, business
intelligence (BI) is typically seen as the umbrella for all other related intelligence including CI
(cf. Lönnqvist & Pirttimäki, 2006). The concept of CI is mainly used when referring to BI
activities in North American literature emphasizing external environment and external
information sources (see Vibert, 2004; Cottrill, 1998). Contrary to the North American literature,
the European literature considers BI as a broad umbrella concept for CI and other intelligence-
related terms (Lönnqvist & Pirttimäki, 2006).
Myriad definitions and perspectives have been offered by different scholars, hence, the lack of
2
single, universally accepted conception of the term (see Pirttimäki, 2007). The use of the term BI
is not new, as Tyson (1986) already identified and stressed the continuous monitoring of
customers, competitors, suppliers and other fields in the 1980’s. According to Tyson (1986), BI is
made up of a variety of information: customer intelligence, competitor intelligence, market
intelligence, technological intelligence, product intelligence and environmental intelligence. At a
general level, BI is defined as a managerial concept or a tool that is used to manage and enrich
business information and to produce up-to-date knowledge and intelligence for operative and
strategic decision-making (Ghoshal & Kim, 1986; Gilad & Gilad, 1985). Pirttimäki (2007)
synthesized the different point of views on the concept of BI into information type, information
elements, human-source intelligence, process, measurement and technology.
It is important to emphasize that several perspectives have been offered in defining the term BI,
but the core focus of data and information analysis has remained similar (see, Casado 2004;
Lönnqvist & Pirttimäki, 2006). Scholars like Combs and Moorehead (1992) and Gilad (1996)
define CI as an alternate term for BI, whereas others such as Weiss (2003) and Mintzberg (1994)
see CI as an integral part of BI. The description of CI by Miller (2005) includes competitor and
market information as well as information pertaining to a company itself in relation to
opportunities and weaknesses. The commonality between Miller’s (2005) description of CI and
BI is the shared perspective of internal information.
Other scholars include information relating to competitive situation, competitors, markets, and
strategy (see, McGonagle and Vella, 1996). Some scholars argue that strategic information, such
as market and industry information, about competitors’ plans is much valuable than other type of
competitor information (Bernhardt, 1994) whereas Mintzberg (1994) uses the term CI
interchangeably with competitor intelligence. However, competitor intelligence is generally
considered as a sub-activity, because CI stretches beyond competitor information.

Figure 2 shows the relationship among BI, CI and competitor intelligence, and the other
intelligence-related concepts, e.g. product intelligence, market intelligence, and technological
intelligence.

3
Figure 1 The relationship between intelligence concepts

Other intelligence-related concepts are also sub-activities of BI and may well be a sub-activity of
competitive intelligence when using the definitions provided by Combs and Moorehead (1992)
and Gilad (1994).

3. Social espionage – the concept

Four major trends have created an opportunity for social espionage. The first one is the rise of
social media. Already in 1994, Cronin, Overfelt, Fouchereaux, Manzvanzvike, Cha, and Sona
predicted that Internet would become a major strategic tool for what they called “advanced
organizations”. This prediction has come true, although not all organizations are advanced in
terms of embracing new opportunities.
In a study by Lackman, Saban and Lanasa (2000), over 90% of CI specialists considered
technology as a crucial success factor of a firm’s CI function. However, Web technology has
been subject to commoditization and therefore lost a major part of its differentiating features. On
the other hand, technology commoditization has offered new tools for competitive intelligence1;
to a degree, where the focus is on correct filters to overcome information overflow issues (rather
than developing sophisticated solutions), converting the data into actionable guidelines,
operationalizing for tactical purposes and internalizing for strategic long-term decision making2.
Therefore, the value of social espionage should be obtainable in both short-term actions and long-
term planning.

1
For example, there are several affordable, easy-to-use Web 2.0 solutions for tracking social media which challenge
traditional proprietary systems provided by corporations such as Oracle.
2
“…these public sources of information may not be aggregated or categorized in a manner consistent with client
analytical needs, and the data may not be updated at regular and timely intervals.” (Fitzpatrick, 2003)
4
Second, there is a trend of transparency in corporate actions through increased pressure from
various stakeholders, such as environmentalists, shareholders and employees (Bushman,
Piotroski, & Smith, 2004); but also because some new leadership paradigms emphasize openness
and dialogue with subordinates instead of a “command-and-control” culture (Pellegrini &
Scandura, 2008). Quoting a practitioner (Rice, 2010): “Getting relevant insight into your
competitors’ strategy used to be very difficult, especially if you wanted to keep it legal. Most of
the strategy took place in board rooms, behind closed doors, and were documented in physically
routed memorandums.” In contrast, companies embracing corporate transparency are now
leaving around indices of their strategy similar to breadcrumbs, even publishing strategy changes
on the Internet prior to execution. For example, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop released a memo for
public distribution that predicted and explained the coming strategic shift of the company.
Third, the CI function has traditionally focused obtaining information on strategic capabilities,
intellectual properties, product formulations, technological processes, business plans, and
potential competitive threats (Fitzpatrick, 2003). However, less attention has been paid to
acquiring information on the relationship between the competitor and its customers, although
relationships have long been one of the dominant paradigms in the field of marketing (see e.g.
Ravald & Grönroos, 1996). Therefore, it makes sense to examine competitive intelligence as a
function of customer relationship. In this type of environment, protecting trade secrets becomes
replaced by protecting customer relationships3. This trend has been reinforced by the economic
shift from manufacturing industries to service industries (see e.g. Mills, 1986). The following
figure depicts the trends promoting social espionage.

From manufacturing
to service industries

From privacy to
corporate
Social From trade secrets
transparency
Espionage to customer
relationships

From closed dialogue to

social media
Figure 2 Trends promoting shift to social espionage

3
We are talking about a conceptual shift in thinking; of course, trade secrets should be guarded also.

5
Social espionage can be defined as an attempt to gain competitive advantage by acquisition and
application of competitive intelligence through all publicly and semi-publicly available
information in the social media. It must however be stressed here that social espionage does not
signal stealing information because this information is publicly (or semi-publicly) available in the
social media. However, particular characteristics are: 1) rivals would prefer not to have all
information available4, and 2) some information is semi-public, so that the firm needs to take
some action to access it5. These are efficient means when the competitor has no means to exclude
the firm, e.g. by stopping, preventing or removing the firm’s access to these social data streams –
which is a typical case for the semi-public data sources6.
The challenge of semi-private networks is that e.g. Facebook conversations remain private unless
an employee befriends a customer which is practically difficult when the number of customers is
high and impossible if the firm does not know its customers by their name or social alias. It is
commonly acknowledged that the value of information for an organization relates to the cycle of
acquiring, analyzing and acting upon it. Consequently, information on competitors on the Internet
can be divided into controllable information released by the firm and uncontrollable information
which is visible online whether the company wants or not7. This information can be collected
either directly by making search queries, creating alerts and filters and engaging with competitors
and customer communities (e.g. following in Twitter, subscribing to a forum, liking the
competitor’s Facebook page), or indirectly through various social media aggregation services.
Social espionage emerges from the three meeting points of firms (suppliers, competitors,
customers) as actors, the social media (technological platform) as the resource, and competitive
intelligence as the activity linking the actors and resources together in a harmonious fashion (see
Håkansson & Snehota, 1989; Easton, 1998; Håkansson & Ford, 2002). Accordingly, the broad
conceptual framework of social espionage is derived from the aforementioned three roots, thus,
competitive intelligence, firms (suppliers, competitors, customers), and social media. The figure
shows the framework with its constituents.

4
For example, customers complaining about a product failure or broken promise.
5
For example, following in Twitter or liking the competitor’s Facebook page to receive status updates, or
befriending its employees in LinkedIn to get insight about recruiting and changes in organizational hierarchy.
6
A good heuristic rule for identifying this type of information is that it is not indexed by search engines – yet, it can
be accessed if one knows where to look.
7
For example mentions in discussion forums, blogs and other social media that customers use.
6
Figure 3 Social espionage framework

Overall, social espionage indicates not stealing information but rather engaging in purely legal
maneuvers to obtain information on competitors; thus, in accordance with the legality of
competitive intelligence8 and in contrast to corporate espionage which is “obtaining information
through stealing, without authorization, takes, carries or controls, or by fraud, artifice or
deception”. Why we term the concept as ‘social espionage’ and not intelligence is because it
involves tapping in to semi-private discussions between a competitor and its customers.
Considering ethics, we follow the strategic view of Pech & Stamboulidis (2010): “In business,
the term ‘deception’ is often frowned on, but within a strategic context, strategies of deception
can provide a legitimate and clever means for achieving competitive advantage.” This is not to
promote unethical conduct but to recognize that in strategic, competitive situation certain
“constructive deception” as a means of defending and growing a firm’s businesses is sometimes
needed, without malicious intent (Pech & Stamboulidis, 2010). It is generally acknowledged that
firms engage in offensive and defensive marketing tactics (Erickson, 1993), and marketing is
sometimes seen as a “warfare”. It is, then, only realistic for firms to prepare for opportunistic
decision-making and react accordingly.
The goal of social espionage, to gain competitive advantage, can be reached with interplay of
different operational levels of the firm. The tactical level is concerned with actionable signals
whereas strategic level focuses on detecting weak signals that are a part of a bigger change in the
competitive landscape. The operational level is somewhere in between, focusing on improving

8
Competitive intelligence is “legal research efforts by business studying their competitor’s products, organizations
and related matters” (Cronin et al., 1994).

7
operational efficiency and products. Revealed data on competitor’s actions opens many
possibilities for opportunistic behavior, as presented in the following table.
Table 1 Social espionage activities at three levels

Strategic activity Rationale

Analyze macro-competitive data to detect patterns
to detect deviations
Identify competitor’s weak points to improve own positioning
Focus on unfilled niche to avoid direct competition
Drop prices to crush competition
Play benchmark to improve own social media strategy
Play war-game to predict competitor’s next moves
Tactical activity Rationale
Intercept messages to understand competitor’s relationship to its customers
Identify competitor’s weak points to create offensive tactics
Launch rapid promotions to encourage switching behavior
Use direct selling to encourage switching behavior
Participate in industry discussion to generate leads
Identify unsatisfied customers to generate leads
Operational activity Rationale
Analyze customer’s communicative styles to build customer profiles
Analyze customer complaints to encourage switching behavior
to improve own products
to avoid “easy” mistakes

For example, if a competitor suffers from problems, a possible reaction would be to

simultaneously launch an opportunistic marketing campaign. Therefore, such process would aim
to 1) detect competitor’s problem, 2) respond rapidly by offering alternative, 3) win new
customer. It is critical that the common pitfall of “increasing next quarter’s marketing budget” or
similar delaying action is avoided – due to the lag of implementing this type of measure, the
window of opportunity is easily lost as customers take adaptive behavior. In a conservative
decision-making there is a common bullwhip effect that hinders large corporations’ ability to
leverage real-time information efficiently – the loop from awareness to action is lengthy. A
possible solution involves removing the firm’s CI unit and instead empowering operational units
to take direct action based on their proprietary judgment. This means that there is no CI unit to
buffer the decisions but the CI function becomes everybody’s business within the organization –
ideally, this would lead to efficient condition-driven decision making.

8
4. Strategic grid
Because participating in social media brings both competitive advantages and risks, a firm may
decide whether to participate at all. However, it may become a topic of discussion regardless of
non-participation. Even though high engagement in social media involves positive effects to
customer relationship, at the same time it leaves a firm more vulnerable to opportunistic
marketing tactics by competitors. The following table represents some strategic approaches to
this dilemma.
Table 2 Strategic grid of social espionage

Engage Not engage

Spy Full pot “Machiavellian payoff”

Not spy “Sucker’s payoff” Empty pot

The axes describe choices of whether or not to take part in social media communication or not
(Engage – Not engage), and whether to monitor competitors or not (Spy – Not spy). In the first
choice, a firm decides to both engage and monitor, resulting in full benefits and full risk. That is,
the firm will achieve relational advantage toward its customers by being active in social media,
and also social espionage advantages as discussed earlier. However, by engaging in social media
the firm will place itself vulnerable to opportunistic tactics, in other words it will have to take
part in a game of social espionage against its competitors.
The second alternative is to stay clear of customer engagement but engage in monitoring
competitors. This is an opportunistic strategy; seeking benefits of intelligence while hiding own
actions. The ideal result it “Machiavellian payoff”, in which the firm applies advanced
intelligence to drive opportunistic tactics against its unsuspecting competitor. The downside is
that some benefits of social media will not be claimed; however, this can be compensated by
direct communication especially if there is little negative information on the firm. Further, if the
firm engages in social media but decides to ignore social espionage, it may end up in a victim’s
position if there are other players who are playing, i.e. reading its actions in the competitive
space. Therefore, the firm gains relationship advantage toward customers but risks a “sucker’s
payoff” in regards to competitive advantage as it is unaware of the competitive landscape,
including the strategies and weak points of others.
Finally, “Empty pot” describes a passive strategy in which the firm neither monitors competition
nor engage in social media activity. This leads to a loss of competitive intelligence and the
opportunity to nurture customer relationships. For a company operating in a stable competitive
landscape, without customers who would value communication through social media this is the
optimal solution. For a firm operating in the middle of dynamic competition, with a focus on
customer relationships, this is the worst option.
All of the aforementioned tactics can be applied in reverse to the firm engaging in social media;

9
therefore, it is relevant to also study how firms should react to them. There are various responsive
behaviors a firm can adopt to reduce the effects of social espionage. First, in selecting a
responsive action to negative information, the firm should take priority to minimize damage. A
firm can choose an offensive or a defensive strategy. Second, a firm should protect its strategic
initiatives (past, present and future) from opportunistic competitors. Overall, a firm can resort to
e.g. following responsive behaviors:
Table 3 Responsive behaviors to social espionage

Responsive action (defensive) Rationale

Assess the situation to understand communicative position
Limit the information going out to reduce risk
Limit internal access to information to reduce risk
Increase communication to address customer concerns
Decrease communication (cloaking) to avoid confrontation
Withdraw from social media to avoid negative spotlight
Give false signals to misguide opportunistic competition
Correct the cause for complaints to remove root cause
Offer compensation to discourage switching behavior
Create communication guidelines to guarantee appropriate communication
“Looking into mirror” to monitor own presence
Responsive action (offensive) Rationale
Drive public conversation to private to prevent competitor’s access
Question the content to reveal misinformation
Mimic to counter-attack using competitor’s tactics

Clearly, there are two alternative approaches – either limiting the available information in the
public domain or dealing with it. Notice, however, that actions that increase control are not
effective against uncontrollable information. In these cases quick response marketing, including
correcting mistakes and addressing concerns, may be more appropriate. As the social media
reinforces the effect of word-of-mouth marketing through reach and speed (Leskovec, Adamic &
Huberman, 2007), it is a key concern for companies to be able to address negative messages
before permanent damage is done to their image. Empirical cases demonstrate the risk of
escalating brand damage in social media (Klein & Dawar, 2004; Kietzmann, Hermkens,
McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011).

10
5. Discussion
5.1 Theoretical Contributions
The conceptual work in this study complements earlier research, in which it is acknowledged that
social media brings forth both threats and opportunities. For example, Berthon, Pitt, Plangger,
and Shapiro (2012) note that “21st century managers need to consider the many opportunities
and threats that Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers present and the resulting
respective shifts in loci of activity, power, and value.” The strategic use of social media goes
beyond the naïve hype, and requires an objective view, such as one given in this paper.
Earlier frameworks relating to management of social media have focused on various topics.
Töllinen and Karjaluoto (2011) outlined quantitative, qualitative, and financial metrics for
measuring social media performance. Berthon et al. (2012) proposed five axioms for
understanding social media. Our study is novel in proposing a connection between competitive
intelligence and social media. Although the synergy between these two fields seems obvious,
earlier studies have mostly foregone it.
Linke and Zerfass (2012) conducted a Delphi panel study according to which social media
guidelines and structural aspects are likely to increase in the foreseeable future; they also
concluded that common strategies are rarer than specific approaches by firms. Yet, at a general
level, strategic approaches can be formulated, as shown in the strategic grid approach. It is
applicable by companies of all size and type – the only requisite is a presence in social media
which in itself is a strategic decision. Our study rationalizes that the advantage of small firms in
applying the grid is their agility, not hindered by complex policy requirements and organizational
hierarchy, and leading to faster response and a context-aware tone of voice. In turn, large
organizations have resources to engage in multiple channels at the same time, while investing in
customer service and systematic tracking of results.

5.2 Managerial Implications

For managers, it is important to understand the potential and limitations of social media
technology. For example, the use of monitoring and analysis tools should be known to understand
how they can create business value. Along the lines of Berthon et al. (2012), we suggest training
of employees and limiting bureaucracy as means of leveraging social media. An organization
choosing a participatory strategy must stay constantly aware of the latest changes in social media
in order to stay relevant.
There are some benefits of being a small unit in regards to social media activities. First, the
customer base is more likely to be less fragmented by geography, fewer in numbers, and may
involve a personal relationship between business owner and customers, which is less common in
large corporations. In addition, an agile organization may contribute to a faster decision-making
which is required to leverage the tactical benefits of social espionage. Consequently, firms should
consider adapting a bottom-up approach to management to achieve immediate tactical benefits,
while keeping a backdoor open for long-term strategic benefits. The more the firm places
emphasis on customer service, the more critical social espionage is.

11
The disadvantages of large organizations to apply the strategic grid do not only relate to
timeliness, but also cooperation between departments and organizational functions. This is a
consequence of requiring effort from multiple organizational levels (i.e., strategic, tactical and
operational). Smaller units tend to have less hierarchy and more effective communication
processes, due to e.g. physical proximity. A potential strategy for large firms, then, is to mimic
small organizations through lean management structures.

5.3 Limitations
As a conceptual paper, our study has limitations. Most importantly, we are unable to show how
well firms applying different strategies perform. At this point, they remain theoretical. Further
research can show the application of the strategic grid in business cases. Comparing the
performance results and strengths and weaknesses of each strategy in empirical settings can shed
new light on strategic management of social media efforts. Moreover, studies need to discover
the best practices and potential barriers for enable pervasive social media efforts in terms of
strategic, tactical and operational levels, especially since the concept of social espionage
highlights tactical readiness of business units.

References
Bernhardt, D. C. (1994) I Want It Fast, Factual, Actionable- Tailoring Competitive Intelligence to
Executives’ Needs. Long Range Planning, Vol 27, No. 1, 12–24.
Berthon, P. R., Pitt, L. F., Plangger, K., & Shapiro, D. (2012). Marketing meets Web 2.0, social
media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy.
Business Horizons, Vol. 55, No. 3, 261–271.
Bushman, R. M., Piotroski, J. D., & Smith, A. J. (2004). What Determines Corporate
Transparency? Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 42, No. 2, 207–252.
Casado (2004) Expanding Business Intelligence Power with System Dynamics, in Raisinghani,
M (Ed.), Business Intelligence in the Digital Economy: Opportunities, Limitations and
Risks, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA.
Combs, R.E. & Moorehead, J.D. (1992) The Competitive Intelligence Handbook. Scarecrow
Press, London.
Cottrill, K (1998) Turning Competitive Intelligence into Business Knowledge, Journal of
Business Strategy, Vol. 19, No. 4, 27–30.
Cronin, B., Overfelt, K., Fouchereaux, K., Manzvanzvike, T., Cha, M., & Sona, E. (1994) The
internet and competitive intelligence: A survey of current practice. International Journal
of Information Management, Vol. 14, No. 3, 204–222.
Cvijikj, I. P., & Michahelles, F. (2013). Online engagement factors on Facebook brand pages.
Social Network Analysis and Mining, Vol. 3, No. 4, 843–861.
Easton, G. (1998). Case research as a methodology for industrial networks: A realist apologia. In
P. Naude & P.W. Turnbull (Eds.), Network dynamics in international marketing (pp.
73−87). Oxford: Elsevier Science.
Erickson, G. M. (1993). Offensive and defensive marketing: Closed-loop duopoly strategies.

12
 Marketing Letters, Vol. 4, No. 4, 285–295.
Fitzpatrick, W. (2003) Uncovering trade secrets: the legal and ethical conundrum of creative
competitive intelligence. SAM Advanced Management Journal, Vol. 68, No. 3.
Garrett, D. & Meyers, R. (2005) Verbal Communication Between Complaining Consumers and
Company Service Representatives. Journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 2, 444–475.
Ghoshal S. & Kim S. (1986) Building Effective Intelligence Systems for Competitive Advantage,
Sloan Management Review, Vol. 28, No. 1, 49–58.
Gilad, B. (1996) Strategic Intent and Strategic Intelligence. Gilad, B. and Herring, J.P. (Eds.).
The Arts and Science of Business Intelligence Analysis. Part A: Business Intelligence
Theory, Principles, Practices, and Uses. JAI Press,Greenwich, CT, p 3–21.
Gilad S. & Gilad T. (1985) A systems approach to Business Intelligence, Business Horizon, Vol.
28, No. 5, 65–70.
Goh, K.-Y., Heng, C.-S., & Lin, Z. (2013). Social Media Brand Community and Consumer
Behavior: Quantifying the Relative Impact of User- and Marketer-Generated Content.
Information Systems Research, Vol. 24, No. 1, 88–107.
He, W., Zha, S., & Li, L. (2013). Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case
study in the pizza industry. International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 33,
No. 3, 464–472.
Heath, D., & Singh, R. (2012). Strategic Social Media Engagement. AMCIS 2012 Proceedings.
Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2012/proceedings/EBusiness/12.
Håkansson, H. & Snehota, I. (1989). No business is an island : the network concept of business
strategy. Scandinavian Journal of Management, Vol. 5, No. 3, 187–200.
Håkansson, H., & Ford, D. (2002). How should companies interact in business networks. Journal
of Business Research, Vol. 55, 133−139.
Kietzmann, J., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. & Silvestre, B. (2011) Social media? Get serious!
Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, Vol. 54,
No. 3, 241–251.
Klein, J., & Dawar, N. (2004). Corporate social responsibility and consumers’ attributions and
brand evaluations in a product–harm crisis. International Journal of Research in
Marketing, Vol. 21, No. 3, 203–217.
Lackman, C., Saban H., & Lanasa, J. (2000) Organizing the competitive intelligence function: A
benchmarking study. Competitive Intelligence Review, Vol. 11, 17–27.
Leskovec, J., Adamic, L., Huberman, B. (May 2007). The Dynamics of Viral Marketing. ACM
Transactions on the Web, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1–39.
Libai, B., Bolton, R., Bügel, M. S., Ruyter, K. de, Götz, O., Risselada, H., & Stephen, A. T.
(2010). Customer-to-Customer Interactions: Broadening the Scope of Word of Mouth
Research. Journal of Service Research, Vol. 13, No. 3, 267–282.
Linke, A., & Zerfass, A. (2012). Future trends in social media use for strategic organisation
communication: Results of a Delphi study. Public Communication Review, Vol. 2, No. 2.
Lönnqvist, A. & Pirttimäki, V. (2006) The measurement of business intelligence, Information
Systems Management; Winter 2006; 23, 1; ABI/INFORM Global, pg. 32
McGonagle, J. J & Vella, C. M. (1996) A New Archetype for Competitive Intelligence. Quorum
Books,WestPort, CT.
Miller, S. H. (2005). Competitive Intelligence-An Overview. Competitive Intelligence Magazine,
<http://www.ipo.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&Template=/CM
/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=15904>, retrieved 14.5.2011.
13
 Mills, P. (1986) Managing service industries: Organizational practices in a post-industrial
economy. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
Mintzberg, H. (1994) The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning: Preconceiving Roles for Planning,
Plans and Planners. Free Press, New York.
O’Reilly, T. (2005) What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next
Generation of Software. <http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html>,
retrieved 19.5.2011.
Pech, R. & Stamboulidis, J. (2010) How strategies of deception facilitate business growth.
Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 31, No. 6, 37–45.
Pellegrini, E. K., & Scandura, T. A. (2008). Paternalistic Leadership: A Review and Agenda for
Future Research. Journal of Management, Vol. 34, No. 3, 566–593.
Pirttimäki, V. (2007) Business Intelligence as a Managerial Tool in Large Finnish Companies,
Doctoral Dissertation, Tampere University of Technology, Publication 646, Tampere,
Finland.
Ravald, A. & Grönroos, C. (1996) The value concept and relationship marketing. European
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 30, No. 2, 19–30.
Rice, B. (2010) Competitive Intelligence 2.0, The Social Media Monitoring Advantage.
<http://bettercloser.com/competitive-intelligence-2-0-the-social-media-monitoring-
advantage>, retrieved 19.5.2011.
Stier-Moses, N., L'Ecuyer, P., Maillé, P., & Tuffin, B. (2014) Revenue-Maximizing Rankings for
Online Platforms with Quality-Sensitive Consumers. Working Paper, HAL 00953790,
Inria, France.
Tyson, K. (1986) Business Intelligence Putting It All Together. Leading Edge Publication,
IIlinois, 275, In: Hannula, Mika & Pirttimaki, Virpi (2003) Business intelligence
empirical study on the top 50 Finnish companies, Journal of American Academy of
Business, Cambridge; March 2003; 2, 2; ABI/INFORM Global, pg. 593.
Töllinen, A., & Karjaluoto, H. (2011). Marketing communication metrics for social media.
International Journal of Technology Marketing, Vol. 6, No. 4, 316–330.
Vibert, C. (Ed.), (2004). Competitive Intelligence, a Framework for Web-Based Analysis and
Decision Making, Thomson, South Western.
Weiss, A. (2003). What’s in a Word: Business, Competitor, Competitive Intelligence.
Competitive Intelligence Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 2, 49.
Wikipedia (2011) Social media. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media>, retrieved
19.5.2011.

14

View publication stats