COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE AND SOCIAL ADVANTAGE

THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS A BRIEF CONSPECTUS Of current issues in civilian competitive intelligence (CI). The authors note an extension of the concept beyond the traditional focus on business competition and highlight emergent tools and techniques (networking and groupware) which allow the concept to be more generally operationalized in terms of social advantage. They conclude with some reflections on the possible role of library and information science (LIS) programs in providing key CI skills and competencies such as searching, summarizing, analysis, synthesis, and interpretation.