Exploring new ways to utilise the market intelligence (MI) function in corporate decisions: Case opinion mining of nuclear power

The challenge in today’s corporations is that even though the technology portfolio of a company plays a crucial role in delivering revenue—falling as a topic mainly under the area of technology management—technology may have a negative image due to observed risks or failing the sustainability criteria. It may influence the company’s image and brand image, possibly also influencing decisions at corporate level. The monitoring of technology sentiments is therefore emphasized, benefiting from the advanced methods for business environment scanning, namely market and competitor intelligence functions. This paper utilizes a new big data based method, mostly utilized in market(MI)/competitor intelligence(CI) functions of the company, opinion mining, to analyse the global media sentiment of nuclear power and projects deploying the technology. With this approach, it is easier to understand the linkage to corporate images of companies deploying the technology and also related corporate decisions, mainly done in the areas of technology market deployment, marketing and strategic planning. The results indicate how the media sentiment towards nuclear power has been mostly negative globally, particularly in social media. In addition, results from similar analyses from a single company’s images for the companies currently deploying the technology are seemingly less negative, indicating the influence of company’s communication and branding activities. This paper has implications showing that a technology’s media sentiment can influence a company’s brand image, marketing communications and the need for actions when technology is deployed. In conclusion, there seems to be a need for better co-operation between different corporate functions, namely technology management, MI, marketing and strategic planning, in order to indicate technology image impacts and also counteract firestorms from social media.