Developing new models for intelligence studies

The aim of any social science to develop theories and/or models to better understand the business reality. We are happy to see that a majority of contributions this time do exactly that. The first article by Nuortimo is entitled “Exploring new ways to utilise market intelligence (MI) function in corporate decisions: Case opinion mining of nuclear power”. It is an in-depth case study about the monitoring of technology sentiment based on business environment scanning. Results show how media sentiment towards nuclear power has been mostly negative, particularly in social media. However, results from similar analyses of the image for the companies currently deploying these technology are less negative, suggesting the importance of companies’ communication and branding activities. The paper shows how technology’s media sentiment can influence a company’s brand image and marketing communications. It concludes that there is a need for better co-operation between different corporate functions, namely technology management, MI, and marketing and strategic planning. The second paper, by Bleoju and Capatina, entitled “Enhancing competitive response to market challenges with a Strategic Intelligence maturity model” shows a way to gain robustness in confronting unexpected events in real markets by adopting a wider unstructured learning perspective with the help of maturity assessment tools. This helps to pool strategic intelligence skills. The theoretical contribution is called the Strategic Intelligence Capability Maturity Model. The article by Solberg Söilen is entitled “How managers stay informed about the surrounding world”. It’s a survey of managers and knowledge workers to find out exactly what sources of information they gather to help their organization stay competitive. Conclusions from the data are drawn and a model presented that brings together previous theory with new empirical findings. The first issue of 2019 was delayed primarily due to the journal’s involvement as co-sponsor of the ICI Conference in Luxembourg in May. As always, we would above all like to thank the authors for their contributions to this issue of JISIB. Thanks to Dr. Allison Perrigo for reviewing English grammar and helping with layout design for all articles and to the Swedish Research Council for continuous financial support. We hope to see as many as possible at the ICI Conference in Bad Nauheim in May, 2020. On behalf of the Editorial Board, Sincerely Yours, A list of authors relevant contributions are included.