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The proliferation of Web-based information sources and social media draw firms' attention to these channels as sources of competitive intelligence (CI). To date, research has focused mainly on information collection techniques rather than on CI uses and its influence on firm performance. We define CI embeddedness as the extent to which management and employees incorporate CI in daily routines, so that actionable knowledge is transferred throughout the organization. A survey of 124 decision makers reveals positive impact of Web CI sources as well as alliances with information providers on CI embeddedness. Furthermore, while CI embeddedness shows no direct influence on firms' performance, it has a mediated effect on performance through customer satisfaction.

This study examines the chronemics of response latencies in asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) by analyzing three datasets comprising a total of more than 150,000 responses: email responses created by corporate employees, responses created by university students in course discussion groups, and responses to questions posted in a public, commercial online information market. Mathematical analysis of response latencies reveals a normative pattern common to all three datasets: The response latencies yielded a powerlaw distribution, such that most of the responses (at least 70%) were created within the average response latency of the responders, while very few (at most 4%) of the responses were created after a period longer than 10 times the average response latency. These patterns persist across diverse user populations, contexts, technologies, and average response latencies. Moreover, it is shown that the same pattern appears in traditional, spoken communication and in other forms of online media such as online surveys. The implications of this uniformity are discussed, and three normative chronemic zones are identified.

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The principal objective of this research was to understand the incentive structure in a mixed economic and social market for information. Prior research suggests that tangible incentives will crowd out intangible incentives; however, information markets invite special examination of this finding. Data representing four years of activity by 523 researchers who gave about 52,000 answers on the Google Answers Web site were collected. Analysis revealed that the main predictor for researchers' participation was the anticipation of tip (gratuity). Analysis of two researcher subgroups showed that in the case of the frequent researchers, the tip was followed by social incentives: interaction (comments) and ratings. For occasional researchers, the tip was followed by the price paid for answers and then by comments. The results suggest that a pure economic incentive serves as enticement; however, social incentives induce persistent participation by researchers and eventually lead to higher average economic gains. The market is catalyzed by social activity, not cannibalized by it, as may have been predicted by theory. This finding provides empirical evidence for "social capital" since social incentives were connected to higher economic gains. The practical implication is that a mixed incentive design is likely to generate lively information-exchange environments.

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There is general consensus that critical mass at inception ensures the sustained success of online communities. However, no clear understanding of what constitutes such a 'critical mass' exists and too few quantitative studies have been conducted into the relationship between initial online community interaction and its longer term success to draw any conclusions. In this paper we start to address this gap through a large-scale study of the relationship between IRC chat channel survival and initial chat channel community interactions. A sample 282 chat channel births was used for survival analysis which explored the relationship between the overall user activity in each channel at its inception and the channel's life expectancy. Significant relationships were observed between online community lifespan and critical mass measures: 1) message volume, 2) user population heterogeneity and 3) production functions. The results lend support to the Critical Mass Theory of collective action.