Introduction
In recent years, the country's online business ecosystem has seen extensive changes. The huge and sudden increase of users on internet platforms caused the huge growth of online businesses in the country. Therefor, success and survival in this field has become a fierce and real struggle among online businesses. The key to success in such intense competition depends on making the right decisions against the actions of competitors. The knowledge-oriented nature of technology is another factor that has caused intelligence to be considered as an essential element in competition. Although there have been various studies in the field of competitive intelligence, most were purely quantitative and were limited to investigating the impact. Also, the requirements related to the online space and internet platform are not included. Therefore, many research gaps are observed in the conceptualization of competitive intelligence in the field of online businesses. Also, a qualitative and native analysis of these concepts has always been neglected from the domestic researchers' points of view as a fundamental issue. This study is also very important from a negative aspect, because if businesses do not have enough competitive intelligence, they will lose their market share and give up their position to the leading companies in this field. In this regard, in this research, the importance and performance of the foundational conditions, strategies and measures, intervening conditions and the consequences of competitive intelligence will be investigated. The current research answers the key question; what is the state of competitive intelligence in online businesses?
Methodology
This study was conducted from a philosophical perspective based on the pragmatic paradigm and an inductive-analogical approach was used. The current study is an applied research and based on data collection, it is a cross-sectional survey research. To achieve the goal of the research, a mixed exploratory research design (qualitative-quantitative) was used. The community of the qualitative section includes professors of marketing management and directors of the National Association of Virtual Businesses. Based on the view of Miller et al. (2010), the five criteria of keyness, popularity, theoretical knowledge, diversity, motivation to participate were used to select participants [20]. Therefore, in this study, the senior and experienced managers of the virtual business union of the country were selected as the sample, and the theoretical sampling method was used, which based on Glazer et al.'s (2017) view, is a suitable method for determining the sample size in the grounded theory method [9]. The sampling process continued until reaching theoretical saturation. Totally, 21 managers participated in this study. A small part of the statistical population included members of the National Union of Virtual Businesses. The sample size was estimated to be 384 people using Cochran's formula. Because the statistical population is homogeneous, a simple cluster-random method was used for sampling. To collect research data, semi-structured interviews were used in the qualitative part and researcher-made questionnaires were used in the quantitative part. The validity of the qualitative part according to Lincoln and Goba was evaluated and confirmed based on the four criteria of validity, transferability, confirmability and reliability from the point of view of judges [18]. To measure the reliability of the qualitative part, the percentage of observed agreement based on the Holstein formula was estimated at 0.627, which is more than 0.6 and is an acceptable value [12]. To measure the validity of the questionnaire, the content validity ratio (CVR) was used based on the opinion of 20 people and it was estimated to be above 0.42. To measure the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's alpha was estimated at 0.815 and for all the constructs, it was above 0.7. Therefore, the validity and reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed. In order to analyze the data in the qualitative part, the grounded theory method was used and the structures of competitive intelligence analysis in online businesses were identified and the relationships of the structures were explained. In the quantitative part, the importance-performance analysis method (gap analysis) was used. Data analysis was conducted in the qualitative part with Maxqda software and with SPSS software in the quantitative part.
Results and Discussion
Based on the results of the importance-performance analysis and since all the identified indicators were of high importance, there are no "indifference" and "waste" areas. Such constructs are smart infrastructure (C04), smart marketing strategy (C07) and customer engagement (C08), which is in the "weak" area because it has a weak performance despite its high importance. Other structures appear to be in the "acceptable" zone, but they are not. The score of the existing situation is higher than the average for the "intensity of competition" construct, as a negative construct, is not a good sign, and in fact, the average score above the average for this construct shows that the intensity of competition in online areas is very high and businesses are in a favorable situation from this point of view. Finally, the constructs of organizational intelligence (C01), customer orientation (C02), competitive policies (C03), competitive intelligence (C05), improving customer experience (C09), sustainable competitive advantage (C10) are in the acceptable area, but considering the significance analysis - Performance, there is a significant gap between these structures and what they should be.
Conclusion
The current research was conducted with the aim of analyzing competitive intelligence in online businesses with the importance-performance approach. Based on the research paradigm model, it was determined that the causal conditions (organizational intelligence, customer orientation and competitive policies) affect the central phenomenon (competitive intelligence). This importance was also mentioned in the results of Altin et al.'s study (2021) and is compatible with the present results. It was also shown that smart infrastructures provide the necessary background and the intensity of competition as an intervening condition. In the results of Rouhi et al.'s study (2023), different and effective dimensions of competition are also mentioned and it is in line with the present findings. Finally, the results of the research showed that the aforementioned components have an effect on strategies and actions (smart marketing strategy) and ultimately lead to consequences such as customer participation, improved customer experience, and sustainable competitive advantage. The mentioned components have been confirmed in the findings of Khademi et al.'s study (2023).