Looking at Competitive Intelligence as an Emergent Practice. Recent Developments and Key Takeaways from Romania

The paper aims to provide a framework for understanding and analyzing the practices associated with competitive intelligence in young democracies. It starts from the premise that in the last decade we have witnessed a gradual but slight reduction of the gap between the consistent development of competitive intelligence—in the Anglosphere and Western Europe—and the South-Eastern Europe. In this sense, Romania represents a good example as it provides an intimate view on not only the geographical impacting variables, but also on the historical, cultural, and economic specificities. From a methodological perspective, in order to explore the key characteristics, meanings, and implications of the Romanian case, the paper will apply a qualitative case study research design. The results can be further on use for the understanding of the impact on national variables on the competitive intelligence function as well as for future comparison surveys seeking to shed light on the development of private intelligence practices.