The Investigation of competitive Intelligence from the Entrepreneur's Perspective (Structural Equation Modeling Approach)

Based on their outstanding and excellent features، entrepreneurs are able to provide necessary resources in business competitiveness، growth and development and also to deliver quality products and services through the analysis of competitive environment. The research aims at investigation of competitive intelligence from the entrepreneurs` perspective. The study deals with how behaviors are influenced by market orientation and entrepreneurial attitude and the entrepreneurs’ competitiveness. The study sample includes 412 entrepreneurs of 4th national festival superior entrepreneurs from whom 258 completed questionnaires are obtained. Data analysis is undertaken employing LISREL software under windows environment. The hypotheses testing results show that there is a positive and significant relation between the model hidden variables. The structural equation findings reveal that market orientation and entrepreneurship attitude have effects on the scope and frequency of competitive intelligence scanning behaviors. Accordingly، the entrepreneurs with high level of market orientation and entrepreneurship attitudes tend to scan wider scope of competitive intelligence with higher frequency and this means that their effective attempts are maximized in some companies which value the competitive intelligence. On the other hand، utilizing the competitive intelligence، the entrepreneurs achieve a competitive advantage which other competitors lack and also they obtain more comprehensive understanding in relation to strengths and weak nesses of themeselves and competitors.