Linking business intelligence to a knowledge-based sustainable competitive advantage in organizations

This study looks at the use of sentiment analysis and opinion mining in business intelligence by organisations to develop and sustain a competitive advantage. It discusses variables such as organisation structure, business intelligence, knowledge management, and opinions mining as some sources of competitive advantage. The approach for this research is based on a positivist paradigm. A survey research strategy was used and a questionnaire was used to collect sample data. The analysis revealed that variables related to knowledge management (KM) and business intelligence (BI) can be used to explain sustainable competitive advantage (CA). The regression model showed that the surrogate variables related to KM and BI can be used to explain CA; while OM was insignificant, taking into account the sample, its size and the context within which the study was conducted. The finding may appear contradictory to literature, implying that OM may not be contributing to sustainable competitive advantage. However, on closer scrutiny, the surrogate variable that represents the dependent construct of sustainable competitive advantage directly ‘speaks’ to the role of OM orientated towards processes that utilize opinions geared towards integration of KM and BI for sustaining competitive advantage. Thus, while the regression model depicted OM as insignificant in CA, the significant surrogate variable used for representing the dependent variable specifically captured the import of OM. OM, while negated as an independent variable, found its way as the ‘glue’ in linking BI and KM to sustainable CA. Key words: Business intelligence, competitive advantage, sentiment analysis, opinion mining, competitive advantage.