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The purpose of the paper is to place organizational learning within the context of strategic management and to explain why it is important that senior managers view training and staff development as being continuous. Practising managers will be able to appraise the way in which their organization undertakes training and staff development, and adapt the current level of thinking within the organization so that a more holistic approach to strategy formulation and implementation is adopted.

The work is based on a review of the literature and a number of case examples are referred to. A conceptual model is outlined and highlights how the organizational learning concept links training and managerial development programs with the development of organizational culture.

By placing training and staff development within an organizational learning context, it is possible to utilize international project groups and to develop new management practices. Practising managers will be able to use the conceptual model to devise, plan and execute a number of change‐oriented strategies.

The conceptual model can be used by human resource management specialists to devise continuing professional development programs that are tailored to individual requirements. The objective is to match the organization's requirements with the capability of the staff, and in so doing achieve internal fit.

The conceptual model outlines how organizational learning can be used to increase the organization's knowledge base and a link is made with the deployment of international project groups that can facilitate cross‐cultural decision‐making.

The process of management research involves various complexities and can sometimes be viewed as highly time consuming. Good research can and does provide a momentum for further research to be undertaken and this means that a researcher may have to think “outside the box” in order to achieve new insights. A researcher may also need to adopt a rather “risky” research strategy that encapsulates the critical theory approach, if they are to achieve something unique. However daunting this appears, it should be appreciated that the processes of globalization and interconnectivity allow various methodological approaches to be used vis‐à‐vis the collection, analysis and interpretation of data. In order that new models, concepts and theories can be produced, it is necessary for researchers to engage in theory building, and to try out methods such as the grounded theory approach.

The paper seeks to explain how competitive intelligence officers can participate more fully in strategy formulation and implementation, and how they can contribute to the strategic intelligence process.

The paper presents a review of the literature and the development of a strategic marketing intelligence and multi‐organisational resilience framework.

Competitive intelligence officers can contribute more fully to the strategic intelligence process and help establish an intelligence culture that incorporates counter‐intelligence. By adopting a broader understanding of what strategic marketing represents, marketing managers can devise new approaches to managing customer relationships and can develop international/global brand positioning strategies that when implemented counter the actions of legitimate competitors and new entrants, and disrupt the actions of counterfeiters and fraudsters.

A study can be undertaken to establish how a multi‐organisational resilience value system evolves within an organisation, and how trust and credibility among competitive intelligence professionals can be developed.

Academics and practitioners can collaborate in order to establish how an intelligence culture can be created within an organisation. Furthermore, they can also collaborate in establishing how a proactive approach to risk assessment can underpin scenario analysis and planning and aid the strategic decision‐making process.

A number of insights are provided into how competitive intelligence officers contribute to the development of a multi‐organisational resilience value system that is underpinned by an intelligence culture.

In order to develop a sustainable competitive advantage in the knowledge based economy, senior managers need to ensure that customer relationship management is placed within a clearly defined organizational culture that embraces organizational learning. Senior managers are required to exhibit a proactive approach to leadership that results in creative solutions being found to solve complex problems. Open communication reinforces the decision‐making process and allows mutually based partnership arrangements to develop. This being the case, the network approach to business development can be viewed, as collectivist in orientation and this should allow partnership arrangements to be developed through time.

To show why retail marketing strategists and planners need to develop long‐term relationships capable of building business partnerships based on mutual trust. To show how the relationship marketing principle underpins the implementation of retailing strategy.

A detailed review of the relevant literature, with commentary on the application of principles in practice.

A successful retailing strategy will be embedded within a customer‐driven general business strategy. Marketing managers should plan to develop and sustain long‐term trust‐based working relationships, which take into account organizational and national values. Successful partnership arrangements depend on mutuality and resilience, as well as trust. Marketing intelligence is a vital ingredient in the formulation and implementation of plans to achieve these goals. The “organizational resilience value system” framework proposed here can be used by marketing planners to link organization learning to relationship marketing, and thereby establish a customer relationship management policy that provides the organization with a sustainable competitive advantage.

Next, cross‐industry and cross‐cultural studies might be undertaken, to examine the similarities and differences in retailing strategy formulation and implementation across national boundaries.

Practitioners and academics must collaborate closely, with the aim of developing new insights into procedures and practices for linking organizational learning policy firmly and formally with the development of customer‐driven retail marketing strategies.

A synoptic view of role of marketing intelligence and relationship marketing in the building of trust‐based relationships and partnerships in international retailing, backed by more than 100 references to relevant published literature.

The strategic marketing concept requires that marketers adopt an internal and an external focus, and it provides a conceptual basis for devising a customer service policy. Providing customer satisfaction is central to achieving a competitive advantage and should be viewed as an integral part of relationship building that is underpinned by organizational learning. A defined organizational culture can provide the necessary leadership that ensures that staff attain high levels of performance. When planning overseas market entry strategies, strategists need to take into account market intelligence available about the cultural traits evident in national culture. This will facilitate the development of partnership arrangements and result in mutuality.

An important issue for researchers and managers of organizations is the understanding of user-perceived values of collective intelligence (UPVoCI) in online social networks (OSNs) with the purpose of helping organizations identify the values that cause internet users and members of OSNs to share information and knowledge during they participate in collective intelligence (co-intelligence) activities. However, the development of measurement instruments and predictive models and rules for predicting UPVoCI are inadequate. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A novel measurement scale was developed to measure UPVoCI using a user-oriented research strategy that is based on qualitative and quantitative research methods. This work also identified critical indicators and constructed predictive models and rules for forecasting UPVoCI by multivariate statistical methods and data mining.

A 17-item scale of UPVoCI was developed and 17 measurement items were associated with two major dimensions, which are the user-perceived social value of co-intelligence and the user-perceived problem-solving value of co-intelligence. Ten critical indicators of UPVoCI that are important in predicting UPVoCI and 12 rules for predicting UPVoCI were identified and a refined model for predicting UPVoCI was constructed.

The results in this work allow organizations to determine the perceived value of members of OSNs and the benefits of their participating in co-intelligence activities, as a basis for adjusting user-oriented online co-intelligence and service strategies with the goal of improving collaborative innovation performance.

This work systematically developed a novel scale for measuring UPVoCI in OSNs and constructed new models and rules for predicting UPVoCI in OSNs.

The purpose of this study is to explore the feasibility of applying an internet‐based information system (IBIS) to facilitate business alliance activities, especially for small and median enterprises whose business performance is highly dependent on their strategic alliance partnerships.

A case study of six firms was conducted to understand current business alliance practices in Taiwan and to investigate the demand for applying IBIS systems in business alliance activities. A prototype of the IBIS system was also developed and evaluated.

We found that communication and information sharing are the most appropriate activities in business alliances for the application of an IBIS system and that the decision to adopt an IBIS system is dependent on the allied partners' support and the technological capabilities they possess. However, the lack of trust in internet security is one of the key factors that may hinder enterprises from applying the IBIS system to business alliance activities.

The prototype IBIS system was tested by two case firms. Though the test result was positive, a larger test group might be helpful in discovering ways of improving the system for practical use.

The positive result of the system evaluation supports the feasibility of applying the IBIS system to facilitate business alliance activities.

Both the IBIS system and strategic alliance are important research issues in business. However, integrative research of the two issues is seldom undertaken. This study validates the feasibility of applying the IBIS system to increase the operational efficiency of a strategic alliance.