Managing the Corporate Intelligence Function

Excerpt from Managing the Corporate Intelligence FunctionInformation is a principal source of power and recognition in organizations. To be effective, the intelligence unit requires information that are collected by managers in different parts of the organization. Managers, however, have no incentive for providing information to the unit since it does not offer any appropriable benefits. They prefer, instead, to pass information along their direct reporting hierarchy, in exchange for recognition, or to colleagues, through an informal system of barter. In other words, it is a classic problem of externality all managers like to have information from the intelligence unit but no one wants to contribute information to it.