Competitive Intelligence Networks for higher education

Universities as organizations live together in an environment that conditions them to change and progress. Adapting and being able to react to changes is a need and a challenge at the same time. Thus, the EHEA implies for the university world a reshuffling in the rules of the game that together with the increasing interrelation with the job market, and the higher level of competitiveness, drives universities towards the need of having some mechanisms in the detection of change. This is being done for years in the entrepreneurial tissue, Competitive Intelligence (CI); as an evolving tool that is immersed in its usual operation, can help universities in their adaptation. CI is understood as the process of searching, selection, analysis and diffusion of information regarding those elements of the environment that can affect an organization and where the resulting product becomes useful knowledge as a back-up in decision-making and strategic planning. One of the instruments most employed in CI in the obtaining of strategically valuable information is the network of relationships and contacts of the organization and their members. Thus, Social Capital constitutes an important instrument of information exchange and can become an important resource for organizations. Social Capital is configured as an important factor in IC processes. In this report, the importance of Social Capital, and the networks of relationships is shown, as a valuable resource for universities in the processes of CI in order to adapt to the changes of the environment. In particular, it is proposed as a valuable tool in the design and adaptation of the catalog of qualifications of a university