Orchestrating big data analytics capability for sustainability: A study of air pollution management in China

Under rapid urbanization, cities are facing many societal challenges that impede sustainability. Big data analytics (BDA) gives cities unprecedented potential to address these issues. As BDA is still a new concept, there is limited knowledge on how to apply BDA in a sustainability context. Thus, this study investigates a case using BDA for sustainability, adopting the resource orchestration perspective. A process model is generated, which provides novel insights into three aspects: data resource orchestration, BDA capability development, and big data value creation. This study benefits both researchers and practitioners by contributing to theoretical developments as well as by providing practical insights.     

The role of information governance in big data analytics driven innovation

The age of big data analytics is now here, with companies increasingly investing in big data initiatives to foster innovation and outperform competition. Nevertheless, while researchers and practitioners started to examine the shifts that these technologies entail and their overall business value, it is still unclear whether and under what conditions they drive innovation. To address this gap, this study draws on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and information governance theory to explore the interplay between a firm’s big data analytics capabilities (BDACs) and their information governance practices in shaping innovation capabilities. We argue that a firm’s BDAC helps enhance two distinct types of innovative capabilities, incremental and radical capabilities, and that information governance positively moderates this relationship. To examine our research model, we analyzed survey data collected from 175 IT and business managers. Results from partial least squares structural equation modelling analysis reveal that BDACs have a positive and significant effect on both incremental and radical innovative capabilities. Our analysis also highlights the important role of information governance, as it positively moderates the relationship between BDAC’s and a firm’s radical innovative capability, while there is a nonsignificant moderating effect for incremental innovation capabilities. Finally, we examine the effect of environmental uncertainty conditions in our model and find that information governance and BDACs have amplified effects under conditions of high environmental dynamism.     

Actualizing big data analytics affordances: A revelatory case study

Drawing on a revelatory case study, we identify four big data analytics (BDA) actualization mechanisms: (1) enhancing, (2) constructing, (3) coordinating, and (4) integrating, which manifest in actions on three socio-technical system levels, i.e., the structure, actor, and technology levels. We investigate the actualization of four BDA affordances at an automotive manufacturing company, i.e., establishing customer-centric marketing, provisioning vehicle-data-driven services, data-driven vehicle developing, and optimizing production processes. This study introduces a theoretical perspective to BDA research that explains how organizational actions contribute to actualizing BDA affordances. We further provide practical implications that can help guide practitioners in BDA adoption.     

Business value of big data analytics: A systems-theoretic approach and empirical test

Although big data analytics have been widely considered a key driver of marketing and innovation processes, whether and how big data analytics create business value has not been fully understood and empirically validated at a large scale. Taking social media analytics as an example, this paper is among the first attempts to theoretically explain and empirically test the market performance impact of big data analytics. Drawing on the systems theory, we explain how and why social media analytics create super-additive value through the synergies in functional complementarity between social media diversity for gathering big data from diverse social media channels and big data analytics for analyzing the gathered big data. Furthermore, we deepen our theorizing by considering the difference between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large firms in the required integration effort that enables the synergies of social media diversity and big data analytics. In line with this theorizing, we empirically test the synergistic effect of social media diversity and big data analytics by using a recent large-scale survey data set from 18,816 firms in Italy. We find that social media diversity and big data analytics have a positive interaction effect on market performance, which is more salient for SMEs than for large firms.     

Toward the development of a big data analytics capability

The era of big data has begun such that organizations in all industries have been heavily investing in big data initiatives. We know from prior studies that investments alone do not generate competitive advantage; instead, firms need to create capabilities that rival firms find hard to match. Drawing on the resource-based theory of the firm and recent work in big data, this study (1) identifies various resources that in combination build a big data analytics (BDA) capability, (2) creates an instrument to measure BDA capability of the firm, and (3) tests the relationship between BDA capability and firm performance. Results empirically validate the proposed theoretical framework of this study and provide evidence that BDA capability leads to superior firm performance.     

Exploring the relationship between big data analytics capability and competitive performance: The mediating roles of dynamic and operational capabilities

A central question for information systems (IS) researchers and practitioners is if, and how, big data can help attain a competitive advantage. To address this question, this study draws on the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities view, and on recent literature on big data analytics, and examines the indirect relationship between a firm’s big data analytics capability (BDAC) and competitive performance. The study extends existing research by proposing that BDACs enable firms to generate insight that can help strengthen their dynamic capabilities, which, in turn, positively impact marketing and technological capabilities. To test our proposed research model, we used survey data from 202 chief information officers and IT managers working in Norwegian firms. By means of partial least squares structural equation modeling, results show that a strong BDAC can help firms build a competitive advantage. This effect is not direct but fully mediated by dynamic capabilities, which exerts a positive and significant effect on two types of operational capabilities: marketing and technological capabilities. The findings suggest that IS researchers should look beyond direct effects of big data investments and shift their attention on how a BDAC can be leveraged to enable and support organizational capabilities.     

Optimizing the energy efficiency of chiller systems in the semiconductor industry through big data analytics and an empirical study

Big data analytics is playing a more and more prominent role in the manufacturing industry as corporations attempt to utilize vast amounts of data to optimize the operation of plants and factories to gain a competitive advantage. Since the advent of Industry 4.0, also known as smart manufacturing, big data analytics, combined with expert domain knowledge, is facilitating ever-greater levels of speed and automaticity in manufacturing processes. The semiconductor industry is a fundamental driver of this transformation; moreover, due to the highly complex and energy-consuming nature of the semiconductor manufacturing process, semiconductor fabrication facilities (fabs) can also benefit greatly from incorporating big data analytics to improve production and energy efficiency. This paper developed a big data analytics framework, along with an empirical study conducted in collaboration with a semiconductor manufacturer in Taiwan, to optimize the energy efficiency of chiller systems in semiconductor fabs. Chiller systems are one of the most energy-consuming systems within a typical modern fab. The developed big data analytics framework allows production managers to ensure that chiller systems operate at an optimized level of energy efficiency under dynamically changing conditions, while fulfilling the chilling demands. Compared to the commonly-used heuristics previously employed at the fab to tune chiller system parameters, by the utilization of big data analytics, it is shown that fabs can achieve substantial energy savings, greater than 12%. The developed framework and the lessons learned from the empirical study are not only generalizable but also useful for practitioners who are interested in applying big data analytics to optimize the performance of other equipment systems in fabs.     

An integrated big data analytics-enabled transformation model: Application to health care

A big data analytics-enabled transformation model based on practice-based view is developed, which reveals the causal relationships among big data analytics capabilities, IT-enabled transformation practices, benefit dimensions, and business values. This model was then tested in healthcare setting. By analyzing big data implementation cases, we sought to understand how big data analytics capabilities transform organizational practices, thereby generating potential benefits. In addition to conceptually defining four big data analytics capabilities, the model offers a strategic view of big data analytics. Three significant path-to-value chains were identified for healthcare organizations by applying the model, which provides practical insights for managers.     

Using big data analytics to extract disease surveillance information from point of care diagnostic machines

This paper explains a novel approach for knowledge discovery from data generated by Point of Care (POC) devices. A very important element of this type of knowledge extraction is that the POC generated data would never be identifiable, thereby protecting the rights and the anonymity of the individual, whilst still allowing for vital population-level evidence to be obtained. This paper also reveals a real-world implementation of the novel approach in a big data analytics system. Using Internet of Things (IoT) enabled POC devices and the big data analytics system, the data can be collected, stored, and analyzed in batch and real-time modes to provide a detailed picture of a healthcare system as well to identify high-risk populations and their locations. In addition, the system offers benefits to national health authorities in forms of optimized resource allocation (from allocating consumables to finding the best location for new labs) thus supports efficient and timely decision-making processes.     

The value of big data for credit scoring: Enhancing financial inclusion using mobile phone data and social network analytics

Credit scoring is without a doubt one of the oldest applications of analytics. In recent years, a multitude of sophisticated classification techniques have been developed to improve the statistical performance of credit scoring models. Instead of focusing on the techniques themselves, this paper leverages alternative data sources to enhance both statistical and economic model performance. The study demonstrates how including call networks, in the context of positive credit information, as a new Big Data source has added value in terms of profit by applying a profit measure and profit-based feature selection. A unique combination of datasets, including call-detail records, credit and debit account information of customers is used to create scorecards for credit card applicants. Call-detail records are used to build call networks and advanced social network analytics techniques are applied to propagate influence from prior defaulters throughout the network to produce influence scores. The results show that combining call-detail records with traditional data in credit scoring models significantly increases their performance when measured in AUC. In terms of profit, the best model is the one built with only calling behavior features. In addition, the calling behavior features are the most predictive in other models, both in terms of statistical and economic performance. The results have an impact in terms of ethical use of call-detail records, regulatory implications, financial inclusion, as well as data sharing and privacy.