The impact of big data on organisations: understanding data-driven decision making

An increasing body of literature reports that business analytics help companies to capture value by exploiting opportunities derived by the abundant data which is now available thanks to new technologies. In the new digitisation era, every activity leaves a trial of data that can be leveraged to improve knowledge about business processes, market conditions and customer behaviour. In this context, big data is configuring itself as the new propeller of decision-making processes, enabling organisations to generate more informed and detailed decisions. Despite the long tradition of research in this area, which links directly business value to the adoption of business analytics, the thesis embraces the idea that technological adoption is not sufficient by itself to capture value. In particular, the purpose of the thesis is to investigate how decision-making processes and organisational structures need to change in order to enable companies capturing the value expected of investments in business analytics