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1. Introduction
The world is going digital. There is little doubt that digitalization or digital transformation, is one of the major trends changing economy, society and business (UNCTAD, 2019; World Economic Forum, 2018). It refers to “the use of digital technologies and data and their interconnection, which results in new or changes to existing activities” (OECD, 2018, p. 11). Digitization is changing the way companies design, manufacture and deliver their products and services by means of digital technologies (e.g. smart mobile devices, three-dimensional printing, cognitive computing, virtual reality and the “internet of things”). Indeed, companies are facing the digital imperative of adopting new technologies effectively or facing competitive obsolescence (Fitzgerald et al., 2014).
“Big data” is considered the most significant “tech” disruption in business, as the rise of the internet and digital economy (Agarwal and Dhar, 2014). It refers to “large volumes of data generated and made available online in digital media ecosystems” (Pappas et al., 2018, p. 480). Wamba et al. (2015) offer the following integrative definition of “big data:” a holistic approach to manage, process and analyze 5 Vs [i.e. volume, variety, velocity, veracity and value (of the data)] to create actionable insights for sustained value delivery, measuring performance and establishing competitive advantages” (p. 235). In this ever-increasing digitalized world, massive amounts of data are generated continuously from a growing number of sources (e.g. mobile phones, online shopping, social networks and instrumented machinery) on any topic of interest to a business. Simultaneously, the exploitation of “big data” has become very popular among organizations because the cost of storing data has fallen drastically while the technology for the production of data has become cheap (Mayer-Sch˙˙onberger and Cukier, 2013). Companies are realizing that exploiting these vast new flows of real-time information can provide them with a competitive edge (Pappas et al., 2018). An often-quoted study by McAfee et al. (2012) posited that “big data” has the potential to revolutionize management, as it has the capability of transforming the decision-making process by allowing enhanced visibility of firm operations and improved performance measurement mechanisms. These authors found that companies that use big data to inform their planning and decision-making functions were on average 5% more productive than those which do not.
Organizations that capitalize...