Publication Type

PhD Dissertation

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

10-2017

Abstract

This dissertation is about the organisational considerations in setting up a successful business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) function. It addresses a gap in academic literature by presenting a theoretical framework on organisational attributes that impacts the BI&A function’s ability to improve the completeness and relevance of their data-driven solutions.

BI&A is a subset of information processing, and as such, subject to the phenomenon of uncertainty and equivocality. Most BI&A functions do not explicitly address this phenomenon in their organisation design, leading to suboptimal BI&A outcomes as widely publicised in both academic and practice literature.

This dissertation contributes to theory by identifying the organisation design variables that moderate the effects of a BI&A function’s ability to deal with uncertainty and equivocality in problem-solving. The research led to a proposed ‘transmutation’ framework where BI&A practitioners translate a business problem into a business solution that is key to understanding the role these moderating variables play.

This proposed transmutation framework has practical implications to the emerging discipline of BI&A. It provides insights into the interface model between the BI&A function and its business stakeholders, the specialisation of roles and responsibilities within the BI&A function, and the benefits and dis-benefits of pursuing a distributed organisational model such as offshoring.

Insights for this dissertation were drawn from 25 in-depth interviews with BI&A leaders and practitioners, and their senior business stakeholders.

Keywords

Business Intelligence function, Organising analytics, Business analytics function, Equivocality and uncertainty

Degree Awarded

PhD in Business (General Management)

Discipline

Business Analytics | Business Intelligence | Strategic Management Policy

Supervisor(s)

Rajendra K. Srivastava

First Page

1

Last Page

486

Publisher

Singapore Management University

City or Country

Singapore

Copyright Owner and License

Author

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