The Affordances of Business Analytics for Strategic Decision-Making and Their Impact on Organisational Performance

Increasingly, business analytics is seen to provide the possibilities for businesses to effectively support strategic decision-making, thereby to become a source of strategic business value. However, little research exists regarding the mechanism through which business analytics supports strategic decision-making and ultimately organisational performance. This paper draws upon literature on IT affordances and strategic decision-making to (1) understand the decision-making affordances provided by business analytics, and (2) develop a research model linking business analytics, data-driven culture, decision-making affordances, strategic decision-making, and organisational performance. The model is empirically tested using structural equation modelling based on 296 survey responses collected from UK businesses. The study produces four main findings: (1) business analytics has a positive effect on decision-making affordances both directly and indirectly through the mediation of a data-driven culture; (2) decision-making affordances significantly influence strategic decision comprehensiveness positively and intuitive decision-making negatively; (3) data-driven culture has a significant and positive effect on strategic decision comprehensiveness; and (4) strategic decision comprehensiveness has a positive effect on organisational performance but a negative effect on intuitive decision-making