The Role of Information Systems for Firm-wide Heuristics Development

In this work, we theorize on the role of information systems in firm-wide heuristics development. While many studies perceive the insight derived by analytics as readily and fully actionable, we base our argument on the understanding that often this analytics-driven insight is used indirectly by managers and decision-makers to help make decisions in a semi-structured manner. We represent the school of thought instigated by Gigerenzer, as we assume that firm-wide heuristics are necessary for successful decision making. This work shows how a data analytics capability can help develop new heuristics that would not be intuitively imaginable otherwise. We develop a set of propositions in this regard. Moreover, we expect a U-shaped relationship between information complexity and the number of heuristics developed. We derive theoretical implications and paths for theory development and empirical research related to firm-wide heuristics