The Journey of Mobile Business Intelligence: From Vision to Use

Mobile business intelligence (m-BI), an extension of business intelligence (BI), promises to support decision-making on the move. What is new and interesting about m-BI is the fact that users can access and analyse business information when needed independently of time and place on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. This is largely due to the mobile capabilities entailed in m-BI, such as high connectivity, high portability, high context-ability, a high degree of information consumption and high user mobility. Despite the importance of the topic and the interest of academics and practitioners, there is a lack of knowledge on the benefits generated from the use of m-BI. This void of understanding is reflected on (i) the confusion as to whether m-BI use is generating benefits as expected, (ii) low levels of adoption among organizations and (iii) the risk of m-BI adoption decisions being based on promotion campaigns rather than on empirically and theoretically driven research. Hence, the aim of this thesis is to describe and explain m-BI use and its implications, by investigating m-BI from three main angles: the potential m-BI capabilities and outcomes, decision to adopt m-BI and m-BI use in practice. This multi-level study consists of a collection of five papers, whose findings provide answers to three research questions: RQ1—How is m-BI perceived? RQ2—What role does the m-BI organizing vision play in the decision to adopt m-BI? and RQ3—How is m-BI used? In line with the research questions and the study’s aim, two main theories are used, namely the organizing vision theory and the affordance theory. This dissertation employs a mixed methods research design and more specifically a sequential multiphase design. Two approaches—qualitative and quantitative—run sequentially among the five papers, and a multi-methods data collection has taken place, including semi-structured interviews, BI usage logs, social media activities, a survey and other documents. From a theoretical perspective, this research not only identifies the key m-BI affordances but also extends the organizing vision theory by introducing the IT champion as a mediator between the m-BI organizing vision and organizations. Furthermore, a research model that accounts for m-BI use and decision-making efficiency is designed and tested. From a practical perspective, this research reduces the ambiguity surrounding m-BI by delivering a discourse template that sheds light on m-BI in terms of people–process–technology. Hopefully, practitioners find this template useful when making choices about m-BI-related issues. Finally, from a methodological perspective, m-BI use is operationalized into two constructs whose items are tested and validated, thus paving the path to their use in future research