Building dynamic capabilities by leveraging big data analytics: The role of organizational inertia

Abstract

Although big data analytics have been claimed to revolutionize the way firms operate and do business, there is a striking lack of knowledge about how organizations should adopt and routinize such technologies to support their strategic objectives. The aim of this research is to explore how different inertial forces during deployments of big data analytics hinder the emergence of dynamic capabilities. To do so, we follow a multiple-case study design approach of 27 European firms and examine the different forms of inertia that materialize during big data analytics diffusion. The findings contribute to the growing body of knowledge on how big data analytics can be leveraged effectively to enable and strengthen a firm’s dynamic capabilities. By disaggregating dynamic capabilities into the underlying capabilities of sensing, seizing and transforming, findings indicate that different combinations of organizational inertia including economic, political, socio-cognitive, negative psychology, and socio-technical hamper the formation of each type of capability.