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 decisionmaking 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.