Big data and decision‐making in international business

Abstract

AbstractDrawing on the literature on decision‐making in international business (IB), we discuss how the advancements in big data, specifically business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) applications, are expected to affect the processes underlying IB decision‐making. We provide an overview of BI&A systems with focus on their key levers (i.e., data volume, variety, and velocity), link it to the existing IB literature and develop a theoretical framework that considers the role of specific BI&A mechanisms in IB decision‐making. By examining the expected impact of the BI&A applications on decision‐making in the IB context, we fill a gap in the IB literature. We do so by linking three important levers of BI&A (data volume, variety, and velocity) to three key dimensions of IB decisions—uncertainty, complexity, and dynamism. We provide examples of how specific features of BI&A applications can help managers deal with the challenges of decision‐making in the IB context.