Much of the research on Business Intelligence (BI) has examined the ability of BI systems to help organizations address challenges and opportunities. However, the literature is fragmented and lacks an overarching framework to integrate findings and systematically guide research. Moreover, researchers and practitioners continue to question the value of BI systems. This study reviews and synthesizes empirical Information System (IS) studies to learn what we know, how well we know, and what we need to know about the processes of organizations obtaining business value from BI systems. The study aims to identify which parts of the BI business value process have been studied and are still most in need of research, and to propose specific research questions for the future. The findings show that organizations appear to obtain value from BI systems according to the process suggested by Soh and Markus (1995), as a chain of necessary conditions from BI investments to BI assets to BI impacts to organizational performance; however, researchers have not sufficiently studied the probabilistic processes that link the necessary conditions together. Moreover, the research has not sufficiently covered all relevant levels of analysis, nor examined how the levels link up. Overall, the paper identified many opportunities for researchers to provide a more complete picture of how organizations can and do obtain value from BI.

The benefits that organizations accrue from information systems depend on how effectively the systems are used. Yet despite the importance of knowing what it takes to use information systems effectively, little theory on the topic exists. One recent and largely untested exception is the theory of effective use (TEU). We report on a contextualization, extension, and test of TEU in the business intelligence (BI) context, a context of considerable importance in which researchers have called for such studies. We used a mixed methods, three-phase approach involving instrument development (n = 218), a two-wave cross-sectional survey (n = 437), and three sets of follow-up interviews (n = 33). The paper contributes by (1) showing how TEU can be contextualized, operationalized, and extended, (2) demonstrating that many of TEU’s predictions hold in the BI context while also revealing ways to improve the theory, and (3) offering practical insights that executives can draw on to improve the use of BI in their organizations.

A privacy paradox still exists between consumers' willingness to transact online and their stated Information privacy concerns. MIS research has the capacity to contribute to societal research in this area (Dinev 2014) and cultural differences are one important area of investigation. The global nature of e-commerce makes cultural factors likely to have a significant impact on this concern. Building on work done in the area of culture and privacy, and also trust and privacy, we explore the three way relationship between culture, privacy and trust. Emerge. A key originality of this work is the use of the GLOBE variables to measure culture. These provide a more contemporary measure of culture and overcome some of the criticisms levelled at the much used Hofstede variables. Since the late 1990s scholars have been exploring ways of measuring Privacy. Whilst attitudinal measures around concern for information privacy are only one proxy for privacy itself, such measures have evolved in sophistication. Smith et al. developed the Global Information Privacy Scale which evolved into the 15 question parsimonious CFIP scale (Smith 1996) Leading on from this Malhotra developed the internet users information privacy concerns (IUIPC) which takes into account individuals differing perceptions of fairness and justice using social contract theory. We present the results of an exploratory empirical study that uses both GLOBE and IUIPC via a set of scenarios to determine the strength of national culture as an antecedent to IUIPC and the concomitant effect of IUIPC on trust and risk.

PurposeAlthough much is understood about Business Intelligence (BI) technology adoption, less is known about the complementary organisational resources that drive the actual use of BI systems and the impacts of BI systems at an individual employee level. This study aims to develop and test a model of the impact of key complementary organisational resources on employees' actual BI systems’ use behaviours and their decision-making performance.Design/methodology/approachTo test the research model, a cross-sectional survey of 437 North American employees, who described themselves as using a BI system to make decisions, was conducted. The partial least square (PLS), a structural equational modelling (SEM) technique, was employed to analyse the survey data.FindingsThe survey findings attest to the influence of key complementary organisational resources (i.e. data-based culture (DBC), quality of data in source systems and decision-making autonomy) on employees' actual BI use (comprising BI system dependence and BI system infusion) and on their decision-making performance. Specifically, a DBC and the quality of data in source systems are found to significantly enhance BI system dependence and BI system infusion. Decision-making autonomy, DBC, BI system dependence and BI system infusion are significant contributors to achieving decision-making performance.Originality/valueThis study proposes a theoretical model of actual BI systems’ use from an individual user perspective that increases our understanding of both the complexity of BI usage and the complementary organisational resources that drive both actual BI systems’ use and the impacts of BI systems.

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