Big Data Analytics and Organizational Performance: A Meta-Analysis Study

Abstract

Big data analytics gained a great deal of attention from both, the business world and the academia. Investments of time, capital and personnel are significant, to the level that pioneers of this field reached a point of no return. Although there are clear insights of successful companies built on a big data analytics strategy, the results from the researchers’ work show mixed outcomes. It is not explicit under which circumstances big data analytics adoption leads to positive results. The purpose of this study is to run a meta-analysis review on the empirical articles that tackle big data analytics and organizational performance topics. As a methodology, we searched all the articles indexed on ISI Web of Knowledge during period January 2010 – May 2019. After the first filter, we selected 375, out of which we included only those studies which respected our full criteria: empirical study, provided results, at least one effect size and measurement error displayed. Based on this standard, we included 37 articles in our meta-analysis. The findings confirm that big data analytics play an important role in organizational performance. Finally, implications for practice are discussed, and future research directions are proposed considering the limitations of our study.

Keywords

• big data analytics
• organizational performance
• meta-analysis