Fostering big data analytics capability through process innovation: Is management innovation the missing link?

Big data is heralded as the next big thing for organizations to gain competitive advantages. New data-driven firms need to control key resources in order to develop the new data-driven capabilities they need. The present paper analyzes the relationships between process innovation capability, management innovation and big data analytics capability, covering aspects related to a better understanding of how firms can obtain benefit from their investments in big data. PLS-SEM models with data from 195 firms are used. The main results suggest that management innovation and process innovation capabilities have an important role in the development of big data analytics capability. Big data analytics capability is much more than just investing in technology, collecting vast amounts of data, and allowing the technology department to experiment with analytics. The outcomes of this study present evidence on how innovative managers who promote innovations in process as well as innovations in different aspects of the organization favor the development of capabilities in big data analytics.