5. Conclusion
This work was motivated by the phenomenal influx of interest in BDA by both practitioners and academics. While practitioners have long been contributing to the literature on BDA, academics have only recently begun to understand the big data sensation [30,33,37,40]. Consequently, a majority of the extant big data literature talks about the transformational potential of BDA without clearly defining the notion of BDA capability and how firms can create one. This study took insights from RBT, past IT capability literature, and recent published work in big data and suggested seven resources that are likely to create a BDA capability. Specifically, data, technology, and basic resources (e.g., sufficient investments, adequate time) are suggested as three necessary tangible resources, and managerial and technical big data skills are identified as two important human skills. In addition to tangible and human resources, firms need to construct intangible resources such as data-driven culture and the intensity of organizational learning to create a BDA capability. Finally, this study developed a survey instrument to measure a firm’s BDA capability, which was then used to empirically validate the relationship between BDA capability and firm performance.
