How do top- and bottom-performing companies differ in using business analytics?

Purpose Business analytics (BA) has attracted growing attention mainly due to the phenomena of big data. While studies suggest that BA positively affects organizational performance, there is a lack of academic research. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine the extent to which top- and bottom-performing companies differ regarding their use and organizational facilitation of BA. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses are developed drawing on the information processing view and contingency theory, and tested using multivariate analysis of variance to analyze data collected from 117 UK manufacture companies. Findings Top- and bottom-performing companies differ significantly in their use of BA, data-driven environment, and level of fit between BA and data-drain environment. Practical implications Extensive use of BA and data-driven decisions will lead to superior firm performance. Companies wishing to use BA to improve decision making and performance need to develop relevant analytical strategy to guide BA activities and design its structure and business processes to embed BA activities. Originality/value This study provides useful management insights into the effective use of BA for improving organizational performance

Toward a Model Undergraduate Curriculum for the Emerging Business Intelligence and Analytics Discipline

Business intelligence (BI) combined with business analytics (BA) is an increasingly prominent strategic objective for many organizations. As a pedagogical subject, BI/BA is still in its infancy, and, in order for this to mature, we need to develop an undergraduate model BI/BA curriculum. BI/BA as an academic domain is emerging as a hybrid of disciplines, including information systems, statistics, management science, artificial intelligence, computer science, and business practice/theory. Based on IS 2010’s model curriculum constructs (Topi et al., 2010), we explore two curricular options: a BI/BA concentration in a typical IS major and a comprehensive, integrated BI/BA undergraduate major. In support, we present evidence of industry need for BI/BA, review the current state of BI/BA education, and compare anticipated requirements for BI/BA curricula with the IS 2010 model curriculum. For this initial phase of curricular design, we postulate a preliminary set of knowledge areas relevant for BI/BA pedagogy in a multi-disciplinary framework. Then we discuss avenues for integrating these knowledge areas to develop professionally prepared BI/BA specializations at the undergraduate level. We also examine implications for both AACSB and ABET accreditation and describe the next phase of applying the IS 2010 concept structure to BI/BA curriculum development

The ergogenic effect of beta-alanine combined with sodium bicarbonate on high-intensity swimming performance

We investigated the effect of beta-alanine (BA) alone (study A) and in combination with sodium bicarbonate (SB) (study B) on 100- and 200-m swimming performance. In study A, 16 swimmers were assigned to receive either BA (3.2 g·day−1 for 1 week and 6.4 g·day−1 for 4 weeks) or placebo (PL; dextrose). At baseline and after 5 weeks of supplementation, 100- and 200-m races were completed. In study B, 14 were assigned to receive either BA (3.2 g·day−1 for 1 week and 6.4 g·day−1 for 3 weeks) or PL. Time trials were performed once before and twice after supplementation (with PL and SB), in a crossover fashion, providing 4 conditions: PL-PL, PL-SB, BA-PL, and BA-SB. In study A, BA supplementation improved 100- and 200-m time-trial performance by 2.1% (p = 0.029) and 2.0% (p = 0.0008), respectively. In study B, 200-m time-trial performance improved in all conditions, compared with presupplementation, except the PL-PL condition (PL-SB, +2.3%; BA-PL, +1.5%; BA-SB, +2.13% (p < 0.05)). BA-SB was not different from BA-PL (p = 0.21), but the probability of a positive effect was 78.5%. In the 100-m time-trial, only a within-group effect for SB was observed in the PL-SB (p = 0.022) and BA-SB (p = 0.051) conditions. However, 6 of 7 athletes swam faster after BA supplementation. The probability of BA having a positive effect was 65.2%; when SB was added to BA, the probability was 71.8%. BA and SB supplementation improved 100- and 200-m swimming performance. The coingestion of BA and SB induced a further nonsignificant improvement in performance

The Learning Effectiveness of Cross-Discipline Collaboration within Media Production BA Projects

This paper considers the learning potential released by teaching to groups across different disciplines within media production. A single six week unit was delivered to eighteen groups of students, each group comprising a mix from BA Television Production, BA Interactive Media Production and BA Scriptwriting for Film and Television, all at level C. Each group of approximately nine students was required to create a DVD programme with associated website on the topic of ‘crime prevention’. The paper considers the logistics of organising and delivering the programme and the ways in which staff and students related to the cross-discipline nature of the unit. It also considers the approaches taken to assess the students and their project work. The investigation involved a mixture of questionnaires and interviews conducted after completion of the unit

Achieving Strategic Business Objectives from Business Analytics in Small and Medium Enterprises

Enterprises use Business Analytics (BA) to achieve business value. Although SMEs significantly contribute to economic development and constitute a large proportion of enterprises, research into BA has been mostly conducted in large enterprises. Research on how SMEs can achieve their strategic business objectives with BA is scarce. In recent years, the interest in technological resources has rapidly expanded, as they are essential in achieving strategic business objectives for SMEs. BA is one type of technological resource that has gained increasing importance. However, there is a lack of understanding of the role BA can play in obtaining competitive advantages in the SME context. This research explores SMEs’ BA resources in 12 SME case studies. It provides a richer understanding of the role of BA resources in enabling SMEs to achieve their strategic business objectives and insight into how SMEs of different sizes can utilise BA resources to that end

Workspace methodologies : studying communication, collaboration and workscapes

This report consists of descriptions of methods, which are used for studying, evaluating and developing workplaces. Work environments are analyzed as layers or imbedded levels: as physical, virtual and mental/social spaces. In this analysis, Kurt Lewin's classical psychological concept 'Life Space' is used as well as the concept 'ba' provided by Nonaka, Toyama and Konno. 'Ba' refers to socially shared space, where people create, share and use knowledge. The concept of Ba unifies the physical space, such as an office space, the virtual space, such as e-mail, and the mental or social space, such as common experiences, ideas, values, and ideals shared by people with common goals as a working context. A hypothesis is that the support and/or hindrances of these spaces have a crucial influence on the activities of employees, groups and organizations. To design and develop workplaces it is fundamental to identify these facilitating and hindering work context characteristics. For this purpose, various methods are needed to collect data, to analyze it, to describe and model the environments, and to analyze their quality. In this report, some only methods are described. They are: social network analysis, sketching and photographing methods, communication analysis, work requirement and well-being analysis, simulation game method and multidisciplinary workplace study methodology. The described methods are examples of approaches and methods meant to cling to the challenges of workplace design.Tämä raportti koostuu työtilojen tutkimisessa, arvioinnissa ja kehittämisessä käytettyjen tiedonkeruu- ja analysointimenetelmien kuvauksista. Työn toimintaympäristöä eritellään eri tasoina tai kerrostumina: fyysisinä, virtuaalisina ja henkisinä/sosiaalisina tiloina. Tasoerittelyssä hyödynnetään Kurt Lewinin klassista, yksilöpsykologista 'elämäntila' käsitettä sekä Nonakan, Toyaman ja Konnon käsitettä 'ba'. Ba tarkoittaa sosiaalisesti jaettua tilaa, jossa olevat ihmiset luovat, jakavat ja käyttävät tietoa. 'Ba' yhdistää fyysisen tilan, kuten toimisto, virtuaalisen tilan, kuten sähköposti, ja henkisen tai sosiaalisen tilan, kuten yhteisesti jaetut kokemukset, ideat ja ihanteet. Oletuksena on, että näiden tilojen tarjoama tuki ja esteet vaikuttavat keskeisellä tavalla yksittäisten työntekijöiden, ryhmien ja organisaatioiden toimintaan. Työpaikkojen suunnittelun ja kehittämisen kannalta on olennaista tunnistaa toimintaa helpottavia ja estäviä tekijöitä. Tähän tarvitaan erilaisia menetelmiä kerätä työtiloja koskevaa tietoa, analysoida sitä, kuvata näitä ympäristöjä ja arvioida niiden laatua. Raportin kirjoituksissa kuvataan joitakin menetelmiä. Kuvatut menetelmät ovat: sosiaalisten verkostojen analyysimenetelmät, piirros- ja valokuvamenetelmä, kommunikaatioanalyysi, kuormitustekijä- ja hyvinvointianalyysi, simulaatiopelimenetelmä ja monitieteinen työpaikkojen tutkimusmetodologia. Esitellyt menetelmät ovat esimerkkejä tavoista paneutua työpaikkojen tutkimuksen haasteisiin

Reasons behind ERP package adoption: a diffusion of innovations perspective

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages have been widely adopted and it is becoming clear that this is driven by multiple rationales that may be simultaneously at odds and complimentary. In this paper, we aim to develop a greater understanding of these rationales by taking ERP packages to be innovations and analysing their adoption with reference to the theory of diffusion of innovations. In particular, we consider the attributes of ERP packages that may affect their adoption such as relative advantage, compatibility, complexiblity, trialability and observability. We argue that users’ perceptions of these attributes are not always accurate and these ’misconceptions’ can further explain reasons for ERP adoption or rejection. Although our analysis aims to provide rich insights into the adoption of ERP packages, the results of the study are arguably of further interest to the more general study of packaged software and the more established literature on custom development

The Effectiveness of Concept Based Search for Video Retrieval

In this paper we investigate how a small number of high-level concepts\ud derived for video shots, such as Sport. Face.Indoor. etc., can be used effectively for ad hoc search in video material. We will answer the following questions: 1) Can we automatically construct concept queries from ordinary text queries? 2) What is the best way to combine evidence from single concept detectors into final search results? We evaluated algorithms for automatic concept query formulation using WordNet based concept extraction, and we evaluated algorithms for fast, on-line combination of concepts. Experimental results on data from the TREC Video 2005 workshop and 25 test users show the following. 1) Automatic query formulation through WordNet based concept extraction can achieve comparable results to user created query concepts and 2) Combination methods that take neighboring shots into account outperform more simple combination methods