The adoption of big data technologies presents organisations with many value creation opportunities that can transform and improve their business. Much of the research today focuses on big data value creation (what value big data technologies offer), whereas limited research focuses on big data value realisation (how big data value is realized).We aim to fill this research gap by addressing the following research question: how do organisations effectively realize value from the adoption of a new big data technology? We do so by adopting an affordance theory lens and empirically examine the adoption of smart meters (a big data technology) in the UK energy sector. We introduce the concept of actualization enablers, and our findings provide empirically grounded insights into the role of organisational capabilities and actualization enablers in the big data value realization process (affordance actualization). Furthermore, our findings provide important and relevant theoretical and managerial implications
