Special Issue 2019: Call for Papers Big Data and Performance

• Author: Mehmet Demirbag,Sumon Bhaumik,Abhijit Sengupta,Vania Sena
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12155
• Date: 01 July 2017

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 19, 373–375 (2017)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12155

British Journal of Management

Special Issue 2019: Call for Papers

Big Data and Performance

Professor Vania Sena,1Professor Mehmet Demirbag,1

Professor Sumon Bhaumik2and Dr Abhijit Sengupta1

1University of Essex, Essex Business School, UK (E-mail: vsena@essex.ac.uk, mdemirc@essex.ac.uk,

asengua@essex.ac.uk)

2University of Sheffield, Management School, UK (E-mail: s.k.bhaumik@sheffield.ac.uk)

Paper submission deadline: 1st December 2017

The amount of data that businesses collect and produce daily has dramatically exploded overthe last five years.

According to industry experts, even the averageSME holds around 1000 terabytes of data at any given time. The

data that businesses collect come in different shapes and formats but they all share a common characteristic:

they can offer businesses invaluable insights about their customers and processes which can ultimately help

them to gain some competitive advantage over their competitors if cor rectlyused and inter preted (Kubinaet al.,

2015; McKinsey Global Institute, 2011). Unsurprisingly, then, Big Data have been heralded as the new frontier

for growth and innovation as practitioners and researchers agree that Big Data allow businesses to leverage

data-driven strategies to innovate, compete and ultimately create value (McKinsey Global Institute, 2011).

Academic research has shown that businesses that adopt data-driven strategies tend to be more productive and

profitable than their competitors (Brynjolfsson et al., 2011).

While it is clear that Big Data can offer tangible benefits to businesses across all industries, our understanding

of the internal mechanisms through which Big Data-driven strategies can enhance business growth is very

limited. Academic literature has suggested that businesses which have incorporated Big Data in their decision

making processes share some specific characteristics (McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012. See also Berner et al.,

2014 and their discussion on how Big Data require businesses to move away from the command and control

hierarchies) but no attempt has been made to develop a unified body of knowledge in this area. Still this

is an important subject to research as it will offer important insights on how the internal processes of a

business can mediate the causal relationship between the adoption of data-driven strategies and business

growth.

The British Journal of Management (BJM) will publish a special issue on “Big Data and Performance”

in 2019 with a short collection of research papers that complement and enrich the existing body of knowl-

edge around the impact that Big Data have on business growth by examining not only outcomes such as

profitability and productivity but also internal factors (such as core competencies, internal processes etc.)

that drive these outcomes. We hope that the collection of papers in this special issue will help the ongoing

dialogue among scholars from a diverse set of disciplines that share an interest in the Big Data phenomenon.

We also hope that the special issue will help develop a unified body of knowledge around the impact that

Big Data have on businesses. In addition, we hope this special issue will offer executive and managers

some guidance to assess the conditions under which exploitation of Big Data can add business value to

organizations.

C2017 British Academy of Management and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Publishedby John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington

Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA