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How big data alters value creation: The lens of big

data
through the lens of big competency

data competency
Xiaobo Wu and Liping Liang 707
School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, and
Received 12 September 2021
Siyuan Chen Revised 9 December 2021
Open Platform Department, Accepted 21 December 2021

China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, China

Abstract
Purpose – As various different and even contradictory concepts are proposed to depict a firm’s capabilities
related to big data, and extant relevant research is fragmented and scattered in several disciplines, there is
currently a lack of holistic and comprehensive understanding of how big data alters value creation by
facilitating firm capabilities. To narrow this gap, this study aims to synthesize current knowledge on the firm
capabilities and transformation of value creation facilitated by big data.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopt an inductive and rigorous approach to conduct a
systematic review of 185 works, following the “Grounded Theory Literature-Review Method”.
Findings – The authors introduce and develop the concept of big data competency, present an inductive
framework to open the black box of big data competency following the logic of virtual value chain, provide a
structure of big data competency that consists of two dimensions, namely, big data capitalization and big data
exploitation, and further explain the evolution of value creation structure from value chain to value network by
connecting the attributes of big data competency (i.e. connectivity and complementarity) with the
transformation of value creation (i.e. optimizing and pioneering).
Originality/value – The big data competency, an inclusive concept of firm capabilities to deal with big data, is
proposed. Based on this concept, the authors highlight the significant contributions that extant research has
made toward our understanding of how big data alters value creation by facilitating firm capabilities. Besides,
the authors provide a future research agenda that academics can rely on to study the strategic management of
big data.
Keywords Big data, Value creation, Firm capabilities, Big data competency, Virtual value chain,
Literature review
Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction
In recent years, the proliferation of big data that can come from social media, internet clicks,
sensors, as well as digital business transactions is challenging traditional economic and
business concepts (George et al., 2014), which also provides opportunities for entrepreneurs
and innovators to utilize the disruptive potential of big data (Manyika et al., 2011; McAfee and
Brynjolfsson, 2012) and explore the “creative destruction” (Schumpeter, 1942). It has been
widely recognized that big data has the potential to revolutionize the traditional value
creation (Wamba et al., 2015). Nonetheless, a great many of firms that have adopted big data
infrastructures and techniques are still struggling hard to reap the full benefits of big data
(Ghasemaghaei et al., 2018). It is still a primary challenge for practitioners and academics to
understand how potential adopters can utilize big data to transform their traditional value
creation so as to gain competitive advantages (Sheng et al., 2017; Elia et al., 2020).

The authors would like to sincerely thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their insightful
comments and helpful suggestions for improving this paper. The paper has also benefited a lot from the Management Decision
Vol. 60 No. 3, 2022
valuable feedback of Bin Guo, Can Huang, and other professors and scholars of the Elite team, School of pp. 707-734
Management, Zhejiang University. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the financial support from © Emerald Publishing Limited
0025-1747
National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71832013, No. 72172140). DOI 10.1108/MD-09-2021-1199
MD Eminent scholars argue that technical aspects are necessary but not sufficient conditions
60,3 to deal with big data (Mikalef et al., 2018, 2020b; Ardito et al., 2019). A firm is supposed to be
able to elaborate big data with a managerial perspective in mind (Wang and Hajli, 2017;
Ardito et al., 2019), understand how big data techniques should be organizationally
embedded and incorporated into strategy and operations thinking (Mikalef et al., 2018; Brinch
et al., 2021) and address managerial challenges to achieve an effective combination of the
technical, managerial and human aspects for inimitable practices (Akter et al., 2016; Wang
708 et al., 2018b; Hughes and Ball, 2020). In this regard, the potential adopters of big data need to
foster and configure firm resources such as infrastructure and technologies, basic resources,
human skills and data-driven culture (Gupta and George, 2016; Mikalef et al., 2020a).
Consequently, the growing application of big data poses new requirements to a firm’s
capabilities (Lavalle et al., 2011; Davenport et al., 2012; Wamba et al., 2015; Ghasemaghaei,
2019), which, in turn, refer to a firm’s capacity to deploy resources so as to achieve a desired
end (Amit and Paul, 1993; Teece et al., 1997).
A growing number of academic studies have looked into the firm capabilities to deal with big
data. In line with this, several different terms such as digital data genesis capability (e.g. Prescott,
2014), business analytics (and intelligence) capabilities (e.g. Wang and Byrd, 2017; Torres et al.,
2018), big data (and predictive) analytics capabilities (e.g. Gupta and George, 2016; Jeble et al.,
2018) and big data capabilities (e.g. Johnson et al., 2017) are proposed and studied. Extant
research has increased our understanding of the development of firm capabilities and its impacts
on business values within several managerial disciplines, including decision-making, operations
and supply chain, product or service innovation, marketing, business model design, strategic
management, etc. Notwithstanding these efforts, we currently lack a holistic and comprehensive
understanding of what capabilities are needed to deal with big data and how big data alters
value creation by facilitating these capabilities, as extant research is scattered in several
managerial disciplines.
Therefore, the present work targets the question: What do we know about the firm
capabilities and transformation of value creation facilitated by big data? To do so, we adopt an
inductive approach following the “Grounded Theory Literature-Review Method” (Wolfswinkel
et al., 2013) and review 185 works on value creation or firm capabilities related to big data. To
explain it clearly, we introduce and develop the concept of big data competency, and construct its
definition as “a firm’s holistic facility in integrating and deploying related resources or
capabilities across boundaries (functional and organizational) to deal with big data paradigm.”
Based on our understanding of extant literature, specific aspects of big data competency
(including its definition, building blocks, dimensions and intrinsic attributes) and the
transformation of value creation (including its contents and structure) facilitated by big data
are proposed or identified.
Our work offers two main contributions. First, we provide a review that integrates current
knowledge on the firm capabilities and transformation of value creation facilitated by big
data. Considering the confusion that can result from the emergence of various different new
concepts of capabilities and the fragmentation of relevant academic research, this research
responds to the appeal that academics and practitioners are supposed to have a holistic view
on how to fully unleash the potential power of big data (Corte-Real et al., 2017). Second, we
provide a future research agenda consisting of two avenues, which contributes to expanding
the theoretical foundations we can rely on to study the strategic management of big data.
The remainder of this research is organized as follows. We begin by describing our
methodology and the main steps of our analysis. Afterward, we detail our findings, including
the definition, inductive framework and structure of big data competency as well as the
impacts of big data competency on the transformation of value creation. Finally, conclusion,
future research directions and limitations are provided.
2. Methodology The lens of big
The main objective of this study is to provide a review that integrates current knowledge on the data
firm capabilities and transformation of value creation facilitated by big data. A systematic
review method is appropriate, as it “aims to comprehensively locate and synthesize the research
competency
literature that bears on a particular question, using organized, transparent, and replicable
procedures at each step in the process” (Littell et al., 2008). Consistent with the breadth of our
research question, we selected an inductive and rigorous approach to review the literature,
following the “Grounded Theory Literature-Review Method” proposed by Wolfswinkel et al. 709
(2013). This method consists of five steps to (1) define the scope of the review, (2) search for
studies, (3) select the sample to be reviewed, (4) analyze the selected studies using qualitative
methods and (5) present the findings and insights. We outline the application of the first four
steps in the following paragraphs and present our findings in the Findings section below (more
detailed information is presented in Appendix 1). In addition, to visualize our rigorous coding
processes, the final data structure is provided at the end of each section.
Since our purpose is to identify the theoretical insights provided by extant business and
management literature, we decided to focus on peer-reviewed articles from the field of
management, business, operations research management science, economics and business
finance in the Web of Science database (Core collection, SSCI). The Web of Science Social
Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is generally considered the most comprehensive database in
the social sciences, and it is frequently used to conduct literature reviews in management and
big data research (e.g. Crossan and Apaydin, 2010; Ardito et al., 2019). Only peer-reviewed
journal articles were included because they are considered validated knowledge and
represent the highest level of research (Ngai and Wat, 2002; Crossan and Apaydin, 2010).
Given the selected database (i.e. SSCI), we initially ran several trial queries for an initial
understanding of the potential dataset. After reading and analyzing a few influential articles on
value creation or firm capabilities related to big data, we designed our final search criteria using
combinations of keywords containing the term “big data” and the term related to capability
(i.e. “capability”, “competency” or “capacity”) or value creation (i.e. “value creation”, “competitive
advantage”, “competitiveness” or “business value”). We then proceeded to run actual search
query and obtained 474 search results (duplicates were removed). For each article, the full text in
PDF format was downloaded along with related references into a bibliographic software
(i.e. Endnote X9 in our process). To refine the sample, we applied our criteria for inclusion and
exclusion on the basis of reading the title, abstract and full text of each work. Our initial sample
size was reduced to 180, and finally augmented to 185 through backward and forward search.
Our literature analysis contained five main steps that were conducted iteratively. First, we
extracted a number of data points such as the authors, the source title, the publication year,
the methods, the managerial disciplines (e.g. supply chain), the context of application (e.g.
health care), the theoretical foundation used or developed, the main findings or conclusions,
as well as any definitions of capabilities related to big data. This information was put into an
Excel spreadsheet. Second, for a general understanding of our sample, we conducted a simple
descriptive statistical analysis based on the data points in the Excel spreadsheet. Third, we
performed open coding by reading and highlighting any findings or insights relevant to our
interest, and then tracked the relationships between variables (conceptual or empirical) for
each paper. Fourth, we conducted axial coding to refine our coding scheme. Finally, we
integrated these relationships using selective coding. The results of our research is a high-
level framework that integrates the main insights contained within our sample.
Analyzing the general descriptive statistics of the sample, we make three observations.
First, the steadily increasing number of publications implies growing academic interest in
value creation or firm capabilities related to big data. Second, the peculiarities of big data
management span several managerial disciplines such as decision-making, supply chain,
marketing, new product development, business model, operations and manufacturing
MD management, and strategic management (Urbinati et al., 2019), among which the field of
60,3 supply chain and/or operations provides opportunities for huge amount of data generating
from various sources and hence stands out for numerous academics interested in it
(Lamba and Singh, 2017; Ardito et al., 2019). Third, extant research uses various methods
among which empirical investigation is the most commonly used one. These empirical
studies are more interested in industries such as manufacturing, retailing, health care and
services, within which big data is adopted at an early stage (George et al., 2014).
710
3. Findings
3.1 Defining big data competency
The first step of our analysis was to study extant definitions of any capabilities related to dealing
with big data. Within our sample, we found 38 sources offering definitions (Appendix 2).
Looking into these definitions, we can come to three observations. First, to deal with big data,
firms need to build several types of capabilities. These capabilities can fall into four clusters,
including (1) capabilities to move firms toward digitalization (that is prerequisite but not
sufficient for big data application), e.g. digital-related capability (Nasiri et al., 2020), digitization
capabilities (Ritter and Pedersen, 2020), digital transformation capability (Sousa-Zomer et al.,
2020) and digital data genesis capability (Prescott, 2014); (2) capabilities that enable firms to
extract valuable insights from big data, e.g. data analytics capabilities (Ghasemaghaei et al.,
2018; Ghasemaghaei, 2019), analytics capabilities (Srinivasan and Swink, 2018; Wu et al., 2019),
business intelligence and analytics capabilities (Wang and Byrd, 2017; Ashrafi and Ravasan,
2018; Torres et al., 2018; Bozic and Dimovski, 2019; Wang et al., 2019) and big data (and
predictive) analytics capabilities (Akter et al., 2016; Gupta and George, 2016; Wamba et al., 2017;
Wang et al., 2018a; Mikalef et al., 2019a); (3) capabilities toward purposely utilizing data within a
specific functional domain, e.g. big data decision-making capabilities (Shamim et al., 2019),
dynamic data and information processing capabilities (Akhtar et al., 2018), dynamic service
analytics capabilities (Akter et al., 2020b) and supply chain analytics capabilities (Wamba et al.,
2019b); as well as (4) capabilities to effectively utilize big data for strategic or operational goals,
e.g. big data capabilities (Johnson et al., 2017; Lin and Kunnathur, 2019; Saleem et al., 2021).
Second, studying the basic theoretical logic behind these definitions, we found that one
stream of research follows the resource-based view and defines its “capabilities” or
“competencies” as “the ability or capacity to assemble, integrate, and deploy (big data) related
resources” (Torres et al., 2018; Rialti et al., 2019; Sodero et al., 2019), whereas another mainstream
offers its definition as “the capacity to capture, manage, process, and analyze (big data) towards
the generation of insights” from the organizational information process view (Prescott, 2014;
Dremel et al., 2017; Grover et al., 2018; Dubey et al., 2019a).
Third, the two terms “capability” and “competency” are used interchangeably in selected
articles. However, they are two distinct constructs according to the classical firm capabilities
literature (Henderson and Cockburn, 1994). Amit and Paul (1993) proposed that “capabilities”
refers to firms’ capacity to deploy resources to effect desired ends, which is often developed in
functional areas. In the field of core competency, Marino (1996) distinguished between the term
“capability” and “competency”, and discussed that competencies often result from technology
and production skills, while capabilities are rooted more in business practices, processes and
routines. Furthermore, Javidan (1998) developed a competencies hierarchy, which puts
capabilities and competencies into the same framework. In this hierarchy, a capability is
deemed to be embedded in a particular function as Amit and Paul (1993) proposed, while a
competency is the cross-functional integration and coordination of capabilities. In the present
research, we adopt the definitions of “capability” and “competency” provided by Javidan (1998).
Based on these findings, we suggest that an inclusive concept that describes a firm’s
holistic facility in dealing with big data paradigm is needed when analyzing the strategic
management of big data. Therefore, referring to research on core competency and big data
management, we introduce the concept of “big data competency”, and then construct its The lens of big
definition as “a firm’s holistic facility in integrating and deploying related resources or data
capabilities across boundaries (functional and organizational) to deal with big data paradigm.”
In our definition, the term “big data paradigm” includes infrastructures and methods toward
competency
big data (e.g. internet of things, platforms, block chain, cloud computing, artificial intelligence
and machine learning) as well as related thinking, routines and culture (Elia et al., 2020;
Urbinati et al., 2020). “Big data”, in turn, is defined as data characterized by volume, velocity
and variety [1], which cannot be processed by traditional analytic techniques and methods 711
(Chen et al., 2012; Alharthi et al., 2017; Johnson et al., 2017). The term “competency” emphasizes
the strategic enabling potential of big data, which originates from technology.

3.2 Looking inside big data competency

Within our sample, 57 articles provide insights on opening the black box of big data
competency. Based on these articles, we can come to four main propositions (listed in Table 1).
We then propose an inductive framework to depict the building blocks of big data competency
(presented in Figure 1), following the logic of virtual value chain, which is perfectly applicable
in the big data context (Ylijoki and Porras, 2019). The virtual value chain proposed by Rayport
and Sviokla (1995) was originally used to explain the phenomenon that information itself is a
source of value. In this regard, to create value through and with information, firms perform
five value-adding activities, including gathering, organizing, selecting, synthetizing and
distributing (Rayport and Sviokla, 1995). Ylijoki and Porras (2019) further presented a
framework connecting virtual value chain with the DIKW hierarchy (i.e. data, information,
knowledge and wisdom). In their framework, data and information are related to gathering,

Propositions Sources

Big data capitalization (e.g. data, data assets, data Opresnik and Taisch (2015); Arunachalam et al. (2018);
generation and integration) and exploitation (e.g. Krishnamoorthi and Mathew (2018); Behl (2020)
skillset, analytics and visualization) are two main
phases (N 5 4)
Firm capabilities are needed to deal with big data Barton and Court (2012); Prescott (2014); Akter et al.
(N 5 34) (2016); Orlandi (2016); Vidgen et al. (2017); Wang and
Infrastructure capability (N1/N 5 25/34) Byrd (2017); Wang and Hajli (2017); Arunachalam et al.
Data governance capability (N2/N 5 11/34) (2018); Wang et al. (2018b); de Oliveira and Handfield
Analytics capability (N3/N 5 24/34) (2019); Ferraris et al. (2019); Ghasemaghaei (2019);
Information process capability (N4/N 5 22/34) Grimaldi et al. (2021); Gupta et al. (2019); Mikalef et al.
Transformation capability (N5/N 5 26/34) (2019a); Mishra et al. (2019); Rialti et al. (2019); Wamba
and Akter (2019); Wang et al. (2019); Akter et al. (2020a);
Akter et al. (2020b); Bag et al. (2020); Bamel and Bamel
(2020); Gupta et al. (2020a); Gupta et al. (2020b); Hughes
and Ball (2020); Nasiri et al. (2020); Reis et al. (2020); Rialti
et al. (2020); Ritter and Pedersen (2020); Sousa-Zomer et al.
(2020); Sun and Liu (2021); Yasmin et al. (2020); Zouari
et al. (2021)
Firm resources are needed to develop capabilities Gupta and George (2016); Wieneke and Lehrer (2016);
(N 5 15) Johnson et al. (2017); Ghasemaghaei et al. (2018); Jeble et al.
Infrastructure and technologies (N1/N 5 13/15) (2018); Dubey et al. (2019b); Mikalef et al. (2019b); Wamba
Data (N2/N 5 12/15) et al. (2019a); Corte-Real et al. (2020); Jha et al. (2020);
Basic resources (e.g. time, investment) (N3/N 5 9/15) Mikalef et al. (2020a); Mikalef and Krogstie (2020); Mikalef
Human skills (managerial and technical) (N4/N 5 13/15) et al. (2020b); Schlegel et al. (2021); Suoniemi et al. (2020)
Data-driven culture (N5/N 5 9/15)
Organizational learning (N6/N 5 8/15) Table 1.
Virtual value chain is applicable in the big data context Braganza et al. (2017); Wang and Hajli (2017); Grover et al. Opening the black box
(directly or implicitly) (N 5 5) (2018); Wang et al. (2018b); Ylijoki and Porras (2019) of big data competency
MD Big data capitalization Big data exploitation
60,3
Gather Organize Select Synthetize Distribute

Actionable
Big data
Raw data Data formats Information Knowledge insights
investments
(Wisdom)
712

Infrastructure Data governance Information process Transformation

Analytics capability
capability capability capability capability
Figure 1.
Building blocks of big Firm resources
data competency
(Infrastructure & technologies, basic resources, human skills, data-driven culture, organizational learning)

organizing and selecting stages, while knowledge and wisdom are the results of synthetizing
and distributing processes of virtual value chain (Ylijoki and Porras, 2019). In the present
research, we extend their DIKW hierarchy to the RFIKW hierarchy (i.e. raw data, data formats,
information, knowledge, and wisdom) by considering raw data and data formats (Roden et al.,
2017). Accordingly, we relink the extended RFIKW hierarchy to the virtual value chain.
First of all, firms initiate their big data value creation by investing in big data infrastructure
and technologies, which means deploying information technology (IT) resources (including
platform technology, communication technologies and software applications) (Ashrafi and
Ravasan, 2018). This infrastructure should be able to adapt itself to different types of data and
quickly respond to different upgrading needs, i.e. flexibility (Rialti et al., 2019; Gupta et al., 2020b).
In this sense, IT flexibility can be realized through the connectivity, compatibility and
modularity of IT infrastructure (Ashrafi and Ravasan, 2018; Akter et al., 2020a). For analysts,
flexibility enables them to develop, deploy and support a firm’s resources quickly and easily (Sun
and Liu, 2021). In addition to flexibility, tools sophistication, referring to the maturity and
complexity of tools and technologies, also enhances the range of options (Ghasemaghaei et al.,
2018; Akter et al., 2020b). The aforementioned infrastructure is deployed to generate, capture and
identify data at multiple sources (Barton and Court, 2012; Prescott, 2014; Arunachalam et al.,
2018; Ritter and Pedersen, 2020). These activities are completed in the gathering stage of the
virtual value chain.
The data gathered at the first stage are messy raw data from heterogeneous sources, and
therefore, they need to be combined, transformed and pre-processed before analysis (Barton
and Court, 2012; Arunachalam et al., 2018). Through these processes, raw data can be altered
into a standard data format that meets the requirements of data architecture and quality,
including the consistency, completeness, accuracy and reliability of data (Ghasemaghaei,
2019; Grimaldi et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2019; Akter et al., 2020b). To improve responsiveness
and optimize business performance, the real-time accessibility of data storage and data
sharing among multiple functions or entities needs to be considered when firms design the
data storage methods (Arunachalam et al., 2018; Ghasemaghaei, 2019). In addition, data
storage has to deal with the data privacy and security issues, which should be consistent with
the local legislation and ethical norms (Wang and Byrd, 2017; Akter et al., 2020b). The data
integration, transformation and storage processes of data formats are completed at the
organizing stage of the virtual value chain.
Considering the volume, velocity and variety characteristics of big data, firms need to build
advanced and complex analytics models (e.g. machine learning, cloud computing, distributed
computing and artificial intelligence) to analyze data in batch-wise, real time or near-real time The lens of big
(Arunachalam et al., 2018; Akter et al., 2020b). Generally, to extract information from data, three data
types of techniques are used (Vahn, 2014). Descriptive analytics provides insights into what has
happened (Sivarajah et al., 2017), and it is based on the principle of classical statistics methods
competency
(Arunachalam et al., 2018). Predictive analytics is realized through the aggregation of statistics,
data mining and machine learning, which enables firms to predict what will happen in the future
(Aydiner et al., 2019). Complex prescriptive analytics offers alternative solutions and possible
impacts to support scientific decision-making (Akter et al., 2020b). Linking big data analytical 713
practices with dynamic capabilities, descriptive analytics improves the capability to better sense
opportunities while predictive analytics enables a firm to seize those opportunities (van
Rijmenan et al., 2019). Besides, the interpretation and visualization of analysis results, which
should be visual and intuitive enough for decision makers or managers, are equally important
(Wang et al., 2019; Ritter and Pedersen, 2020). The selecting phase of the virtual value chain ends
when firms obtain the requisite information from datasets.
In the following synthetizing stage, the extracted information is processed through a
series of activities containing collection, interpretation and synthesis (Cao et al., 2015). These
activities allow firms to discover the hidden knowledge that reveals extremely usefulness to
increase the quality of decision-making (Kowalczyk and Buxmann, 2015; Elia et al., 2020). In a
dynamic environment, the real-time access of information should also receive attention as it
enables managers to make real-time or near-real-time decisions (Ren et al., 2017; Wang et al.,
2018b). Besides, information sharing is another foundation of scientific decision-making and
positive outcomes, which is often studied in the supply chain research (Gunasekaran et al.,
2017; Wang et al., 2018b). There is a difference between information and knowledge, as
knowledge can only be created when information is combined with understanding or know-
how (Ylijoki and Porras, 2019).
Given the hidden knowledge extracted from big data, a firm is supposed to incorporate this
data-driven knowledge into its culture, routines and capabilities so that data-driven insights can
actually produce anticipated business outcomes (Barton and Court, 2012). To do this, a firm is
required to combine its old knowledge with that from big data and reconfigure the extended
stocks of knowledge (Gupta and George, 2016). Actually, many firms often fall into the dilemma
of mismatch between existing culture or routines and emerging tactics to utilize insights from
big data (Barton and Court, 2012). In this sense, it is necessary to facilitate a seamless data-driven
mindsets across a firm’s functional divisions and all management stages, which concerns
organizational culture, routines and capabilities (Vidgen et al., 2017; Akter et al., 2020a; Sousa-
Zomer et al., 2020). These changes actually unleash the potential of big data once they support a
firm’s actual operation and management activities, e.g. resource deployment, capability
development, innovation and organizational change (Akter et al., 2020b; Nisar et al., 2021; Rialti
et al., 2020; Wamba et al., 2020). The wisdom (i.e. actionable insights) that is produced from
knowledge exerts its influences on organizational management at the distributing stage of the
virtual value chain.
Our inductive framework warrants three important implications. First, data present five
distinctive states in different stages of the virtual value chain. Raw data are those come from
various infrastructures and need to be combined, organized and transformed. Only when raw
data are transformed into a standard data format can they be read and analyzed by data
analysts (Roden et al., 2017). While data present raw facts or symbols, information is data
given a context and answers to questions like when, where, who and what (Ylijoki and Porras,
2019). Knowledge, which tends to be predictive, is a combination of understanding and know-
how, while wisdom is related to managerial experts and provides actionable insights (Sumbal
et al., 2019). The raw data, data formats, information, knowledge and wisdom constitute the
RFIKW hierarchy proposed in the present research.
MD Second, firms need to build a set of capabilities so as to utilize big data to transform extant
60,3 value creation. We identify five main capabilities (i.e. infrastructure capability, data
governance capability, analytics capability, information process capability and
transformation capability) that are embedded in the virtual value chain. We then offer
their definitions referring to our data sample, as shown in Table 2. As the firm capabilities
research and resource-based view state, any of those capabilities can generate competitive
advantages as they are valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (Gupta and George,
714 2016). Generally, those capabilities can facilitate two main sources of competitiveness. The
infrastructure capability and data governance capability target at building the desired
portfolio of big data assets, namely, big data capitalization, while other three capabilities are
related to exploiting those big data assets, namely, big data exploitation (Opresnik and
Taisch, 2015; Behl, 2020). Besides, those five capabilities are “functional” and combined
together to form the “strategic” big data competency. “Functional or strategic” is the ultimate
criterion to distinguish between those five capabilities and the big data competency. The final
data structure on big data competency is presented in Figure 2, and the constructs of big data
capitalization and exploitation are discussed in detail in the next section.
Third, firms cultivate capabilities mentioned above by assembling and deploying big data-
related resources. Within our sample, firm resources such as basic resources (e.g. time and
investment), infrastructure and technologies (e.g. IT infrastructure and advanced analytics
models), human skills (i.e. managerial skills and technical skills), data-driven culture and
organizational learning are often studied as important factors to facilitate the development of
capabilities (e.g. Gupta and George, 2016; Wieneke and Lehrer, 2016; Ghasemaghaei et al., 2018;
Jeble et al., 2018). Human skills that rely on employees’ experience and knowledge are the most
important but difficult to obtain (Gupta et al., 2020a; Hughes and Ball, 2020). Besides, some
research (e.g. Sousa-Zomer et al., 2020) highlights the importance of big data-savvy teams. In our
framework, we propose that a firm continuously reintegrates and redeploys its resources to build
specific capabilities in different stages of the virtual value chain so as to create multiple business
values through and with big data.

3.3 Structuring big data competency

Extant research has proposed that the process toward big data value creation can be divided into
two main phases, as mentioned above. For example, Opresnik and Taisch (2015) proposed the
two strategies of big data in servitization consisting of generation and exploitation. In this
regard, the generation and acquisition activities of data can be managed operationally so as to
build the desired portfolio of data assets. Krishnamoorthi and Mathew (2018) and Behl (2020)

Capabilities Definitions

Infrastructure capability The ability to deploy IT infrastructure (i.e. platform technology, communication
technologies and software applications) so that firms can generate, capture and
identify big data at multiple sources
Data governance The ability to integrate, manage, pre-process data so as to form data formats that
capability meets the requirements of architecture and quality for further analysis
Analytics capability The ability in developing advanced and complex analytics models (e.g. machine
learning, cloud computing, distributed computing and artificial intelligence) so as
to produce information in batch-wise, real time or near-real time
Information process The ability to gather, interpret and synthetize information, thus discovering
Table 2. capability hidden knowledge toward the quality of decision-making
Definitions of Transformation The ability in reconfiguring current knowledge and effectuating the necessary
capabilities to deal with capability adjustment of culture, mindsets and routines so that data-driven knowledge
big data paradigm actually helps to improve management activities
 First-order categories Second-order themes Aggregate dimensions The lens of big
data
IT deployment
IT flexibility Infrastructure competency
Tools sophistication capability
Achieving data generation or capture
Big data capitalization
Data integration & management
Data architecture & quality Data governance 715
Data privacy & security capability
Data sharing

Building advanced analytics models

Descriptive analytics
Predictive analytics Analytics capability
Prescriptive analytics
Data interpretation & visualization

Discovering hidden knowledge

Decision support Information process
Big data exploitation
Real time capability
Information sharing

Reconfiguring stocks of knowledge Figure 2.

Transformation Final data structure on
Adjusting culture, mind-sets and routines
capability
Supporting actual management activities big data competency

also supported the view that big data value creation can be operationalized as the combination of
data and exploitation. Data are the new gold and oil for most businesses (Alharthi et al., 2017),
and their quality and quantity have a great influence (Johnson et al., 2017; Corte-Real et al., 2020).
As claimed by the garbage in garbage out (GIGO) principle, insights cannot be extracted from
garbage data, notwithstanding extraordinary data analytics skills or techniques. With the
increase in volume, variety and velocity of data, the primary challenge facing firms is how to
harness tools and skills to exploit those data, as data alone cannot solve issues in any business
(Behl, 2020). Besides, Arunachalam et al. (2018) emphasized the integration and management of
data during the phrase of structuring big data resources.
In the present study, we posit that the big data capitalization and big data exploitation can
be deemed as two different competitive strategies that can bring firms competitive
advantages independently. Therefore, we divide big data competency into two dimensions,
namely, big data capitalization and big data exploitation. Big data capitalization is related to
the level of big data assets and includes the processes of data generation, acquisition,
integration and management (Arunachalam et al., 2018). Big data exploitation describes how
a firm can utilize and exploit those data so as to create added value (Opresnik and Taisch,
2015). By combining these two dimensions with their two different levels (i.e. low and high), a
2 3 2 matrix structure of big data competency is obtained (Figure 3). The resulting four
quadrants represent four types of firms with distinct competitiveness in the big data context.
Firstly, a firm achieves a leading big data competency only when it reaches high level in
both two dimensions (Amankwah-Amoah and Adomako, 2019), and it is considered one of
the big data leaders. Big data leaders often reside in business fields such as manufacturing,
health care and retailing that adopt big data paradigm at an early time. Firms that possess
rich data assets but struggle hard to effectively utilize those data are big data reservoirs,
which are ubiquitous in the traditional industries. For this type of firms, how to use data to
realize digital transformation is a great but important problem (Liu et al., 2020). Big data
MD
60,3

Big data capitalization

Big data Big data

High
reservoirs leaders

716
Big data Big data

Low
laggards thirsters
Figure 3.
A 2 3 2 matrix
structure of big data Low High
competency
Big data exploitation

thirsters, often appearing in the big data service fields, can be reached when a firm owns
prominent experiences, skills and techniques to exploit data but struggles hard for ideal data
resources. This type of firms tend to expand their data pool by cooperating and interacting
with the upstream firms of virtual value chain. Moreover, they also utilize their skills and
techniques in various business fields through the cross-boundary cooperation (Ardito et al.,
2019; Malthouse et al., 2019). Big data laggards with low capitalization and low exploitation
are those who are reluctant to adopt the big data paradigm or lack big data resources, skills or
techniques (Kohli and Johnson, 2011). As their sluggishness in big data adoption, big data
laggards are often faced with dual tasks of structuring data assets and exploiting those data
(Mueller et al., 2018).

3.4 Connecting big data competency with value creation

In the following section, we present the intrinsic attributes of big data competency, illustrate
the transformation types of value creation with the influence of big data and then link these
two aspects to reveal the evolution of value creation structure from value chain to value
network.
The first attribute is the connectivity between different business entities in capitalizing and
exploiting a variety of data from various sources (Akter et al., 2016). Connectivity mainly relies
on the compatibility of various IT infrastructure, tools and software (Canhoto and Clear, 2020).
To achieve data transmission and integration both inside and outside the firm, an indication of
the interfacing of information technologies, interoperability of infrastructure and
communication between information systems needs to be fulfilled (Gunasekaran et al., 2017;
Dremel et al., 2020; Zouari et al., 2021). In this regard, an integrated analytic infrastructure, which
incorporates various data analytics techniques, is also needed (Wang et al., 2018b; Zhan and Tan,
2020). Besides, a firm can pursue coordination with both internal and external entities to realize
connectivity (Rai and Tang, 2014; Nasiri et al., 2020). As raw data that come from different
business functions and units need to be integrated, interworking and collaboration between
structural entities are required to ensure a standard data structuring and architecture (Dremel
et al., 2020; Zouari et al., 2021). Certainly, a firm’s big data application should be highly integrated
and linked with supply chain network or ecosystem so as to achieve value co-creation
(Gunasekaran et al., 2017; Akter et al., 2020b; Gupta et al., 2020b). The connectivity characteristic
of big data competency is more related to its technical properties.
The other attribute extracted from our sample is the complementarity that is defined as the
extent to which the value of one resource is added by the presence of other resources (Powell and
Dent-Micallef, 1997). In the big data context, complementarity results from the integration of big
data assets and other complementary resources (Akter et al., 2016). Akter et al. (2016) presented The lens of big
the sociomateriality of big data analytics capabilities, which indicates the ontological integration data
of material (technology) and social (management and human) elements (Orlikowski and Scott,
2008). Scholars espousing this view (e.g. Ferraris et al., 2019; Rialti et al., 2019; Wamba et al.,
competency
2019a) highlight the sociotechnical interactions between technology and management.
Moreover, to make big data work effectively, big data strategies should be properly aligned
with business processes and routines (Tian et al., 2010). This alignment consists of the
consistency between big data and business goals (Mishra et al., 2019; Shan et al., 2019) as well as 717
the fit of structure, behavior and culture between actors in a network (Brinch et al., 2021).
Alignment requires not only the utilization of big data to support business strategies but also the
agreement on the role of big data savvies (Bordeleau et al., 2020). Therefore, alignment is the
other factor toward complementarity. To summarize, connectivity and complementarity
represent two main intrinsic attributes of big data competency. The final data structure on
connectivity and complementarity of big data competency is presented in Figure 4.
Value, in this research, is the sum of all values that can be appropriated by all the
participants (Amit and Zott, 2001). For a firm, it can create value through its own operations
(directly), or indirectly, by creating products and services for its customers (Bowman and
Ambrosini, 2000). In this regard, big data have the potential to alter traditional value creation
by destructing and reconstructing activities and relationships across the value chain, from
the starting point to the end part (Lavalle et al., 2011; Wamba et al., 2015). Existing research
shows the impacts of big data on value creation in various managerial fields, within which
business values of big data such as informational value, transactional value,
transformational value and strategic value are identified (Wang and Hajli, 2017; Grover
et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018b; Elia et al., 2020; Gupta et al., 2020b). According to the academic
understanding provided by 42 related studies within our sample (Table 3), we argue that the
transformation of value creation driven by big data can usefully be considered to fall into two
clusters: Minor modification and refinement to extant value creation processes and outputs
(optimizing) and development of completely novel processes, products, services and business
avenues (pioneering). These changes bring firms competitive advantages by providing more
value or consuming less costs than competitors (Vidgen et al., 2017). The final data structure
on the transformation of value creation is presented in Figure 5.

First-order categories Second-order themes Aggregate dimensions

Interfacing of information technologies

Interoperability of infrastructure
Compatibility
Communication between information systems
Integrated analytic infrastructure
Connectivity

Interworking of structual entities

Collaboration between structural entities Coordination
Linkaging with partners

Fit between technologies and complementary resources

Socialmateriality
Sociotechnical interactions

Complementarity Figure 4.
Consistency between big data and business goals Final data structure on
Alignment between senior management and IT team Alignment the intrinsic attributes
Alignment between internal and external actors of big data competency
MD Transformation Sources
60,3
Optimizing (N1/N 5 21/ Chen et al. (2015); Wang and Hajli (2017); Grover et al. (2018); Srinivasan and Swink
42) (2018); Wang et al. (2018b); Aydiner et al. (2019); Dubey et al. (2019b); Mikalef et al.
(2019b); Wamba et al. (2019b); Wang et al. (2019); Bordeleau et al. (2020); Dubey et al.
(2020); Elia et al. (2020); Fatorachian and Kazemi (2021); Gebauer et al. (2020); Gupta
et al. (2020a); Gupta et al. (2020b); Haddud and Khare (2020); Lorenz et al. (2020);
718 Mikalef et al. (2020b); Suoniemi et al. (2020)
Pioneering (N2/N 5 26/ Bashir et al. (2017); Johnson et al. (2017); Troilo et al. (2017); Ashrafi and Ravasan
42) (2018); Del Vecchio et al. (2018); Grover et al. (2018); Hanninen et al. (2018); Srinivasan
and Swink (2018); Zhan et al. (2018); Kurpjuweit et al. (2021); Mikalef et al. (2019b);
Table 3. Wright et al. (2019); Wu et al. (2019); Akter et al. (2020b); De Luca et al. (2021); Duan
The transformation of et al. (2020); Gupta et al. (2020b); Hajli et al. (2020); Mikalef et al. (2020a); Mikalef and
value creation Krogstie (2020); Papa et al. (2021); Ritter and Pedersen (2020); Suoniemi et al. (2020);
facilitated by big data Tronvoll et al. (2020); Vitari and Raguseo (2020); Wang and Wang (2020)

First-order categories Second-order themes Aggregate dimensions

Selection of low-cost inputs

Avoiding expensive actions
Efficiency
Reducing unnecessary wastes
Reductions in uncertainties
Optimizing
Enhancing equipment effectiveness
Improving product delivery
Productivity
Improving product/service quality
Enhancement of consumer satisfaction

Novel products service and processes

New customers/markets
Innovation
Personalized products and services
New business development
Pioneering
Figure 5.
Final data structure on Digital products
the transformation of New digital services Digital offerings
value creation Additive manufacturing

With real-time data analytics and information sharing, the application of big data provides
important feedback insights for managers to monitor outputs, reveal operations and diagnose
problems (Dubey et al., 2019b; Fatorachian and Kazemi, 2021). By incorporating richer and more
timely business operational insights into decision-making, a firm can improve its manufacturing
and operation processes so as to avoid expensive and inefficient actions, eliminate accidents and
defects, as well as reduce unnecessary wastes and by-products (Srinivasan and Swink, 2018;
Gupta et al., 2020a). These benefits enable firms to reduce operating costs, stabilize the utilization
of equipment and improve the quality and productivity of the processes (Chen et al., 2015;
Haddud and Khare, 2020). In addition, big data utilization enables firms to shift flexibly between
different offerings and their volumes, which has been deemed as an important factor to improve
customer satisfaction (Srinivasan and Swink, 2018; Lorenz et al., 2020). The improvement of
product and service quality as well as the enhancement of consumer satisfaction lead to more The lens of big
value produced rather than cost savings (Wamba et al., 2019b). Considering these operational data
and transactional values, we argue that a firm can utilize big data to optimize its value creation
through reducing operating costs (i.e. efficiency) or improving product delivery (i.e. productivity)
competency
(Dubey et al., 2019b; Wang et al., 2019; Lorenz et al., 2020).
As big data utilization promotes the understanding of customers’ behaviors, interactions
and experiences, a firm with excellent big data solutions can create completely new products
and services to cater to the current customer needs (Srinivasan and Swink, 2018; Wright et al., 719
2019; De Luca et al., 2021). A better understanding of customers and markets, in turn,
facilitates innovation by providing more insights for customization (Mikalef et al., 2019b;
Vitari and Raguseo, 2020). Besides, big data solutions help firms to discover new customers
and markets and deploy novel marketing approaches (Wang and Wang, 2020). Certainly, big
data can exert a disruptive power over traditional business models and help to develop new
revenue streams, which leads to business model innovation (Johnson et al., 2017; Hanninen
et al., 2018; Ritter and Pedersen, 2020). In addition, some firms realize innovation through
directly providing digital products and services that are attached to digital technologies (De
Luca et al., 2021). For example, additive manufacturing (i.e. to build physical 3D objects by
adding successive layers of material) is one of the unique types of innovation in the digital
economy (Kurpjuweit et al., 2021). Therefore, we distinguish the digital offerings approach
from traditional innovation methods and regard it as a new type of pioneering behavior.
As big data competency brings along with the connectivity and complementarity among
intra-firm and further inter-firm entities, and firms shift from optimizing extant businesses or
fields to pioneering new ones, stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, partners and
those incumbents in the targeted fields, are connected and participate in the value creation of
firms. With the proliferation of interaction and the growing importance of stakeholders, the
distributed co-creation of value becomes prevalent, accompanied by the formation of
ecosystem and value network (Del Vecchio et al., 2018; Roos, 2018). Given the premise of value
network, compared with value chain, there is a wider context of interdependence and
symbiosis between partners in creating value (Malthouse et al., 2019). Accordingly, value is
created through the collaboration among network members rather than the efforts of any
single firm (Roos, 2018; Malthouse et al., 2019). Figure 6 reveals the evolution of value
structure from value chain to value network in the big data context.
Connectivity & complementarity
Inter-firm
Intra-firm

Figure 6.
The evolution from
value chain to value
Optimizing Pioneering network triggered by
big data
Transformation of value creation
MD 4. Conclusion and future research directions
60,3 4.1 Conclusion
Notwithstanding the growing application of big data, it is still a great challenge to understand
how a firm can utilize big data to transform its outdated value creation so as to gain competitive
advantages in the new economy. A growing number of studies have highlighted the complexity
of adopting big data while it is related to not only technical challenges but also managerial
challenges such as organizational embedding, practices and resource management (Akter et al.,
720 2016; Gupta and George, 2016). In line with this, a firm is supposed to strategically develop
corresponding capabilities to deal with big data paradigm (Lavalle et al., 2011; Davenport et al.,
2012). However, many different even contradictory concepts and definitions of firm capabilities
are proposed, and this causes some confusion on what capabilities are needed to deal with big
data and what their relationships are. Besides, existing research is scattered in several
managerial disciplines (such as decision-making and marketing), which makes it a challenge to
have a holistic understanding. Accordingly, a review of this field is needed regarding the main
construct, relationships, framework and mechanisms.
In the present research, we adopt an inductive and rigorous approach and review 185
relevant works on value creation or firm capabilities related to big data. To do so, we
introduce and develop the concept of big data competency and use it as the lens to analyze
how big data alter value creation. First, referring to classical firm capabilities research (such
as core competency) and recently emerging big data research, we provide a clear definition of
big data competency and regard it as an inclusive construct to depict a firm’s holistic facility
in dealing with big data paradigm. The clarification of relevant concepts may help to remove
the obstacles hindering the effective evolution of this field.
Second, we provide an inductive framework (Figure 1) on the building blocks of big data
competency following the logic of the virtual value chain. This framework provides a process-
based perspective to open the black box of big data competency as it presents the steps to
create value from data in the horizontal direction and implies the building process of related
capabilities and competency in the vertical direction. Our framework extends existing models
(such as the model provide by Ylijoki and Porras (2019) or Wang et al. (2018b)) by splitting the
development of capabilities and the value creation of big data into two dimensions (vertically
and horizontally). This is needed because we believe that a firm is required to reconfigure its
resources to develop corresponding capabilities in every stage of the virtual value chain. This
framework not only opens the black box of big data competency but also shows how and
where a firm can create value with and through big data.
Third, based on the inductive framework, we emphasize two separate competitive strategies
in the big data context and deem them as two dimensions of big data competency, namely, big
data capitalization and big data exploitation. By combining these two dimensions with their two
different levels (i.e. low and high), we provide a 2 3 2 matrix structure of big data competency
and identify four types of firms with distinct competitiveness in the big data context (Figure 3).
This indicates that a firm can improve its competitiveness in the big data context by increasing
its big data assets or exploiting those assets in more business fields. However, a firm achieves a
leading big data competency only when it reaches high level in both two dimensions
(Amankwah-Amoah and Adomako, 2019). Besides, when making business or big data
strategies, the matrix structure suggests that a firm should consider the type of competitiveness
it reside in.
Last, we identify the intrinsic attributes of big data competency (i.e. connectivity and
complementarity), illustrate the transformation types of value creation with the influence of
big data (i.e. optimizing and pioneering) and link these two aspects to reveal the evolution of
value creation structure from value chain to value network. Extant research indeed has
endeavored to provide a systematic framework to elaborate the impacts of big data on value
creation. In line with this, several frameworks revealing big data value dimensions (i.e.
informational, transactional, transformational, strategic, infrastructural value) and tiers of The lens of big
big data value creation (i.e. tool, industry and strategy) are presented (Mazzei and Noble, 2017; data
Elia et al., 2020). These frameworks fulfill the desire to present what values big data can
create, but they cannot explain what and how big data affects traditional value creation. This
competency
may restrict our understanding of how incumbents can utilize big data to adjust its
traditional businesses. By providing synthesized knowledge on the transformation of value
creation (i.e. optimizing and pioneering) and the evolution of value creation structure from
value chain to value network, the present research attempts to deal with this gap. 721

4.2 Directions for future research

The preceding literature review enables us to identify two avenues warranting further
exploration in future research. The first avenue is the adoption of a dynamic perspective to
analyze the strategic management of big data and complementary resources. This research
points out that a firm needs to reintegrate and redeploy its resources to develop big data-related
capabilities in response to the change of its internal and external environment. Accordingly, a
dynamic perspective of resource management process is required. By incorporating the
influence of environmental contingencies and managers’ role, the resource orchestration view
presents a dynamic resource management process toward value creation (Sirmon et al., 2007,
2011). Therefore, the resource orchestration view is applicable to explain how a firm can utilize
big data and complementary resources to develop firm capabilities (e.g. big data competency)
and further create value. In line with the dynamic perspective, the role of dynamic capabilities
warrants further exploration. The current research utilizes the dynamic capabilities view as a
lens to analyze the impacts of big data application on innovation (e.g. Mikalef et al., 2019b) and
competitive advantages (e.g. Torres et al., 2018). Nevertheless, the interplay of big data
competency and dynamic capabilities has not been explained well, considering the fact that the
construction and application process of big data-related capabilities presents dynamism.
The second avenue is related to the strategic management of the transformation of value
creation in the big data environment. Firstly, since we have identified the optimizing and
pioneering as two main ways for firms to improve their potential for value creation, new
research can quantitatively examine whether and in what conditions those two ways improve
a firm’s competitive advantages. As value creation is one of the mechanisms of business
model (Teece, 2010), a firm can realize the transformation of value creation through business
model innovation. Referring to recent business model innovation research (Li, 2020; Ritter
and Pedersen, 2020), firms often initiate their transformation by optimizing existing
processes (which may result in pioneering) or adopt a portfolio approach (i.e. the
incorporation of optimizing and pioneering) so as to reduce the risk of transformation.
Accordingly, the balance issue of optimizing and pioneering for sustainable competitive
advantages is one of the potential topics.
Second, given the evolution of value creation structure from value chain to value network,
one potential topic for future research is to analyze the strategic management of big data (e.g. the
development of big data competency and big data value creation) at the network or ecosystem
level (Ylijoki and Porras, 2019). For example, as more partners participate in the value creation
process of firms, the concerns of the alignment of big data and business strategies among
participants, the application of big data for expanding the interaction and value co-creation
sphere, an appropriate value allocation mechanism are worth of careful observation.

4.3 Limitations
Notwithstanding its substantial insights, our work could have two main limitations. First,
although we followed a rigorous approach adapted from the grounded theory, the
subjectivity of the researchers was hard to avoid. To help overcome this limitation, we
discussed for several times with different professionals and scholars in the field of big data
MD management to improve the validity of our findings. Secondly, our objective was to provide a
60,3 holistic understanding of big data competency and utilize it as the lens to explain how big
data alter value creation. This topic spans various managerial disciplines and indeed includes
too many ideas; therefore, a framework favoring breadth over depth is needed. While this
means that the intricate relationships were not explained well in the present paper, we chose
to provide an overview of big data competency due to lack of academic knowledge on this.
Future research can study the specific relationships emerging from our analysis.
722
Note
1. By some accounts, there are as many as 10 Vs to describe the characteristics of big data, as its
popularity in extant literature, we adopt “3 Vs” in this study.

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Appendix 1

Steps Tasks Our processes

Define Identify the scope (criteria for  Criteria for inclusion: Sources available in English,
inclusion/exclusion, fields, sources, and available full papers, timeframe spanning from
search terms) 2000 to 2020 (ahead-of-print literature is also
considered) and peer-reviewed articles (with works
like conference proceedings, literature reviews, books
and similar sources excluded)
 Fields and source: Management, business, operations
research management science, economics and
business finance in the Web of Science (Core
collection, SSCI)
 Search criteria: Combinations of terms “big data” and
“capabili*” (capability, capabilities), “competenc*”
(competence, competences, competency,
competencies) or “capaci*” (capacity, capacities) as
well as combinations of terms “big data” and “value
creation,” “competitive advantage*” (advantage,
advantages), “competitiveness” or “business value*”
(value, values)1
Search Implement the actual search  474 search results were obtained (duplicates were
removed)
 For each result, we downloaded the reference along
with full text the paper in PDF format into Endnote
X9; the metadata was also downloaded into an Excel
Table A1. spreadsheet for subsequently data analysis purposes
Using grounded theory
for literature reviews (continued )
Steps Tasks Our processes
The lens of big
data
Select Refine the sample  We applied our criteria for inclusion and exclusion to competency
refine sample based on reading the title, abstract and
full text of each work and then, the sample size was
reduced to 180 works
 We proceeded with backward and forward search,
and the sample size was augmented to 185 finally 731
Analyze Conduct coding processes (open, axial  We extracted a number of data points into an Excel
and selective coding) spreadsheet. These points includes the authors, the
source title, the publication year, the methods
(qualitative, quantitative or conceptual), the
managerial fields targeted (e.g. supply chain and
operation, new product innovation, strategic
management and decision-making), the context of
application (e.g. health care, manufacturing and
retailing), the theoretical foundation (e.g. resource-
based view, dynamic capabilities, open innovation
and knowledge management), the main findings or
conclusions, as well as the definitions of any concepts
that describe the capabilities needed to deal with big
data
 For a general understanding of our sample, we
conducted a simple descriptive statistical analysis
based on the data points in the Excel spreadsheet.
 To perform open coding, we read and highlighted any
findings and insights relevant to our interest, and
then tracked the relationships between variables
(conceptual or empirical) for each paper, including
relationships themselves and theoretical foundation
for explaining them
 We conducted axial coding to refine our coding
scheme
 We integrated these relationships using selective
coding to yield a high-level framework
Present Present findings and insights /
Note(s): 1 Particularly, search formula for Web of Science is “TS5(“big data” AND (capabili* OR competenc*
OR capaci*)) OR TS5(“big data” AND (“value creation” OR “competitive advantage*” OR “competitiveness”
OR “business value*”))” Table A1.
MD Appendix 2
60,3
Capabilities Definition of capabilities Sources

Digital-related capabilities Digital-related capabilities refers to those that move companies Nasiri et al. (2020)
to wards digitality, which is defined as the condition of
732 conducting business in a digital culture
Digitization capability The capability of firms to operate digital data Ritter and Pedersen
(2020)
Digital transforming capability The capability of executing a digital transformation strategy Sousa-Zomer et al.
(2020)
Digital data genesis capability A capability in digital data genesis is the process of choosing IT Prescott (2014)
technology to generate or capture data digitally at the source,
integrating that technology into the appropriate business
processes, managing that data once it has been captured and
stored, and reconfiguring itself in turbulent environments
Data analytics competency A firm’s capability in utilizing data analytics-based resources Ghasemaghaei (2019)
Data analytics competency A firm’s ability to deploy and combine data analytics resources Ghasemaghaei et al.
for rigorous and action-oriented analyses of data (2018)
Analytics capability Organizational facility with tools, techniques, and processes that Srinivasan and
enable a firm to process, organize, visualize and analyze data, Swink (2018)
thereby producing insights that enable data-driven operational
planning, decision-making and execution
Analytics capabilities The ability to process, analyze, and transform data to detect Wu et al. (2019)
patterns, find useful insights and support decision-making
Business intelligence and An organization’s ability to deploy business intelligence and Torres et al. (2018)
analytics analytics technology and personnel resources to produce
valuable information outputs
Business intelligence and A lower-order dynamic capability that organizations can Bozic and Dimovski
analytics leverage to create leading-edge knowledge in a dynamic (2019)
environmental setting
Business analytics competency A combination of business analytics assets, resources and Wang et al. (2019)
processes that a firm acquires, which includes BA objects,
operations and expertise
Business analytics capabilities A firm’s capability to analyze the obtained data and support Ashrafi and Ravasan
decision-making processes in response to market needs (2018)
Business analytics capabilities The effective use of data warehouse tools, analytics tools and Wang and Byrd
data visualization tools (2017)
Big data predictive analytics BDPA use refers to an organization’s ability to integrate, build Sodero et al. (2019)
use and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address
rapidly changing environments
Big data predictive analytics A firm’s edge to assemble, integrate and deploy its big data- Gupta et al. (2019)
capability specific resources to gain market share or improve profitability
Big data analytics capabilities A set of capabilities to allow firms to fully take advantage of the Rialti et al. (2020)
insights that could be provided by big data
Big data analytics capability The ability of a firm to capture and analyze data toward the Mikalef et al.
generation of insights by effectively orchestrating and deploying (2020a, b)
its data, technology and talent
Big data analytics capabilities An ensemble of capabilities related to the “ability to mobilize and Rialti et al. (2019)
deploy BDA-based resources in combination with other
resources and capabilities”
Big data analytics capabilities An organizational facility with tools, techniques, and processes Dubey et al. (2019a)
that enable the organization to process, visualize and analyze
data, thereby producing insights that enable data-driven
operational planning, decision-making and execution
Big data analytics capabilities A firm’s competency to provide business insights using Sun and Liu (2021)
technology, management, etc. to transform big data into a
competitive force
Big data analytics capabilities Ability to integrate, disseminate, explore and analyze big data Grover et al. (2018)
Table A2. Big data analytics capabilities A firm’s ability to assemble, integrate and deploy its big data- Schlegel et al. (2021)
Extant definitions of based resources
capabilities related to
big data value creation (continued )
Capabilities Definition of capabilities Sources
The lens of big
data
Big data analytics capabilities The ability to acquire, store, process and analyze large amounts Wang and Hajli
of health data in various forms, and deliver meaningful (2017)
competency
information to users, which allows them to discover business
values and insights in a timely fashion
Big data analytics capabilities The ability of a firm to effectively deploy technology and talent Mikalef et al. (2020b)
to capture, store and analyze data, toward the generation of
insight 733
Big data analytics capabilities Ability to analyze and exploit data, for instance, telemetry, Dremel et al. (2017)
location and environment data
Big data analytics capability The competence to provide business insights using data Akter et al. (2016)
management, infrastructure (technology) and talent (personnel)
capability to transform business into a competitive force
Big data analytics capability The ability to acquire, store, process and analyze large amounts Wang et al. (2019)
of health data in various forms, and deliver meaningful
information to users, which allows them to discover business
values and insights in a timely fashion
Big data analytics capabilities A firm’s ability to assemble, integrate and deploy its big data- Gupta and George
based resources (2016)
Big data analytics capabilities The ability of organizations to collect and organize supply chain Arunachalam et al.
data from heterogeneous systems distributed across (2018)
organizational boundaries, analyze it either batch-wise or real
time or near-real time and visualize it intuitively to create
proactive supply chain system and support decision-making
Big data analytics capability The competence to provide business insights using data Wamba et al. (2017)
management, infrastructure (technology) and talent (personnel)
capability to transform business into a competitive force
Big data analytics capability The ability to manage a huge volume of disparate data to allow Wang et al. (2018a)
users to implement data analysis and reaction
Big data and predictive This ability to assemble, integrate and deploy firm’s big data- Jeble et al. (2018)
analytics capability specific resources
Big data decision-making A firm’s ability to make high-quality big data-driven decisions Shamim et al. (2019)
capabilities by effectively managing a big data chain
Dynamic data and information Ability to promptly adopt changes and process data and Akhtar et al. (2018)
processing capabilities information for actionable knowledge or analytics that enable
the effective tackling of changes in the market
Dynamic service analytics Capabilities that provide the rapid response mechanisms to Akter et al. (2020b)
capabilities understand business contexts, visualize possibilities and make
decisive actions to enhance business agility and deliver service
in (near) real time
Supply chain analytics A holistic analytics process that provides robust insights for Wamba and Akter
capability real-time decision-making using various technological, (2019)
managerial and personnel capabilities
Use of big data The capacity of a firm to process, analyze and manage big data Saleem et al. (2021)
Big data capabilities A firm’s ability to use big data operates as a capability Johnson et al. (2017)
Big data capability A firm’s capability of identifying sources, where large volumes Lin and Kunnathur
of various kinds of data flow out at high speed, and collecting, (2019)
storing and analyzing such big data for the purpose of
accomplishing the firm’s strategic as well as operational goals Table A2.

About the authors

Professor Xiaobo Wu is Qiushi Chair Professor of Innovation and Strategic Management at School of
Management, Zhejiang University. His primary research interests center on managing technological
innovation, global manufacturing and strategy, network-based competitive strategy, big data and
business model innovation. He proposed the theory of “secondary innovation” based on Chinese
manufacturer’s innovative rising in catch up and initiated the researches on inclusive innovation in
China. For the excellence in research and teaching, he has been honored “Changjiang Scholar Chair
Professor”, “Leading Scholar in Philosophy and Social Sciences”, “Outstanding Teaching”, etc., national
awards.
MD Liping Liang is a PhD Student of Innovation and Strategic Management, School of Management,
Zhejiang University. Her primary research interests focus on firm capabilities, business model
60,3 innovation and value creation in the digital era. Liping Liang is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: liangliping@zju.edu.cn
Siyuan Chen is a Senior Data Solution Director and Chief Architect of Open Platform Department of
China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd (China Mobile Hangzhou R&D Center). He
has been in charge of the big data R&D and operations for nearly 10 years, including R&D and operation
734 management of enterprise data middle platform capability, data-driven business model innovation and
solution development management.

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