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Organizations are beginning to realize the potential benefits of big data and harnessing all of the data they are creating. However, a major impediment for many organizations is understanding where to start in big data and analytics implementation. In many respects, starting a successful implementation is not much different from any other project managed within the organization. The major stumbling block is knowing what questions to ask to get things going. This paper aims to help libraries and information organizations that are considering big data and analytics implementation to begin their journey by following a checklist of eight aspects to be considered in the development of a big data and analytics strategy.

The eight aspects to consider in big data and analytics implementation were developed using a combination of existing project management common knowledge, consultant recommendations and real-life experiences.

Organizations considering big data and analytics implementation need to explore aspects related to the data they have, what organizational problems they are trying to solve, how data governance will work in the new environment, as well as how they will define success in terms of their implementation. These are in addition to the technical issues one would normally expect in a systems implementation.

While there have been many articles written about the implementation of big data and analytics in organizations, most of these focus on technical issues rather than managerial and organizational concerns. In addition, none of these other articles have been from the perspective of library and information science. In this article, the focus is specifically on how information professionals may approach this problem.

This paper aims to examine the nature and extent of disclosure on the use of big data by online platform companies and how these disclosures address and discharge stakeholder accountability.

Content analysis of annual reports and data policy documents of 100 online platform companies were used for this study. More specifically, the study develops a comprehensive big data disclosure framework to assess the nature and extent of disclosures provided in corporate reports. This framework also assists in evaluating the effect of the size of the company, industry and country in which they operate on disclosures.

The analysis reveals that most companies made limited disclosure on how they manage big data. Only two of the 100 online platform companies have provided moderate disclosures on big data related issues. The focus of disclosure by the online platform companies is more on data regulation compliance and privacy protection, but significantly less on the accountability and ethical issues of big data use. More specifically, critical issues, such as stakeholder engagement, breaches of customer information and data reporting and controlling mechanisms are largely overlooked in current disclosures. The analysis confirms that current attention has been predominantly given to powerful stakeholders such as regulators as a result of compliance pressure while the accountability pressure has yet to keep up the pace.

The study findings may be limited by the use of a new accountability disclosure index and the specific focus on online platform companies.

Although big data permeates, the number of users and uses grow and big data use has become more ingrained into society, this study provides evidence that ethical and accountability issues persist, even among the largest online companies. The findings of this study improve the understanding of the current state of online companies’ reporting practices on big data use, particularly the issues and gaps in the reporting process, which will help policymakers and standard setters develop future data disclosure policies.

From these findings, the study improves the understanding of the current state of online companies’ reporting practices on big data use, particularly the issues and gaps in the reporting process – which are helpful for policymakers and standard setters to develop data disclosure policies.

This study provides an analysis of ethical and social issues surrounding big data accountability, an emerging but increasingly important area that needs urgent attention and more research. It also adds a new disclosure dimension to the existing accountability literature and provides practical suggestions to balance the interaction between online platform companies and their stakeholders to promote the responsible use of big data.

The purpose of this paper is to see how critical and vital artificial intelligence (AI) and big data are in today’s world. Besides this, this paper also seeks to explore qualitative and theoretical perspectives to underscore the importance of AI and big data applications in multi-sectoral scenarios of businesses across the world. Moreover, this paper also aims at working out the scope of ontological communicative perspectives based on AI alongside emphasizing their relevance in business organizations that need to survive and sustain with a view to achieve their strategic goals.

This paper attempts to explore the qualitative perspectives to build a direction for strategic management via addressing the following research questions concerned with assessing the scope of ontological communicative perspectives in AI relevant to business organizations; exploring benefits of big data combined with AI in modern businesses; and underscoring the importance of AI and big data applications in multi-sectoral scenarios of businesses in today’s world. Employing bibliometric analysis along with NVivo software to do sentiment analysis, this paper attempts to develop an understanding of what happens when AI and big data are combined in businesses.

AI and big data have tremendous bearing on modern businesses. Because big data comprises enormous information of diverse sorts, AI-assisted machines, tools and devices help modern businesses process it quickly, efficiently and meaningfully. Therefore, business leaders and entrepreneurs need to focus heavily on ontological and communicative perspectives to deal with diverse range of challenges and problems particularly in the context of recent crises caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

There is hardly any arena of human activity wherein AI and big data are not relevant. The implication of this paper is that of combining both well so that we may find answers to the difficult and challenging multi-sectoral scenarios concerning not just businesses but life at large. Moreover, automated tools based on AI such as natural language processing and speech to text also facilitate meaningful communication at various levels not just in business organizations but other fields of human activities as well.

This paper has layered social implications, as it conceptually works out as to how strategically we may combine AI and big data to benefit modern business scenarios dealing with service providers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, business leaders, customers and consumers. All the stakeholders are socio-culturally and contextually rooted/situated, and that is how this study becomes socially relevant.

This paper is an original piece of research and has been envisioned in view of the challenging business scenarios across the world today. This paper underscores the importance of strategically combining AI and big data, as they have enormous bearing on modern businesses. The insights arrived at in this paper have implications for business leaders and entrepreneurs across the globe who could focus more on ontological and communicative perspectives of AI combined with Big Data to deal with diverse range of challenges and problems that modern businesses have been facing particularly in recent times.

Introduction: In recent years, fresh big data ideas and concepts have emerged to address the massive increase in data volumes in several commercial areas. Meanwhile, the phenomenal development of internet use and social media has not only added to the enormous volumes of data available but has also posed new hurdles to traditional data processing methods. For example, the insurance industry is known for being data-driven, as it generates massive volumes of accumulated material, both structured and unstructured, that typical data processing techniques can’t handle.

Purpose: In this study, the authors compare the benefits of big data technologies to the needs for insurance data processing and decision-making. There is also a case study evaluation concentrating on the primary use cases of big data in the insurance business.

Methodology: This chapter examines the essential big data technologies and tools from the insurance industry’s perspective. The study also included an analytical analysis that supported several gains made by insurance companies, such as more efficient processing of large, heterogeneous data sets or better decision-making support. In addition, the study examines in depth the top seven use cases of big data in insurance and justifying their use and adding value. Finally, it also reviewed contemporary big data technologies and tools, concentrating on their key concepts and recommended applications in the insurance business through examples.

Findings: The study has demonstrated the value of implementing big data technologies and tools, which enable the development of powerful new business models, allowing insurance to advance from ‘understand and protect’ to ‘predict and prevent’.

Journals in business logistics, operations management, supply chain management, and business strategy have initiated ongoing calls for Big Data research and its impact on research and practice. Currently, no extant research has defined the concept fully. The purpose of this paper is to develop an industry grounded definition of Big Data by canvassing supply chain managers across six nations. The supply chain setting defines Big Data as inclusive of four dimensions: volume, velocity, variety, and veracity. The study further extracts multiple concepts that are important to the future of supply chain relationship strategy and performance. These outcomes provide a starting point and extend a call for theoretically grounded and paradigm-breaking research on managing business-to-business relationships in the age of Big Data.

A native categories qualitative method commonly employed in sociology allows each executive respondent to provide rich, specific data. This approach reduces interviewer bias while examining 27 companies across six industrialized and industrializing nations. This is the first study in supply chain management and logistics (SCMLs) to use the native category approach.

This study defines Big Data by developing four supporting dimensions that inform and ground future SCMLs research; details ten key success factors/issues; and discusses extensive opportunities for future research.

This study provides a central grounding of the term, dimensions, and issues related to Big Data in supply chain research.

Supply chain managers are provided with a peer-specific definition and unified dimensions of Big Data. The authors detail key success factors for strategic consideration. Finally, this study notes differences in relational priorities concerning these success factors across different markets, and points to future complexity in managing supply chain and logistics relationships.

There is currently no central grounding of the term, dimensions, and issues related to Big Data in supply chain research. For the first time, the authors address subjects related to how supply chain partners employ Big Data across the supply chain, uncover Big Data’s potential to influence supply chain performance, and detail the obstacles to developing Big Data’s potential. In addition, the study introduces the native category qualitative interview approach to SCMLs researchers.

This article, which is one of the products of an international collaborative research initiative called iTrust, aims to explore these questions and offer suggestions concerning how the issues they raise can be addressed.

The article describes the results of the first stage in a multi-stage research project leading to methods for developing retention and disposition specifications and formal schedules for open data and big data initiatives. A fictitious organization is used to describe the characteristics of open data and big data initiatives, the gap between current approaches to setting retention and disposition specifications and schedules and what is required and how that gap can be closed. The landscape described as a result of this stage in the research will be tested in case studies established in the second stage of the project.

The argument is made that the business processes supporting open data and big data initiatives could serve as the basis for developing enhanced standards and procedures that are relevant to the characteristics of these two kinds of initiatives. The point is also made, however, that addressing the retention and disposition issues requires knowledge and leadership, both of which are in short supply in many organizations. The characteristics, the issues and the approaches will be tested through case studies and consultations with those involved with managing and administering big data and open data initiatives.

There is very little, if any, current literature that addresses the impact of big data and open data on the development and application of retention schedules. The outcome of the research will benefit those who are seeking to establish processes leading to formally approved retention and disposition specifications, as well as an instrument – the approved retention and disposal schedule – designed to ensure the ongoing integrity of the records and data associated with big data and open data initiatives.

Designing knowledge management (KM) systems capable of transforming big data into information characterised by strategic value is a major challenge faced nowadays by firms in almost all industries. However, in the managerial field, big data is now mainly used to support operational activities while its strategic potential is still largely unexploited. Based on these considerations, this study proposes an overview of the literature regarding the relationship between big data and business strategy.

A bibliographic coupling method is applied over a dataset of 128 peer-reviewed articles, published from 2013 (first year when articles regarding the big data-business strategy relationship were published) to 2019. Thereafter, a systematic literature review is presented on 116 papers, which were found to be interconnected based on the VOSviewer algorithm.

This study discovers the existence of four thematic clusters. Three of the clusters relate to the following topics: big data and supply chain strategy; big data, personalisation and co-creation strategies and big data, strategic planning and strategic value creation. The fourth cluster concerns the relationship between big data and KM and represents a ‘bridge’ between the other three clusters.

Based on the bibliometric analysis and the systematic literature review, this study identifies relevant understudied topics and research gaps, which are suggested as future research directions.

This is the first study to systematise and discuss the literature concerning the relationship between big data and firm strategy.

The value of big data in supply chain management (SCM) is typically motivated by the improvement of business processes and decision-making practices. However, the aspect of value associated with big data in SCM is not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to mitigate the weakly understood nature of big data concerning big data’s value in SCM from a business process perspective.

A content-analysis-based literature review has been completed, in which an inductive and three-level coding procedure has been applied on 72 articles.

By identifying and defining constructs, a big data SCM framework is offered using business process theory and value theory as lenses. Value discovery, value creation and value capture represent different value dimensions and bring a multifaceted view on how to understand and realize the value of big data.

This study further elucidates big data and SCM literature by adding additional insights to how the value of big data in SCM can be conceptualized. As a limitation, the constructs and assimilated measures need further empirical evidence.

Practitioners could adopt the findings for conceptualization of strategies and educational purposes. Furthermore, the findings give guidance on how to discover, create and capture the value of big data.

Extant SCM theory has provided various views to big data. This study synthesizes big data and brings a multifaceted view on its value from a business process perspective. Construct definitions, measures and research propositions are introduced as an important step to guide future studies and research designs.

Privacy concerns and data security are changing the risks for businesses and organisations. This indicates that the accountability of all governance participants changes. This paper aims to investigate the role of external auditors within data protection practices and how their role is evolving due to the current digital ecosystem.

By surveying the literature, the authors embrace a practice-oriented perspective to explain how data protection practices emerge, exist and occur and examine the auditors’ position within data protection.

Auditors need to align their tasks to the purpose of data protection practices. Accordingly, in accessing and using data, auditors are required to engage moral judgements and follow ethical principles that go beyond their legal responsibility. Simultaneously, their accountability extends to data protection ends for instilling confidence that security risks are properly managed. Due to the changing technological conditions under, which auditors operate, the traditional auditors’ task of hearing and verifying extend to new phenomena that create risks for businesses. Thus, within data protection practices, auditors have the accountability to keep interested parties informed about data security and privacy risks, continue to transmit signals to users and instill confidence in businesses.

The normative level of the study is a research limitation, which calls for future empirical research on how Big Data and data protection is reshaping accounting and auditing practices.

This paper provides auditing standard setters and practitioners with insights into the redefinitions of auditing practices in the era of Big Data.

Recent privacy concerns at Facebook have sent warning signals across the world about the risks posed by in Big Data systems in terms of privacy, to those charged with governance of organisations. Auditors need to understand these privacy issues to better serve their clients.

This paper contributes to triggering discussions and future research on data protection and privacy in accounting and auditing research, which is an emerging, yet unresearched topic.