Search results

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the inadequacies of current business education in the tackling of the educational challenges inherent to the advent of a data-driven business world. It presents an analysis of the implications of digitization and more specifically big data analytics (BDA) and data science (DS) on organizations with a special emphasis on decision-making processes and the function of managers. It argues that business schools and other educational institutions have well responded to the need to train future data scientists but have rather disregarded the question of effectively preparing future managers for the new data-driven business era.

The approach involves analysis and review of the literature.

The development of analytics skills shall not pertain to data scientists only, it must rather become an organizational cultural component shared among all employees and more specifically among decision makers: managers. In the data-driven business era, managers turn into manager-scientists who shall possess skills at the crossroad of data management, analytical/modeling techniques and tools, and business. However, the multidisciplinary nature of big data analytics and data science (BDADS) seems to collide with the dominant “functional silo design” that characterizes business schools. The scope and breadth of the radical digitally enabled change, the author are facing, may necessitate a global questioning about the nature and structure of business education.

For the sake of transparency and clarity, academia and the industry must join forces to standardize the meaning of the terms surrounding big data. BDA/DS training programs, courses, and curricula shall be organized in such a way that students shall interact with an array of specialists providing them a broad enough picture of the big data landscape. The multidisciplinary nature of analytics and DS necessitates to revisit pedagogical models by developing experiential learning and implementing a spiral-shaped pedagogical approach. The attention of scholars is needed as there exists an array of unexplored research territories. This investigation will help bridge the gap between education and the industry.

The findings will help practitioners understand the educational challenges triggered by the advent of the data-driven business era. The implications will also help develop effective trainings and pedagogical strategies that are better suited to prepare future professionals for the new data-driven business world.

By demonstrating how the advent of a data-driven business era is impacting the function and role of managers, the paper initiates a debate revolving around the question about how business schools and higher education shall evolve to better tackle the educational challenges associated with BDADS training. Elements of response and recommendations are then provided.

Significant advances in digital technologies impact both organisations and knowledge workers alike. Organisations are now able to effectively analyse significant amounts of data, while accomplishing actionable insight and data-driven decision-making through knowledge workers that understand and manage greater complexity. For decision-makers to be in a position where sufficient information and data-driven insights enable them to make informed decisions, they need to better understand fundamental constructs that lead to the understanding of deep knowledge and wisdom. In an attempt to guide organisations in such a process of understanding, this research study focuses on the design of an organisational transformation framework for data-driven decision-making (OTxDD) based on the collaboration of human and machine for knowledge work. The OTxDD framework was designed through a design science research approach and consists of 4 major enablers (data analytics, data management, data platform, data-driven organisation ethos) and 12 sub-enablers. The OTxDD framework was evaluated in a real-world scenario, where after, based on the evaluation feedback, the OTxDD framework was improved and an organisational measurement tool developed. By considering such an OTxDD framework and measurement tool, organisations will be able to create a clear transformation path to data-driven decision-making, while applying the insight from both knowledge workers and intelligent machines.

With the advent of the intelligent environment, as novice researchers, graduate students face digital challenges in their research topic selection (RTS). The purpose of this paper is to explore their cognitive processes during data-driven decision making (DDDM) in RTS, thus developing technical and instructional strategies to facilitate their research tasks.

This study developes a theoretical model that considers data-driven RTS as a second-order factor comprising both rational and experiential modes. Additionally, data literacy and visual data presentation were proposed as an antecedent and a consequence of data-driven RTS, respectively. The proposed model was examined by employing structural equation modeling based on a sample of 931 graduate students.

The results indicate that data-driven RTS is a second-order factor that positively affects the level of support of visual data presentation and that data literacy has a positive impact on DDDM in RTS. Furthermore, data literacy indirectly affects the level of support of visual data presentation.

These findings provide support for developers of knowledge discovery systems, data scientists, universities and libraries on the optimization of data visualization and data literacy instruction that conform to students’ cognitive styles to inform RTS.

This paper reveals the cognitive mechanisms underlying the effects of data literacy and data-driven RTS under rational and experiential modes on the level of support of the tabular or graphical presentations. It provides insights into the match between the visualization formats and cognitive modes.

This article informs school leaders and staffs about existing research findings on the use of data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Given that teachers are the most important school-based educational resource, decisions regarding the assignment of students to particular classes and teachers are highly impactful for student learning. Classroom compositions of peers can also influence student learning.

A literature review was conducted on the use of data-driven decision-making in the rostering process. The review addressed the merits of using various quantitative metrics in the rostering process.

Findings revealed that, despite often being purposeful about rostering, school leaders and staffs have generally not engaged in data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Using data-driven rostering may have benefits, such as limiting the questionable practice of assigning the least effective teachers in the school to the youngest or lowest performing students. School leaders and staffs may also work to minimize negative peer effects due to concentrating low-achieving, low-income, or disruptive students in any one class. Any data-driven system used in rostering, however, would need to be adequately complex to account for multiple influences on student learning. Based on the research reviewed, quantitative data alone may not be sufficient for effective rostering decisions.

Given the rich data available to school leaders and staffs, data-driven decision-making could inform rostering and contribute to more efficacious and equitable classroom assignments.

This article is the first to summarize relevant research across multiple bodies of literature on the opportunities for and challenges of using data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters.

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a type of algorithms or computerized systems that resemble human mental processes of decision-making. This position paper looks beyond the sensational hyperbole of AI in teaching and learning. Instead, this paper aims to explore the role of AI in educational leadership.

To explore the role of AI in educational leadership, I synthesized the literature that intersects AI, decision-making, and educational leadership from multiple disciplines such as computer science, educational leadership, administrative science, judgment and decision-making and neuroscience. Grounded in the intellectual interrelationships between AI and educational leadership since the 1950s, this paper starts with conceptualizing decision-making, including both individual decision-making and organizational decision-making, as the foundation of educational leadership. Next, I elaborated on the symbiotic role of human-AI decision-making.

With its efficiency in collecting, processing, analyzing data and providing real-time or near real-time results, AI can bring in analytical efficiency to assist educational leaders in making data-driven, evidence-informed decisions. However, AI-assisted data-driven decision-making may run against value-based moral decision-making. Taken together, both leaders' individual decision-making and organizational decision-making are best handled by using a blend of data-driven, evidence-informed decision-making and value-based moral decision-making. AI can function as an extended brain in making data-driven, evidence-informed decisions. The shortcomings of AI-assisted data-driven decision-making can be overcome by human judgment guided by moral values.

The paper concludes with two recommendations for educational leadership practitioners' decision-making and future scholarly inquiry: keeping a watchful eye on biases and minding ethically-compromised decisions.

This paper brings together two fields of educational leadership and AI that have been growing up together since the 1950s and mostly growing apart till the late 2010s. To explore the role of AI in educational leadership, this paper starts with the foundation of leadership—decision-making, both leaders' individual decisions and collective organizational decisions. The paper then synthesizes the literature that intersects AI, decision-making and educational leadership from multiple disciplines to delineate the role of AI in educational leadership.

With the rapid change that has taken place with digitalization and data-driven approaches in supply chains, business environment become more competitive and reaching sustainability in supply chains become even more challenging. In order to manage supply chains properly, in terms of considering environmental, social and economic impacts, organizations need to deal with huge amount of data and improve organizations' data management skills. From this view, increased number of stakeholders and dynamic environment reveal the importance of data-driven technologies in sustainable supply chains. This complex structure results in new kind of risks caused by data-driven technologies. Therefore, the aim of the study to analyze potential risks related to data privacy, trust, data availability, information sharing and traceability, i.e. in sustainable supply chains.

A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model, which is the integration of step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) and TOmada de Decisao Interativa Multicriterio (TODIM) methods, is going to be used to prioritize potential risks and reveal the most critical sustainability dimension that is affected from these risks.

Results showed that economic dimension of the sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is the most critical concept while evaluating risks caused by data-driven technologies. On the other hand, risk of data security, risk of data privacy and weakness of information technology systems and infrastructure are revealed as the most important risks that organizations should consider.

The contribution of the study is expected to guide policymakers and practitioners in terms of defining potential risks causes by data-driven technologies in sustainable supply chains. In future studies, solutions can be suggested based on these risks for achieving sustainability in all stages of the supply chain causes by data-driven technologies.

Much of the recent research on data‐driven decision making in US schools has focused on standardized test scores while other forms of data in schools have gone largely unexamined as useful data, such as teacher‐assigned grades. Based on the literature, the theory outlined in this paper is that grades, as data historically overlooked in schools, are a useful multidimensional assessment for decision making by educational leaders. This paper aims to address these issues.

Using multidimensional scaling, grades, and standardized test scores are compared for 195 students in grades 9‐12 from two US school districts. The relationship between these assessments is visualized between grades in core subjects, such as Mathematics and English, non‐core subjects, such as Art and Physical Education, and standardized test scores, such as the ACT.

Two significant dimensions appear to be embedded within grades; assessment of academic knowledge and an assessment of a student's ability to negotiate the social processes of school. These findings indicate that grades should be reconceptualized as informative for data‐driven decision making in schools as a potential assessment of both academic knowledge and a student's ability to negotiate the social processes of school.

Grades have been overlooked as useful data in the data‐driven decision‐making literature. This paper provides novel evidence for the usefulness of actual teacher‐assigned grades in school and district decision making as well as research and policymaking versus the past use of student self‐reported grades or teacher perceptions of grading practices.

The study queries the drivers of innovation management in contemporary data-driven organizations/companies. It is argued that data-driven organizations that integrate a strategic orientation grounded in data, human abilities and proactive management are more effective in triggering innovation.

Research reported in this paper employs constructivist grounded theory, Gioia methodology, and the abductive approach. The data collected through semi-structured interviews administered to 20 Italian start-up founders are then examined.

The paper identifies the key enablers of innovation development in data-driven companies and reveals that data-driven companies may generate different innovation patterns depending on the kind of capabilities activated.

The study provides evidence of how the combination of data-driven culture, skills' enhancement and the promotion of human resources may boost the emergence of innovation.

Digitalization accelerates the need of tourism and hospitality ecosystems to reframe business models in line with a data-driven orientation that can foster value creation and innovation. Since the question of data-driven business models (DDBMs) in hospitality remains underexplored, this paper aims at (1) revealing the key dimensions of the data-driven redefinition of business models in smart hospitality ecosystems and (2) conceptualizing the key drivers underlying the emergence of innovation in these ecosystems.

The empirical research is based on semi-structured interviews collected from a sample of hospitality managers, employed in three different accommodation services, i.e. hotels, bed and breakfast (B&Bs) and guesthouses, to explore data-driven strategies and practices employed on site.

The findings allow to devise a conceptual framework that classifies the enabling dimensions of DDBMs in smart hospitality ecosystems. Here, the centrality of strategy conducive to the development of data-driven innovation is stressed.

The study thus developed a conceptual framework that will serve as a tool to examine the impact of digitalization in other service industries. This study will also be useful for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) managers, who seek to understand the possibilities data-driven management strategies offer in view of stimulating innovation in the managers' companies.

The paper reinterprets value creation practices in business models through the lens of data-driven approaches. In this way, this paper offers a new (conceptual and empirical) perspective to investigate how the hospitality sector at large can use the massive amounts of data available to foster innovation in the sector.

This study aims to identify and outline the critical challenges affecting the inclination of executives to use data as the basis for making decisions at a local government level.

The study conducted in-depth interviews with 21 public officials comprising middle- and top-level executives from 18 agencies and offices at the Bojonegoro Regency, one of Indonesia’s most progressive regencies in pursuing open government and smart cities.

The findings demonstrate that ensuring a good quality data architecture, nurturing data culture and developing analytics capability are essential in the case of a developing country such as Indonesia. However, insufficient policies and regulations, a nonexistent evaluative framework for data quality, disruptive local tradition and the ingrained autocratic administration represent significant and unique challenges to implementing data-driven decision-making in the local government in Indonesia.

The chosen research approach may result in a need for more generalizability beyond Indonesia, accentuating the necessity for the geographical objects to include other developing countries in future research.

The findings showcase that lack of awareness and acceptance from public officials and the general public of the importance of a data-driven approach; as such, a better understanding of the change in attitudes and mindsets of public officials is invariably one of the critical practical determinants.

The findings signify the importance of creating robust accountability systems and evaluative frameworks that consider the many variables influencing decisions that capture the significance of organizational and local culture.