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Structural and technological changes are driving functional reorganization in many organizations. To date, there are very few articles that explicitly, consistently and cumulatively focus on cross-functional integration. This paper aims to review and explore the literature that does directly address cross-functional integration.

The authors conducted a literature review within the general management domain for the time frame 2010 to 2020 and identified 71 relevant articles that provide an overview of current practices and trends.

This conceptual paper reviews this identified literature and outlines key trends, noteworthy articles and a summary of relevant theories, and provides an overview of outcomes linked to cross-functional integration in the literature. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for practitioners and an outline of potential research areas for academic researchers, including a call for more theory integration, building and testing in the area of cross-functionality.

This paper is the first of its kind to attempt to summarize the literature on cross-functionality (published between 2010 and 2020), a currently very fragmented field of study spread out across different management disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of storytelling in data interpretation, decision-making and individual-level adoption of business analytics (BA).

Existing theory is extended by introducing the concept of BA data-driven storytelling and by synthesizing insights from BA, storytelling, behavioral research, linguistics, psychology and neuroscience. Using theory-building methodology, a model with propositions is introduced to demonstrate the relationship between storytelling, data interpretation quality, decision-making quality, intention to use BA and actual BA use.

BA data-driven storytelling is a narrative sensemaking heuristic positively influencing human behavior towards BA use. Organizations deliberately disseminating BA data-driven stories can improve the quality of individual data interpretation and decision-making, resulting in increased individual utilization of BA on a daily basis.

To acquire a deeper understanding of BA data-driven storytelling in behavioral operational research (BOR), future studies should test the theoretical model of this study and focus on exploring the complexity and diversity in individual attitudes toward BA.

This study provides practical guidance for business practitioners who struggle with interpreting vast amounts of complex data, making data-driven decisions and incorporating BA into daily operations.

This cross-disciplinary study develops existing BOR, storytelling and BA literature by showing how a novel BA data-driven storytelling approach can facilitate BA adoption in organizations.