ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a series of studies in collaboration with a group of international scholars with the aim to better understand how organizations create business value from their business intelligence (BI) investments. At least three limitations in prior IS studies were identified and used as motivational approaches to advance our BI payoff research framework. These limitations are: failing to measure BI systems at the locus of value; failing to capture the BI use as the conversion factor; and a lack of differentiation between BI infrastructure and BI applications. The model highlights two sets of Information Technology (IT)/information system (IS) infrastructures, technical and human, as the antecedents and drivers of BI systems assimilation. Three streams of literature yield key insights regarding the organizational performance attributed to BI systems: the process-oriented approach, the resource-based view, and the real option theory. Real options theory has received increased attention in the IS literature as a framework for investigating uncertain investments in IT resources.
