The social process of Big Data and predictive analytics use for logistics and supply chain management

TLDR

The literature describes why organizations will use BDPA but fails to provide adequate insight into how BDPA use occurs. The study explores the social process of BDPA use for logistics and supply chain management, focusing on post‑adoption interactions among technology, human behavior, and organizational context in retail supply chain organizations, and brings a social perspective to a technology‑centric area. The authors use a grounded‑theory approach, conducting interviews with senior managers from 15 retail supply chain organizations across multiple echelons. The study finds that user involvement and institutional context shape BDPA, leading to retroactive design changes, temporal and spatial discontinuities across organizations, and that BDPA cannot be designed for immediate use or easily transferred among collaborating retail supply chain partners.

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the social process of Big Data and predictive analytics (BDPA) use for logistics and supply chain management (LSCM), focusing on interactions among technology, human behavior and organizational context that occur at the technology’s post-adoption phases in retail supply chain (RSC) organizations. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow a grounded theory approach for theory building based on interviews with senior managers of 15 organizations positioned across multiple echelons in the RSC. Findings Findings reveal how user involvement shapes BDPA to fit organizational structures and how changes made to the technology retroactively affect its design and institutional properties. Findings also reveal previously unreported aspects of BDPA use for LSCM. These include the presence of temporal and spatial discontinuities in the technology use across RSC organizations. Practical implications This study unveils that it is impossible to design a BDPA technology ready for immediate use. The emergent process framework shows that institutional and social factors require BDPA use specific to the organization, as the technology comes to reflect the properties of the organization and the wider social environment for which its designers originally intended. BDPA is, thus, not easily transferrable among collaborating RSC organizations and requires managerial attention to the institutional context within which its usage takes place. Originality/value The literature describes why organizations will use BDPA but fails to provide adequate insight into how BDPA use occurs. The authors address the “how” and bring a social perspective into a technology-centric area.