Understanding Big Data-Business Alignment from a Dynamic Perspective

With the ubiquitous adoption of big data, aligning big data with enterprises has become an increasingly critical issue for managers. To address this issue, we conducted a longitudinal case study to analyze big data-business alignment in manufacturing companies (Gree Electric in particular). We collected research data by visiting the company, interviewing corporate executives, and searching authoritative websites We then analyzed the alignment process through a four-step grounded process. Our findings indicate that the enterprise can develop dynamic capabilities through alignment actions that respond to big-data usage scenarios and thus realize the ultimate alignment between the business and big data. Our study conceptualizes this alignment process and provides meaningful implications for big data-business alignment. Based on the findings, we recommend that the enterprise’s alignment actions and dynamic capabilities should evolve in concert to achieve big data-business alignment, and thus offer practical guidance on the use of big data in manufacturing companies.