Big Data and Organizational Capabilities: A Grounded Study in a Pharmaceutical Company

With a grounded study in a global pharmaceutical company, we investigate how organizational capabilities can be developed in order to utilize big data. Big data have posed several challenges to companies: besides their collection, it is their fruitful use that has still to be disentangled. To develop an effective combination of organizational capabilities and fully benefit from big data, companies would need to master their operational capabilities, but how this combination of diverse capabilities unfolds remains still unclear. We combined interviews and observations of two project teams located in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Global managers involved in big data utilization project. Our findings shed light in this internal process showing how trial and error projects take place and are transformed into organizational capabilities.