Technology Readiness and Infrastructure

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how innovation, organization, and environmental factors influence executive management to adopt big data for strategic decision-making in an electric utility in the southwestern United States. This study was guided by the intention to adopt big data conceptual framework, which considered big
data as a foundational concept instead of technology. Three research questions were explored to uncover the influencing factors of big data adoption: How do executive managers describe the influence of ( I) innovation factors, (2) organization factors, and (3) environmental factors on adopting big data forstrategic decision-making? The sample included 14 executive management in the electric utility industry. Data collection included individual semi-structured interviews and
two focus groups. Thematic analysis and descriptive coding were used to analyzethe collected data. Five significant themes were found to influence the adoption of big data: cost factors, business strategy, organizational culture, uncertainty/risk, and customers/relationshi