Analytics competence and IT business value: the role of metric ambidexterity

Organizations have invested in analytics to understand, predict, and influence phenomena germane to their success. Despite significant investments in analytics, there is a lack of comprehensive, theory-based models explaining how analytics contributes to IT business value through the development and exploitation of metrics. We address this gap by introducing metric ambidexterity – an organization’s ability to simultaneously explore new metrics and exploit existing ones – as a critical mechanism linking analytics competence and analytics culture to enhanced market competence. We test our research model with a matched pair sample of business managers and IT managers. Our results show that the interaction between analytics competence and analytics culture is related to metric ambidexterity, which subsequently affects market competence. Further, by demonstrating metric ambidexterity’s role as a significant mediator between aspects of the analytics environment and market competence, we provide a theory-based model that clarifies the processes through which analytics contributes to IT business value, offering timely insights for organizations seeking to leverage analytics more effectively in an increasingly competitive landscape.