Controlling big data? Unfolding the organisational quest for IT-enabled competitive advantage

Abstract

Situated in the car insurance sector, this study investigates the implementation of a smartphone app interface aimed to realise an IT-enabled competitive advantage by engaging customers whilst simultaneously collecting data for a future transformation of the company’s control systems. Unfolding three dimensions of the performativity of the app, namely codes, visualisations, and narrations, the study shows how different actors and interests, within and outside the organisation, negotiated the features, scope, and value of the digital offering. The study finds that the company favoured marketing concerns over internal control concerns because the analytical possibilities of the data collected were too uncertain. The results suggest that digital innovations are accompanied by an increased agency of the customers that can cause negative intra-organisational control consequences and, thus, can contradict the general promise of digital offerings, hindering a realisation of a competitive advantage.