Patterns of resource integration in the self-service approach to business analytics

The main premise of Self-Service Business Analytics (SSBA) is to make business employees autonomous during the data analytical process. To empower business employees, organizations are decentralizing their analytical capabilities through an SSBA approach. Yet, little is known about how employees integrate resources, such as, among others, personal competencies, environment resources including technology, and to generate insights in SSBA. Based on the empirical data of a major Norwegian online marketplace and drawing on service-dominant logic as an analytical framework, we identify and explain two types of resource integration in an SSBA environment: direct and clustered resource integration (including 1st tier and 2nd tier) enabled and controlled by three types of institutions. We finally discuss some organizational implications and the meaning of each sub-type of clustered resource integration.