Abstracts Category : Other

Business Intelligence its impact on the decision-making process at higher education institutions : A case study at Karlstad University

by Jacob Persson

The purpose of this thesis is to understand how Business Intelligence (BI) influences the decision-making process (DMP) at higher education institutions (HEIs). Furthermore, this study aims to identify success factors of BI adoption (gathered from previous research) that are difficult for HEIs to fulfill. The study applied a qualitative research strategy and was conducted as a single case study at Karlstad University (KaU), a Swedish public HEI with approximately 16 000 enrolled undergraduate students and 1 200 employees. Regarding the data collection process, empirical data was collected through eight semi-structured interviews, all held with users of KaUs BI tool. The thesis findings show that BI affects the DMP at HEIs by increasing the quality of information, reducing time, and increasing the efficiency for the user. The findings also show that for a HEI, most key components that increase an organizations chance of a successful BI implementation are difficult to fulfill completely. Three components were identified to be in greater need of improvement than the rest: management & leadership commitment, culture around use of information and analytics, and requisite resources. Syftet med denna studie r att frst hur Business Intelligence (BI) pverkar beslutsprocessen vid hgskolor. Vidare, strvar denna studie efter att identifiera framgngsfaktorer fr BI-implementering (samlade frn tidigare forskning) som r svra fr hgskolor att uppfylla. Studien tillmpade en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi och genomfrdes som en fallstudie vid Karlstads Universitet (KaU), ett svenskt statligt universitet med ungefr 16 000 studenter och 1 200 anstllda. Nr det gller datainsamlingsprocessen, samlades empirisk data in genom tta semi-strukturerade intervjuer med anvndare av KaU:s BI-verktyg. Studiens resultat visar att BI pverkar beslutsprocessen vid hgskolor genom att ka kvaliteten p information, reducera tidstgngen och ka effektiviteten fr anvndare. Resultatet visar ocks att fr en hgskola r det svrt att uppfylla helt och hllet de faktorer som kar chansen fr en lyckad BI-implementation. Tre omrden identifierades att vara i strre behov av frbttringar n de vriga: chefs- och ledarskapsengagemang, kultur kring anvndning av information- och analysverktyg samt ndvndiga resurser.