Business intelligence in public sector organizations: a case study

Information Technology (IT) makes it possible to manage the increased complexity that all businesses, both public and private, face. One of the consequences of the growing use of IT is the large quantity of data produced and stored. However, very often this data is not exploited to their full potential. An existing tool that can increase the benefits related to the availability of data, specifically for supporting the decision-making process, is Business Intelligence (BI). BI may be defined as “an integrated, company-specific, IT-based total approach for managerial decision support” (Kemper et al. Business intelligence and performance management: theory, systems, and industrial applications, Springer, U.K., pp. 3–12, 2013). We investigate the impact of BI on managers’ behaviours. More specifically, the main aim of our research is to understand how the information provided by BI is used, what the perceived advantages and disadvantages are of its use and how the use of the BI module influences the managerial decision-making process.