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

Abstract: 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 KaU’s 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 organization’s 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.