The Role of Big Data Analytics in Manufacturing Agility and Performance: Moderation–Mediation Analysis of Organizational Creativity and of the Involvement of Customers as Data Analysts

The involvement of customers as data analysts enables firms to gain valuable insights andcreate value from big data. We provide a theoretical explanation, drawn from the resource-based view, for the influence of the involvement of customers as data analysts and of thedevelopment of big data analytics (BDA) capabilities in business-to-business contexts asroutes to manufacturing agility and performance. Our study empirically tested a frame-work in which organizational creativity and the involvement of customers as data analystsmay differentially influence the relationship between BDA capabilities and manufacturingagility. We further tested whether the relative impact of manufacturing agility depends onorganizational creativity and the involvement of customers as data analysts. To test ourproposed framework, we took a partial least-squares structural modelling approach usingdata collected through a survey involving 179 engineering manufacturers operating acrossdifferent industrial sectors in Pakistan. We provide evidence for organizational creativ-ity and customer involvement, presenting a promising opportunity for manufacturers togain better insights from resources, and for the deployment of BDA capabilities leadingto better manufacturing agility and performance.