Big data and business analytics ecosystems: paving the way towards digital transformation and sustainable societies

The digitalization process and its outcomes in the 21st century accelerate transformation and the creation of sustainable societies. Our decisions, actions and even existence in the digital world generate data, which offer tremendous opportunities for revising current business methods and practices, thus there is a critical need for novel theories embracing big data analytics ecosystems. Building upon the rapidly developing research on digital technologies and the strengths that information systems discipline brings in the area, we conceptualize big data and business analytics ecosystems and propose a model that portraits how big data and business analytics ecosystems can pave the way towards digital transformation and sustainable societies, that is the Digital Transformation and Sustainability (DTS) model. This editorial discusses that in order to reach digital transformation and the creation of sustainable societies, first, none of the actors in the society can be seen in isolation, instead we need to improve our understanding of their interactions and interrelations that lead to knowledge, innovation, and value creation. Second, we gain deeper insight on which capabilities need to be developed to harness the potential of big data analytics. Our suggestions in this paper, coupled with the five research contributions included in the special issue, seek to offer a broader foundation for paving the way towards digital transformation and sustainable societies