Investigating the Assimilation of Business Intelligence in Business: Analyzing the Role of External Pressures and the Commitment of Top Managers in Crisis Situations

Business intelligence is often used as a modifier, especially in times of crisis, but it seems it is not well absorbed and assimilated across organizations that have adopted it, and this is rooted in the institutional theory and high-level theory. The purpose of this study is to investigate the assimilation of business intelligence by considering external pressures and the commitment of managers in critical situations in companies under the Endowment Productivity Foundation of Astan Quds Razavi. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in nature. The statistical population of this research is 44 companies of Astan Quds Razavi Endowment Productivity Foundation. In this regard, 3 questionnaires were sent to senior and influential managers in a non-random manner. Based on this, the data were collected from 132 managers. The research tool was Chaubey and Kumar’s (2021) questionnaire. To evaluate the validity of the instrument, content validity (according to experts’ judgments), and to check the validity of the structure, convergent and divergent validity, and factor analysis were used. The Cronbach's alpha value was estimated to be 0.877, which is in the acceptable range. Data analysis was performed using the structural equation modeling method and SmartPlus3 software. The findings showed that the factors of forced external norms (normative and imitative) have a significant impact on the commitment of top managers to innovate in business intelligence. The commitment of top managers through acceptance and normalization affects the assimilation of business intelligence.

The pandemic crisis resulting from COVID-19 has transformed the lives of citizens and organizations’ way of doing business. The pandemic has triggered humanity to find innovative ways of doing business to keep the sinking economy afloat. Although, we often blame COVID-19 and the pandemic for the current crisis. However, the pandemic has offered significant insight into our hidden problems that have plagued our world economy. It has exposed our weaknesses and reflected our capabilities to deal with such a health crisis. The power of emerging technology has been understood during the pandemic crisis to fight against the disruptions caused by the pandemic crisis (Dwivedi et al., 2020; Ivanov, 2020). Business intelligence is often used as a modifier of the situation, especially in times of epidemic crises. Although most managers are familiar with business intelligence and agree that it should be operationalized in their organizations, business intelligence is not well absorbed and assimilated across organizations that have adopted it, and this is rooted in the institutional theory and high-level theory (Chaubey & Sahoo, 2021). The purpose of this study is to investigate the assimilation of business intelligence by considering external pressures and the commitment of managers in critical situations in companies under the Endowment Productivity Foundation of Astan Quds Razavi. For this purpose, the following hypotheses are presented:
Coercive pressures have a positive and significant effect on the commitment of top managers.
Normative pressures have a positive and significant effect on the commitment of top managers.
Mimetic pressures have a positive and significant effect on the commitment of top managers.
The commitment of top managers has a positive and significant effect on the acceptance of business intelligence.
The adoption of business intelligence has a positive and significant effect on the normalization of business intelligence.
The normalization of business intelligence has a significant effect on the assimilation of business intelligence. 

This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in nature. The statistical population of this research is 44 companies of Astan Quds Razavi Endowment Productivity Foundation. The data collection instrument was Chaubey and Kumar’s (2021) questionnaire. Three questionnaires were sent to senior and top managers in a non-random manner. The data were collected from 132 managers. To evaluate the validity of the data collection instrument, content validity (according to experts’ opinions), and to check the validity of the structure, convergent, divergent validity, and factor analysis were used. The Cronbach's alpha value was estimated to be 0.877, which is in the acceptable range. Data analysis was performed by the structural equation modeling method and SmartPlus3 software.

Findings:   
The findings of the study showed that the factors of forced external norms (normative and imitative) have a significant impact on the commitment of top managers to innovate in business intelligence. The commitment of top managers through acceptance and normalization affects the assimilation of business intelligence. The results are summarized in the following table: 
Table 1. Analysis of Testing the Research Hypotheses
Hypothesis
t-statistics
Path coefficient

1
2/117
0/233
supported
2
2/685
0/348
supported
3
2/419
0/254
supported
4
18/209
0/728
supported
5
13/559
0/68
supported
6
4/121
0/433
supported

In this study, based on the institutional theory and the high-level theory, the research model was drawn, and according to the limitations of the institutional theory that existed in previous studies, the role of the senior manager's commitment was also considered in the framework of the institutional theory. The conceptual model was tested empirically and based on reflective measures of institutional pressures, which include mandatory, imitative and normative pressures, and also confirmed the collective effect of institutional pressures and can affect the commitment of top managers to attract business intelligence. In particular, it was clarified how the commitment of the top managers of the organization can act as an interface between institutional pressures and assimilation of business intelligence. By doing this and obtaining some empirical evidence in institutional theory, it became clear why organizations show different behavior in the field of applying business intelligence tools. In addition, based on the previously stated arguments, the research tries to explain the assimilation of business intelligence using the institutional theory and the high-level theory during the pandemic crisis. In this way, the study shows the impact of the pandemic crisis on the responsiveness of organizations in the use of business intelligence acquisition tools. Institutional pressures (including mandatory, imitative, and normative ones) affect the commitment of senior managers, which, in turn, affects the acceptance, normalization, and absorption of business intelligence.