Selling the Fourth Revolution: The Correlation between C-Suite Architecture and a Big Data Mindset as Portrayed in the Letter to the Shareholders

Big data’s diverse applications for the modern data deluge span problems and industries. While offering titular possibilities, is big data an area of serious corporate inquiry or is it a source of hype? This research seeks to add to the growing body of management literature on big data. C-suite architecture additions of a CIO and/or a CTO demonstrate an environment for and increased BDA mindset. A review of the annual letter to the shareholder is a proxy for the external narrative of a big data strategy. To measure correlation between C-suite structure and outward narrative, a regression for eight industries, from 2011 to 2014, measure correlation between external and organizational positioning. Additional regressions examine industry-sensitivity and leader-laggard dynamics. Five of the eight industries demonstrate correlation between architectural repositioning and perceived investor support for big data, indicating that big data intensive C-suite architecture correlates with letter to the shareholder big data emphasis.