Influence of personal values and the adoption of analytical tools using laddering methodology

Analytical tools in business management are understood as a combination of information technologies and quantitative methods used to assist stakeholders to make better decisions. The contemporary business environment is dramatically changing by the massive accumulation of data. Now, as never before, the use of analytical tools must be expanded to take advantage of this growing digital universe. This article will apply the laddering technique to see how personal values (or managerial functions) influence a company’s adoption of analytical tools. A set of ten in-depth interviews are conducted with CEOs, analytics consultants, academics and businessmen in order to establish quantitative relations among attributes, consequences and personal values. Two ‘easy-to-read’ outputs are provided to interpret our results. The most important links are quantitatively associated through an implication matrix, and then visually represented on a hierarchical value map. Guidelines for improving the use of analytical tools are provided in the last section.