WHEN DATA BECOMES AUTHORITY: TRUST IN ANALYTICS AND DECISION-MAKING IN SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJEMP.934007Keywords:
Data Analytics, Trust, Decision-Making, SMEs, Sociotechnical Systems, Trust Calibration Loop, Organisational CommunicationAbstract
Data analytics is increasingly embedded in Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) decision-making, where dashboards and performance metrics are commonly treated as objective and authoritative bases for managerial judgement. While prior research has focused on analytics adoption and performance outcomes, limited attention has been given to how trust in analytics shapes decision-making after adoption. Drawing on theories of trust, organisational sensemaking, automation bias, and sociotechnical critiques of quantification, this conceptual paper develops the Trust Calibration Loop to explain how analytics acquires, stabilises, or loses authority through iterative cycles of interpretation, decision action, and outcome feedback. Accordingly, the model conceptualises trust as a dynamic, post-adoption process through which analytics is legitimised, contested, or marginalised in organisational practice. By foregrounding trust as a communicative and interpretive mechanism, the paper advances business communication and information systems literature. In addition, it highlights the risks of both uncritical reliance on analytics and premature scepticism in SME decision-making.
Downloads
References
Bank Negara Malaysia. (2022). SME digitalisation and financing report. Bank Negara Malaysia.
Carlile, P. R., Nicolini, D., Langley, A., & Tsoukas, H. (2013). How matter matters: Objects, artifacts, and materiality in organization studies. Oxford University Press.
Davenport, T. H., & Harris, J. G. (2017). Competing on analytics: The new science of winning (Revised ed.). Harvard Business Review Press.
Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Heuristic decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 451–482. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120709-145346
Knaflic, S. N. (2020). Storytelling with data: A data visualization guide for business professionals (2nd ed.). Wiley.
Lee, J. D., & See, K. A. (2004). Trust in automation: Designing for appropriate reliance. Human Factors, 46(1), 50–80. https://doi.org/10.1518/hfes.46.1.50.30392
Luhmann, N. (1979). Trust and power. Wiley.
March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1993). Organizations (2nd ed.). Blackwell.
Mikalef, P., Boura, M., Lekakos, G., & Krogstie, J. (2020). Big data analytics capabilities and innovation: The mediating role of dynamic capabilities. Information & Management, 57(3), 103169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2019.05.004
Parasuraman, R., & Riley, V. (1997). Humans and automation: Use, misuse, disuse, abuse. Human Factors, 39(2), 230–253. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872097778543886
Pasquale, F. (2015). The black box society: The secret algorithms that control money and information. Harvard University Press.
Porter, T. M. (1995). Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton University Press.
Power, M. (2015). How accounting begins: Object formation and the accretion of infrastructure. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 47, 43–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.09.005
Samsudin, S., & Dani, E. H. (2025). Keeping it real: Deliberate distortion mechanism to preserve authenticity and dynamics of organizational communication messages in AI-mediated communication. International Journal of Law, Government and Communication, 10(42), 370–383. https://doi.org/10.35631/IJLGC.1042026
Shollo, A., Constantiou, I., Kreiner, K., & Kræmmergaard, P. (2015). The role of business intelligence in organizational decision-making. Information Systems Journal, 25(2), 113–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12037
SME Corp Malaysia. (2023). SME annual report 2023. SME Corporation Malaysia.
Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0133
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism. PublicAffairs.
