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Practical wisdom has received limited attention in the IS community (Dalal & Pauleen, 2019). Moreover, it has been highlighted how practical wisdom is being overpowered by other types of knowledge that are considered more fact-based (Eubanks, 2018; Martin & Golsby-Smith, 2017). Digital data is often viewed as hard facts (Russell & Bennett, 2015), and the collection and manipulation of lots of digital data is called Big Data (hereafter referred to as BD). Although data once was defined by a numerical representation of some kind of measurement, yet, after a process of extraction, analysis and conversion, research argues it becomes information and ultimately turns into knowledge (Priestley & McGrath, 2019).
BD can be described using the five V’s – Volume, Velocity, Veracity, Value and Variety (Nguyen, 2018) that all lay the groundwork for a vast amount of possibilities for new knowledge and insights. With the five V’s, you can, for example, predict pandemics (Ienca & Vayena, 2020), community activity (Zhang, Chen, Mao, Hu, & Leung, 2014) and traffic (Lv, Duan, Kang, Li, & Wang, 2015), to name a few. Thus, the possibilities of BD are endless, yet there are certain limitations. Although you can be precise and at the same time see specific patterns with the help of BD, there are nuances that might get lost (Eubanks, 2018; O’Neil, 2016), especially when value-laden judgement is of importance (Intezari & Pauleen, 2017). Yet, managing BD is about capturing, transferring, creating and using data in order to improve knowledge.
The prevailing discourse on BD tends to focus on algorithms and possibilities for developing its use (Günther, Mehrizi, Huysman, & Feldberg, 2017). Less research is focused on understanding the complexities that arise from implementing BD analyses for prediction in organizations; in this, social science and qualitative approaches play a key role (Kappler, Felix, Lena, & Johannes, 2018). Most studies on ethics and consequences of BD are furthermore performed by researchers within computer science or similar fields, which has contributed to the lack of diversity within the discourse (Hagendorff, 2020). It is important to study the possible consequences of BD and understand that the conception of these analyses is subjective; a level of interpretation and judgement is always needed. As such, Kappler et al. (2018) call for more social science in the study of the societal implications of BD as we have seen consequences that do not always benefit individuals or society at large (Eubanks, 2018; O’Neil, 2016). Similar calls for research have been made within Knowledge Management (KM) (Land, Amjad, & Nolas, 2007).
Therefore, with this as a background, this study focuses on practical wisdom and BD. Practical wisdom can be described as “the reasonable thing to do” considering the particulars of the specific situation (Shotter and Tsoukas, 2014b; Shotter & Tsoukas, 2014a) and is an integrated and multi-dimensional practice in which reflection, moral value-based judgement, and open-mindedness work in parallel to reach a common good for the many. It concerns the indefinable gut feeling that, although it might seem inadequate and incompetent to follow, research shows often takes you in a good direction (Kandasamy et al., 2016).
Following Aristotle’s definition, practical wisdom, or phronesis as he called it, means that a person acts for the common good based on their cognitive-emotional abilities. It is about taking action without knowing all the facts but instead using self-other awareness along with multi-perspective considerations, such as moral codes (Intezari & Pauleen, 2018; Shotter & Tsoukas, 2014b). In fact, not-knowing goes hand in hand with practical wisdom and is “a central condition to attain wisdom in practice” (Nascimento Souto, 2019, p. 49).