Big data and big values: When companies need to rethink themselves

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel methodological approach combining text mining, social network analysis, and big data analytics to assess stakeholder attitudes towards corporate core values, demonstrated through a Twitter case study of Italian firms.

Contribution

It presents a new methodological framework integrating multiple analytical techniques to study stakeholder perceptions of corporate values using big data from social media.

Findings

Identified three main core values orientations: Customers, Employees, Excellence.

Detected three latent values: Economic-Financial Growth, Citizenship, Social Responsibility.

Highlighted the importance of periodic attention to latent values in business strategy.

Abstract

In order to face the complexity of business environments and detect priorities while triggering contingency strategies, we propose a new methodological approach that combines text mining, social network and big data analytics, with the assessment of stakeholders' attitudes towards company core values. This approach was applied in a case study where we considered the Twitter discourse about core values in Italy. We collected more than 94,000 tweets related to the core values of the firms listed in Fortune's ranking of the World's Most Admired Companies (2013-2017). For the Italian scenario, we found three predominant core values orientations (Customers, Employees and Excellence) - which should be at the basis of any business strategy - and three latent ones (Economic-Financial Growth, Citizenship and Social Responsibility), which need periodic attention. Our contribution is mostly methodological and extends the research on text mining and on online big data analytics applied in complex business contexts.