Big data analytics adoption and firm performance: evidence from Singapore SMEs

Purpose This study examines the organisational and environmental conditions under which Singapore small and medium enterprises (SMEs) realise big data analytics (BDA) business value and how that value translates into firm performance. Drawing on the technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework, diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory, and the resource-based view (RBV), the study integrates internal organisational factors and external policy instruments into a unified value-creation model. Design/methodology/approach Top management support, organisational readiness, and government advocacy were specified as drivers of a unified BDA business value construct, which in turn predicts a unified firm performance construct. Government grant receipt entered the model as a binary control on both endogenous outcomes. Survey data from 390 Singapore SMEs across six MTI industry clusters were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with 5,000 bootstrap resamples and bias-corrected confidence intervals. An adopter-only robustness check (n = 172) was conducted. Findings BDA value creation in Singapore SMEs is principally an internal organisational achievement: top management support and organisational readiness emerge as the dominant drivers of BDA business value, which substantially predicts firm performance. Government advocacy does not significantly shape BDA business value. Government grant receipt operates as an adoption catalyst rather than a value-creation driver: it exerts a direct effect on firm performance in the full sample but not among confirmed adopters. Once firms adopt BDA, organisational readiness becomes substantially more decisive, marking organisational capability as the binding constraint on post-adoption value realisation. Originality/value The study contributes a refined TOE–DOI–RBV integration that separates the antecedents of BDA adoption from those of post-adoption value creation, novel evidence that government productivity grants function as adoption-stage instruments distinct from value-creation drivers, and an empirical demonstration of the adoption-value gap in a policy-intensive advanced economy. The findings inform both academic theory on SME digital transformation and the design of government support programmes for SME analytics adoption.