Analyzing the Domain of Analytics Research

Abstract

The field of analytics occupies a large spectrum of research and development across the disciplines of science and technology. The implications of the term ‘analytics’ and associated research are of great importance to both industry and academia. This term has a widespread usage in many contexts. Defining and elaborating analytics research more precisely is a step forward to accelerating/stimulating research in this area. In this article, we analyze and explore the domain of the definition of analytics research from the information systems viewpoint. This is achieved by investigating the literature on Information Systems in order to extract the actual usage of analytics in both academic and practice environments. We conclude that the scope of analytics embodies five components namely, Technology, Applications, Methods, Results, and descriptors. We offer some justifications to a claim that this definition has made business analytic research more focused and more productive.