Empirical Study of Organisational Factors Influencing Big Data Analytics Adoption in Nigerian Telecommunications Companies

Telecommunications companies generate enormous operational datasets, and their capacity to leverage big data analytics for network optimisation, churn prediction, and customer intelligence determines competitive advantage and service quality in the Nigerian market. This study empirically investigates the organisational factors influencing big data analytics adoption in Nigerian telecommunications companies. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was applied to 280 senior and middle management employees across four major Nigerian telecoms (MTN Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria, Glo, and 9mobile) in Lagos and Abuja, selected through stratified purposive sampling. A structural model testing top management support, IT infrastructure readiness, data governance maturity, organisational analytics culture, and inter-departmental collaboration as predictors of big data analytics adoption was estimated using PLS-SEM in SmartPLS 4. Available big data adoption literature from Nigerian telecom contexts identifies top management support and IT infrastructure readiness as the strongest organisational predictors of analytics platform investment decisions. The TOE Framework and Resource-Based View of IT capabilities provide the analytical basis. Findings confirm that top management support and data governance maturity are the two most significant adoption predictors, with organisational analytics culture fully mediating the management support-adoption relationship. Interaction effects between IT infrastructure readiness and data governance are significant and novel findings not previously documented in Nigerian telecoms research. The study fills an empirical gap in organisational-level big data adoption determinants for African telecom contexts. Keywords: big data analytics, adoption factors, telecommunications, Nigeria, PLS-SEM.