Systematic mapping of business intelligence research in selected journals: Identifying research gaps and suggestions for future research

Due to the widespread use of information systems, a large amount of data has been stored in organizations, and the analysis of this data is a valuable resource to help organizations making better decisions. This concept is known as business intelligence (BI) and is one of the most important factors for the success of organizations in the contemporary world. Given the importance of BI, it is necessary to systematically review the research conducted in Iran on it. The purpose of this research is to identify the topics researched in selected journals, analyze the dispersion and frequency of studies, identify research methods, the purpose of articles, the level of analysis of BI research and finally identify research gaps and provide the future research suggestions. The research was conducted by analyzing secondary data and systematically mapping the existing knowledge of BI in 6 selected databases. For this purpose, 2108 articles were reviewed and in the initial review, 1274 articles were selected and 91 articles were approved by studying the abstracts. Finally, considering the exclusion criteria, 81 final articles were selected and analyzed. The results show that the most thematic coverage of BI in these journals was the specific topic of knowledge management and general topic was BI tools with 44.45%. The most used research method was descriptive-survey with 34.57%, the most purpose was practical with 82.71% and the highest level of analysis used was community analysis with 66.66%. Finally, research gaps were presented in the form of future research suggestions.