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Firms seek to improve their decision-making and enable more “fact-based” decisions by using business analytics. While the benefits of using business analytics to monitor, develop and improve daily operations have been reported by many scholars, using it in more complex top management decisions has received less attention. Building on the resource-based view of the firm, this study aims to investigate top management perceptions of using business analytics for making decisions on firm resources.

This study uses semi-structured interviews to collect perceptions of 12 top managers in large firms on when and why they use business analytics in their decision-making.

Top managers use business analytics output as their main source of information for monitoring ongoing business performance against set targets and taking corrective actions. Concerning future-oriented planning and strategic decision-making involving more complex changes on the firms’ resource base, top managers proactively complement knowledge derived via business analytics with other sources of knowledge, such as stakeholder and expert opinions. Moreover, top managers use of business analytics depends on their own expectations of its value potential and on the expectations of their organization.

This study adds to the extant literature on the business value of business analytics by outlining the purposes and reasons for top management business analytics use. By demonstrating when and why top managers apply business analytics when making decisions on the firm’s current and future resource base, this study contributes to the discussion on the resource-based view and decision-making practices of the firm.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a complete guide to a qualitative method for capturing critical moments of managerial practice that combines interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and existential hermeneutic phenomenology (EHP).

This article is based on the findings of extensive research and describes in detail the specific steps that must be taken for complete replication of research. The research uses methods of IPA and critically develops the EHP framework with an emphasis on the analysis of interpersonal relationships.

Depending on the testing of the research method in practice, the article evaluates the IPA-EHP method as suitable for the research on critical moments of managerial lived experience, considering the causes of the crisis.

This article is based on demand from academics who would like to use this method to analyse managerial practice. Especially now, at a time associated with a number of challenging events, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, qualitative research is gaining in importance, even in management science. The original interpretative framework based on the phenomenology of Fink and Patočka is appropriate in this respect.