The data philosophy: ‘changing evidence’

Aaron C.T. Smith, James Skinner and Daniel Read

Chapter 14 in Philosophies of Organizational Change, 2026, pp 329-342 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Chapter 14 situates the meteoric rise of data as a new philosophical lens for understanding and orchestrating organizational change. It opens by tracing how the proliferation of sensors, platform ecosystems and cloud analytics has shifted the managerial focus from intuition-anchored hunches to evidence-seeking queries, turning ‘data exhaust’ into a primary raw material for foresight and adaptation. The chapter then dissects four persistent myths that distort data-driven change efforts: the myth of neutral numbers, the myth of total objectivity, the myth of frictionless implementation and the myth of automatic value capture. Against these, it advances a pragmatist stance in which data are framed as socially situated signals whose worth emerges only through interpretive work, iterative experimentation and careful alignment with strategic intent. The chapter maps three interlocking capability clusters that constitute a data philosophy in action: (1) sense-making infrastructures that transform heterogeneous streams into decision-ready insights; (2) algorithmic ambidexterity that balances predictive exploitation with exploratory discovery; and (3) evidence-centred governance that embeds ethics, privacy and explainability into agile cycles of model refinement. The closing section interrogates emergent tensions and argues that navigating these dualities demands a new breed of data stewards: leaders fluent in analytics yet attuned to the socio-technical consequences. The chapter positions the data philosophy as a dynamic mediator capable of enriching every other philosophy.

Keywords: Data; Analytics; Evidence-Based Change; Algorithmic Ambidexterity; Socio-Technical Systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035372164
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