Reimagining Strategic Management: The Role of Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Data Driven Decision Making in Intelligent Enterprises

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent automation, and data driven decision making are reshaping strategic management, yet prior research typically treats these capabilities as separate sources of value rather than as interdependent elements of a single transformation process. This conceptual paper develops an integrated intelligent enterprise framework through a structured literature review and thematic synthesis of peer reviewed work published primarily between 2019 and 2026, supplemented by seminal management theory. The framework links AI capability, intelligent automation, and data driven decision making to organizational performance through three mediating mechanisms strategic decision quality, operational efficiency, and organizational agility. Human AI collaboration, responsible AI governance, and digital maturity are modeled as boundary conditions, while the Resource Based View, Dynamic Capabilities Theory, Socio Technical Systems Theory, and the Technology Organisation Environment framework jointly explain complementary stages of adoption and value creation. The contribution of the paper lies in combining technological antecedents, explicit mediating mechanisms, and governance centered moderators within a single, theoretically mapped architecture, rather than assuming a direct technology performance relationship. Ten research propositions, including three that specify distinct boundary conditions, render the argument testable for future empirical work; no empirical results are claimed at this stage. By clarifying when and how intelligent technologies become durable strategic capabilities, the framework offers researchers a coherent theoretical foundation and gives managers a diagnostic structure for evaluating responsible intelligent enterprise transformation.