PurposeAlthough much is understood about Business Intelligence (BI) technology adoption, less is known about the complementary organisational resources that drive the actual use of BI systems and the impacts of BI systems at an individual employee level. This study aims to develop and test a model of the impact of key complementary organisational resources on employees' actual BI systems’ use behaviours and their decision-making performance.Design/methodology/approachTo test the research model, a cross-sectional survey of 437 North American employees, who described themselves as using a BI system to make decisions, was conducted. The partial least square (PLS), a structural equational modelling (SEM) technique, was employed to analyse the survey data.FindingsThe survey findings attest to the influence of key complementary organisational resources (i.e. data-based culture (DBC), quality of data in source systems and decision-making autonomy) on employees' actual BI use (comprising BI system dependence and BI system infusion) and on their decision-making performance. Specifically, a DBC and the quality of data in source systems are found to significantly enhance BI system dependence and BI system infusion. Decision-making autonomy, DBC, BI system dependence and BI system infusion are significant contributors to achieving decision-making performance.Originality/valueThis study proposes a theoretical model of actual BI systems’ use from an individual user perspective that increases our understanding of both the complexity of BI usage and the complementary organisational resources that drive both actual BI systems’ use and the impacts of BI systems.