This course emphasises the contextual and contingent nature of contemporary working-life and general social activities within the setting of business enterprises. Increasingly, highly skilled individuals, building and using information and communication technologies, can create new markets or take over existing ones by redefining the rules. It is argued that the key to this cannot be found in new technologies alone but in adopting a view of the world that critically appreciates the relationships between the possibilities offered by the new technologies and what is feasible, practical and desirable in a given circumstance.

The aims of this course are for students:

• To understand how to use appropriate analytical tools in making decision in respect to emerging business challenges and opportunities
• To explore a series of contemporary business cases
• To understand the main theories surrounding innovation, information systems, and new business models
• To develop critical thinking in the area of business innovation through information systems
• To learn how to research a topic in depth and develop a specialized understanding of a particular industry and/or business phenomenon.

Table 1 – Course Aims Outline

This course will investigate modern businesses and how technologies support new models at the levels of the individual, the group, the larger social setting such as the organization, and at the infrastructure level by exploring the following 9 themes:

• Transaction Cost Economics, Information Systems, and Business
• Enterprise Mobility
• Information Systems and Organizations: Social technologies and Innovation Management
• The Organization: Interdependencies and Computer Supported Collaborative Work
• The Core of Information Services
• Global Infrastructures
• Convergence
• The New Value Chain (The Long Tail)
• Competition in the Information Economy

Business intelligence is defined as "the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action towards a desired goal." This ability is synonymous with understanding the context in which decisions have to be made. The world of technological development is moving rapidly in all directions, and for the modern manager of the electronic enterprise, any new development is potentially of strategic importance. Sectors, organisations, technologies and individuals vary so much that no simple recipes can be found. What is needed is general theoretical knowledge enabling the individual situated within an organisation to make the appropriate decisions based on the available data by applying the theories acquired. In today’s business environment, this means understanding what new information systems have done to the business landscape (represented by value chain activities, competition, customer relations, marketing techniques, and financing strategies) and how such changes are being used, and can be used in the future, to create new innovative business models. The good old industrial values are slowly but safely being replaced by new ways of perceiving the world. In this, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an important role. Organisations are these days increasingly digital. Wires and cables run through walls. Networks enable people to work together. The convergence of the telephone, the TV and the computer provides daily new innovations that must be considered.

The purpose of this course is through a number of emerging themes demonstrate the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the 21st Century and how this has changed the way organization work and innovate. The themes are driven from contemporary research of emerging phenomena where new technologies and new organizational opportunities meet. In a nutshell, this course seeks to build both a theoretical and an empirical foundation to understanding the various business phenomena of the past two decades, in order to provide students with analytical tools to make decisions in the modern business environment. Furthermore, with an individual project, in the form of a 4000 words essay, this course allows students to study in depth an emerging business phenomenon amongst the ones presented throughout the course.

The final grade of the students will be based on:

• Participation and Attendance in Class

Active participation is essential, therefore all students are expected to be prepared and participate in the class discussion. Preparation also consists in keeping up with current business and technology news.

• Individual Project

          To be submitted as indicated in the timeline. Individual Projects must be handed in at the beginning of the class on the due date. The formatting will follow a research paper structure. Late assignment will not be accepted.

• Exam

          The final exam will cover all the assigned materials and lectures contents. Furthermore it will be based on answering a number of essay questions.

Class attendance is mandatory. If a student misses more then 2 lectures he/she will be penalized with a 5% mark down in the final grade. Missing more than 5 lectures might results in the students being dropped from the course.

Week 1 – Introduction to course contents and Discussion on basis of research methods

Week 2 – Compiling a literature review and using research tools

Week 3 – Transaction Cost Economics and New Technologies in Businesses

Week 4 – Theories of Innovation and Diffusion of Innovation

Week 5 – Work and Collaboration: Computer Supported Collaborative Work

Week 6 – Mobile Technologies, Work and Enterprise Mobility

Week 7 – Convergence and Innovation in Digital Services

Week 8 – Global Infrastructures and Information Infrastructures

Week 9 – Wikinomics: New Value Chains and New Business Models

Week 10 – Customer Managed Relations and Marketing in the Digital Age

Week 11 – Innovation and Information Recombination

Week 12 – The Information Economy: From Digital Goods to Digital Services

Week 13 – Personal Project Discussions and Presentations

Week 14 – Review Sessions