Instructors: Prof. Dr. Eva Alice Christiane Bittner
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
ISO-VL
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
2,5
Language of instruction:
German
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 120
Comments/contents:
VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) is a commonly used moniker to describe the current state of the world, characterizing (1) situations in which novel phenomena appear perpetually and capriciously and (2) novel and multifaceted challenges that incumbent firms face arising from these phenomena. Recently, digital transformation has emerged as such a novel phenomenon. Organizations operating in a VUCA world are permeated by and strongly influenced by digital technologies. Addressing digital transformation presents companies with important tasks with great opportunities, but also with many risks.
VUCA inevitably affects the organization and its IT. Management in a VUCA world has become an even more complex task in the area software and organizational development. This highly complex task includes building integrated organizational and IT functions, designing customer-centric business models and supporting them by designing lean business processes, or developing, implementing, and using complex information systems, to name a few.
In the wide-ranging design and management tasks, descriptive as well as prescriptive knowledge are equally essential. This lecture presents and relates current research findings and foundational knowledge from both categories. Topics covered are:
Part 1: (IT) Organization and Processes
- Interdisciplinary organizational theories and models
- Structure of (IT) organizations
- Process orientation in companies
Part 2: Complex Information Systems
- Methods for the reduction, avoidance as well as control of socio-technical complexity
- Approaches to visualize critical IT landscapes
- Selection, introduction and adaptation of critical IT systems in organizations
Part 3: Digital Leadership and Digital Business Strategy
- Goals and processes of corporate and IT governance
- Digital Business Strategy and the impact on existing as well as new digital business models
- Strategies for mastering organizational agility and digital innovation
Learning objectives:
Get to know and understand the structure of today's (IT) organizations; acquire orientation knowledge on the structure of organizations; acquire competencies in organizational theory, economics and social sciences as well as modeling competencies for mapping organizational processes in complex dynamic systems; recognize complexity in the development, introduction, use and assessment of operational information systems; learn methods for dealing with complexity; get to know tasks and methods of digital leadership and the importance of IT governance; compare approaches for visualizing IT landscapes; think in systems, processes and networks.
Didactic concept:
ISO is a submodule of the Pflicht- or Wahlpflichtmodul IGMO (Informatikgestützte Gestaltung und Modellierung von Organisationen). The course builds a bridge to application areas and to interdisciplinary contexts of use. It serves to analyze organizational systems using interdisciplinary methods and models and to design adapted constructive informatics solutions. On the basis of complex system dynamic modeling and well-founded economic and social science knowledge, computer science systems in organizational contexts are to be understood and designed, also with regard to their effects.
The course is aimed at students of Informatik, Wirtschaftsinformatik, Software-System-Entwicklung, but can also be taken as a minor.
The submodule ISO (LV 64-220/64-222) takes place in the second half of the semester, the submodule MuS (64-221) in the first half of the semester.
Lecture with practical examples; lecture notes are provided as a slide script via Moodle; exercises integrated into the lecture in the first half of the semester on Simulationstechnik und -modellierung (MuS), in the second half of the semester accompanying exercises on the three parts named above (ISO).
Literature:
- Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O. A., Pavlou, P. A., and Venkatraman, N. 2013. “Digital Business Strategy: Toward a Next Generation of Insights,” MIS Quarterly (37:2), pp. 471-482.
- Dern, G. 2009. Management von IT-Architekturen: Leitlinien für die Ausrichtung, Planung und Gestaltung von Informationssystemen, Wiesbaden: Vieweg+Teubner.
- Jones, G. R. 2013. Organizational Theory, Design, and Change, Boston, Amsterdam, London: Pearson.
- Mintzberg, H. 1979. The Structuring of Organizations: A Synthesis of the Research, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
- Ross, J. W., Beath, C. M., and Mocker, M. 2019. Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Additional references will be provided in the lecture.
Additional examination information:
Seminar:
- Submission of the ISO homework in a group of 4-5 students and achievement of at least 50% of the points attainable in the ISO tutorial (tutorial certificate for diploma students: 60%).
- In MuS (64-221) attendance is voluntary
Module success:
- Written exam
- Successful participation in exercises (see above)
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