Course Objective

After completing the course, students will:
- Understand how the properties of digital technologies require, as well
as enable new approaches to working and organizing
- Have knowledge of relevant theories of how working, coordinating, and
managing in these new environments is different from traditional
workplaces and critically reflect upon the underlying assumptions
- Understand the interplay between technology and work practices and be
able to analyze and demonstrate that interplay
- Be able to apply academic insights to analyze and develop solutions
for a real life case

Course Content

In this course we focus on the demands digital technologies put on
organizations and society, and on how new ways of working and organizing
help adapt to these challenges. Topics addressed in this course include,
amongst others, how new ways of working (for example workers as digital
nomads, expert systems as alternative for legal workers, or production
done by 3d-printers) and new distributed and networked organizational
forms (for example peer to peer communities or crowdsourcing) have
advantages and disadvantages over traditional organizational practices
and structures. In addition to learning about these topics in
interactive lectures, students will also be required to fulfill a number
of assignments related to “real-life” challenges of new ways of working
and organizing. The assignments are related to a particular
organizational problem and will require students to apply theories
discussed during the lecture to a particular case. These “hands-on”
assignments are aimed to get a better understanding of the connection
between theory and practice. With the assignments, students become
academically prepared to understand and support the design, introduction
and use of digital innovation and its implications for new ways of
organizing and working in new distributed
environments.

Teaching Methods

The course will consist of a combination of interactive lectures, guest
lectures, seminars, and assignments. The lectures will also include a
critical discussion of selected readings, stimulated by obligatory
individual reflections on the literature. The seminars will be used to
have students present, discuss, and further develop the assignments.

Method of Assessment

Individual assignments and Group project assignment

Entry Requirements

None

Literature

A selection of readings (mostly academic papers, but also book chapters
and thoughtful business magazine articles) will be made available before
the start of the course.