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2024/2025  KAN-CSOAO1003U  Organizing Digitalization

English Title
Organizing Digitalization

Course information

Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Mandatory
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Quarter
Start time of the course Autumn, Second Quarter
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Study board
Study Board for cand.merc. and SOL
Course coordinator
  • Ursula Plesner - Department of Organization (IOA)
Main academic disciplines
  • Information technology
  • Organisation
  • Strategy
Teaching methods
  • Face-to-face teaching
Last updated on 30-05-2024

Relevant links

Learning objectives
  • Account for different analytical approaches to the organization of markets and digitalization and relate these to each other
  • Analyze empirical examples of markets and digitalization as organized achievements
  • Connect the concepts and empirical cases covered during the course with relevant business problems and challenges.
Course prerequisites
The course must be taken together with Organizing Markets, as they have a common exam.
Examination
Organizing Markets in Conjunction with Organizing Digitalization:
Exam ECTS 15
Examination form Oral exam based on written product

In order to participate in the oral exam, the written product must be handed in before the oral exam; by the set deadline. The grade is based on an overall assessment of the written product and the individual oral performance, see also the rules about examination forms in the programme regulations.
Individual or group exam Oral group exam based on written group product
Number of people in the group 4-5
Size of written product Max. 15 pages
Assignment type Project
Release of assignment Subject chosen by students themselves, see guidelines if any
Duration
Written product to be submitted on specified date and time.
15 min. per student, including examiners' discussion of grade, and informing plus explaining the grade
Grading scale 7-point grading scale
Examiner(s) Internal examiner and second internal examiner
Exam period Winter
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
If a student does not pass the regular exam, the examiner of the ordinary exam decides whether a new, revised or the same project must be handed in by the submission date for the re-exam.

If a student is absent from the oral exam due to documented illness but has handed in the written group product she/he does not have to submit a new product for the re-take. However the group product must be uploaded once again on Digital Exam.

If a whole group fails the oral exam, they must hand in a revised product for the re-exam.
Description of the exam procedure

The procedure for group exams is flexible. Normally, the exam starts out with each individual group member giving a short presentation. Thereafter the exam proceeds as a dialogue between the student and the examiners. The examiners can direct the dialogue ensuring that everyone gets an equal opportunity to answer.

 

Even though the exam is a group exam, students will be assessed individually

Course content, structure and pedagogical approach

Digitalization brings about new conditions for managing work. Organizing Digitalization creates a foundation for understanding this transformation by interrogating the challenges and dilemmas related to digitalization in relation to strategy, organization and leadership.

 

In the first part of the course, we will focus on new conditions for strategy-making, studying how digital technologies are seen as forces in an increasingly turbulent strategic environment, as changing the role of strategists, as tools for strategically engaging stakeholders, and as challenging the control necessary for strategy-making. We discuss how digitalization problematizes long-term strategies and creates a new need for attention to daily practices, agility, and experimentation. In the second part of the course, we look into organizational phenomena, which have potential to create value for organizations in new ways; co-creation, datafication, and interactivity. We will discuss how such phenomena are continuations of classical organizational phenomena like collaboration, knowledge and communication, and this sensitizes us to balance the hype and the conservatism often accompanying new tech phenomena, maintaining our curiosity about the ambiguities related to digital transformations. The final part of the course introduces common dilemmas and practical aspects of leadership and management in digitalized organizations. We will discuss issues related to data ethics, the management of changing professional roles, the handling of the visibility afforded by digital technologies, as well as leading and managing collaborations in a virtual context.

 

The course is grounded in recent social scientific developments and theories of technology. It rests on the idea that classical and contemporary organization theory can give us an extensive knowledge base on the basis of which we can understand the interrelationship between digital technologies and organizational features and organizing processes. By training analytical capacities in relation to technology and organization, the course strengthens students’ capabilities to productively and reflexively work with strategies and implementation processes related to digitalization.  

 

Overlap with the course Organizing Markets

Both Organizing Markets (OM) and Organizing Digitalization (OD) discuss recent social scientific developments that challenge how organization and digitalization are usually understood and analyzed. Drawing mostly on practice-based organizational studies of digitalization, OD discusses and analyses digitalization as interwoven with organization. OM uses recent developments in economic sociology and science and technology studies that challenge the traditional dichotomy between markets and organization. It presents work that analyzes, in different forms, how markets are organized. 

 

A first common workshop combining the two courses introduces to an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary business problems, in particular relating to digitalization and business platforms. Students are introduced to particular business models, new business opportunities, and challenges in relation to these forms of organizations, as well as the changing competitive environment businesses find themselves in in the digital age. Two other common workshops support students in their interdiciplinary project combining the two courses. 

Description of the teaching methods
Dialogue-based lectures and case discussions. A workshop will be held with Organizing Markets.
Feedback during the teaching period
Feedback will be given to project groups during workshops and during office hours. Every group can also make use of supervision in relation to the exam project, and will receive peer feedback in cluster supervision sessions. The cluster supervision sessions are opportunities for students to discuss with and challenge each other and collaborate constructively.
Student workload
Lectures 33 hours
Readings and preparation for the exam 170 hours
Supervision 1 hours
Workshop 3 hours
Last updated on 30-05-2024