MANAGING THE DIGITAL FIRM

 

B20.2314.20

Spring 01

Professor Lee Sproull

 

1/11/01

 

COURSE INFORMATION

 

        Classroom: 4-60

        Class time: T-R 10-11:20

        Website: http://class.stern.nyu.edu/courses/B20-2314-02/

         Most up-to-date information will always be posted on the blackboard website.

 

        Instructor: Professor Lee Sproull

        Office: KMC 9-73

        Tel. (212) 998-0804

        Fax (212) 202-4130

        Email:  lsproull@stern.nyu.edu

        Web: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~lsproull

        Office hours: T-R 8:30-10

                              Other days: by appointment

 

        Teaching Assistant: Jae Yun Moon

        Email: jmoon@stern.nyu.edu

        TA office hours by appointment

 

         Technical Assistant:  Mathew Gee

         Email: mgee@stern.nyu.edu

 

        Course Secretary: Pat Kong

        Office: MEC 9-170

        Tel. (212) 998-0810

        Email: okong@stern.nyu.edu

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

 

The combination of powerful technology developments and global business opportunities has led to the creation of new organizational forms and new challenges in managing them.  We call these new organizational forms, “the digital firm,” to emphasize that every aspect of the firm is touched and potentially transformed by digital processes.  This course focuses on understanding the nature of the digital firm and the key issues in organizing and managing it.  Managers of digital firms need to identify the challenges facing their firms; understand the technologies that will help them meet these challenges; design business processes to take advantage of the technologies; and create management procedures and policies to implement the required changes. By the end of this course students will understand the issues involved in creating a digital firm and in managing its processes, assets, and workforce.

 

CLASS PREPARATION, ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING

 

            Please complete the required reading before the day it is due.  I will also provide a list of optional readings on the course blackboard site, which you may use as a starting point to pursue any of the class topics in more depth.

            Your performance will be assessed as follows:

1.  15% Reading presentation and discussion (team grade)

2.  15% Practicum presentation and discussion (team grade)

3.  15% Class participation

4.  55% Research paper

 

Reading presentation and discussion:  The presentation should be about 10 minutes with ample time left for Q&A and discussion. The presentation should be turned in in hard copy form at the end of the class, 3-5 pages with accompanying slides.  An electronic version should also be submitted to my digital dropbox.

Practicum: Select a contemporary situation or issue of relevance to the topic of the day, presumably from a web-based source.  Present its key components, connect it to the topic of the day and the themes of the course. The presentation should be about 10 minutes with ample time left for Q&A and discussion. The presentation should be turned in in hard copy form at the end of the class, 3-5 pages with accompanying slides.  An electronic version should also be submitted to my digital dropbox.

Class participation:   I am following the class participation guidelines created by Professor Tucci for his courses.  They seem to be clear and work well.  You are required to attend all classes. Much of the learning in this course occurs in the classroom. If you feel that you cannot attend just about every class (for example, if you have to attend interviews during class time or you have heavy job commitments), please take another class that is less based on discussion. Please note that I have a "no excuses" policy; that is, I only note whether you are in class, not why you are not there (I do allow a free

absence, though; see below). You have one free absence that you should use for EMERGENCY purposes, such as jury duty, surgery, funerals, and other such major events. You can simply send me email saying you are using your free absence and we will mark the spreadsheet as if you attended class and participated. If at the end of the semester, you have not used your free absence, you can use it for any class that you missed for any reason. You do not have to tell me before the day you miss, simply send me an email by the end of the semester.  It goes without saying that attending class is necessary but not sufficient.  You must also contribute to the discussion.

Research paper: This paper will be on a topic of your choice that reflects the course readings, themes, and your personal experience and interests.  It should be about 15 pages in length, properly formatted and documented.  It is due at the beginning of class on April 26.  Please submit both hardcopy and electronic versions.  

 

READINGS

 

Section 1

OVERVIEW AND BUILDING BLOCKS

 

What Is a Digital Firm?

Jan 16

 

 

 

Course intro and overview

Readings:

    Venkatraman and Henderson, 1998, Real strategies for virtual organizing, Sloan Management Review.

Jan 18

Overview cont.

Readings:

    Marchand, Kettinger, Rollins, 2000.  Information orientation: People, technology and the bottom line, Sloan Management Review.

 

Technology Building Blocks

Jan 23

 

Guest speaker:

    Norman White, Stern IS department

Jan 25

Guest speaker:

    Norman White, Stern IS department

 

 

Section 2

DESIGNING DIGITAL FIRMS

 

Digitally-enabled Organizational Design

Jan 30

 

New organizational forms

Readings:

    Malone and Laubacher, 1998, The dawn of the e-lance economy, Harvard Business Review.

    Werbach, 2000, Syndication, The emerging model for business in the internet era, Harvard Business Review.

Feb 1

Communities of practice—Open source

Readings:

    Moon and Sproull, 2000, Essence of decision: the case of the Linux kernel.  http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_11/moon/index.html

    Markus, Manville, & Agres, 2000, What makes a virtual organization work? Sloan Management Review, fall: 13-26.

Feb 6

Communities of practice in the firm

Readings:

    Williams, & Cothrel.  2000.  Four smart ways to run online communities.  Sloan Management Review, summer: 81-91.

Feb 8

Personal networks

Guest speaker: 

    Steve Whittaker, AT&T labs

Readings:

    Nardi, Whittaker, & Schwarz, It’s not what you know, it’s who you know: work in the information age, http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/nardi/index.html

 

 

Section 3

MANAGING DIGITAL PROCESSES

Feb 13

Putting It All Together

 

BPR, reengineering, workflow, ERP

Readings:

    www.sap.com scan the site and read one of the “industry solution” pages

    Davenport, 1998.  Putting the enterprise into the enterprise system.  Harvard Business Review, 121-131.

    Stepanek, How an intranet opened up the door to profits, BW, 2000

Feb 15

Readings:

    Dell Online. HBS, 1998,  9-598-116

Feb 20

Readings:

    Willcocks & Sykes.  2000.  The role of the CIO and IT function in ERP.  Communications of the ACM, 43, No. 4: 32-38.

Feb 22

Readings:

    Cisco Systems, Inc.: Implementing ERP.  HBS, 1999.

 

 

Section 4

MANAGING DIGITAL ASSETS

 

Leveraging Digital Assets

Feb 27

Data as a resource

Readings:

    Levitin & Redman, 1999, Data as a resource: Properties, implications, and prescriptions, Sloan Management Review.

Mar 1

Data mining

Guest speaker:

    Vasant Dhar, Stern IS department

Readings:

Mar 6

Knowledge management

Readings:

    Hansen, Nohria, Tierney, 1999, What’s your strategy for managing knowledge? Harvard Business Review.

    Davenport, De Long & Beers, 1998, Successful knowledge management projects, Sloan Management Review.

Mar 8

Decision making

Guest speaker: 

    Michael Davern, Stern IS department

Readings:

    Malone, 1997, Is empowerment just a fad? Control, decision making, and IT, Sloan Management Review.

Mar 12-17

NYU vacation

 

Protecting Digital Assets

Mar 20

Data security and protection

Readings:

    How to spend a dollar on security, Computerworld

http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV65-663_STO53651,00.html

    Also scan Computerworld Security Watch Community

Mar 22

Intellectual property

Readings:

    Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, 2000, The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age, executive summary.

http://books.nap.edu/html/digital_dilemma/exec_summ.html

 

 

Section 5

MANAGING THE DIGITAL WORKFORCE

Mar 27

Changing Organizations and People on Internet Time

 

Readings:

    Markus & Benjamin, 1997, The magic bullet theory in IT-enabled transformation, Sloan Management Review.

Mar 29

Readings:

Ap 3

Remote Work & Distributed Teams

 

Remote work

Readings:

    Apgar, 1998, The alternative workplace: Changing where and how people work, Harvard Business Review.

Ap 5

Distributed teams

Readings:

    Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999, Communication and trust in global virtual teams.  Organization Science.

 

Workforce Issues

Ap 10

Recruiting and retention

Readings:

    Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, 2000, Building a Workforce for the Information Economy.  Read executive summary.         

http://books.nap.edu/html/IT_workforce/summary.pdf

Ap 12

 

 

Employee training and development

Guest speaker:

    Dan Kasura, IBM

Readings:

Forbes Magazine special issue on elearning

http://www.forbes.com/specialsections/elearning/contents.htm

Ap 17

Working conditions

Readings:

    Skim relevant sections of Dept. of Labor report on Future Work

    http://www.dol.gov/dol/asp/public/futurework/report.htm

Ap 19

Communicating digitally

Guest speaker:

    Chris Kelly, Stern Management department

Readings:

 

Digital Government and Digital Health Care—Important Environmental Trends for Digital Firms

Ap 24

Readings:

    Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, 2000, Networking Health: Prescriptions for the Internet.  Read chapter 1.

http://books.nap.edu/html/networking_health/ch1.html 

 

 

Wrap up

Ap 26