Faculty
Niels Bjørn-Andersen, Jan Damsgaard, Robert Austin, Petra Schubert, Suprateek Sarker, Uri Gal, and Helle Zinner Henriksen

Course Coordinator
Helle Zinner Henriksen

The course will be taught in English and a good understanding of verbal and written English is a necessity. A bachelor in business administration and fundamental knowledge of applied ICT are required.

Enrolment on the basis of individual assessment of applications.

It is not possible to be enrolled in parts of the module.

PLEASE NOTE The enrolment is based on the basis of individual assessments of applications. Students are therefore required to send a full CV and Motivational Essay to elite.caict@cbs.dk as well as follow the register thropugh the Self Service system (CBS Students) or online registration (graduate exchange students) or by application form (Merit Students). The application deadline is 18 May 2010 12:00am.

The elite module in IT-excellence combines the newest, most advanced and relevant knowledge for the management of IT in organizations. It aims to qualify students to perform strategic analyses of all aspects of the role of the chief information officer and of other IT management positions in organizations. The elite module focuses on gaining knowledge, understanding, skills and the ability to assess the need to improve the management of existing and future IT resources in organizations. Emphasis is put on training students to analyze, develop, and manage new IT to strengthen organizational competitiveness and innovative capacities, and to support business processes in both private and public organizations.
The module is built around six knowledge domains which support the development of one large integrated case, which is developed by the students throughout the semester. The module consists of the following knowledge domains:

These knowledge domains pertain to different but related aspects, which are all part of a strategic IT portfolio. Strategic Business IT in an organizational context, such as ERP systems, focuses on how information flows can be used to create value and contribute to the organization's overall objectives. The key for organizations is to obtain and use the ERP system both within and across organizations.

The adoption and diffusion of IT innovations constitutes the second of the six knowledge domains. Its starting point is that IT is dynamic and therefore an obvious element in dealing with the combination of business and technology. Innovation and the drivers and barriers to diffusion of IT innovations in organizations play a central role because organizations continue to deal with IT innovations.

The importance of innovation brings to the fore the notion of the knowledge economy. To gain and maintain competitive advantage, organizations increasingly rely on the exchange of intangible products and services whose development requires highly-specialised skills and knowledge. Effectively cultivating and managing these knowledge resources is therefore becoming a major task for organizations. The main organizational and technological challenges that managers face when dealing with these issues are the focus of the third knowledge domain.

Management of ERP systems, dissemination of the system and organizational innovation processes relate to the domain of IT governance. IT governance focuses on the decisions taken and compared to optimize IT applications. IT governance is based on two perspectives. The first focuses on harnessing IT resources to promote the company's efficiency and the second focuses on the continued development of the company. Two important aspects in this respect are security and value. The long-term and strategic planning of IT resources is part of the domain knowledge related to strategic analysis. The domain covers theories and methodologies for the selection of strategy in relation to its business model, products, value chain, sales channels etc.

Many IT related tasks are organized in projects whose management represents a major challenge for organizations. IT management focuses on this challenge. The domain introduces themes such as communication, cooperation in relation to internal and external collaborators, innovation management and the importance of IT outsourcing versus in-sourcing.

The sixth and last domain of knowledge involved in elite module focuses on implementation and change management. Many good IT investments lose their momentum in the implementation process which often arises due to resistance to change. One way to counter this trap is to prepare students for this challenge.

The elite module takes place over one full semester and is ideally suited for students who are in their third semester in the masters of Science programs at CBS or for exchange students visiting CBS for one semester. The module is designed as a larger empirical project which the students perform in parallel with class-room teaching.

Different teaching methodologies are applied throughout the module. Firstly, we use ‘integrated cases’. This is a pedagogical form, which we very recently have investigated, will pick backing on the newest work going on at Harvard Business School by Professor Robert Austin and Professor Dick Nolan. The method can be described as a further development of the case teaching method that has made Harvard Business School teaching famous. The main idea is not just to use a series of cases, but to develop a large integrated case, where the students in a classroom setting and in groups are solving a number of issues, (delays in development, budget overruns, outsourcing of IT, IT innovation etc) and all the time is using a familiar environment, i.e. that of an integrated case. Secondly, the combined class-room and on-site learning through the strategic IT audit. The strategic IT audit project work in international companies will provide an excellent basis for applying the theoretical material in an ongoing dialogue with practitioners. Thirdly, the use of a dedicated mentor that coach the students over the entire strategic audit. This will ascertain that the theory and practice is combined. The idea of the mentor is to guide and help the students in the planning, doing the audit, and reporting it.

The learning outcomes of this module are more oriented towards the profession as an IT auditor. Thus instead of stopping at the level of being able to analyze within the knowledge area, we intend to drive graduates to a higher level of learning outcomes.

After the completion of the course, candidates should demonstrate knowledge and understanding regarding:

Furthermore, the candidates should have skills and capabilities to:

Finally, the candidates should be able to exercise judgment in the form of:

The module which is full workload for one semester is examined in four parts each equivalent to 7,5 ECTS. The following four exams are used to assess the students:

Readings for the case course (total 499 pages)

Strategicbusiness IT/ ERP Systems (total 900 pages)

Strategic analysis (total 802 pages)

Innovation and diffusion of IT (total 850 pages)

IT management (total 200 pages)

CASES:

IT governance (total 300 pages)

Implementation and change management (total 596 pages)

Knowledge management and organisational learning (total 261 pages)