Ad­vanced Stra­tegic In­form­a­tion Man­age­ment

Course content

In today’s digital economy, information management has evolved into a strategic necessity for orchestrating radically complex and wide-reaching digital ecosystems. Hence, this course is not about how to program or manage databases for purposes of operational efficiency. Rather, we focus on alternative viewpoints on digital strategizing that are more appropriate for the challenges posed by an emerging digital world. To this effect, we focus on the notion of digital ecosystems by combining ecological and systemic thinking (e.g. resilience, system dynamics) with key concepts of digitalization (e.g. platforms, AI) into a contemporary framework of strategic information management. As a result, students will learn new approaches to digital strategizing in the 21st century and how they, as digital ecologists, can orchestrate (digital) ecosystems in favour of sustainable growth and adaptive capacities rather than reckless blitzscaling and other forms of mindless maximization.

This course is purposefully designed to address all Nordic Nine, as it...

1. places digitalization in the broader context of contemporary socio-ecological developments;
2. conveys analytical skills of systemic thinking and causal feedback loops to engage with the rising complexity and ambiguity of (digital) ecosystems;
3. discusses socio-ecological challenges of digitalization and how to resolve them;
4. demystifies the delusion of maximizing profits through competition as the only purpose of business in order to understand the wider repercussions of digitalization for society and ecology;
5. forefronts ethical dilemmas of quick-fixing symptoms with digital technology vs. addressing underlying root problems;
6. engages students to be critical about digitalization and its runaway dynamics from an ecosystemic perspective;
7. challenges students to think long-term and holistic about the impact of digitalization and digital strategy;
8. offers the option for students to collaborate on weekly exercises and provide peer-feedback;
9. invites students to think systemically with regards to digital strategy and how its local implementation can have global consequences.

This course offers two distinct "learning journeys" for completing it:

1. Self-Paced Study
   This learning journey is for students who (for whatever reasons) do not follow the course on a week by week basis but prefer to learn based on their own rhythm and speed. Their learning activities will be to read the mandatory readings and watch videos and listen to podcasts prepared by the teacher, whenever they want. Formally, they don't have to do anything but submit the final written assignment.
2. Digital Ecology Lab
   This learning journey is for students who want to follow the course on a week by week basis and enjoy doing group activities and exercises. Students will be expected to engage with a variety of pre-planned weekly exercises, stick to submission deadlines and, most importantly, participate in seminars on campus.

For the final exam, which is a written take-home assignment, students are allowed to chose whether they want to use GenAI as a supporting tool, if at all, (following CBS regulations) or for generating genuine content for the students. Students who chose the second option have to clearly declare that, mark the text generated by GenAI, and provide an appendix documenting how they used GenAI and critical reflections on their experiences.