ITEC641 - Managing Emerging Digital Technologies

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

MGMT605 Strategic Management for Sustainability

Teaching organisation

Unit rationale, description and aim

Innovation of digital technologies has become central to driving economic productivity and the future wellbeing of society. This unit will investigate core aspects of value creation from emerging digital technologies.

Digital technologies are presenting significant opportunities and threats to existing business models. For example, big data analysis can be used to assist managerial decision making, and artificial intelligence can have a profound impact on traditional work practices and the professions. As such, executives need to understand the strategic, managerial and execution aspects of digital technologies, and how they can be captured to create organisational value.

The unit provides a broad base of digital literacy and cyber security from which students are expected to examine and create a digital strategy for their own organisations to capture and sustain competitive advantage in a world of technological turbulence.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Apply the concepts associated with emerging technologies required to help business leaders take advantage of data, digital and technological advances (GA5) 

LO2 - Understand and evaluate the impact of emerging digital technologies on human beings, whether as customers, employees, stakeholders or citizens (GA1, GA8) 

LO3 - Evaluate and synthesise options concerning how best to organize, prioritise and exploit emerging technology opportunities (GA8, GA9)

LO4 - Critically evaluate the leadership and ethical issues associated with the management of ever-expanding technological capabilities including, but not limited to, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). (GA3, GA4, GA8, GA9) 

LO5 - Demonstrate digital literacy and practical skills to create competitive advantage in a world of technological turbulence in which adaptability and reinvention are likely to be business imperatives (GA4, GA5, GA8, GA9)

Graduate attributes

GA1 - demonstrate respect for the dignity of each individual and for human diversity 

GA3 - apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

Content

Topics will include: 

• Introduction and context – the history of technology and its relationship with commerce, the impacts of digital disruption and digitisation on business and society. 
• Digital disruption and transformation – how businesses today are adapting to the daily challenges of digital disruption.  
• Ethics and governance of digital technologies - understanding the ethical issues for organisations, governments and society. 
• Digital risks - examining core digital threats, cyber security and the overall digital strategy.  
• Developing a digital strategy – a systematic analysis of the most problematic parts of your industry, customer trends, the competitive landscape, etc. 
• Leading the digital transformation – developing the requisite change and communication plans for digital transformation.

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This unit takes an active learning approach to guide students in the analysis, synthesis, evaluation and application of the core aspects of value creation from digital and emerging technologies and their impact on organisations.  

ACU’s teaching policy focuses on learning outcomes for students. Our teaching aims to engage students as active participants in the learning process while acknowledging that all learning must involve a complex interplay of active and receptive processes, the constructing of meaning for oneself, and learning from others. ACU promotes and facilitates learning that is autonomous and self-motivated, is characterised by the individual taking satisfaction in the mastering of content and skills and is critical, looking beneath the surface level of information for the meaning and significance of what is being studied. 

Mode of Delivery: 

Lectures, seminars and workshops on campus or mixed mode 

Pattern of attendance and duration: 

Intensive mode of delivery. Students should anticipate undertaking 150 hours of study for this unit, including class attendance, readings and assignment preparation. 

Assessment strategy and rationale

Assessments are used primarily to foster learning. ACU adopts a constructivist approach to learning which seeks alignment between the fundamental purpose of each unit, the learning outcomes, teaching and learning strategy, assessment and the learning environment. To pass this unit, students are required to submit all pieces of assessment and achieve an overall score of at least 50%. Using constructive alignment, the assessment tasks are designed for students to demonstrate their achievement of each learning outcome.  

Each of these assessment pieces has been designed to empower students, lead to greater equity and deepen students’ skillsets by virtue of their design. They are assessments that are constructed to integrate the unit’s instruction and curriculum. Total assessments are limited to 5,000 words or equivalent.  

The purpose of Assessment 1 is to enable students to demonstrate their broad understanding of each of the topic areas in the unit.  

The purpose of Assessment 2 is to critically assess the success of a strategic digital change in the student’s organisation. This form of assessment allows students to identify areas that worked and areas of improvement. 

The final assessment requires students to demonstrate their understanding of the unit’s content by critically analysing opportunities and potential threats that digital technologies pose to their organisation. Students outline a potential strategy that could be implemented in their organisation to increase value. 

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

DalleMule L, Davenport TH (2017), What’s Your Data Strategy?, Available at: https://hbr.org/2017/05/whats-your-data-strategy 

Decker R, Haltiwanger J, Jarmin R, and Miranda J (2014), The Role of Entrepreneurship in US Job Creation and Economic Dynamism. Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 3-24  

Deloitte Access Economics (2014), Democratizing technology: crossing the “CASM” to serve small and medium businesses. Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/dr14-democratizing-technology/DR14_Democratizing_Technology_CASM.pdf 

Deloitte Access Economics (2017), Digital Opportunities for Today’s Small Business. Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-economics-digital-opportunities-for-todays-small-business-salesforce-220317.pdf 

Dodgson M (2018), Innovation management: a research overview, ISBN 9780815375296 0815375298 

Issa T and Isaias P (2015), Artificial intelligence technologies and the evolution of Web 3.0, ISBN 1466681489 9781466681484 

Johansson A (2016), The Seven Biggest Challenges that Small Business Owners Face in 2016. Available at: https://www.inc.com/anna-johansson/the-7-biggest-challenges-that-small-business-owners-face-in-2016.html 

Kim D (2014), 3 Principles of Innovation for Startups and Small Businesses. Available at: https://www.inc.com/young-entrepreneur-council/3-principles-of-innovation-for-startups-and-small-businesses.html 

McKinsey (2016), Automation at scale: The benefits for payers. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/automation-at-scale-the-benefits-for-payers?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=ceda5c325e4240e8b79cfdec43af11c7&hctky=10204051&hdpid=3221b5d0-0b9f-42e0-831e-ffbc5e044da9 

McKinsey (2016), Digital globalization: The new era of global flows. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/%20business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/%20digital-globalization-the-new-era-of-global-flows 

 Microsoft (2016), Survey reveals customers crave digital experiences. Available at: https://www.theselfemployed.com/infographics/infographic-microsoft-survey-reveals-customers-crave-digital-experiences/ 

Muhammad Anshari, Mohammad Nabil Almunawar, Masairol Masri, (2020), Financial technology and disruptive innovation in ASEAN, ISBN 9781522591856 1522591850 

O'Reilly T (2017), WTF: what's the future and why it's up to us, ISBN 9780062565716 0062565710 9780062699558 

Russ M (2017), Human capital and assets in the networked world, ISBN 9781787148277 1787148270 

Shan-Ling p (2006), Managing emerging technologies and organizational transformation in Asia: a casebook, ISBN 9812565922 

Sharma D (2016), Why Digital Tech is a Competitive Advantage for Small Businesses. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2016/08/15/why-digital-tech-is-a-competitive-advantage-for-small-businesses/#134d298b3755 

Zhu, Xiaoming, and Cao, Xuehui (2019), Emerging champions in the digital economy: new theories and cases on evolving technologies and business models, ISBN 9789811326271