I303: Organizational Informatics
Readings and schedule for Organizational Informatics for fall 2005.
1:25 pm Monday and Wednesday.
Professor Jean Camp
The Course in a Nutshell
August 29
Introduction and course overview
Today we handle who, when, and why. We will introduce ourselves. I will
define course policies. I will provide information about the project,
about grade distribution, etc.
This course is about ICTs, organizations and your role in the organization. The course has three primary elements.
First, the readings and lectures where the minimum critical topics
for literacy in organization informations are introduced. The readings
and lectures will focus primarily on theory, particularly looking at
organizations through the lens of economics.
Second, the discussion section. There will be some readings
during the discussion section, primarily those that apply to the
practical training part of the course.
Third is the practical training. The project is an experience in
team management. It includes writing a workplan, implementing the work
plan, and filling out an evaluation of your peers. Most of you are
attending this University to broaden your horizons and increase your
employment-relevant skills. This project, properly executed, will do
both. At the end of the project you should have a considerably expanded
knowledge of your subject, improved presentation skills, and an
extremely cursory introduction to project management. Regular deadlines
during the semester are intended to force the groups not to wait until
the last moment to complete the project.
Organizational Models
An organization can be considered a
single entity, a collection of competing subsets, a group of
self-optimizing individuals, a machine following a process, or a
cultural entity. In the first section of this course we will examine
each of those models.
For three of the models the reading will be Essence of Decision
.
This book is about the interaction of nation states rather than the
interactions of businesses. However, in terms of the descriptions of
three of these models there is no other reading that is short but
informative. There are more tedious readings, and readings made terse
by assumptions of the education of the reader. Therefore, the classic
by Allison will be used to discuss the issues. I will provide a very
short introduction to rational choices, and then examine the limits of
rationality. We return to the limits of rationality topic in Economics
and Uncertainty.
Aug 31 Session 1: Organizations as Single Rational Beings
Questions to consider during reading
There are three models of
organizations: individual rational actors, collections of groups or
stakeholders, and as groups of political individuals with their own
visions and power struggles. Readings
Allison "Essence of Decision", The Rational Actor, pp. 13 26.
Tversky and Kahneman, "Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions" in Rational Choice, Hogarth and Reder, eds., pp. 67-94.
Sept. 5 Session 2: Organizations as Compilation of Stakeholders
Questions to consider during reading
Organizations are not
always entirely rational. Ironically, the rational organization
understands itself as being created by a group of components, and tries
to construct mechanisms to create effective interactions between the
components. Understanding the components of the organization can
prevent the creation of perverse incentives. Reading
Allison, Essence of Decision
, Model II: Organizational Behavior, pp. 143-160.
Sept. 7 Session 3: Organizations as Competing Individuals
Questions to consider during reading
Individuals share power. They differ about what must be done. Differences matter.
Reading
Allison, Essence of Decision
, Model II: Organizational Behavior, pp. 143-160.
Information in the Organization
While I am traveling, Dr.
Kalpana will add a discussion of data as a function or expression of an
organization.The topics are use of data in an organization. Consider,
for example, the use of the same data in the B2B and B2C realm. In one
case, consumer data may define what to produce. In the other, the data
will define a marketing campaign. Guest lecture by Dr. Kalpana Shankar.
Sept. 12 Session 1: Electronic Records Management
Questions to consider during reading
To what extent are data and its uses shaped by an organization? How can
examining an organization assist in determination of the needed data?
Readings
Electronic Records: http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs8a-hipaa.htm
Guest lecture by Dr. Kalpana Shankar.
Sept. 14 Session 2: Data Warehousing
Questions to consider during reading
How do organizations evaluate data once it is available.
Readings
Power, D. J. Decision Support Systems Hyperbook. Cedar Falls, IA:
DSSResources.COM, HTML version, Fall 2000, accessed on August 24, 2005 at
URL http://dssresources.com/dssbook/. Chapter 1.
Organizational Models Continued
More conceptual models of
organizations. Each of these applies to most organizations in
difference decision contexts. Determining the context of a debate can
help you win internal debates.
Group formation and project ideas due.
Sept. 19 Session 4: Organizations as Policy Constructs
Questions to consider during reading
From where do
organizations come? Is it just the cooperation of a many
people? Economic forces? Group psychology? Indeed, business are
presented in media and academy as distinct and clear opposites from
government. Yet in
fact their interaction is quite deep and profound. Government plays a
critical role in creating markets and businesses just as the
environment plays a critical role in creating ecosystems and species.
Readings
Deborah Spar Ruling the Waves pp. 1-22, p.124-289
Sept. 21 Session 5: Organizations as Cultures
Questions to consider during reading
Americans spend most of
their waking hours are work. Workplaces are not neutral or free from
emotion. Workplaces have their own cultures, some of which are
successfully cultured by management.
Readings
Morgan, Gareth (1997) "Ch. 7 : Organizations as Cultures" in Images of Organization. London: Sage, pages 119-145.
Ullman, Ellen. (1997) Close to the Machine, pp 17-27;95-121
Recommended Additional Reading
Van Mannen, J. (1991) "The
Smile Factory: Work at Disneyland." In Frost, P.J., L.E. Moore, M.R.
Louis, C.C. Lundberg and J. Martin (eds.): Reframing Organizational
Culture.
Sept.26 Session 6:Organizations as Machines
Questions to consider during reading
Why is IT important in an organization? Are ICTS inherently valuable? If not, how do ICTs illustrate their value. Reading
John Mendonca, Organizational Impact
, The Internet
Encyclopedia ed. Hossein Bidgoli, John Wiley & Sons (Hoboken, New
Jersey) 2003. Vol. 2, pp 832 - end.
The Behavioral Component
A short discussion on how individuals
in an organization behave, and how economics alters that behavior. Do
you ever consider leaving Informatics? Is there an airline you refuse
to use? In Informatics are the people with whom you refuse to work?
Sept. 28 Session 1: Games Companies Plays
Questions to consider during reading
What happens when an organization is broken? How do the people that
make up organizations choose to function or fail to function in an
organization?
Readings
Frank and Cook, The Winner-Take-All Society Chapter 1 (p. 1-22)
R. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 8 (pp. 1-20, 21-29, 30-43, 106-119)
Davenport, Thomas H. 1995. The Fad That Forgot People. Fast Company 1 pp. 70. http://www.fastcompany.com/online/01/reengin.html
Oct. 3 Session 2: The Human in the Organization
Questions to consider during reading
How are on-line
discussions and organizations distinct from off-line organizations?
Does an organization or process change by virtue of replicating
it in electronic form? How are people and interactions different on email? How did you handle this information overload?
Readings
Davis, J., Farnham, S., Jensen, C. (2002). Decreasing Online Bad
Behavior. In Extended Abstracts of CHI 2002, Minneapolis, April 2002.http://research.microsoft.com/scg/papers/Bad Behavior CHI 2002.pdf
Recommended Additional Reading
Connections New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization By Lee Sproull
and Sara Kiesler MIT Press, 1991, 212 pages.
The Organization of the ICT Market
The ICT market has distinct
sectors. In a later class the CFO of MadDoc Software will discuss the
game sector in more detail. Here, we want to begin to unpack the ICT
market.
Oct. 5 Session 1: Telecom Market Basics
Questions to consider during reading
What is convergence? How have historical technologically-dependent decisions created perverse incentives in telecommunications?
Readings
Telecommunications Regulation: An Introduction by Econommides of the Stern School.
(CAP =
competitive access provider is the same as a CLEC. A CLEC is a phone
company _other_ than the original phone company. Cable companies are
CLECs. CLEC stands for competitive local exchange carrier. )
Laudon & Traver, "E-commerce" second edition. pp. 136 - 162
Optional Readings
W. Russell Neuman, Lee W. McKnight and Richard Jay Solomon,
The Gordian Knot:Political Gridlock on the Information Highway Chapter 1.
Oct. 10 Session 2: Information Market Basics
Questions to consider during reading
How is content presentation different on the network?
Readings
Kalakota & Whinston, Electronic Commerce
pp 251-282. Addison Wesley (Boston, MA)
Optional Readings
Gupta, Stahl & Whinston, Pricing of Services on the Internet
http://cism.bus.utexas.edu/alok/pricing.html
Why were they wrong? Why has there not been per-use pricing?
Decision - Making Tools in Economics
Economics has developed a series of tools that are widely used in daily
business analysis. This section of the course will introduce a few of
those tools, and focus on the potential of these tools to enable
analytical insights.
Group bibliographies due.
Oct. 12 Session 1: No Course Meeting
Upload bibliographies by midnight. Please upload in pdf to preserve formatting.
Oct. 17 Session 1: NPV and Discounted Cash Flow
Questions to consider during reading
Net present value is a way of deciding if we are better off investing
money today or saving money to invest tomorrow. Overview of examples. A
simple example of a decision tree in class. Readings
http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/invapp.html
Luehman, What's It Worth?: A General Manager's Guide to Valuation
HBR May - June pp. 133-141
Group work plans due.
Oct. 19 Session 2:IT & Human Capital
Questions to consider during reading
Hman beings are a critical element in an organization. How do we make assumptions about human as well as organizations in ICTs?
Readings
Please see the PWC White Paper on Human Capital on the OnCourse web site.
Oct. 24 Session 3: Economics and Uncertainty
Questions to consider during reading
Every person experiences
uncertainty. Now that uncertainty is merely personal but in the future
your uncertainty and decisions may play a role in decision-making.
Think about your own decisions and how you have fallen to these habits.
Readings
Tversky and Kahneman, "Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" Science, vol. 185, 1974, pp. 1124-1131.
M. G. Morgan , B. Fischhoff , A. Bostrom Risk Communication : A Mental Models Approach pp 1-18, pp 34-62.
Revised group work plans due.
Oct. 26 Session 4: Productivity
Questions to consider during reading
Why and how have IT altered organizations? It seems inherently obvious
that it is more productive to send an email than write, print and
deliver an email. Where and what are the productivity gains?
Readings
Erik Brynjolfsson, The Productivity Paradox
Communications of the ACM, Volume 36 , Issue 12.
Try the ACM Portal
Information Economics
The
session above provided a rudimentary overview of economic tools. In
this section the focus is on the unique features of the information
market.
All Hallows Eve Session 1: Digital is Different
Questions to consider during reading
Fundamental assumptions underlie market economics. How does digital challenge those assumptions?
Readings
Delong and Froomkin (1997) The Next Economy?
Internet Publishing
and Beyond: The Economics of Digital Information and Intellectual
Property. Edited by B Kahin and H Varian. Cambridge, MA MIT Press.
http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/newecon.htm
Project outline and abstract due.
Nov. 2 Session 2: IT in Organizations
The economics of information are different and therefore the markets in information goods also vary widely.
Questions to consider during reading
Why is IT important in an organization? Are ICTS inherently valuable? If not, how do ICTs illustrate their value. Reading
Carr, Nicholas G., "IT Doesn't Matter"Harvard Business Review, May 2003.
Capstone Preview by Dr. Dennis Groth
Nov. 7 The Capstone
Questions to consider during class
The capstone, like this
class, is intended to provide a real-life experience. Dr. Groth will
introduce and discuss the capstone.
Readings
There are no readings.
Guest Speaker Shaun McDermott
Nov. 9
Games are Serious Business
Questions to consider during class
The speaker for this class is the Chief Financial Office for Mad Doc Software
Readings
There are no readings.
Nov. 14
Session 3: Interconnection and Network Effects
Questions to consider during reading
Feedback is a critical concept in the economics of networks and in network-based competition.
Reading
Noam, Interconnecting the Network of Networks, MIT Press, 2001. pp. 1-25.
Optional Reading
The Economics of Networks, by Nicholas
Economides, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 16,
no. 4, pp. 673-699 (October 1996). Available on-line
Nov. 16 Session 4: Lock-in and feedback
Questions to consider during reading
Network economics implies feedback. Feedback can cause lock-in. How easy will it be for you to get a new email? A new phone?
Readings
W. B. Arthur, "Competing
Technologies, Increasing returns and Lock-in by Historical Events", The
Economic Journal, Vol 99, Issue 394, pp116-131
P. A. David "Clio and the Economics of Qwerty" The American
Economic Review, Vol 75, Issue 2, Papers and Proceedings of the 97th
Annual Review of the American Economic Association, May 1985, pp.
332-337.
Nov 21 Session 5: Versioning
Questions to consider during reading
What is versioning? How does digital change versioning? Does beer taste differently from a keg than from a can?
MLS listings on-line http://www.realtor.com and http://www.targetmls.com/
Amazon.com and www.barnes and noble.com and www.reiters.com
Readings
Information
Rules, Shapiro, Carl. & Varian, Hal, , Harvard Business School Press,
(Boston, MA) , c1999, pages 53-81
Nov 23 -- Break
Nov. 28 Session 6: Intermediation
Questions to consider during reading
What is disintermediation?
Re-intermediation? How does a bookstore inherently bring together
certain business lines by virtue of physical location? Think about your
favorite sites or consider this sites:
The Hunger Site -- http://www.thehungersite.com -- could this work off line?
Readings
Laudon & Traver, "E-commerce" second edition. pp. 136 - 162
Whinston & Kalakota, "Electronic Commerce" pp. 21 - 23
Information Ownership
Information is unique because the ownership structure is extremely
fluid. Who owns which elements of an information good is a critical
question.
Nov. 30 Session 1: Security and Competition
Questions to consider during reading
What are the goals of security in theory? How does this differ from how
it is used in practice? Would the security strategies discussed in
Anderson work with open code?
Readings
Ross Anderson, Cryptography and Competition Policy: Issues with Trusted
Computing, http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/ftp/users/rja14/tcpa.pdf
Schneier, 2002 Computer Security: Its the Economics, Stupid: Economics and Information Security Workshop, Berkeley, CA.
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/resources/affiliates/workshops/econsecurity/econws/18.doc
Optional Readings
L. Jean Camp Basic Cryptography
Chapter 3. You may purchase the book or select the material from the
on-line version. However, if you choose Print after going to the
on-line version Trust and Risk you will print the entire book. Also
note that this is the free and thus not edited version.
Dec 2 --Student Presentations
Dec 5 --Student Presentations
Dec 7 --Student Presentations
Dec. 12 Session 2: P2P and Knowledge Management
Questions to consider during reading
Reputation systems are
used for ratings, for p2p download controls, for knowledge management.
reputation systems can be considered micro payment systems, knowledge
management systems or access control systems. What, then, is a
reputation system and what is a p2p system?
Readings
Ronald Tidd, Knowledge Management, pp. 431-442.
The Internet Encyclopedia ed. Hossein Bidgoli, John Wiley & Sons
(Hoboken, New Jersey) 2003.
Optional Readings
Balthazard & Potter, Groupware, pp. 65- 75.
The Internet Encyclopedia ed. Hossein Bidgoli, John Wiley & Sons (Hoboken, New Jersey) 2003.
http://www.ljean.org/files/P2P.pdf
Chapter 16: Peer-to-peer as disruptive technologies, Accountability
http://www.freehaven.net/doc/oreilly/accountability-ch16.html
Exam Period --Student Presentations