Course syllabus

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The course is run by the Chalmers Department of Technology Management and Economics and will be conducted primarily in English.

Examiner and primary teacher

Teachers

  • Professor Susanne Ollila (susanne.ollila@chalmers.se), Entrepreneurship & Strategy, Chalmers University of Technology (Link)
  • PhD Candidate Adrian Bumann (adrian.bumann@chalmers.se), Entrepreneurship & Strategy, Chalmers University of Technology (Link)
  • PhD Candidate Maria Kandaurova (maria.kandaurova@chalmers.se), Entrepreneurship & Strategy, Chalmers University of Technology (Link)

 

Purpose and learning objectives

Purpose

The purpose of this course is to expand your knowledge of leading and strategic thinking in a global and digital world. The course provides you with an overview of how digitalization and digital technologies have created profound changes in value-creating activities across companies, industries, and society in recent years as well as insights into value creation in the future.

The course will also enable you to develop your understanding and skills related to leading and strategic thinking in a global and digital world through applying the appropriate frameworks, concepts, and methods in groups in a take-home exam podcast project and a Live Case project for IKEA.

Learning objectives

Related to knowledge and understanding, you should be able to:

  1. Understand and account for basic concepts such as digital innovation, digitalization, and digital transformation.
  2. Understand how digitalization and digital transformation influence organizations and the foundations of competition as well as the structure of society.

Related to skills and abilities, you should be able to:

  1. Acquire basic information about digital technologies or digital technology solutions and present and argue for a so-called business case around the same.

Related to analytical skills, you should be able to:

  1. Evaluate and describe how digitalization and digital technologies can influence business models and strategy as well as value creation in society today and in the future.
  2. Critically evaluate and discuss digital technology and technical systems in relation to organizational characteristics and the structure of society.

 

Schedule and attendance

The course starts on January 16. (Please see our initial announcement for more information about the first week.)

Please check Canvas regularly to keep up to date on any schedule or other course changes. The correct course schedule is always here on Canvas as we often need to make some minor changes to the original TimeEdit schedule.

All Live Case sessions are obligatory. Makeup assignments will be given.  Please send Adrian an email by the start of the session if you cannot attend.

We have also organized several guest lecturers, and we expect you to respect their valuable time by attending and engaging in all guest lectures.

Please note that sessions will be delivered either in the classroom or virtually. Most virtual sessions will be on zoom and the zoom link will be posted on the Canvas calendar. The zoom room may change depending on who is teaching. 

"Office hours": Please do not email us with questions. Instead if you have a course-related question, please post it on the appropriate Discussion section on Canvas, e.g., Live Case, Exam, Lectures & Seminars, Multiple Choice Quiz, Course Admin, Other. This way all other students can see both your questions and our answers.

If you have a question of a more personal nature, please contact Adrian or Maria by email.

 

Pedagogy

This is not a traditional course where we teach by specifying everything in detail for you. Rather our approach is to enable learning, i.e., we hope to awaken your curiosity to explore the course’s topics and to develop your skills so that you may better practice lifelong learning.

Throughout the course, we will integrate practice with theory in order to encourage critical thinking about real life problems. Management education in recent years has been criticized for encouraging a disconnect between what goes on in the classroom for training managers and the practice of management. We would like to close this gap by enabling you to work on real life problems and by encouraging you to critically think about these real life problems, and–as far as possible—do so together with managers.

The course is organized around the following:

1) Lectures and seminars: A series of lectures based on four themes or topics related to Leading in a Digital World:

a) Leadership and People

b) Business & Societal Transformation

c) Exponential Technologies

d) Global Future Outlook. 

There will also be a set of seminars involving various exercises based on the lectures. The seminars are 45 minute sessions and your group will attend one 45 minute session on each of the seminar sessions. More information on Seminar 1 will be provided in Lecture 3. For Seminars 2-4, your group will be able to sign up in advance on Canvas for these 45-minute seminar sessions.

2) The Live Case: ”The Live Case Challenge” is a live case with lectures from the live case company, groupwork and presentations by you and your groups, and coaching sessions. More information is in the Live Challenge Overview uploaded on Canvas.

3) Exam Podcast Project: Part of the exam will be a take-home exam podcast project conducted in your groups throughout the course and submitted during exam week. More information is under the Exam on Canvas.

4) In-class Multiple Choice Quiz: Part of the exam will be an in-class multiple choice quiz based on the compulsory course material as well as the lectures. More information will be provided in class,

4) Individual Participation and Groupwork: To learn the most from this course, we expect that you individually will come well prepared to each session by completing the readings and assignments before the session. Being prepared includes being able to discuss the assigned literature and relating it to your experience. You or your group may be asked to present in class, particularly in connection with the live case. In addition, we expect those students who are not presenting to be prepared with questions and comments and to contribute to the discussion.

We are interested in the quality of your participation. Quality is the extent to which you offer key insights on course topics and readings, relate your comments to the topics at hand, and relate current topics to previous topics or material from other classes. Comments that add value to our conversations possesses one or more of the following attributes:

  1. Offer a different, unique, and relevant perspective on the issue at hand.
  2. Contribute to moving the discussion and analysis forward.
  3. Build on others’ comments. Too often students and managers fail to listen to the comments of others.  Good comments might begin with “In agreement with what Jane has just said…” or “I’d like to disagree with Ted’s point….” or “I think we’re all missing a key point here…”
  4. Transcend the “I feel” syndrome. In other words, a quality comment includes some evidence or analysis of inherent tradeoffs and demonstrates reflective thinking.

Groups: You will self-select your groups on Canvas, and these groups will be the same for the seminars, the Live Case, and the take-home exam project.

 

Course literature

The literature is a mix of publications, reports, online material, and videos that will be uploaded on Canvas or found through provided links for the relevant session. To keep the content as timely as possible, some additional material may be presented at the latest one session in advance.

We have tried to make the majority of literature freely accessible. Some articles may need to be downloaded from the School’s databases, some we will distribute, and some you may need to buy, e.g., for Lecture 2 on Digital Transformation on Jan 17. 

All literature is compulsory unless otherwise noted with Optional.

 

Assignments and examination

Assignments consist of the following:

1) Preparation for lectures and seminars. For each lecture and seminar, there is preparation to be done. The instructions are provided under each assignment on the Syllabus or on the calendar and the material is under the corresponding Module. All material under each module is compulsory, unless otherwise noted with Optional.

2) Live Case and Exam Submissions. All live case and exam submissions are listed on Canvas under the Assignments and Modules sections.

The course consists of a Live Case (2.5 hp, group) and an Exam (5 hp, group). To pass the course, you must pass each.

The Live Case is assessed with U/G as we expect you to deliver outstanding results to the live case company. 

The exam consists of two parts: 1) an individual in-class multiple choice quiz (20 %) and 2) a take-home podcast project (80 %) that will be conducted in your groups throughout the course and submitted during exam week. Both exam parts are graded according to the below scale:

  •       For grades (3) minimum 40%
  •       For grades (4) minimum 60%
  •       For grades (5) minimum 80%

Please note that as the take-home exam project changes every year, there are no exams or guidelines from previous years to give you.

 

 House rules

  • Be prepared and on time.
  • Be active and engage throughout the sessions.
  • Be prepared to be cold-called (no heads up) or warm-called (some heads up) to answer questions related to what has been discussed.
  • Do not record sessions or guest lecturers without asking for permission first.
  • Use your full name when signing in (online).
  • Turn on camera and mute microphone unless talking (online).
  • Write questions or comments in the chat (online).

 

Academic honesty

We expect you to follow Chalmers’ guidelines for academic honesty and integrity to their fullest.

Course summary:

Date Details Due