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32005 Strategic Leadership for Innovation

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2018 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Information Technology: Systems, Management and Leadership
Credit points: 6 cp

Subject level:

Postgraduate

Result type: Grade and marks

There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Description

This subject locates organisational leadership practices within a global business context dominated by a revolution in information and communication technology (ICT). Furthermore, it outlines various potential strategic inflection points facing contemporary Australian organisations and suggests leadership practices through which these can be anticipated and addressed effectively. In particular, it advocates strategic leadership practices that adopt innovation as a competitive strategy in response to the challenges of this era.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1. Identify the key leadership challenges facing IT professionals within contemporary Australian businesses;
2. Explain the leadership role played by IT in contributing realizable value to organizations ;
3. Identify the influences of different organizational types and structures on IT leadership;
4. Demonstrate some of these aspects of leadership through practical, real world case studies and simulations.

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject also contributes specifically to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs):

  • Identify constraints, uncertainties and risk of the system (social, cultural, legislative, environmental, business etc.) (A.3)
  • Apply systems thinking to understand complex system behaviour including interactions between components and with other systems (social, cultural, legislative, environmental, business etc.) (A.5)
  • Synthesise alternative/innovative solutions, concepts and procedures (B.3)
  • Demonstrate research skills (B.6)
  • Apply abstraction, mathematics and/or discipline fundamentals to analysis, design and operation (C.1)
  • Evaluate model applicability, accuracy and limitations (C.3)
  • Communicate effectively in ways appropriate to the discipline, audience and purpose. (E.1)
  • Be able to conduct critical self-review and performance evaluation against appropriate criteria as a primary means of tracking personal development needs and achievements (F.1)
  • Understand cross-cultural issues (regions or workplaces) (F.3)

Teaching and learning strategies

Information sharing, group work, research, work-based case studies and delivering presentation to peers. Through the use of theory, practical experiences and relevant case studies students will obtain a clear and integrated view of how to become an effective business leader who understands, and can drive, the strategic value of IT in the contemporary Australian enterprise.

Content (topics)

Leadership Styles in the Contemporary IT organization.
Due to the demanding, volatile and complex nature of today’s IT environments, a range of leadership capabilities are needed to be able to effectively manage these environments at all levels. These capabilities are explored with respect to IT organizational structure, IT technological sophistication, project and IT governance frameworks, risk profile, as well as IT and business planning cycles.

The Role of IT Leadership in Enterprise Value Creation.
This topic will focus on the leadership position that the IT function plays in driving sustained enterprise-wide value and in the achievement of the organization’s goals and objectives. It will take into account factors such as IT/business alignment, the role of the CIO, business organizational structures, the prevailing commercial and economic environment, as well as the organization’s overall business plans and objectives for the future.

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Case study part 1

Intent:

To systematically analyse and critique the opportunities to drive strategic business value and facilitate innovation using new technologies and to learn how different management perspectives may impact the realisation of these opportunities in practice.

Objective(s):

This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs):

1, 2, 3 and 4

This assessment task contributes to the development of the following course intended learning outcomes (CILOs):

A.5, B.3, B.6, C.1, C.3 and E.1

Type: Case study
Groupwork: Individual
Weight: 50%
Length:

Minimum length is 2,500 words; maximum length is 3,000 words (excluding references).

Criteria linkages:
Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs
Provide a concise overview of the IT project 20 1, 2 B.3, B.6, C.1
State the critical success factors (CSFs). Provide a rationale as to why each factor is important. 30 1, 2, 3, 4 B.3, C.1, C.3, E.1
Identify and analyse the managerial and leadership influences that each of the key stakeholders has on the project 30 1, 2 A.5, B.3, C.1, C.3, E.1
Explore the relevant elements of Innovation as evidenced, if any, on the project?s outcomes 10 1, 3 A.5, B.3, C.1
Overall coherence of your Case study part 1 submission 10 1, 2, 3 E.1
SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 2: Case study part 2

Intent:

To develop a broader perspective on how technology is reshaping and disrupting organisations and industries alike and to gain an understanding of the globally inter-related forces shaping industries and organisations through the use of new, disruptive and innovative, technologies.

Objective(s):

This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs):

1, 2, 3 and 4

This assessment task contributes to the development of the following course intended learning outcomes (CILOs):

A.3, B.3, B.6, E.1, F.1 and F.3

Type: Case study
Groupwork: Individual
Weight: 50%
Length:

Minimum length is 2,500 words; maximum length is 3,000 words (excluding references).

Criteria linkages:
Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs
Provide a concise overview of the organisational, cultural and human factors that are (were, or will be) key to the projects? outcomes 20 2, 3 B.3, B.6, F.1, F.3
Describe the rationale for the selection of the key stakeholders that were interviewed 10 2 B.3, B.6, E.1
Describe your stakeholder interview methodology, and overall approach to information gathering and subsequent analysis. Analyse the effectiveness of each interview 10 4 B.3, E.1
Correlate the interview findings with the CSFs identified in Part 1, using an appropriately structured methodology, and support with appropriate commentary 50 1, 2, 3, 4 A.3, B.3, B.6, E.1, F.3
Overall coherence of your Case study part 2 submission 10 1, 2, 3 E.1
SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Required texts

No texts have been prescribed for this subject.

Recommended texts

See Readings on the UTSOnline site for this subject

References

References

Bernasek, A. (2010) The Economics of Integrity: From Dairy Farmers to Toyota, How Wealth Is Built on Trust and What That Means for Our Future. New York: Harper Collins.

Christensen, C. & Overdorf, M. (2000) Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change. Harvard Business Review. 78, 2: 67-76.

Christensen, C. (1997) The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Gwillim, D., Dovey, K., Wieder, B. (2005) The politics of post-implementation reviews. Information Systems Journal. Oct 2005, Vol. 15 Issue 4, p307-319.

Dibble, J. L. & Levine, T. R. (2010) Breaking Good and Bad News: Direction of the MUM Effect and Senders’ Cognitive Representations of News Valence. Communication Research 37(5), p703–722

Dervitsiotis, K. N. (2010) A framework for the assessment of an organisation’s innovation excellence, Total Quality Management. Vol. 21, No. 9, September 2010, 903–918

Pompeu, R. M. F. & de Oliveira, S. R. M. (2015) Critical Success Factors in IT Projects: An Exploratory Survey. International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, Vol. 4, Issue 11, November 2015

Livingstone, R. (2016) Three ways to build innovation into your organisation. Theconversation.com visit: https://theconversation.com/three-ways-to-build-innovation-into-your-organisation-56494 . 13 April 2016

Gudmundsson, A. & Southey, G. (2011) Leadership and the rise of the corporate psychopath: What can business schools do about the ‘snakes inside’? e-Journal of Social & Behavioural Research in Business, Vol. 2, Iss. 2, 2011, pp: 18–27.

Tripathi, A. K., (2016) The Future of Technology and Jobs. An Interview with Dr. R.A. Mashelkar. Association for Computing Machinery. Ubiquity. April 2016

Other resources

This subject is supported by the UTSOnline site for this subject (https://online.uts.edu.au/webapps/login/). Your login name is your student number and your password is your UTS email password.