Teaching/IOM

Information, Organisation und Management
This is the official Web site for the course "Information, Organization, and Management" by Martin Hepp at the Universität der Bundeswehr München.
Note: The contents are currently being updated for the upcoming term (Fall 2018).

News

  • The FIRST unit will be on Monday, October 1, 2018.
  • Language of Instruction: Since Fall 2014, the language of instruction is English. The materials on this page will be gradually translated. Stay tuned.
  • Android smartphones: There is a known bug in the Web browser on Android smartphones that prevents them from downloading PDF files (and thus the materials for this lecture) if they are password-protected. The problem can be solved by using another Web browser app like Firefox, or by downloading the files from a regular PC and sending them to the smartphone by email or cloud-based file-sharing services like Dropbox. More information on this problem is available here and here.

Course Logistics

Lecture

  • Mondays, 15:00 - 16:30, room 33/0231

Tutorial

  • Mondays, 16:45 - 17:30, room 33/1201

Exceptions

  • The tutorial on October 15 had to be cancelled due to sickness of the tutor.
  • On October, 22, there will be a double tutorial for making up **during the slot of the lecture**, i.e.
    • 15.00 - 16:30 Tutorial (2 TWS)
    • The tutorial slot from 16:45 - 17:30 will be free.
    • We will make up for the missed lecture unit during the course of the term.

Final Exam

Master Degree WIINF

The grade for this course will be determined based on a written test of 60-minutes. The exam ID is 2456: "Information, Organisation und Management".

Master Degree TuW

Please contact me in class should you still need credits for the previous TuW degree program.

Master Degree WOW

The grade for this course will be determined based on a written test of 60-minutes. The exam ID is 2456: "Information, Organisation und Management".

Exam Date

The date of the exam will be set and announced by the office of the registrar ("Prüfungsamt"). Participation in the exam requires formal registration at the office of the registrar.

Hints for Excelling in the Exam

The exam will consist of a limited number of questions (3 - 6), covering both fundamental aspects and theories, and their application to given real-world problems. Please consider the following tips when taking the exam.

  1. Structure: Give your thoughts a proper structure instead of listing ideas in random order. Organize your argument in meaningful sections and use section headlines.
  2. Definitions: Start with concise definitions of key terminology (e.g. the essential technical terms from the given question). Never use examples to define a term. You can of course use examples to illustrate a definition, though.
  3. Fundamentals before details: Always explain the fundamental aspects of the topic before you branch into details of your argument. Defer any mentioning of specific technology or current developments until after you have covered the basic elements of the topic.
  4. Tables: Use tables wisely to demonstrate your understanding of the topic.
  5. Illustrations: Use your own, concise illustrations to support your written argument.
  6. Use your time wisely: Before starting to work on the exam, look at the distribution of points for the set of questions. It does not make sense to be 10 % better in one small question when this means you will lack time for the more comprehensive ones.
  7. Be concise and directly address the specific question given. Demonstrate that you are able to use the knowledge gained in class to analyze a given situation. When giving examples, try to adapt the textbook examples from the materials to the respective topic of the exam questions.
  8. Formalities: Try to write legibly, and mind spelling and grammar. I can only honor those of your thoughts that I can read and understand.

Finally: In the exam, demonstrate that you have understood the concepts covered in class, and that you are able to apply them to a real-world problem.

Materials from Past Terms

Description

The formal description for the course can be found in the current handbook for the respective degree program.

The handbooks for all degree programs at the University are available at:

Description

This course addresses the relationships and dependencies between (1) the change in our ability to communicate on the basis of the Internet and Internet-based services, and (2) the change in the organization of economic activity at the level of individual enterprises, value chains, and national economies. A special focus will be on the effects of the facilitated flow of information on the division of labor, the forms of coordination in the economy, buy-or-make decisions, and on the strategic design of information systems. In each unit, we discuss the interplay between economic theory and Internet-based business processes.

Learning Goals

Students will learn to analyze and interpret the effects of Internet-based communication on business processes, the internal organization of enterprises and value chains, and the market environment on sales and procurement markets, and to use this insight for rational decision-making, in particular with regard to the design of communication relationships with customers and suppliers.

Examples:

  • What determines the borderlines of an enterprise, and how does this change by Internet-based communication?
  • Why does Internet-based communication allow the procurement of a wider range of production factors, i.e. goods and services, from external suppiers instead of in-house production under the control of the enterprise?
  • How does incomplete information and an asymmetric distribution of information between business parties in a business exchange affect our abilities to delegate production tasks to other market participants?

Prerequisites

Participants need a basic understanding of management science and microeconomics, as covered by the introductory courses in the relevant Bachelor degree programs (WOW, LRT, WIINF).

Course Topics

  1. Introduction: Division of Labor, Automation, and Productivity
  2. Transaction Costs: How Information and Communication Technology Changes the Rules of the Game
  3. Information Asymmetry and Opportunism
  4. Potential and Limitations of Automated Information Processing
  5. From Scientific Management to Business Process Reengineering: The Search for „Ideal" Processes
  6. Network Externalities, Standards, Lock-In, and the Economics of the Internet
  7. Data Quality Management
  8. The Future of Human Labor: From Semi-Automated Processes, Crowdsourcing, and Human Computation
  9. Current Topic
  10. Exam Review

Readings and Materials

Textbooks

  • [PRWi2008]: Picot, A.; Reichwald, R.;Wigand, R.: Information, Organization and Management, Springer, 2008.
  • [ShVa1998] Shapiro, Carl; Varian, Hal R. : Information Rules: A strategic Guide to the Network Economy. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, USA 1998.

Additional Readings

Main Course Topic

  1. [ChSp2006] Chesbrough, Henry; Spohrer, Jim : A research manifesto for services science. In: Communications of the ACM 49 (2006) 7, pp. 35-40.
  2. [Coas1990] Coase, R. H. : The Nature of the Firm. In: R. H. Coase (Eds.) 33-55.
  3. [Cord2001] Cordella, Antonio : Does information technology always lead to lower transaction costs? In: S. Smithson; J. Gricar; M. Podlogar; S. Avgerinou (Eds.) : Ninth European Conference on Information Systems. Bled, Slovenia, 2001, pp. 854-864.
  4. [MaYB1987] Malone, Thomas W. et al. : Electronic Markets and Electronic Hierarchies. In: Communications of the ACM 30 (1987) 6, pp. 484-497.
  5. [MaYB1989] Malone, Thomas W. et al. : The Logic of Electronic Markets. In: Harvard Business Review (1989) 3, pp. 3-8.
  6. [Samp2003] Sampson, Geoffrey : The myth of diminishing firms. In: CACM 46 (2003) 11, pp. 25-28.
  7. [SPVV1999] Succi, Giancarlo et al. : Network Externalities in Software Systems. In: StandardView 6 (1999) 4, pp. 185-191.
  8. [Tayl1911] Taylor, Frederick Winslow : The Principles of Scientific Management. (Reprint 2006). Aufl., The Echo Library, Middlesex, UK 1911.
  9. [ThHu1996] Thome, Rainer; Hufgard, Andreas : Continuous System Engineering. Vogel Verlag, Würzburg 1996.
  10. [Will1981] Williamson, Oliver E. : The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach. In: The American Journal of Sociology 87 (1981) 3 (Nov. 1981), pp. 548-577.
  11. [WaNo1986] Wallis, John Joseph; North, Douglas C. : Measuring the Transaction Sector in the American Economy, 1870-1970. In: S. L. Engerman; R. E. Gallman (Eds.) 95-161.

Specific Topics

  1. [BHHS2006] Berners-Lee, T. et al. : Creating a Science of the Web. In: Science 313 (2006) 5788 (11 August 2006), pp. 769 -771.
  2. [DaSh1990] Davenport, Thomas H.; Short, James E. : The New Industrial Engineering: Information Technology and Business Process Redesign. In: Sloan Management Review 31 (1990) 4 (Summer 1990), pp. 11-28.
  3. [Davi1985] David, Paul A. : Clio and the Economics of QWERTY. In: American Economic Review 75 (1985) 2, pp. 332-337.
  4. [DeSS1995] Dewan, Rajiv et al. : Strategic Choices in IS Infrastructure: Corporate Standards vs. "Best of Breed" Systems. In: J. I. De Gross et. al. (Eds.) : 16th International Conference on Information Systems. Amsterdam1995, pp. 97-107.
  5. [FaSa1985] Farrell, Joseph; Saloner, Garth : Standardization, compatibility, and innovation. In: RAND Journal of Economics 16 (1985) 1, pp. 70-83.
  6. [FeWL2002] Fensel, Dieter et al. (Eds.) : Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA 2002.
  7. [HaCh2001] Hammer, M.; Champy, J. : Reengineering the Corporation. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2001.
  8. [KaSh1985] Katz, Michael L.; Shapiro, Carl : Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility. In: American Economic Review 75 (1985) 3, pp. 424-440.
  9. [LaRT1998] Laffont, Jean-Jaques et al. : Network competition: I. Overview and nondiscriminatory pricing. In: Rand Journal of Economics 29 (1998) 1, pp. 1-37.
  10. [LuOl1994] Lucas Jr., Henry C. and Olson, Margrethe The impact of information technology on organizational flexibility, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 4: 2, (1994), pp.155 — 176
  11. [Malh1998] Malhotra, Yogesh : Business Process Redesign: An Overview. In: IEEE Engineering Management Review 26 (1998) 3, pp. 27-31.
  12. [Nels1992] Nelson, Daniel (Ed.) : A Mental Revolution: Scientific Management since Taylor. The Ohio State University Press, Columbus 1992.
  13. [Piet1995] Pietrykowski, Bruce : Fordism at Ford: Spatial Decentralization and Labor Segmentation at the Ford Motor Company, 1920-1950. In: Economic Geography 71 (1995) 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 383-401.
  14. [Pric1992] Price, Brian : Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and the Motion Study Controversy, 1907-1930. In: D. Nelson (Ed.) 58-77.

Lecture Notes and Slides

Note: Access to the materials below is possible without password protection from within the university network (or a VPN connection thereto). Access from the general Internet requires credentials (username and password) that were announced in class. If you have problems accessing the materials, please email to martinDOTheppATunibwDOTde.

Updated Slides for HT 2019

Unit 1: Introduction: Division of Labor, Automation, and Productivity

  • Slides: PDF
  • Tutorial
    • Review questions: PDF (Old version in German: PDF)
    • Solutions sheet: PDF
    • Note: It is strongly recommended that you first try to solve the exercises without consulting the solutions sheet!

  • Videos There is no video for this unit.

  • Tasks for this unit

    • Review the slides.
    • Complete the review questions.

  • Additional Literature

    • None

Unit 2: Information Asymmetry and Opportunism

Note: The video lists this topic as "unit 4" instead of "unit 2". Please ignore this.

Unit 2: Transaction Costs Theory

Note: The video lists this topic as "unit 3" instead of "unit 2". Please ignore this.

Unit 4: Potential and Limitations of Automated Information Processing

  • Slides: PDF
  • Tutorial
    • Review questions: PDF (Old version in German: PDF)
    • Solutions sheet: PDF
    • Note: It is strongly recommended that you first try to solve the exercises without consulting the solutions sheet!
  • Videos
  • Tasks for this unit
    • Read chapter 4, in particular pp. 167ff. in [PRWi2008]
    • Review the slides and the video recording.
    • Complete the review questions.
  • Literature
    • Mandatory reading
      • PRWi2008: Picot, A.; Reichwald, R.;Wigand, R.: Information, Organization and Management, Springer, 2008, pp. 115-182.
    • Additional references
      • None

Unit 5: From Scientific Management to Business Process Reengineering: The Search for „Ideal" Processes

Unit 6: Network Externalities, Standards, Lock-In, and the Economics of the Internet

Unit 7: Data Quality Management

Note: The video lists this topic as "unit 9" instead of "unit 7". Please ignore this.

Unit 8: The Future of Human Labor: Semi-Automated Processes, Crowdsourcing, and Human Computation

  • Slides: PDF
  • Tutorial
    • Review questions: PDF (Old version in German: PDF)
    • Solutions sheet: Not yet available.
    • Hinweis: Bearbeiten Sie in Ihrem eigenen Interesse zunächst die Aufgaben, bevor sie den Lösungsbogen zu Rate ziehen!
  • Videos
  • Aufgaben zu dieser Einheit
    • Wiederholen Sie die Vorlesungsfolien.
    • Wiederholen Sie die Video-Aufzeichnungen.
    • Lesen Sie die unten als Pflichtlektüre genannte Quelle.
    • Beantworten Sie die Übungsfragen zu Einheit 8.
  • Literaturangaben
    • Pflichtlektüre
    • Weiterführende Literatur

Unit 9: Current Topic: The Paradox of Choice

  • Slides: There are no additional slides for this unit.
  • Tutorial
    • Review questions: PDF (Old version in German: PDF)
    • Solutions: Not yet available
    • Note: It is strongly recommended that you first try to solve the exercises without consulting the solutions sheet!
  • Video
  • Tasks for this unit
    • Watch the talk by Barry Schwartz.
    • Read the mandatory literature.
    • Answer the review questions for unit 9.
  • Literature

Unit 10: Exam Review

In this unit, we will review the exam from a previous trimester and discuss selected topics from the current course. There are no new materials for this unit except for the following exam:

Contact Details

Professur für Allgemeine BWL, insbesondere Web Science und Digitalisierung 
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Hepp
Universität der Bundeswehr 
Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39

D-85579 Neubiberg, Germany

Email: martin.heppATunibw.de
Phone: +49 89 6004-4217