MSc Management of Information Systems & Digital Innovation

This module adopts a broad view of Information Systems (IS), defined as complex integrated constellations of hardware, software, and data. They represent, facilitate, and automate different business processes within and across different functions and for various internal and external actors.

You will use theories to analyse issues pertaining to managing the full lifecycle of such systems. You will work with several practical examples and hands-on activities using real-world artifacts. By demonstrating how the concepts and theories covered are linked to practice, the module also provides relevant jargon and frameworks useful for managing contemporary IS.

The module will offer highly sought after programming skills in a high-level programming language such as Python. In addition, it will introduce an excellent basis for other modules in the course. This module aims to offer a broad and contemporary perspective on developing applications for business problems. 

You will develop programming skills for contemporary business applications, and understand how programming can enable digital marketing, business analytics, and platform governance.

In the new era of the "data economy", the value of high-quality, granular, and rich data assets is a critical success factor for transformative decision making in many industries and the leveraging of artificial intelligence (AI). 

This module will equip you with fundamental knowledge regarding the effective use of enterprise, web, and IoT data to meet the needs of modern organisations in the digital age and introduce technologies such as AI. The strategic value of data resources, as a means of enabling firms to achieve a competitive advantage, is considered in order to understand the rationale behind the adoption of data management and business analytics practices. The challenges and opportunities of adopting various business analytics techniques, including using artificial intelligence for many analytical tasks, are investigated in order to obtain a critical understanding of the building of organisational capability in these areas.

You will gain a sound appreciation of salient factors affecting the successful deployment of data-driven decision making in organisations using visual analytics (information visualisation) software such as Qlik and will get a hands-on experience of how to deal with and handle datasets and inform decisions through designing dashboards.

This module explores cyber security and attacks from different perspectives of hackers, criminal, political, industrial and regulatory perspectives. You'll explore current methods and motivations of types of cyberattacks and defences to ascertain the levels of risk, organisational culture and operational readiness in the impact on personal, operational and organisational performance. We will define the wider context of backup, recovery, escrow, intrusion detection and penetration testing, automated cyber defence systems and other infrastructure and organisational leadership issues including business continuity, insurance, liability, surveillance, security-by-design and emerging new cyber security start-ups and entrepreneurship commercial models in cyber security and intelligence.

You will explore organisational and governmental mandates and developments in security compliance, law and regulations, privacy and ethics, confidentiality, intellectual property, copyright, open-source versus proprietary licensing, trust models and the industrial, country and international standards.

We will examine methods to evaluate impact on costs, benefits and investment decisions for an organisation in communicating cyber risk and business cases through to operational scenarios for monitoring and responding to current and potential types of cyber threats. The module studies current and future technical, social, legal and political developments in Cyber security including narrative engineering, psychological profiling, ethical hacking, quantum cryptography, Artificial Intelligence in cyber security and chip level security and Internet of Things architectures and how this impacts skills, products, services and operational processes and the supply chain and markets.

The module aims to link with current leading standards including Cyber essentials, the UK Government National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and international country standards in Asia, America and Europe as well as cyber security standards including; IASME, ISO 27001/2, PCI-DSS, PAS 555 and ISF and the HMG Security Policies and NIST frameworks.

The transformative potential of digital technology for strategy and strategizing is significant, and we are increasingly recognising how this potential is turning into a new business reality. The pervasive use of digital technology as reflected in, for instance, self-driving cars, robotic technology, and language technology is impressive in itself. It will most certainly promise to challenge what we know about transportation, service work, and intellectual activity. In this regard, digital technology is no longer merely a way of more efficiently supporting business processes, but also something that will radically shape the core of what companies do.

At a time when progress in digital technology has made what seemed impossible, possible, the implications for strategy and strategizing are profound. 

The main aim of this module is to offer a broad perspective on the design and implementation of effective digital business strategies for contemporary organisations. You will explore platform strategy and its implications for strategizing in the digital age and conduct strategic planning to generate new digital business strategies. 

The development and spread of IT-based innovations demands new theoretical and practical approaches to the challenges of integrating technological and organisational change. Research shows that the spread and implementation of IT-based innovations in business processes, both within and between organisations, and through enterprise-wide and cross-enterprise systems integration, are dependent on supporting processes of institutional and organisational change. Understanding these challenges involves drawing on a range of theoretical contributions drawn from the social science of innovation which highlight the links between organisational processes and their social contexts. A focus on the creation and distribution of knowledge provides an integrating framework for these contributions.

This module will allow you to apply this theoretical framework to concrete examples of IT-based innovation in product, process and service arenas. Through roleplay exercises, case-studies and group activities, you will be able to show how a better understanding of the social and technological dynamics of the innovation process can result in more effective management practice, and successful business outcomes.