Indian Institute of Management Rohtak

Course Outline
Course Title : Information Technology and Business Innovation
Credits : 1 Credit
Type : Compulsory
Session Duration : 75 minutes
Term : VI
Year : 2019-20
Faculty : Sanjiv D Vaidya
Contact Details of the Instructor: sdvaidya@iimcal.ac.in
______________________________________________________________________________

Course Introduction:
Information Technology has a tremendous potential to enable organizations to innovate. It has
been seen that organizations have been able to very consciously conceive of and implement
significant innovations at the level of processes, and less frequently at the level of decisions. At
the same time, major IT initiatives by organizations have also often opened up significant
opportunities for new strategic initiatives and need for significantly different management
approaches. Finally, a large majority of these major IT initiatives also lead to, often by default,
significant impact on organizational structures and culture.
In today’s digital age, it is very critical for managers to understand the possibilities for IT-led
innovations at these different organizational levels. This will enable them to foresee and plan for
IT initiatives for very significant strategic benefits. At the same time, it is equally crucial for
them to understand the implications of these efforts at innovation for the organization, in terms
of requirement of resources and management approaches, in order to be able to actually
implement these innovations successfully.
This course attempts to provide some insights into this very complex and rather ill-understood,
yet very important, phenomenon. The following outline will shed some light on how.

Course Objectives:
 Understand the role of IT in business innovation
 Understand, appreciate, and address managerial challenges associated with managing IT
led innovation

Pedagogy:
Mix of lecture, cases and videos.

Course material:
Cases prescribed in the Session plan.

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Course prerequisites:
None

Evaluation scheme:

Evaluation Component Type (Individual/Group) Weightage

Case Analysis Write-ups Group 20%

Mid Term Individual 20%
End Term Examination Individual 40%
Project Group 20%

Session-wise course outline: (The duration of each session is 75 minutes)

Sessions 1: Introduction to the course

Sessions 2-12:Introduction to the concept of Innovation and the potential role of information
technology

Session 2: Why IT is the most powerful weapon for innovation today. – a short film show
and discussion.

Session 3: Technology and organizational innovation – the impact at different organizational

levels – a short film show and discussion
(Both the film clips take around 15 minutes each.)

Session 4: The five levels of organizational innovation, viz., strategic, structural, cultural,
process and decisions. The interactions among these levels and the impact of the same on
management of organizational innovations. (Mini Case: CEMEX)

Session 5: Session 4 contd. – Examples of innovations, particularly IT enabled innovations

at the individual organizational levels discussed before and their interactions.

Session 6: Session 5 contd.

Session 7: Types of innovations – their significance, especially for innovations at the

different organizational levels and from the viewpoint of managing organizational innovations.

Session 8: Session 7 contd.

Session 9: The concept of Innovation Life Cycle – its significance for managing innovations
(Discussion on the 3M mini case)
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Session 10: Evaluation and Management of an innovation - especially from the viewpoint of
determining the nature/type of an innovation - implications for managing the innovation.

Session 11: Creating an innovation-conducive environment in an organization – management

of the different stages of the life cycle – implications for management of IT enabled innovations
(Mini Case Discussion – Whirlpool)

Session 12: Session 11 – contd.

Sessions 13 to 15: IT Innovations and their impact on Organizational Structure and

Culture

Session 13: The Information Processing View of Organizational Design and its implications
for judicious deployment of IT

Session 14: IT and Virtual Components of Structure – the Concept of the Virtual Value Chain

Session 15: Possible Impact of IT on Organizational Culture and Power Structure – the move
towards abstractness in the work environment, possibilities of both deskilling and empowerment
of employees and the impact of IT on social interactions

Sessions 16 to 18: IT and Process Innovation

Session 16: Basic Concepts of Incremental and Radical Process Innovations

Session 17: A structured approach to radical process redesign

Session 18: An integrative approach towards designing and implementing effective process
innovations

Session 19 and 20: IT and Organizational Innovation: an Integrative View

Session 19: Case Discussion

Session 20: The Final Integrative Framework

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Additional references:
1. Strategic Management of Technological Innovation by Melissa Schilling

2. Management Strategies for Information Technology by Michael Earl, Prentice Hall.

3. The Information Archipelago: Plotting a Course by McFarlan et. al., HBR.

4. An Information Processing View of Organizations by Jay Galbraith, Interfaces.

5. Information Technology for Management by Henry Lucas, TMH.

6. New Worlds of Computer Mediated Work by Shoshana Zuboff, HBR.

7. Reengineering the Corporation by Hammer and Champy, Harper Business.

8. Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate by Michael Hammer, HBR, Jul-Aug. 1990

9. The Future of Management by Gary Hamel, Harvard University Press.

About the instructor:

Prof. Sanjiv Vaidya has been a faculty member in the M.I.S. Group at the Indian Institute of
Management Calcutta for the past 27 years. He has a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT
Bombay and a PGDM from IIM Calcutta. He is also a Fellow of IIM Calcutta in the field of
M.I.S. His academic interests are in the field of IS/IT Strategy Formulation, Management of
Organizational IT Environments, Business Process Reengineering and Decision Support
Systems, among others. He also has about eight years of experience of working in organizations
at different levels and in different industries, right from a field engineer to vice presidential
positions where he was directly involved in strategy formulation.