MN20014

Managing Enterprise Information Systems

Semester 2, 2021

Unit Team

Dr Gamila Shoib and Dr Richard Kamm

Table of Contents

Unit Team ............................................................................................................................................... 3

Contact Details and Office Hours .........................................................................................................3
Session Structure and Times ...................................................................................................................3
Unit Objectives........................................................................................................................................4
Assessment .............................................................................................................................................4
Methods of Feedback to Students.......................................................................................................... 5
Readings .................................................................................................................................................6
Resources ................................................................................................................................................6
Lecture Schedule.....................................................................................................................................8
Unit Team
Co-Convenor and Lecturer
Dr Gamila M. Shoib, Senior Lecturer,
Information, Decisions and Operations (IDO) Group

Co-Convenor and Lecturer

Dr Richard Kamm, Senior Lecturer,
Information, Decisions and Operations (IDO) Group

Contact Details and Office Hours

Office: East Building 3.01 (not currently in use due to COVID restrictions)
Office Hours:

Gamila
Office hours: Wednesdays 13:00 – 15:00.
Please use this link to access my calendar and book your appointment:
https://gamila-shoib.youcanbook.me.
Other times are possible by prior arrangement.
Appointments are currently run using Microsoft Teams. Subject to changes to Government
restrictions, face-to-face meetings may be possible.

Email: mnsgmas@bath.ac.uk

Richard
Every Friday 13.30-15.30 – please use the “book now” button in Moodle. Other times may be possible
by appointment as well – please email.
Email: mnsrmk@bath.ac.uk

Session Structure and Times

The unit is made up of live online interactive learning (LOIL) sessions. All live sessions will be
delivered online on Zoom. Links for joining are listed under each Unit Week on the unit’s Moodle page.
‘Unit Week 1’ is the week commencing (w/c) 1 February 2021, this is equivalent to the University
Academic ‘Week 19’, Unit Week 2 is Week 20 … etc. We use Unit Weeks to frame activities in a
particular week.

Each week we will focus on a particular topic. There will be two Live Online Interactive Learning
(LOIL) sessions each week. LOIL 1/Session 1 will usually follow a live lecture format and LOIL
2/Session 2 will be more like a live seminar, involving an activity.

Sessions will be recorded with recordings available through the unit’s Panopto page. Standard
PowerPoint slides, with detailed Notes where relevant, will also be available. The LOILs will, on
occasion, be supplemented with pre-recorded material. Each Live Online Interactive Learning (LOIL)
session will have a unique identifier which refers to the week that it takes place as well as whether it
was Session 1 or Session 2. For example, Session 1 on the Wednesday of Week 1, will be labelled
LOIL.1.1; the second session in Week 1 on Thursday will be labelled LOIL.1.2. This should also make it
easier to locate the recordings on Panopto. Padlets embedded in the sessions will provide opportunities
for individual reflection which will also be picked up for discussion.

Standard PowerPoint slides, where relevant with detailed Notes, will also be available for the LOILs.

Live online interactive learning (LOIL) timetabled sessions will run on

Wednesdays LOIL 1 from 10:15 until 11:05 and
 on Thursdays LOIL 2 from 12:15 until 13:05.

These live sessions will focus on introducing concepts and ideas but also their application to practical
cases and examples, in order to broaden your understanding of what is at play but to also dig into some
of the finer details and intricacies of technology’s implementation and use in organisations and society.

LOIL delivery will be supplemented by a Q&A Discussion Forum, this will have threads which
correspond to each week’s topic (as detailed below). You can post questions about a particular topic
there. This is also where we will post our replies to your questions. Other students will be able to see
your questions and my answers and you will be able to see theirs as well. The Q&A forum is listed at
the start of the unit’s Moodle page.

Every week, a wrap-up email will be sent out through the Unit Announcement to recap on what has
been done that week and to remind everyone of the plans for the following week. We have found this to
be particularly valuable during the current mode of online delivery as it helps students retain overview
of the unit’s work but also stay on top of the multitude of communication channels and media.

Unit Objectives
This unit is intended to provide an introduction to a range of information systems issues which are
critical or important for the management of an enterprise. We consider the role of information and
communication technology in contemporary organisation(s) and how technology can enable and change
activities at an industry, organisational, group or individual level.
Our aims are to:
- examine the assumptions, concepts and theories that inform our understanding of
information systems in organisations.
- focus on emergent IT-enabled organisational arrangements and re-arrangements from an
internal and external perspective.
- discuss the opportunities and challenges that emerge from information systems
implementation and use in organisations but also in society.

On this unit you will develop some key skills that you need for your future work and employment:
- Research on organisations
- Analysing business cases that involve information and communication technology
- Writing up a business analysis and making relevant practical recommendations
- Presenting research outcomes and recommendations to a business client

Assessment
 The unit is assessed through an open-book time-limited1 examination at the end of
Semester 1, which counts for 100% of the unit mark. There will however be some work
that you will need to do on a weekly basis in order to be able to complete the assessment.

- The exam will consist of three sections:

• In Section 1, you will be required to write a 500-word reflection on what

you have learnt on the unit in relation to information systems in
enterprises. To do this, you will need to keep a Learning Log
throughout your journey on the unit. Guidance on how to do this will
be provided in Week 1, with further pointers also shared. You will need to
submit your updated Log by 9:00 a.m. every Monday. This 500-word
reflection is worth 20% of the unit mark.
There will be a submission point each week on Moodle to enable you to submit
your updated Learning Log. Keeping this updated and going is critical to being
able to produce a meaningful and insight reflection on your learnings on the unit
during your exam.

• In Section 2: This will be based on a short case which you will be given
during the exam. You will get to choose one question from an option of
two. This is worth 40% of the unit mark. Your answer has a maximum
word count of 1,000 words.

• In Section 3, you will play the role of an Enterprise Information Systems

consultant, advising a real-life organisation facing a challenging problem,
which could be resolved through the use of information and
communication technology. You will be presented with the problem, the
name of the client, and some details about the organisation. You will come
up with a proposal for the technology-enabled solution, based on research
together with the application of some of the ideas and concepts from the
unit.
During Week 10, we will run activities in the two LOIL sessions which
will simulate the requirements of playing this part and presenting a
proposal. This, together with your other knowledge and skills acquired on
the unit, should help you further fine-tune the skills that you will need to
undertake this work, also on the exam.

This question is worth 40% of the unit mark. Your answer has a
maximum word limit of 1,000 words.

Methods of Feedback to Students

We are happy to respond to questions about the Learning Log or the course material

1
The standard time allowed will be defined by the School of Management. This will most probably be 24 hours.
The details of this will be confirmed as soon as they are available.
 through the unit Q&A Forum on Moodle, email, or during support meetings. Our office
hours and appointment details are given above.

Readings

Readings are suggested for each topic, as listed in each LOIL’s PowerPoint slides.
Concepts cut across chapters in the suggested textbook and, at times, across a multitude of
sources. You should regard reading the material for each week’s work as an essential
activity. You can post any questions on the topic using the relevant topic thread in the
Discussion Forum on Moodle or you can bring any questions to the following week’s
LOILs or support sessions (Office Hours).

The readings will be available online and, where possible, will be uploaded onto Moodle.
It is expected that students will engage with the material during the sessions but also after
a topic has been covered. There will be opportunities for discussing the material during
the sessions but also explicitly during the following session after material has been
delivered.

PowerPoint slides for live activities will not contain answers to the interactive parts of any
session. It is therefore recommended that you attend the live sessions. All sessions will
nonetheless be recorded to maximise flexibility and student access to unit content. It is
very important that you not only attend but also participate.

The recommended textbook for this course is:

Laudon, K.C. & Laudon, J.P. (2019). Management Information Systems: Managing the
Digital Firm. Global Edition. 16th Edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

There are multiple copies in the University Library and the 2018 15th Edition is also available
electronically.

Supplementary Readings
Additional readings are provided for each session, to help you read around the topic, but also
provide further guidance that may beneficial to your coursework.

Additional useful classic books are:

 Jordan, J.M. (2012), Information Technology & Innovation, Wiley (available

to view online in the University Library).
 Chaffey, D. (2015), Digital business and E-commerce management, 6th edition.
Pearson Education Limited. (The 4th edition (2009) is available to view online in
the University Library).
 Boddy, D., Boonstra, A & Kennedy, G. (2009), Managing Information Systems:
An Organisational Perspective, Financial Times / Prentice Hall 3rd Edition.

Resources
Moodle
 Unit page
 Session folders with supporting material and additional resources
 The Management Librarian, Helen Rhodes, is an invaluable resource and she is
happy to help you with any sources or search-related enquiries.
 Lecture Schedule

Live Online Interactive Learning (LOIL) sessions will consist of presentations of concepts and
theories around a particular topic but will also comprise textual and video cases, examples from
practice and interactive class activities and discussions. The following is an overview of the
planned weekly topics. PowerPoint slides and further material are available from the relevant
topic’s folders on Moodle. Every week corresponds to a topic/section on the unit Moodle page
and also has a discussion thread on the Q&A Forum.

Week 1 Topic: Introduction GS and RK

w/c 1 February 2021
This opening session introduces this unit’s philosophy, structure and the assessment,
including guidance on keeping a Learning Log. Some foundational concepts in
information systems, organisational behaviour and decision-making will be explained,
which will help you make sense of complex organisations and the way in which they
engage with information and technology.

Week 2 Topic: Enterprise RK

Information Systems
w/c 8 February 2021
Enterprise Information Systems is the term given to systems that follow entities through business
processes. What this means is that the systems do more than simply store data. They ensure that the
right data is available to the people who need it at the right time. produce a more responsive
organisation. The live sessions will lay out the principles of enterprise systems and will give you the
chance to understand how processes are followed by EISs from start to finish. .

Week 3 Topic: Management Skills GS

Refresher
w/c 15 February 2021
Research is an integral part of understanding problems and finding solutions. To engage
with management and social science research you need to be able to review it, apply it,
write about it, and present your findings. We will briefly consider what management and
information systems research entails, including approaches to studying them. I will then
give you some guidance and key pointers for fine-tuning the skills that you will need,
throughout this unit and in your future work in organisations. This will include: reviewing
literature, analysing cases, presenting, writing management research, and critical thinking.

Week 4 Topic: IS Strategy GS

w/c 22 February 2021
More and more organisations are applying innovation, strategic planning and
operational planning to develop business strategies that have a greater chance for
success. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play a game-
changing role within and between organisations. The sessions will introduce the
concept of strategy in business, explain several classic strategy models using real-world
examples, and discuss how IT can support different strategies and can change business
competition.
Week 5 Topic: Information GS
systems, Operations,
w/c 1 March 2021
Business Models and
Business Transformation
Enterprise Systems are often large-scale information systems that manage business
processes, information flows, analysis and reporting in complex organisations. They
range from systems that manage accounting, inventory, customer relationships or
even internal communications. This week, we will discuss these systems, considering
a range of practical and conceptual issues related to their use. Redesigns to an
organisation’s operations and its business model, usually as part of a strategic
(re)positioning, will also be discussed under the broad subject of ICT-enabled
business transformation.

Week 6 Topic: Big Data and Business GS

Intelligence
w/c 8 March 2021
Organisations now have the capacity to exploit their data resources to understand the
behaviour of individual customers and the wider strength or weakness of their products.
A greater variety of data is amenable to quantitative analysis, and this analysis can be
done quickly enough for the results to be of use in management decision-making. But
what are the limits to drawing meaningful conclusions? Are we radically changing the
nature of statistical analysis? Also, what are the privacy and security issues that big data
bring to the table.

Week 7 Topic: Databases and RK

Information Management
w/c 15 March 2021
You should all be familiar with spreadsheets (aka Excel). They are very useful for data analysis, but
should not be relied on as a data storage technology. Databases work in a different way, and we will
examine the reasons why they are more reliable. The live sessions will lay out the principles of
databases. You will have some practice in drawing an Entity Relationship Model, which is how the
structure of databases is defined.

Week 8 Topic: Database reporting RK

and Business Decisions
w/c 22 March 2021
Having understood why and how data is stored in databases in week 7, we will look at how it is
extracted and presented for decision-making. There will be support materials and live session
content to demonstrate the construction of queries and reports and explain how far the facilities in
database programs will take you in giving useful information to managers. You will be able to
practice developing a database report and we will discuss good practice in designing them for clarity
and informativeness.
EASTER BREAK

Week 9 Topic: Security and Ethics of RK

IS
w/c 12 April 2021
Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should do it. As we will have discovered,
there are many different ways in which data can be analysed to give businesses a picture of there
operations, their employees and their customers. The advances in hardware and software that we
will have looked at are producing privacy and security problems for organisations of all kinds. And
that means they are producing problems for us, the people who the data describes. The live sessions
will lay out the nature of some of the problems and discuss the pros and cons of the ways that
organisations try to address them. Note that, at the time of writing, the regulation of privacy in the
UK is subject to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). There is no guarantee this
will be the case in the long term.

Week 10 Topic: Business Problems GS and RK

and IT-Enabled Solutions
w/c 19 April 2021
We will research and investigate a handful of business organisations and identify
challenges within them which also present opportunities for IT-enabled innovation.

Week 11 Topic: Revision, GS and RK

Consolidation and Exam
w/c 26 April 2021
Preparation
Working in study groups, each will focus on one of the topics that we have covered and present a
consolidation of the material during the LOILs, together with some critical points and pointers to
seminal sources and discussions.

Week 12 Q&A and Support Sessions GS and RK

w/c 3 May 2021
Individual as well as group support sessions will be bookable during this week by way of providing
additional support during your exam preparation time.