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eBusiness Design for Competitive Advantage

Unit Code: LEB600




Duration

Contact Hours

Campus

Prerequisite

Corequisite

12 weeks or equivalent

Minimum of 2 hours per week or equivalent for online students using discussion forum

Hawthorn, Lilydale, Off-Campus

 or equivalent

Credit Points: 12.5 Credit Points

Related Course/s:

This unit is for continuing students only and has no new intakes.
A postgraduate unit at the Graduate Diploma level in Master of Business (eBusiness and Communication), Master of Technology (Business Systems Design and Management) as MTB230,  as HGM554 and Master of Management

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Aims & Objectives:

Organisations are dynamic and any attempt to model them will result in a model that is ‘fit for purpose’ at a point in time. This unit will introduce an Enterprise Design Conceptual Framework as a modeling approach to enable students to understand the architectural design elements of the business, key stakeholders (with a focus on customers, employees and owners) and the infrastructure through which an enterprise converts its inputs (material, human and monetary) into its outputs. The unit aims to enable you to recognise, understand, and initiate strategic and adaptive responses to change in the environment of organised work which are manifest in organisation and work design, employee availability and fit, and growth dependent upon labour market structures and dynamics and organisational learning systems.

The critical importance of organisational learning and adaptation to sustainability and growth challenges is also explored through systems thinking, complexity theories and workplace adaptation to complexity, systems responses to rapid and constant change, supportive organisation culture to foster sustainable human resources, aligning individual support and growth to meet value requirements, and appropriate eBusiness organisation and work design models. The unit also includes contemporary issues requiring tailored technical processes such as skill shortages / mismatches and future sources of labour, definitions of skill and capability development, and managing an aging workforce. Contingency factors relating to organisation design including eBusiness design and generic forms of current and future organisational design are also evaluated.

On completion of this unit you will be able to:

  • Describe how eBusiness design coordinates activities in an enterprise and delivers information to decision makers
  • Discuss generic forms of enterprise design
  • Understand how changes in the structure of the labour market have implications for enterprise capability needs
  • Describe the benefits of supportive cultures, and dynamic enterprise design in supporting sustainable eBusiness outcomes and labour practices in today’s constant change environment
  • Understand systems and complexity theories of the organisation and their impact on enterprise design, work design, individual development and adaptive capability
  • Appreciate the impact of enterprise design, systems and culture organisational learning in a dynamic business environment (the learning organisation)
  • Distinguish between enterprise design contingent effects of strategy, size, environment and business process
  • Describe the characteristics and features of various current and emerging organisational forms
  • Be capable of critically applying these concepts to chosen industries and eBusiness enterprises

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Teaching Methods:

Online delivery is supported by a unit outline with CDROM, a unit website with a variety of resources which may include lessons, learning objects (documents and presentations), virtual lectures, threaded discussions and interactive chat rooms. Face-to-face workshops may be conducted in a variety of configurations (weekly or 2 day blocks) subject to demand. International students will attend weekly workshops taking a work-related approach

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Assessment:

Comparative website business model evaluation 30%, Research paper on sources of service advantage and/or competitive advantage 40%, Developing a strategic plan for eBusiness process innovation 30%

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Generic Skills Outcomes:

On completion of this unit you will be developing these attributes:

  • Are entrepreneurial through understanding and applying the principles of dynamic enterprise design for competitive and service advantage in commercial markets
  • Understand the principles of enterprise systems, learning capability and culture to meet market needs
  • Developing a proactive approach to enterprise culture and organisation design, and to organisation learning and adaptation through appropriate systems, roles, interfaces, work design, individual and group development, and recognition of labour force dynamics and challenges
  • Gain competence in sourcing, analysis, comprehension, organisation and communication of complex materials relevant to the unit content
  • Gain competence in analysing and presenting ideas both in written and spoken form through participating actively in workshops or Internet based classes
  • Define and analyse enterprise problems related to design responses to change and critically evaluate material related to resolution of these problems
  • Use enterprise design models to understand the strengths and weaknesses of organisational responses to change in the environment

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Content:

  • Taxonomy of business models and Internet business models
  • Systems thinking methodology and rich pictures
  • Enterprise Design Conceptual Framework EDCF
  • Competitive advantage and service advantage in constant change environments
  • Complexity theory, organisational dynamics, complex adaptive systems, the learning organisation
  • eBusiness Architecture and Infrastructure and business model mapping
  • eCommerce and payment systems
  • Supply chain management
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Knowledge and human resource management 
  • Emerging business models – eGovernment and eHealth
  • Virtual enterprise and pervasive computing
  • Strategic resource planning
     

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Reading Materials:

Foss, B & Stone, M. 2002, CRM in Financial Services: A Practical Guide to Making Customer Relationship Management Work, Kogan Page, London, UK
Kaplan, RS & Norton, DP., ‘How to Implement a New Strategy Without Disrupting Your Organization’, Harvard Business Review, March 2006, Vol. 84 Issue 3, p100-109
Miles, D & Scott, A. 2005, Macroeconomics: Understanding the Wealth of Nations, 2nd edn, Wiley & Sons, Great Britain
Olson, EE, Eoyang, GH, Beckhard, GH & Vaill, P. 2001, Facilitating Organisation Change: Lessons from Complexity Science, Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA
Saul, J. 2005, The Collapse of Globalisation and the Reinvention of the World, Penguin Group, Australia
Senge, P. The Learning Organisation, ADD
Stacey, RD. 2000, Strategic Management and Organisation Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity, Pearson Education, Essex, UK
Synott, J. 2004, Global and International Studies: Transdisciplinary Perspectives, Thompson, Australia
Turban, E, King D, Lee, J & Viehland D. 2004, Electronic Commerce, A Managerial Perspective 2004, int. edn, Pearson Prentice-Hall, New Jersey

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