Management of Emerging Technologies

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Klaus Nielsen
• Tutors: Professor Klaus Nielsen, Saverio Romeo and others
• Assessment: a two-hour examination (100%)

Blockchain is a new technology with widespread applications and important impacts on organisations and society. By allowing digital information to be distributed but not copied, blockchain technology has created the backbone of a new type of internet. Originally devised for the digital currency, a multitude of other actual and potential uses of the technology are emerging.

The module provides you with an overview of the fundamentals of blockchain and its impacts on public and private organisations. The course is multidisciplinary, reflecting the diverse applications and impacts of the technology. It provides you with basic knowledge about how the technology works, as well as user-oriented knowledge of a number of important applications of blockchain technology in areas such as banking and finance, management systems, government regulation and infrastructure development. In addition, you will gain in-depth knowledge of the application of blockchain technology and its impacts in one specific field. The module also provides a theoretical  framework for understanding the new technology and its impacts, and engages you in a critical discussion of the overall societal impacts.

Indicative module syllabus

• What are emerging digital technologies?
• Adoption of emerging digital technologies: theory and practice
• Managing emerging digital technologies part 1: measuring the digital maturity of organisations and forecasting the impact of emerging digital technologies
• Managing emerging digital technologies part 2: strategy development, implementation, skills and people, organisation structure (teleworking and virtual organisation)
• Emerging digital technologies and entrepreneurship
• An overview of the current landscape of emerging digital technologies part 1: DLT, the IoT, cybersecurity
• An overview of the current landscape of emerging digital technologies part 2: data and artificial intelligence
• The future landscape of emerging digital technologies: the challenge of quantum technology
• Policy and emerging digital technologies

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand how the adoption of emerging digital technologies affects markets, companies and government as well as the associated management challenges and opportunities
• apply basic economic and management theory to develop an in-depth understanding of the character and impacts of emerging digital technologies
• demonstrate overview knowledge of the current landscape of emerging digital technologies
• analyse and evaluate how the application of selected emerging digital technologies is managed
• critically discuss the broader societal effects of the application of digital technologies
• evaluate the prospects of managing the challenges of future emerging technologies.