CLASS ASSIGNMENTS

Exercise
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
Project 4
Electronic Discussion

Exr (Exercise)

The purpose of this exercise is for you to set up an Ouray account for yourself. You are to send me (bkuo@carbon.cudenver.edu) a message to prove the creation of this account. The information for setting up the Ouray account is available in the Computing, Information, and Network Services department. The failure of a student to complete this exercise may indicate a lack of his/her background knowledge/skill. Therefore, those who do not complete are advised to drop this course immediately.

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Project I: A cyber tour to my favorite country

Part I (Thread I):

The purpose of this part is for each of you to explore information resources available for one country. Your task is to:

1. Select a country.

2. List all resources that are available for this country for traveling, business, and government. Attach examples of each resource in the appendix.

3. Select two or more news groups of your interest and follow these news groups for three weeks. What are the most exciting/intriguing news/discussion (in your opinion) that have happened during this period? Based on this experience, what is your assessment of the information culture in this region. Here the information culture refers to things such as how information is exchanged, government regulation on information exchange, what type of information (commercial, government, science, etc.) is exchanged, what type of institutions (commercial, government, education, etc.) are major players, and the openness/closeness of information exchange. It is heavily influenced by its economical, regulatory, and social environment, which requires your research in order to understand. Write a brief report (double spacing,3 pages or less) that summarizes your experience and your assessment of the information culture. Also attach samples of the discussion in the appendix.

4. What are the current undertakings, if there is any, of that particular government in building its "information superhighway?" Please list the resources from which you obtain the information and write a two-page report summarizing your net-surfing experience and your finding regarding this topic. (Hint: the keywords are information infrastructure, telecommunication, computer and communication technology, regulation, etc.)

Part II (Thread II):

You are now to apply your web-surfing skill to do a brief report (7 pages or fewer, double spacing) on how the recent global financial crisis has affect the economy of your favorite country.

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Project II: The Singapore Experience

This project includes the following Harvard Business cases:

Singapore TradeNet: A Tale of One City

Hong Kong TradeLink: News from the Second City

Singapore TradeNet: The Tale Continues

Singapore Unlimited: Building the National Information Infrastructure

Singapore Tradenet: Beyond Tradenet to the Intelligent Island

In this project you are to summarize your finding on these cases. You are suggested to use your internet skill to identify any other related issues pertaining to these cases. In your report, you should focus on how Singapore's culture has shaped the adoption of information technology and the development of its information infrastructure. You should emphasize the potential/hidden pitfalls (considering the current global financial crisis). What can other countries learn from Singapore? What recommendations would you make?

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Pjt-3 (Project-3, a team project)

The purpose of this project is to understand how differences in national culture/regulation/economy might impact the development of information systems. The materials are three cases from the Harvard Business School:

- TVINN: Electronic Integration in Norwegian Customs Handling

Your major task is to compare and contrast the EDI development in these three countries/regions. Note the team for this project may not have to be the group for eletronic disucssion.

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Pjt-4 (Project 4, a team project)

The group project is for you to research a certain area of your interest. Possible research areas are:

- The home page advantage for an organization - Other HTML-based project (on WWW)
- EDI on Internet? Why, what, when, and how?
- Case Study: Find a company to conduct an in-depth analysis of its use of global information systems.
- What's new in international regulations governing the use of information technology and the transfer of information technology
- What's new in international telecommunication standards? How may this development impact the use of IT in MNCs in the future?
- An in-depth analysis of GIS in a particular industry, i.e., banking, airline, shipping, etc.
- A global information superhighway? Compare and contrast the approaches in different countries.

(The number of countries is dependent upon the team's size.)

A proposal of your project must be submitted on September 24. You will also present your findings (30 minutes) to the class in the scheduled times. A written report is due on December 7. It should be double-spaced and no more than 20 pages. You must attach a copy of all supporting materials which you use for the final report. Note the team for this project may not have to be the group for eletronic disucssion or the case study.

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Electronic Discussion

The purpose of electronic discussion is for members of this class to learn how to work cooperatively in the electronic environment, i.e., the cyberspace. As many of you have may have already experienced, working in cyberspace could be very challenging for people who are used to working in face-to-face settings. Many techniques for communicating face-to-face are inappropriate, or must be adjusted in the cyberspace in order for information exchange to be both efficient and effective. Communication breaks down much more easily in the cyberspace than in face-to-face meetings (which by no means are error-proof). The bandwidth (channels) of communication is much narrower, i.e., expression and gesture are unavailable, hence limiting your ability to exchange information efficiently. Cyber-communication is also serial and asynchronous, and further complicated by constant technical break-down (i.e., the host computer or the network is not functioning properly). All of these problems require a different kind of knowledge from that for traditional face-to-face communication. Unfortunately, knowledge of cyber-communication is not commonly observed in today's workforce and more importantly, it is best learned by hands-on practice. This exercise is to maker sure that you become an able cyber-communicator, given that it is the only viable communication mechanism for the work force of MNCs.

Guidelines for electronic discussion:

1. You are to form a group, of which the size should be between 5 and 7.

2. You are to create a distribution list so you can use the electronic mail to conduct discussion.

3. There are three periods in which you are to conduct electronic discussion. For the first two periods, each group will be assigned a specific chapter. For the third (last) period, all groups are to take all chapters in Deans and Jurison's text.; of which topics of discussion are suggested for the assigned chapter (see the end of this handout).

5. There are two purposes of the discussion. The first is for you to reflect/elaborate on important concepts in the text; the other is for you to further brainstorm on issues pertaining to these concepts. (Note that I have suggested a few topics of disucssion for Deans and Jurison's text. Please see the last few pages of this handout.) Through text reading and electronic discussion, I am confident that you will develop an in-depth understanding of global information systems development.

6. Please use primarily the e-mail system. Start early and give yourself at least two weeks for discussion. You are to hand in an electronic report of the discussion on the day specified in the schedule. The report should include, in the beginning, a brief summary of the discussion, followed by a copy of all messages in the time order they are sent. This copy should be edited for readability. That is, please remove the unnecessary markers (such as >) and headers. But the sender of the message should be retained so that I can easily trace both person and the context of discussion.

1. What are the forces that are transforming our economy into a global marketplace today? What are key factors to compete in the global economy? How is the global economy different from the old one?

Wriston

1. Is the global economy also the information economy? What are the roles of information and information technology for a country/company to become competitive in the global economy?

1. How does information technology help a company balance between the need to achieve the economy of scale (a universal product?) and the need to satisfy particular market needs (insiderization?)? Is information technology the primary factor? Or is it a critical component of other factors such as organization culture, structure, etc.?

O'Reilly

1. What are the trends in the global workforce? What kind of skills are valued and where are they? Does it matter where they are? Why or why not?

Section II:

1. What changes are taking place in the configuration/coordination of value activities in a MNC? What are the roles of information technology in shaping these changes?

Bartlett and Ghoshal (pp. 97-140)

1. In today's global economy, there are many factors influencing the formulation of strategies for MNCs. What are these factors? What are the potential barriers for a MNC become truly translational? What changes must take place in its organizational structure and culture? What are the new roles of the global manager? How can information technology can be integrated into the strategies? How can information technology help in transforming a business into a truly translational one?

Section III:

Ives et al.

1. What are GBDs? How should one use GBDs to manage the development of global information systems?

Section IV:

1. What are the hottest networking technology in the information era? Why are they hot (that is, why do MNCs need them)? How should you manage a global network?

1. Given that the different people/department/locations of a MNC have different information needs, what are the appropriate strategies to select/develop applications? How would you ensure a successful development and deployment of these applications?

Rosenberg and Valiant

1. Will EDI ever be available on Internet? What are the barriers?

Saraswat and Gorgone

1. How should MNCs manage transborder data flow?

Guez, Gagliardi, Ambrosio (pp. 289-306)

1. What are the benefits/costs to standardize software globally for a MNC? Does integration always mean standardization? What are the barriers to integrate? to standardize? How to overcome these barriers?

1. Why is outsourcing a viable alternative to MNCs in building their global information systems? What factors to be considered in selecting the appropriate applications for outsourcing?

1. How should MNCs manage the cultural complexity in deploying their global information systems?

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