“THE DARK SIDE” MANAGEMENT’ ROLE IN ASSURING SECURITY $ PRIVACY

This exam is the final part of the learning journey taken together this term; a final exercise
in “connecting the dots” between the main themes and many different articles and cases
you have read this academic term. Your job is to select from the set of papers you were
responsible for analyzing this term and weave a credible thread through those topics in the
context of the questions: What do you now understand as your role as a manager to be in
getting the most value out of the information systems portfolio you are presented with and
must/may further develop?
You are to consider this issue in light of your experience with using the various Skillsoft
tutorials, in–class exercises, team-led discussions and, of course readings.
Each article in a given class session’s set of readings was chosen for its relationship to, or
for its illustrative purposes around, a specific conceptual theme (see G1-G6 following). For
instance, Porter’s “Strategy and the Internet” explores the notion of strategy and how
relationships are altered given the opportunities of the Internet and of E-commerce
technologies. The Porter article, when juxtaposed with other cases, provides a setting to
explore Porter’s notions of how strategic values can play out in the development of
information systems infrastructures. Or, in the last class session, we connected threads in
security and privacy to many previous topics emphasizing management’s roles and
responsibilities in using these critical information technologies is ways appropriate to
organizational stakeholders AND to society.
While I have my own set of connections between these threads, there are probably as
many ways to make sense of these themes and concepts as there are class members.
This is because we each bring different training, experiences and prior understanding to
the material. It is, however, ultimately your understanding of the material and how to
make it real in your own career that matters.
In the Team-led discussions, the team write-ups and in class discussion you have been
asked to synthesize and connect the various papers. If you have been keeping up with
this challenge the exam should be comfortable and relatively simple, and even fun. Thus
your job to ‘connect the dots’ between each set of writings is a continuation of what you
have been encouraged to do from session to session, i.e., make explicit the framework you
have been developing to help you harnass the power of the Information and
Communications Technologies and Information Systems resources at your disposal.