Entry requirements

Option 1: 150 credits within the Master's Programme in Industrial Engineering and Management, including 10 credits at Master's level in technology.

Option 2: 150 credits, including 90 credits in technology. Participation in Industrial Strategy and Organisation, of which 5 credits must be completed, and Innovation Management.

Proficiency in English equivalent to the Swedish upper secondary course English 6.

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course, students should be able to,

Knowledge and understanding

• identify forces driving technological change and analyse their impact on industrial organisation,
• acknowledge and assess ethical, political, and economic aspects at play in contemporary technological change processes, particularly digital transformations, automation, and robotisation of work-related matters,  

Skills and abilities

• identify and theorise management and organisational challenges imposed by technological change processes in different industrial contexts,
• forge strategic and sustainable solutions to management challenges, with an awareness of how these align with or challenges ethical, political and economic issues at play,

Judgement and approach

• critically discuss different theoretical perspectives on technological change, 
• critically reflect on how different theoretical perspectives on technological change can affect industrial organisation.

Content

The course consists of a series of modules that engage with forces driving and resisting technological change, and the impacts they have on the planning, implementation, and evaluation of new business models and technological platforms and applications in industrial organisations. To further the conceptualisation of such dynamics, the course presents different models for technological change. It seeks to assess their relevance and validity for theorising the intersection of technology and industrial organisation by relating them to situations where technological changes are contributing to rewriting the conditions for value creation, and for the modes by which different stakeholders relate to one another. This in order to develop abilities to think strategically and sustainably about the role new technologies play for industrial organisation.

The course discusses digital transformations, automation and robotization of work-related processes, professionalisation of digital work and implementation of AI technologies, circular business models and industrial transitions/transformations towards more sustainable technologies. A particular emphasis is placed on ethical and political aspects of technological change, e.g.: how new technologies displace power relationships between various stakeholders, and virtues regulating the social and organisational fabric; how they impact work-life balance, wellbeing, empowerment, and autonomy of employees and other stakeholders; how they (mis)align with powerful interests and sustainability agendas. As such, the course also contemplates critical aspects of technological transformations, reflecting on technological capitalism (and notions such as alienation, reification, instrumentalization, surveillant individualisation) and the future of human labour.

Instruction

Lectures, seminars and case studies.

Assessment

Case work, written assignments and written take-home exam.