For 1 - 3 highly motivated DIGHEL or DESIGN students.
Digital innovation involves organizational improvement based on new opportunities digital technologies offer. In larger organizations, this often involves approaching complex organizational problems and experimenting with ways of addressing them through design and innovation in both technology and organization. These processes require systemic, sociotechnical design and development that go beyond traditional approaches to IT design and development which are mainly geared towards solving technical and structured problems and delivering software.
In this project, you will take part in developing knowledge on how we better organize digital innovation in larger public sector organizational contexts based on systems thinking and systemic design approaches. Some of the overarching questions we explore are:
- What do effective digital innovation processes look like?
- How can we arrange for these processes to take place?
- Who should drive such processes and how?
You can explore these questions in two ways:
- We collaborate with an interesting initiative directed by Digdir and DOGA that works to develop capacity and knowledge on digital innovation in Norwegian public sector organizations. A catalog of the many interesting projects open for research can be found here. As a student you can study one or several of past or ongoing projects.
- Engage in systemic design and innovation in your own case/work setting. An appropriate case must offer a complex problematic situation where you can diagnose the problem, engage with relevant problem stakeholders, and experiment with possible interventions. Throughout the process, you will have the opportunity to study digital innovation processes up close.
While you write your thesis individually, you will work closely with fellow students throughout the master's period. In the second semester, you will spend time practicing and reflecting on systems thinking and systemic design together as a group. This will offer an important understanding of the kind of processes you will study empirically in the following semester. During the third semester, you will continue to work as a group, discussing relevant literature and engaging in co-analysis while engaging in data collection.
Do not hesitate to reach out if you find the topic interesting.