Data science for sustainable futures (2235.YR.015665.1)

General information

Type:	OPT	Curs:	1	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	3 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 1	Maha Ahmed Shaikh	Operaciones, Innovación y Data Sciences	ENG

This course will cover different aspects of sustainability that relate to new organizational forms such as open source communities, crowds, and collective intelligence. The idea that a community has a clear boundary and some magical way of sustaining itself over time is a myth. Examples such as open source communities show us clearly how difficult it is to first establish a new community and then how much harder it is to sustain the community over time. At the same time, we have seen increased interest and reliance of companies on communities, crowds and other forms of collective intelligence to offer ideas and solutions to problems faced by companies and their customers. How can a company maintain the sustainability of a crowd or community when there is no legal contract that binds them to each other?

We will also problematize the concept of sustainability in light of new organizational forms. Is sustainability the same as the health of a community or crowd? Is a community healthy because it has a large base of contributors or are there other factors involved? Can a company build sustainability into a community purposefully? What role do third party organizations such as foundations play in sustaining the community, crowd, companies and the larger ecosystem?

We will cover different theoretical ideas that shed light on how sustainability of new organizational forms is managed such as Ostrom's work. The classes will focus on how crowds differ from communities and thus are harder to sustain over time. What sort of managerial strategies do companies employ to keep a crowd interested in helping them to solve problems and how can this support be deepened? Questions like this and others will be discussed. Drawing on guest teachers, we will also take the opportunity to explore other topics at the intersection of sustainability, data, and digital technologies.

The objectives of this course cover:
- A better understanding of sustainability beyond environmental issues
- A reflection on a segment of the economy that is too often ignored - ie communities and crowds and the need to keep such organizational forms sustainable
- A critical examination of how sustainability is engineered rather than a given in a community or crowd
- How companies build symbiotic relationships with communities and crowds and then need to nurture these organizational forms over time
- The dilemma of communities and crowds when they become over-reliant on company sponsorship
- An understanding of how digital economies are established on sustainable ecosystems

Kennedy, S., Whiteman, G., & van den Ende, J. (2017). Radical Innovation for Sustainability: The Power of Strategy and Open Innovation. Long Range Planning, 50(6), 712-725.

Kotlarsky, J., Oshri, I., & Sekulic, N. (2023). Digital Sustainability in Information Systems Research: Conceptual Foundations and Future Directions. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 24(4), 936-952.

Mindel, V., Mathiassen, L., & Rai, A. (2018). The sustainability of polycentric information commons. MIS Quarterly, 42(2), 607-632.

Pestoff, V. (2013). Collective Action and the Sustainability of Co-Production. Public Management Review, 16(3), 383-401

Group	Teacher	Department
Year 1	Maha Ahmed Shaikh	Operaciones, Innovación y Data Sciences