Ethics of Digital Transformation

Deakin’s Bachelor of Commerce and MBA are internationally EPAS accredited.
Deakin Business School is accredited by AACSB and EQUIS.
MIS741 – Ethics of Digital Transformation
Trimester 1, 2020
Assessment 1 (individual): Part A Report (Research)
40%, Part B Video Recording 10%

Learning Outcome Details

Assessment Feedback
Students who submit their work by the due date will receive their marks and feedback on
CloudDeakin by Friday 29 May 2020, 5:30PM. Students who use the 1‐5 day late penalty period
(see Notes section) will receive their marks and feedback 1‐5 days later (respectively).
Extensions
No extensions will be considered unless a written request is submitted to and approved by the Unit
Chair before the due date and time. Extensions will only be considered if a draft assignment is
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Deakin’s Bachelor of Commerce and MBA are internationally EPAS accredited.
Deakin Business School is accredited by AACSB and EQUIS.
attached with your request for an extension, which shows progress has been made, and
documentary evidence for the extension. Applications after this date will not be accepted, and
submissions after the due date/time without an approved extension will be considered late.
Extensions are only granted in extreme circumstances, such as ongoing health, personal hardship or
work‐related problems. Temporary illnesses, normal work pressures, multiple assignments due at
the same time, failure to keep backups, technology failure, etc are not reasons for an extension.
Description / Requirements
This is an individual assignment where you will synthesise research sources on the following digital
transformation topic, and then produce a Research Report using the Ethical Decision‐Making
Framework introduced in topic 2 and an associated Video Recording:
Synthesis the extent research evidence shows that consumers/citizens do or do not know
the level of their privacy loss/risks when using social media, and what this implies could
be future privacy issues for consumers/citizens if current privacy levels continue.
Research the topic
The report is not about your personal moral views about the digital transformation topic. Instead,
research the topic by finding and synthesising credible academic resources sources (e.g. journal
articles, PhD theses, conference papers, credible research studies) and industry sources (e.g.
industry research reports from companies like Gartner Group, reports from relevant professional
bodies, etc). Quality and credible resource sources are those reporting empirical research (e.g.
experiments, surveys, case studies) about the topic (not opinions of the authors), or reporting on
the evidence about the topic from the perspective of a variety of stakeholder types.
The research you undertake should enable you to determine the answers to all the questions
(directly or indirectly) in the Ethical Decision‐Making Framework about how various stakeholders in
the topic 2 framework may be affected by the digital transformation topic. The report should not
consider short‐term issues (e.g. immediate profits), but rather the medium to long‐term (e.g. 10‐50
year) implications of the digital transformation on all stakeholders. Research sources can therefore
include evidence of past digital transformation issues, and used to justify how stakeholders might
be affected in future if the topic is not addressed by digital transformation professionals. Research
sources should be quality, which means “older” research is acceptable when combined with recent
research sources, but not low quality research sources. Evidence of GLO8 Global Citizenship will
include the quality of the research, and how well the framework is used, to justify the topic.
You must ensure that your research and analysis of the topic has balanced/even coverage of the
perspective of all stakeholder types in the topic 2 framework. A focus on organisation stakeholders
(e.g. shareholders, staff, immediate clients) is not balanced. Similarly, balanced research and
analysis will include equal coverage of the risks and benefits (not just benefits) relating to the topic
for each stakeholder type from the topic 2 framework. As required by the ACS Code of Professional
Conduct, the most important stakeholder group is “the public”, not organisation stakeholders, and
consideration of all the risks for the public. For this reason, a report with an unbalanced focus on
organisational stakeholders and benefits will not receive a good result in this assignment, because it
does not demonstrate good understanding of GLO8 Global Citizenship. A balanced analysis and
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Deakin’s Bachelor of Commerce and MBA are internationally EPAS accredited.
Deakin Business School is accredited by AACSB and EQUIS.
report on multiple stakeholder types, and benefits versus risks, will also result in a more convincing
justification (GLO2 Communication) of how the ethics of digital transformation can be improved.
GLO3 Digital Literacy will be assessed on how well you have used digital literacy skills to research
and analysis the topic. Evidence of digital literacy with regards to research will be shown by
submitting full‐text copies of your research sources in PDF format, so ensure all sources are
downloaded. This means there must be a PDF file for each reference in the reference list of the
report. You are not permitted to use books, electronic books (due to copyright restrictions), videos,
audio, etc for your resource sources. Only articles or reports which can be submitted as a PDF file.
The Deakin Library has full‐text versions of journal articles and conference papers, and these are
almost always available in PDF format. Download the PDF version and read the article/paper in that
form. For industry reports, these are typically provided in PDF format as well. If an industry report is
only available as a webpage, then use the “print‐to‐PDF” option in your web browser.
See the Submission instructions section for details on how to name each research source’s PDF file.
If you use a software product like Endnote to store the details about each research source, and to
create your citations and reference list (see below), then submit this with your report as evidence
of the GLO Digital Literacy capabilities. Using such software is optional, but highly recommended.
Create a research synthesis matrix for the topic
You will analyse and synthesise the research sources into a research synthesis matrix (e.g. a Word
or Excel document), which can have a column for each stakeholder type. You will know when you
have identified a good research source, if it considers multiple stakeholder types (or has multiple
columns in the matrix). Resource sources which consider organisation stakeholders only, and also
benefits relating to the topic only, should be avoided/minimised for your research synthesis.
The following shows an example extract of a research synthesis matrix with a single column (or
theme) for the research topic: What impact does the differences in definitions in research articles
about small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have for understanding the best way to help SMEs
adopt digital transformation tools successfully? This topic is not relevant to this assignment.