Social Informatics and Management – (M.Sc.)

The MSc Social Informatics & Management is designed to provide a rigorous analysis of the emerging properties of the Information Age and their relevance for organisational management. It investigates contemporary ICTs and the socio-cultural and economic factors shaping their development and diffusion and their implications for managing organisational change.

This MSc should appeal to overseas students, UK management, graduates in sociology and other social sciences, media studies, communication studies, and also to computer science graduates with an interest in further exploring the human behaviour and socio-cultural dynamics of informatics design, implementation, management and diffusion.

The effective implementation and management of digital information and communications technologies (ICTs) has become an essential requirement for organisations in the commercial, public and voluntary sectors. Its achievement can be influenced through the kind of interdisciplinary skills and knowledge, which form the principal components of social informatics. This joint course run by the Departments of Sociology and Management is designed to expose participants to the latest research and practice in the management of social informatics. The programme of study will introduce students to a range of relevant competencies and understanding focused around the design, implementation and use of ICTs within a number of social and organisational contexts.

ExpertiseBoth Departments will contribute expertise based upon their research interests. In theDepartment of Sociology this is primarily focussed around the work of the Social Informatics Research Unit (SIRU) which is home to the international journal Information, Communication & Society, the Spatial Informatics Lab (SIL), and is the administrative centre for the ESRC´s e-Society Programme. SIRU´s analytical approach is framed through a range of socio-political and cultural interests in the emerging properties of digital media. These include, but are not exhausted by, focus upon spatial informatics, community informatics, cultural informatics, health informatiMarch 20, 2008hool interests include Accounting and Finance; Management of Human Resource Management; Management Systems; Organisational Theory; Strategy and Services Management, Strategy and International Business. There are also two interdisciplinary research programmes, Critical Management and Corporate Governance.