Volume 4

Volume 4, Number 37

July 20, 2006

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12 pages551 K bytes

Integrating Innovation, Technology, Management, and Personal Success in a Capstone eBusiness Course


Steven A. Gedeon
Ryerson University
Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3 Canada

Abstract: A capstone eBusiness course has the ambitious goal of not only integrating everything learned in the curriculum over the previous three years, but also of motivating the students and providing the skills needed to achieve meaningful success once they graduate. A framework is provided for integrating innovation, technology, management and personal success in a team-based course. Framework goals are established for each of the four major elements of the course content and include life-long learning skills, acquisition of deeper domain knowledge, goal setting skills, and self-efficacy skills to maximize business and personal effectiveness. The academic literature related to goal-setting theory, valence-instrumentality-expectancy theory, and socio-cognitive theory is reviewed to develop the framework goals selected for the course. Three integrating mechanisms are used as pedagogical tools to ensure that all the framework goals are taught during the course: narrative, key themes, and the business plan. A series of case studies from Innovation Nation are used to assist in the narrative. The three key themes established throughout the course are Greatness, Review, and Focused Effort. A business plan for a hypothetical new startup eBusiness is used as an integrating mechanism and as a way for the student to develop deeper domain knowledge, and accounts for a large portion of the final grade. A course outline is provided and the subject topics are cross-referenced against the four framework goals and the three key integrating themes for the capstone course “ITM360 - Establishing an eBusiness Operation.”

Keywords: integration, innovation, technology, management, personal success, business success, information technology management, entrepreneurship, goal setting, greatness, focused effort, review, narrative, eBusiness

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Recommended Citation: Gedeon (2006). Integrating Innovation, Technology, Management, and Personal Success in a Capstone eBusiness Course. Information Systems Education Journal, 4 (37). http://isedj.org/4/37/. ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2005: §3133. ISSN: 1542-7382.)