CGM Supports MBA Students to Assist with the BIT Global Research Project: The Adoption, Implementation and Diffusion of New Information Technologies by Firms (2015-16)

The BIT Global Research Project, founded at UCLA Anderson, is an ambitious multiyear, multicountry, multipart business information technology project addressing the introduction, adoption and implementation of new information and communication technologies in business practice at various levels. The global research partner network currently includes 21 leading research institutions from 17 countries: UCLA Anderson; University of Auckland, New Zealand; SDA Bocconi and Politecnico di Torino, Italy; CINTEL, Colombia; IITB, India; Humboldt University and European School of Management and Technology, Germany; University of Lugano, Switzerland; Korea University Business School, South Korea; Innovation Institute, Croatia; IESE, Spain; Pontificia Universidad CatoĢlica, Chile; IAE Universidad Austral, Argentina; ISCTE, Portugal; Universidad ESAN, Peru; National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan; University of Malaya, Malaysia; and Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece.

Some studies are conducted by multiple partners, others are individual studies within the general theme. Some partners have pooled data from various countries to conduct analysis. Three edited volumes of research, including country reports from partners, sector studies and economic studies, were published in 2007, 2009 and 2012. A fourth book is expected in 2016. Conferences have been held at partner locations. In 2016, the project is entering the BIT 2.0 phase. Instead of the one-country partner model, BIT 2.0 plans to have a crowdsourced model with multiple research centers and organizations joining as partners from various countries throughout the world. The CGM provided support for full-time MBA Class of 2017 CGM mentees Yaqi Fan and Ajay Muraleedharan, along with classmate Aditi Rajvanshi, to work on this project and assist Professor Uday Karmarkar and Dr. Vandana Mangal. They will be compiling a pre-business plan that entails generating market information, developing budgets and creating alternatives for business models.