Innovation Management

Course goals

• Understand why companies, markets and industries rise and fall following a dynamic perspective;
• Understand and recognize disruptive innovations and technologies;
• Understand and explain the core theories and models in the field of innovation management;
• Evaluate the operations of existing companies with regard to innovation management;
• Evaluate organizational characteristics and processes on how much they enable or constrain innovation management;
• Identify ways to overcome obstacles to innovation;
• Suggest how to overcome innovation obstacles through managerial actions and reorganization of the innovative context of an organization.

Content

Innovation is a key driver of sustainable economic growth, and understanding how firms innovate and why timely adaptation when dealing with market dynamics is key to survival and growth is paramount for entrepreneurs and organizations alike. In the quest for sustainable competitive advantage, companies must become adaptive, faster, more agile, and proactive in the game of innovation. In short, companies need to learn how to be entrepreneurial and innovative in their operations, markets and industries.

In this course we will first explain how ‘market dynamics’ bring about the rise and fall of companies and industries through disruptive waves and explore how companies can use innovation strategy to continuously renew themselves: i.e. innovating their products or services, their markets, or their industries. Traditional economics has been unable to cope with such questions because of its fundamentally static nature, which is why we start with a dynamic view on economics, showing the rise and fall of markets and industries, and ends by providing a strategy perspective on how firms or institutions can respond to these dynamic forces of markets, industries and economies. To do so, we will critically examine, debate and discuss a variety of real-world cases: what explains the current ‘patent’ race and court cases between the main players on the market for smartphones and tablets? How did the emergence of digital platforms affect the music industry? Why do we call the competition between Netflix, Disney+, Amazon and HBO Max a ‘platform war’ for dominance? Covering a longer period of time, how can we explain typical patterns of entry and exit over time in the automotive industry? Is disruption of markets and industries something inevitable, or can firms like Google, Facebook or Netflix outwit disruption theory? And can we outwit them?

After explaining how innovation strategies can serve as the compass that a company needs to weather the storm of disruption, the course delves into the management of innovation within established companies. Here, the course will provide you with tools to create an organizational context that fosters innovation: providing you with the right frameworks and state-of-the-art practices to manage new ventures, employee ideas and intrapreneurs. Here, you will learn that innovation management characterizes a different management philosophy compared to general management, as it promotes strategic flexibility, agility, creativity, and continuous innovation with the aim of transforming routine employees into intrapreneurs or innovators.

To balance variety with in-depth understanding of the field of innovation, the course therefore starts with the discussion of real-life cases that vary in their context, while further the course is designed to provide you with an in-depth understanding of how innovative activities of a company are managed through an in-depth case.

Selected course topics are:

• Building blocks of innovation strategy and management;
• Degree and frequency of innovation in established organizations;
• Creating an innovative organization (e.g. demographics and personality traits of corporate entrepreneurs, HRM, corporate strategy, organizational culture);
• Performance measurement of corporate innovators.

• Why do firms, markets and industries evolve over time (rising or falling)?
• How can companies prepare for waves of disruption?
• What in an innovation strategy and how can we formulate one that lasts?
• What is innovation management and how does it differ from general management?
• How can we assess the innovative capabilities of companies?
• How do large established organizations foster creative behavior by employees?
• What kind of organizational structures enable or constrain innovation?
• What is an innovation culture and how can companies develop such a culture?