Innovation Management

Introduction

Management of innovation projects and development of innovation strategy have become crucial to many businesses and organizations. The course aims at giving an in-depth understanding of the complex task of managing innovation within and across organizations. We will in every class combine theory and practice, e.g. by inviting guest lecturers from various businesses and organizations, and case work. Innovation will be studied in the interfaces between markets, technology and organization. The lectures, class discussions, and group work, as well as selected literature will help students understand a complex and important subject.

In this course the students will both be working with practical cases from real companies' innovation challenges, and in-depth studies of the litterature on innovation management. Examples of such cases could be ICT-solutions for healthcare, product development in the food industry, and commercialization of environmental technologies at an innovation park. During recent years a growing awareness of the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship has developed, and this field is now one of the highest priorities of the Norwegian Government, which published the white paper called "An innovative and sustainable Norway", in the fall of 2008.

This is a composite generic course that is intended as a specialization undergraduate course. The course may be selected by all 3rd-year bachelor students, since it does not require prior knowledge in a specific field. The course will be offered in the students’ 5th (course, 15 ECTS) and 6th semester (bachelor thesis, 15 ECTS).

Please Note!
To some extent the course overlaps with the elective course ELE 3701 Innovation and entrepreneurship, 7.5 credits. Consequently a combination of these two courses in a bachelor’s degree will not be allowed.

Course content

• Introduction: Innovation – what it is and why it matters
• Types of innovation & innovation as a core business process
• Creating the innovative organization
• Developing an innovation strategy
• Search: Open innovation & networks
• Innovation policy
• Select: Decision making under uncertainty
• Implementation: New product and service development
• The shaping of markets
• The role of entrepreneurship & new ventures for innovation
• Capturing the benefits: value, performance, knowledge
• Capturing learning from innovation