To achieve the grade 12, students
should meet the following learning objectives with no or only minor
mistakes or errors: After taking this course, students should be
able to:
- Demonstrate an ability to analyze decisions about managing
innovative capabilities with firms, taking into account strategy,
competitive situation, and operational risk, capabilities, and
limitations.
- Persuasively explain and defend a position on issues relevant
to managing creative capabilities that are as yet unsettled by
research, specifically those issues that we discuss in the
course.
- Describe a framework for innovative capability management, and
for use of technology to support innovative capabilities, derived
from course materials, including points at which the student
disagrees or prefers an alternative approach.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the theoretical approaches
introduced in the course and an ability to apply them to answer
management questions relevant to course scope, content, and
issues.
|
|
The course examines the nature of work that consistently
produces valuable innovative outcomes, how that work should be
managed, and role information technology (IT) often plays in such
work. Though often used in the past primarily to improve
efficiencies and reduce costs, IT is now increasingly used to
enhance the innovative capabilities many firms. By analyzing
cases across industries and organizations, we discover a core of
common practices in creative work, creative work management, and
use of technology to support creative work. The course's
integrative approach encourages students to derive management
principles, processes, and practices, and to decide how they would
apply them as managers.
The course contains three modules:
- The Evolving Nature of Innovative Firms
- The Nature of Innovative Work and the Role of Technology
- Managing for Innovative Capabilities
The first module addresses questions of how we might define
innovative firms and how they are different from other firms. The
second module examines the processes, principles, and practices of
expert innovators from a range of fields, including design,
entertainment, information technology, and life sciences, with an
emphasis on the evolving role of technology in support of this
work. The third module focuses on the management implications of
the territory we have explored in the earlier two
modules.
|
| The course will be taught using the
“case method” in the Harvard style, which involves high-energy
discussion, debate, and interaction. Students will be encouraged to
bring their own views into discussion, to share learning with
fellow students. Class attendance, preparation by reading before
coming to class, and participation in class discussion will improve
your chances of doing well in the course; theoretical materials
will be developed and critiqued during class sessions, not just in
readings. |
|
The course is based on a mix of cases and other materials. The
following list is indicative. See the syllabus for a more
comprehensive list:
Austin, Robert D., and Daniela Beyersdorfer. "Vipp A/S."
Harvard Business School Case 607-052, 2006.
Austin, Robert D. Shannon O'Donnell, and Silje Kamille Friis,
"e-Types A/S." Harvard Business case 606-118, 2006.
Austin, Robert D., and Debra Elana Schifrin. "Ascent Media
Group (A)." Harvard Business School Case 607-064, 2007.
Austin, Robert D., and Daniela Beyersdorfer. "Bang &
Olufsen: Design Driven Innovation." Harvard Business School
Case 607-016, 2006.
Austin, Robert D., and Richard L. Nolan. “Bridging the Gap Between
Stewards and Creators,” MIT Sloan Management Review, 48,
no. 2 (winter 2007): 29-36.
Austin, Robert D., Lee Devin, Artful Making: What Managers Need
to Know About How Artists Work, New Saddle River NJ: Financial
Times Prentice Hall, 2003.
Lee Devin, and Robert D. Austin, The Soul of Design, Palo Alto:
Stanford University Press, 2012.
Austin, Robert D., Richard L. Nolan, and Shannon O'Donnell.
"The Boeing Company: Moonshine Shop." Harvard Business
School Case 607-130, 2007.
|
Permalink