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2010/2011  KAN-CM_B134  Organizing Eco-innovation and Market Creation

English Title
Organizing Eco-innovation and Market Creation

Course Information

Language English
Point 7,5 ECTS (225 SAT)
Type Elective
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Semester
Course Period Spring
Time Table Please see course schedule at e-Campus
Study Board
Study Board for BSc in Economics and Business Administration
Course Coordinator
Peter Karnøe - pka.ioa@cbs.dk
Main Category of the Course
  • Innovation and entrepreneurship
Last updated on 29 maj 2012
Learning Objectives
Innovation is related to doing things differently, i.e. to develop modified or new products, processes or services and get them sold on a market. However, theories of innovation often forget how markets come into being, and even if they focus on such terms as ‘emergence of markets’, and ‘user driven innovation’, they analytically downplay the ‘valuation and commoditisation process’ of goods and take competencies of economic actors for given.
This course provides the students with analytical tools for understanding how markets (goods and actors) are created and sustained through a complex network of interactive relations between corporations, regulators, consumers, social groups, claims to legitimacy, economic tools, scientific instruments, science etc. Stability and fragility of markets are not givens but outcomes of organizing dynamics, and the students learn to deal with market development as a strategic achievement subject to many conditions and constraints – knowledge is scarce and contested, resources must be mobilized; and different actors’ actions are grounded on anticipatory commitments and visions for the future. With the help of analytical tools from material sociology of markets and social constructivist theories on markets, students will learn to analyze how new (eco-) products and processes are facilitated or hindered by the technical infrastructure, the regulative arrangement, the construction of value, and the frames of knowledge used to construct and evaluate a particular market regime. Innovation is not only about making new or improved technologies, but as much about transforming and challenging existing market and their implicated architectures of institutional and material arrangements.

At the end of the course, the student must be able to:
  • Describe, classify, structure, and combine the concepts, theories, methods, and models of the course.
  • Identify and develop relevant problems within innovation and the making of markets
  • Analyse and synthesise concrete problems within innovation and the making of markets by applying the concepts, theories, methods, and models of the course.
Examination
Individual oral exam based on a miniproject (individual or group)
Exam Period May/June
Examination
In order to achieve grade 12 in the exams, the student needs to show
1) excellent understanding of the different theories of the course, including command of concepts and metatheoretical positioning of the theory,
2) ability to use the theories in an analysis of empirical material and discuss implications for business action,
3) ability to compare, combine and relate different theories to each other.
Prerequisites for Attending the Exam
Course Content

The course focuses on the dynamics of organizing eco-innovation and market creation, but other cases are also used. Eco-‘or ‘sustainable innovations’ are innovations that apart from being new or modified become qualified as having net positive economic, social and environmental effect. Successfully developed in new or modified architectures of value they can provide businesses with new development opportunities. The question is how, and under what conditions is this is the case? How can architectures of markets for these and other innovations be created?

The course is structured around two overarching themes: the dynamics of innovation and the making of markets for innovations, including what it takes to format and establish the market value of these innovations. During the course we will discuss a number of different theoretical approaches to innovation and markets. The main focus, however, is on material sociology of markets and theories on social construction of markets. The course findings are summed up in the final class, which addresses the challenges of establishing new architectures of value and the politics in and of the market.

Teaching Methods
Course activities include lectures, group exercises and student presentations. The lectures and group exercises will be based on the course literature, while the latter will be based on the students’ work with their mini-projects. The mini-projects typically focus on a particular innovation/technology and/or controversy regarding the development and use of these innovations and employ and discuss the theories and literature presented in the course. In the mini project, students demonstrate ability to work with a particular theory or different theories and concepts from the course literature in relation to a topic and material from real-life. In the end of the course, the students will understand the differences between different theoretical approaches to markets and the implications thereof both in analytical and practical terms.
Literature

Akrich, M., M. Callon and B. Latour (2002): The key to success in innovation part 1: The art of interessement. International Journal of Innovation Management. 6(2): 187-206. http://esc-proxy.lib.cbs.dk/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=7494825&site=ehost-live

Callon, M. 1998. Introduction: The embeddedness of economic markets in economics. In M. Callon (ed.): The Laws of the Markets. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers/The Sociological Review. pp. 1-33.

Callon, M. 1998. An essay on framing and overflowing: economic externalities revisited by sociology. In M. Callon (ed.): The Laws of the Markets. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers/The Sociological Review. pp. 244-269.

Callon, M. 1991. Techno-economic networks and irreversibility. In J. Law (ed.) A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London: Routledge. pp. 132-161.

Callon, M. 1986. The Sociology of and Actor-Network: Then case of the Electric Vehicle. In J. Law et al. Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology, London: Routledge, pp. 19-34

Callon, M. Cecile Méadel and V. Rabeharisoa 2002, The Economy of qualities. Economy and Society, Vol 31, Number 2, May 2002: 194-217. http://esc-proxy.lib.cbs.dk/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=6446268&site=ehost-live

Coase, R.1988. The firm, the Market and the Law. In R. Coase: The firm, the Market and the Law. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1988. Ch. 1, pp. 1-31.

Fligstein, N. 2001. Markets as Institutions. In N. Fligstein. The Architecture of Markets. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 27-44.

Granovetter, Mark, McQuire Patrick 1998. The making of an industry: electricity in the United States. In M. Callon (ed.): The Laws of the Markets. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers/The Sociological Review. pp. 147-173.

Karnøe, P. & Garud, R. (2001), 'Path Creation as a process of Mindful deviation', in R. Garud & P. Karnøe Path dependence and creation. Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.

Lounsbury, M., M. Ventresca, and P. M. Hirsch. Social movements, field frames and industry emergence: a cultural-political perspective on US recycling. Socio-Economic Review (2003) 1, 71-104. http://esc-proxy.lib.cbs.dk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/soceco/1.1.71

Tidd, J. et al. 1997. Managing Innovation – Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change. 2nd ed. Chichester: John Wiley. Ch. 2, 7 pp. 38-63, 161- 195

Utterback, James. 1996. Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, HBS Press. Chapter 2-3.

Van de Ven et al (1999), The innovation Journey, Oxford. Chapter 2, pp. 21-39