• Demonstrate an ability to analyze decisions about managing creative economy firms, taking into account strategy, competitive situation and operational risk, capabilities and limitations.
• Persuasively explain and defend a position on issues in creative company management that are as yet unsettled by research, specifically those issues that we discuss in the course.
• Describe a framework for creative firm management 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 as a way of deciding creative company management questions.

The course examines the nature of work and management that consistently produces valuable creative outcomes. We find examples of this kind of work in many important industries (design, entertainment, media, pharmaceuticals) and in expanding enclaves (product development, even manufacturing) within industrial firms. By analyzing cases across industries and organizations, we discover a core of common practice. This integrative approach encourages students to derive management principles, processes, and practices, and to decide how they would apply them as managers in Creative Economy Firms (CEFs). The course’s case approach is designed to complement the approaches in other courses on related topics, offering students an opportunity to apply and test theoretical materials from this and other classes, against real practice situations. Materials for the course are original, developed for this particular course, and mostly very new (many published in the last three years); thus there is little potential for overlap with other CBS courses.

Structure: The course contains three modules:

1. The Characteristics of Creative Economy Firms
2. Work in Creative Economy Firms
3. Managing Creative Economy Firms

The first module addresses questions of how we might define CEFs 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 the arts, design, entertainment, information technology, and life sciences. The third module focuses on the management implications of differences between CEFs and other firms, and between the work of expert innovators and other kinds of workers. In all three parts, we examine cases that challenge conventional wisdom and practice: how the leader of a string quartet manages collaboration with the same small team for more than three decades; how a design-intensive company convinces customers to pay very high prices for a trash bin; how a Broadway musical moves from New York to another city while being careful to protect its brand; how a media company manages accelerating demand for entirely new kinds of creative work (e.g., digital colorization).
 

The course's development of personal competences:

This course builds students’ capacity for experiential learning (Kolb, 1976) by exercising both deductive (left side of the Kolb learning cycle) and inductive reasoning capabilities (right side of the Kolb cycle; see, Austin, Nolan, and O’Donnell, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2009). That is, students will reason from theoretical frameworks to predict and make judgments about application to practice (deductive reasoning), but they will also reason from case facts and outcomes to refine theoretical formulations (inductive reasoning). The objective is to encourage students to develop a complete (deductive + inductive) learning capability. Because of the discussion- and critique-oriented nature of the course, students will develop and refine skills for presenting arguments persuasive to others and for listening to others; they will practice putting theoretical ideas into action and be forced to confront situations where theory and practice do not meet up neatly.

The course is based on a mix of cases and other materials, such as the following:

Austin, Robert D., and Daniela Beyersdorfer, "Vipp A/S," Harvard Business School Case 607-052, 2006.

Thomke, Stefan, ”IDEO Product Development,” Harvard Business School Casecase 600-143, 2003.

Upton, David, ”McDonald’s Corp. (Abridged),” Harvard Business School case 603-041, 2003.

MacCormmack, Alan, ”Team New Zealand,” HBS case 697-040, 2002.

Austin, Robert, Shannon O’Donnell, , and Silje Kmille Friis, ”e-Types A/S,” Harvard Business School case 606-118, 2006.

Austin, Robert D., Silje Kamille Friis, and Erin E. Sullivan. "Design: More Than a Cool Chair." Harvard Business School Note 607-026, 2006.

Thomke, Stefan, ”BMW AG: The Digital Car Project (A),” Harvard Business School case 699-044, 2004.

Austin, Robert D. and Lee Devin, ”Accidental Innovation,” Harvard Business School case 607-082, 2007.

Thomke, Stefan, ”Innovation at 3M Corporation,” Harvard Business School case 699-012, 2001.

Austin, Robert D., and Shannon O'Donnell. "Paul Robertson and the Medici String Quartet." Harvard Business School Case 607-083, 2007.

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. and Shannon O’Donnell, ”The Phantom of the Opera,” Harvard Business School case 608-029, 2008.

Austin, Robert D., ”The People’s Light and Theatre,” Company Harvard Business School case 600-055, 1999.

McCormmack, Alan, ”Activision: The 'Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer' Project ,”Harvard Business School case 605-020, 2001.

Malcolm Gladwell, ”The Formula,” The New Yorker, October 2006.

Austin, Robert D. and Carl Stormer, ”Miles Davis: Kind of Blue,” Harvard Business School case 609-050, 2008.

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.

Austin, Robert D., Richard L. Nolan, and Shannon O'Donnell. "The Boeing Company: Moonshine Shop." Harvard Business School Case 607-130, 2007.