• Account for and discuss the strength and weaknesses of selected theories of change and innovation, and their foundations
• Explain how the dynamics of processes of innovation and change relate to power, learning to argue why certain theories apply to certain actions
• Describe complex real-life management challenges related to change and innovation and explain how relevant actions support the implementation of innovation and change
• Reflect on the consequences of applying different research methods related to the study of innovation and change

The aim of this course is to develop students’ competencies to analyze real-life management challenges of implementing organizational change and innovation processes. Focus is on micro-level processes and how relations are managed to achieve and sustain change and innovation in organizations. Organizational change is seen as taking place in different forms and at different levels in the organisation, including, for example, setting up or re-structuring organizational units, introducing new technologies, integrating structures, cultures, and processes in cases of M&A, or entering new international markets. Similarly, innovation may take different forms, including new products, technologies, services, business models, or ways of managing and organizing. Students will analyse specific processes of change and innovation, and prepare plans or strategies of how these could be implemented in an organizational setting when considering various political, technological, cultural, economic, as well as individual and group factors at play. Their analyses will be rooted in the theoretical literature of the course and a range of qualitative methodologies.
 

 
The course views innovation and change management as a relational, rather than hierarchical, phenomenon emerging from ongoing collective redefinitions of a shared reality. The course helps students develop understanding of how change and innovation are triggered and maintained in contexts of complexity, uncertainty, and dynamism through creativity, envisioning, narratives, networks of support, conflict, resistance, as well as power and influence. It covers a variety of techniques and frameworks, and helps students make choices about which ones to use in different situations. The course also examines how managers and other organizational members emerge as ‘strategic actors’ and agents of change. Additionally, the development of ‘self-management’ is analyzed and focus is directed toward what is happening to organizing when work becomes temporary and distributed, thereby rendering managerial and organizational boundaries ambiguous. In its methods part, the course guides the students through core elements of qualitative analysis, such as research objectives, research design, data collection, data analysis, and reporting.
 
In the early phase of the course the students select a specific innovation and change situation and an empirical setting for their business projects, to be conducted in groups of 4-5. They are expected to explore implications and develop recommendations for courses of action, putting themselves in the “shoes of” the managers in the situations of innovation and change they examine.
 
Overlapping with Leadership
 

The course has a natural complementarity with the other courses in the SOL programme, being their more practical extension while connecting to and integrating some of the insights, theories and perspectives, which they have already introduced. Whereas the main aims of the other courses are to provide analytical tools for understanding organizations, this course follows the tools in action. The methodology of the course enables more interactive class and group work, as well as connections with practice, through guest speakers, cases and the business projects, than what is the case with most of the other courses. In some respects it has a natural overlap with the course “Leadership”, but emphasizes less the dimension of leadership and leaders.

Andrew H. Van de Ven, Douglas E. Polley, Raghu Garud & Sankaran Venkataraman (2008). The Innovation Journey. Oxford University Press,
 
Esther Cameron & Mike Green (2012). Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change. Kogan Press.

Henry Chesbrough (2011). Open Services Innovation. Jossey-Bass.