• Apply strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship theory and skills to real-life company scenarios
• Identify and define a strategic company challenge and the relevant data needed to solve it
• Create a novel solution (e.g., a new product or service, a business plan) to the identified problems
• Assess the commercial practicality of the proposed solution

“The Business & Technology Challenge” course is an immersive industry study that applies strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship theory and skills to practice in the field of international shipping. The shipping industry and the broader maritime sector are facing severe challenges requiring innovation in governance, business models, and services as well as in the enabling technology of ships and other main assets. The challenges are found in such diverse areas as changes in the geo-economic outlook, the impact of digitalization, economic and social development, and shipping emissions reduction and green transition.

The course is organized with a number of classroom sessions leading up to a high-intensive Innovation Sprint, the “CBS-DTU Maritime Business & Technology Summit”, carried out in close collaboration with one or more maritime companies headquartered in Denmark. The aim of this Innovation Sprint is to generate theoretically founded innovation solutions to help the company address the challenges of a complex and fast-changing business environment. A group of selected MSc students from DTU will join the Innovation Sprint and form interdisciplinary teams with the CBS students. Over a period of two weeks, the CBS-DTU teams will identify and evaluate real-life company challenges and options and strive to find a winning solution.

The course relies on case-based learning where students are confronted with real-life challenges and company information. The latter includes privileged access to detailed information that could include company strategy, internal organization, company trade data, key financial information, and research and development (R&D) data.

Subsequent to the Innovation Sprint, students will apply strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship theory to reflect on the practical feasibility of implementing and scaling up one of the solutions presented by the teams.

The course covers topics such as:

• Key trends and challenges in the international shipping and maritime industry
• Sustainable development, decarbonization and green shipping transition
• Innovation and its challenges
• Technology, business and innovation
• Opportunity recognition in firms
• Business model innovation
• Business planning
• Shipping company strategies

The course supplements well the courses in the Minor in Maritime Business.

Below are indicative examples of the course readings:

• Baregheh, A., Rowley, J., and Sambrook, s. (2009). Towards a multidisciplinary definition of innovation. Management Decision, 47(8): 1323-1339.

• Beckert, J. (2016) Innovation - Imaginaries of Technological Futures, chapter 7 in Imagined Futures: Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics. Harvard University Press. 

• Bocken, N. M. P., Short, S. W., Rana, P., and Evans, S. (2014). A literature and practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes. Journal of Cleaner Production, 65: 42-56.
• Dimov, D. (2007). From opportunity insight to opportunity intention: the importance of person-situation learning match. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 31(4): 561-584.
• Kaukiainen, Y. (2012). The Advantages of Water Carriage: Scale Economies and Shipping Technology, c. 1800-2000. In Harlaftis, G., Tenold, S. and Valdaliso, J.M. (eds.)The World's Key Industry - History and Economics of International Shipping. Palgrave MacMillan.
• Lindman, M.T. (2007). Remarks on the quality of the construction of business concepts. European Business Review, 19(3): 196-215.
• Global Maritime Forum (2021). Global Maritime Issues Monitor 2021. 
• Pedersen, T. and H. Sornn-Friese (2015). A Business Model Innovation by an Incumbent Late Mover: Containerization in Maersk Line. In N. J. Foss and T. Saebi (eds.), Business Model Innovation. The Organizational Dimension. London: OUP.
• Real, K., and Poole, M. S. (2005). Innovation Implementation: Conceptualization and Measurement in Organizational research. Research in Organizational Change and Development, 15: 63-134.
• Seebode, D., Jeanrenaud, S., and Bessant, J. (2012). Managing Innovation for Sustainability. R&D Management, 42(3): 195-206.
• Shane, S., and Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1): 217-226.
• Shepherd, D. A., J. S. Mcmullen and W. Ocasio (2016). Is that an opportunity? An attention model of top managers’ opportunity beliefs for strategic action. Strategic Management Journal, 38(3): 626-644.
• Sornn-Friese, H. and D. Arndt (2021). The Maritime Industry in 2030. A Summary of Discussions with Industry. Copenhagen: CBS Maritime.
• Teece, D. J. (2010). Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation. Long Range Planning, 43(2-3): 172-194.
• Welter, F. (2011). Contextualizing Entrepreneurship—Conceptual Challenges and Ways Forward’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 35, no. 1: 165–84.
• Wadhwani, R. Daniel and Lubinski, C (2017) Reinventing Entrepreneurial History’, Business History Review 91, no. 4 (2017): 767–99.
• Wolcott, R. C., and Lippitz, M. J. (2007). The Four Models of Corporate Entrepreneurship. MIT Sloan Management Review, 49(1): 75-82.