Article
Annelies Bobelyn

Introduction - Responsible Innovation and Management

Study Guide

Course Description

The innovation process combines creativity and arts, marketing and technology, psychology to understand customers, organizational design to create a proper innovative organization, law in relation to patents and to government regulation, and many more fields of expertise. All these different perspectives must be used to select the few good ideas out of hundreds of ideas and to turn those good ideas into commercially successful applications.

Course Outline

  1. Introduction and Entrepreneurial Thinking
  2. Innovation and Strategy
  3. Responsible Idea Generation
  4. Prioritisation and Selection
  5. Implementing Innovations
  6. People and Culture
  7. Synthesis

Approach

The full course consists of five classes and one workshop. The central educational approach for this course is blended learning in which face-to-face classroom methods are combined with computer-mediated activities. In specific, the Innovation Management MOOC of RSM will be used to teach the students the basic concepts and theories of innovation management. 

This online learning is complemented with face-to-face workshops. During those workshops the emphasis is on application of the concepts in the context of responsible innovation. In these sessions, we will discuss a specific case related to responsible innovation management or work on a specific assignment.  In order to be able to participate in these classes students are required to read the case and read background literature (in the form of articles). Each session, two teams will be responsible for discussion the case. Afterwards, individual assignments based on the case and the literature need to be handed in.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, students are able to:

  • Recognize and use the terminology and main concepts from the discipline of Innovation Management in general and Responsible Innovation in particular;
  • Carry out a strategic analysis of the market dynamics and consequently formulate the innovation strategy of a particular company and its implications on organizational structure;
  • Understand how the innovation process is managed starting from idea generation to project implementation;
  • Apply the innovation management frameworks, tools and methods to real-life cases;
  • Explain how a selected innovation strategy relates to the firm’s organizational structure, to the allocation of people and resources to projects, and to the execution of specific projects.

 

Assessment

  • 30 % of the grade: be present and engage in all sessions; publish your research on collaborative research platform in an accessible manner for other students and external stakeholders; and give a presentation of your work for a larger audience.3
  • 30% of the grade: Individual Assignments
  • 20% of the grade: Case Assignment (Group)
  • 20% of the grade: Group assignment in innovation audit

The individual assignments are aimed at applying the theory that is taught in the MOOC. There will be 5 individual assignments, each accounting for 10%. The second component of the final grade relates to the cases. Each student will be assigned to a case. In a team-based assignment, the students will elaborate on the case and share their findings in-class through self-produced movies. The movies will be evaluated through a combination of peer assessment (50%) and traditional assessment by the lecturer (50%). The evaluation criteria for these videos are the following:

  • The video is well structured and has a clear message
  • The video has a convincing and well substantiated message
  • The video demonstrates that the students adequately apply the theory to the case
  • The video uses theoretical arguments to support the conclusion
  • The video is original and creative
  • The video is fun to watch
  • The video clearly demonstrates the added value of the students’ insights
  • The students demonstrate that they did additional research to support their findings (e.g. additional theory, desk-research to learn more about the company, etc.)

The final component of this course refers to the innovation audit, which is also a group assignment. This assignment counts for 20% of the final grade and will be evaluated on the following criteria:

  • Report covers all themes adequately
  • Responsible innovation strategy
  • Idea generation
  • Selection and managing an innovation portfolio
  • Implementing responsible innovation
  • People and culture
  • The coherence between the themes is well explained
  • Report makes a critical evaluation of the company regarding how responsible innovation is managed
  • Report makes a critical evaluation of why the observed managerial approach towards innovation is in place
  • Report makes useful suggestions on how to improve
  • The findings of the report are well supported with empirical evidence (quotes from interviewees, reference to website, reports, appendices)
  • The findings of the report are based on multiple sources of information (multiple respondents within the organization, secondary data sources such as website, reports, press releases, internal documents)

Re-sit: to be discussed with individual students in line with examination regulations. The re-sit assignment has to be done within a month after completion of the assignment it is a re-sit for.

For students that do not pass the course, the following re-sit options are available:

  • Failing on individual assignments: integrative assessment testing knowledge taught in the MOOC.
  • Failing on the case assignment: new video on a new case.
  • Failing on the innovation audit: improve report based on the feedback received.

Would you like to know more? -- Watch the video below!