Course 2024-2025

Innovation Management [EINGM200]

  • 5 credits
  • 30h
  • 2nd quarter
Language of instruction: English

Learning outcomes

- Capacity to analyse the situation of an organisation and to develop, at a strategic level, a relevant innovation project, including a prospective analysis of its possible impacts ;

- Understanding of the various factors influencing the innovation dynamics ;

- Understanding og the opportunities and limits of collaborations for innovation ;

- Integration of society challenges in innovation (ethical dimension of innovation) ;

- Large vision of methods and tools for innovation management.

Objectives

The main objectives of the course are

  • to acquire the fundamental knowledge about the topic from research and practice litterature,
  • to make students aware of the importance of innovation, in particular technological innovation, for firms survival and growth,
  • to underline the complexity and uncertainty of the management processes linked to innovation,
  • to go beyond the linear and causal view of innovation, which is more and more a process involving various internal and external actors,
  • to understand the major skills to manage innovation both at the strategic and operational levels,
  • to integrate the ethical challenge of innovation.

Content

This course analyses the different facettes of the innovation process. It includes five theoretical parts: (1) Innovation Dynamics ; (2) Innovation Strategy ; (3) Open Innovation ; (4) Sustainable Innovation ; (5) Managerial Innovation. Additionnally, methods and tools to manage innovation will be studied, looking at their relevance following the context and innovation type. In particular, we will consider new agile methods that are more and more in use in the digital industry and are spreading in other sector.


Teaching methods

The course is based on a series of readings proposed to students. Each session begins with a discussion about the required reading. Then the professor elaborates on this basis to fix concepts and raised issues in a general formalism, always linking those theoretical developments with illustrations. Those links are also accentuated through the interventions of guest speakers.

Evaluations

The evaluation is based on two parts. The first one (30% of the grade) is a group work performed by maximum 4 students and dedicated to a topic of innovation management (i.e. case study, literature review…). This part will be evaluated by a presentation of this work in one of the course sessions. The second part (70% of the grade) is a written exam evaluating the capacity of the student to master the course contents

Recommended readings

  • Reading 1 : Christensen (1999). “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” Harvard Business School Press.

  • Reading 2 : Markides & Geroski (2003). “Colonizers and consolidators: The two cultures of Corporate Strategy,” Strategy+Business Issue 3

  • Reading 3 : Teece and Pisano (1997). “Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management”

  • Reading 4 : Von Hippel (2005). “Democratizing Innovation.” The MIT Press.

  • Reading 5 : Birkinshaw, Hamel and Mol (2008). “Management innovation,” The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 33(3)

 

Language of instruction

English

Location for course

NAMUR

Organizer

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales et de gestion
Rue de Bruxelles, 61
5000 NAMUR

Degree of Reference

Master's Degree