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CM Ø95 - Managing Innovation in Organizations – a performance management perspective* *NOT ESTABLISHED*

Faculty
Claus J. Varnes
Course Coordinator
Claus J. Varnes
Course content, structure and teaching
“How you innovate, equals what you innovate” is the pay-off at the very heart of this course. Approximately only half of launched new product and service innovations are successful. Thus, the premise of this course is to use a management control perspective to innovation. Hereby, each participant will be equipped to discuss ways to increase performance of innovation. Management control is comprised by a number of key elements: strategy, organization, management processes, decision-making, measurements and rewards, plus user and supplier involvement.
Two issues are recurring themes. First, within a contingency perspective, manageability of incremental vs. radical/breakthrough product innovation is discussed. For instance, the question arises whether both types can be managed with the same type of management process. Second, the course challenges the workings of the various management control elements within the organization. In other words, the premise is to question implementation and challenge the difference between systems and their practice.
The course's development of personal competences
The objective is to provide the participants with a toolbox of possible ways to understand the challenges and ways to manage these. Innovation activities are here regarded to involve considerations and managerial challenges on many levels, and involve activities on the business level and the level of operations and services and the level of innovation and improvement projects.
Learning Objectives
The objective of the course is to provide the students with an opportunity to learn to apply qualifications in innovation management for increased performance. In order to achieve the highest grade the students must be able to:
  • assess the strategic role of innovation in organizations and the historical perspective on the development of various technologies
  • identify different types of innovations and combine these innovation types with the concept of business models
  • assess the relevance of different management technologies for management of innovation in operations and in general, and being able to account for these concepts, their objectives, and application in practice.
  • distinguish and apply between the linear perspective and the network process perspective on management of innovation
  • distinguish between different views on the market-customer-technology relationships and the implications for company strategies and management of innovation activities.
Type of examination, exam aids and assessment
Oral exam on the basis of a mini project (individual or group)
Recommended literature
  • Davila, Epstein and Shelton (2006), Making innovation work, Wharton School Publishing, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
  • Tushman and Anderson (2004), Managing Strategic Innovation and Change, Oxford University Press.
Course compendium of research articles is required reading and will be made available through electronic access.

Last updated by The Electives Office 07/01/2010