New Fron­ti­ers or More of the Same: Un­der­stand­ing In­nov­a­tion in Asi­an Emer­ging Eco­nom­ies

Course content

The focus of this course is to expose the student to the dynamic nature of the emerging economies. Why they are dynamic, what impact does this dynamic nature have on innovation and how do the emerging Asian economies engage with innovation. Are they actually innovative or simply reengineer innovative ideas from other parts of the world? Do they understand what it takes to innovate?   

We will start from current innovation ideas and then move on to emerging economies with a focus on how they engage with innovation, how different is it from current theories, if there is indeed a difference or are the emerging economies simply copying and coping with the theories, while tinkering at the edges.

This course is to provide the students an experience of innovation while using the literature as a scaffold to support the experience of the student’s innovative initiative during the unfolding of the course.

Central to the students learning are:

The literature, (those articles that inspired the student most and why).

Reflections from the workshops (the scrum report is a document prepared by students about each class, how it flowed, the issues discussed, the ideas missed and additional literature from the web which could be useful for the topic).

The personal diary (where the students records his or her personal reflections about the class, what they learnt, what they are unclear about and need feedback from the resource person or the group on and questions that they would like addressed in feedback sessions during the next class).

And finally their experiences from the group itself, (how their and the group innovative idea evolved, what were the challenges and how did the group use the literature to help address the innovative journey). :

All students will be required to build something innovative during class hours in groups while they use theories to understand and critically evaluate the relevance of literature in the context of practice.

The course themes are as follows;

• Emerging economies and developing countries, is there a case for this difference, a critical appreciation.
• Understanding the nature of flux in emerging economies
• The economics of innovation in emerging economies
• The markets for innovation in emerging economies
• The process of innovation
• Types of innovation, co-creation, frugal innovation etc in emerging economies
• Challenges and obstacles
• The business of innovation and opportunities
• Synchronous and a-synchronous innovation in emerging economies
• Innovation policies and their impact
• Innovative firms, best practices, success stories and what can we learn
• Entrepreneurial leadership and innovative potential, connecting the dots.
• Focusing on the idea and building a business; exploring entrepreneurial capacity from the innovation.
• A critical evaluation of innovation in flux, an emerging economy perspective, insights and conclusions