Course Overview

Technological innovation is increasingly the source of sustainable competitive advantage for firms around the world. However, building an organization to successfully and repeatedly bring technological innovations to market is a daunting managerial challenge. Innovation is a fundamental driver of competitiveness. Innovation, and particularly technological innovation, is inherently difficult, uncertain and risky, and most new technologies fail to be translated into successful products and services. Given this, it is essential that trainees understand the strategies, tools and techniques for managing innovation, which often requires a different set of management knowledge and skills from those employed in everyday business administration.

The course aims to equip management trainees with an understanding of the main issues in the management of innovation and an appreciation of the relevant skills needed to manage innovation at both strategic and operational levels. It provides evidence of different approaches based on real-world examples and experiences of leading organisations from around the world. Firms that learn how   to change in complex  technological environments are able      to blend          exploration processes with exploitation ones. Particular attention is paid to how new and existing organisations can exploit technological and organisational innovations to create and capture value.

Course Objectives

1. Knowledge Objectives

• Understand the definitions and concepts of innovation, invention and research and development
• Explore main models of innovation
• Use and apply tools for innovation management

2. Skill Objectives

• Diagnostic and analytical skills
• Enhance verbal skills through class and collective discussions
• Build up judgmental and interpretation skills
• Learn how to evaluate different options
• Formulate and develop strategy
• Assess and resolve managerial challenges

Learning Outcomes

In this course you will examine the interface between innovation, technology, entrepreneurship and Commercialization from an interdisciplinary perspective linking engineering, science, business and management. Among others, the outcomes can be seen below:

• Develop and formulate managerial strategies to shape innovative performance
• Utilise tools of innovation management to map and measure innovative activities
• Diagnose different innovation challenges and make recommendations for resolving them
• Understand conceptual frameworks and analytical tools needed to do research on themes and topics of the Technology and Innovation Management field;
• Expose participants to            a hybrid set of            methods to understand the wide array of approaches to do research in the field of technology and Innovation.
• Develop new insights to facilitate evidence-based decision making involving the integration of technology strategy with business strategy in technical services and engineering/technology-based organizations.
• Integrate and apply key operational aspects of managing innovation and technology (including the relationship with production, marketing, R&D and human resources activities) to a collaborative engineering project.
• Explain how innovations are diffused and adopted or why they failed to do so
• Implement approaches for managing risk and uncertainty when launching new ventures
• Design business plans to effectively convey the opportunity to stakeholders in different situations
• Evaluate the value and risks of different new product development and Commercialization strategies.
• Identify best practices for managing and running global innovation ventures

Delivery Methods

• Group work and discussion
• In each session, there will be an in-class, case-based exercise
• The exercises are designed to deepen the trainee’s knowledge of topics raised in the lectures
• All trainees are expected to participate in the exercises, but they will not be graded
• The details of the exercises will be explained in class and the findings of the exercises will also be discussed during the class or the following week
• During the lectures, trainees are encouraged to ask questions and discuss the material