In these rapidly changing times, all organisations must innovate to survive. Whether large or small, public or private, sustained growth and solvency requires constant, but managed, innovation and adaptation. The challenge is that the drive to enhance organisational effectiveness tends to insulate an organisation from change, making innovation hard to pull off once, much less time and time again. This topic explores the knowledge and skills that underpin innovation strategies and systems that maximise new value creation and growth, whilst safeguarding organisational effectiveness and existing revenue streams. Through a combination of contemporary theory and application-based challenges, students acquire the concepts and tools needed to design and manage innovation as part of the fabric and strategy of an organisation, from the initial search for new knowledge and technologies, through to innovation portfolio and ecosystem design. Finally, the topic will focus on best practices for managing round after round of innovation and change - while keeping the core of the organisation healthy and strong.
This topic aims to develop students' capacity to design and optimise innovation strategies and systems, balancing ongoing organisational effectiveness with the search for new, often disruptive, avenues for innovation-led growth. Students will learn to: design systems and structures that enhance the search, absorption and sharing of new knowledge and technology; design and manage an innovation portfolio that includes continuous, adjacent and disruptive innovation across multiple horizons; choose and manage the most appropriate organisational structure for innovation - whether ecosystem, network, alliance, divisions or skunk works; identify and implement best practices for managing (and funding) continual change, including, occasionally, disruptive change - despite the inevitable organisational resistance to change.
Timetable details for 2021 are no longer published.