Innovation, Strategy & Leadership: Contemporary Approach to Future Growth

Catalog description

The overall goal of this course is to address the process of innovating in an enterprise context. Outside of the enterprise, global shifts, economic developments and technological evolutions all present opportunities and challenges for innovation-based organizations. Inside the enterprise, company culture, acceptable risk/reward profiles and strategic mindsets will all influence the effectiveness of valuable innovation. Building on an understanding of IP Management and Commercialization activities that follow a new discovery (see, e.g., EPOM 410 ), and needs-based innovation and design (see, e.g., EPOM 411 ) this course examines specific approaches and factors related to effectively responding to the challenge of innovation from strategic and leadership perspectives. This course will examine approaches to strategic leadership relative to innovative challenges, building an understanding of successful endeavors, flops that "should have worked" and an embrace of the myriad choices and factors that underlie competitive innovation. The course is three credit hours. During the semester, students will work individually, focusing on issues of the process of structuring innovation, applying tools and methodologies presented during the course. Course leaders and presenters will be drawn from across the university and industry. Analytical and philosophical understanding will be enhanced by hands-on assessments of two case studies that present applications of law and policy in the context of strategic technology innovation and leadership. The goal of each student team is to provide a critique and overview of what factors drove the circumstances and outcomes of the given case. The ultimate objective is to deliver a working understanding the strategic options available when attempting to lead an innovative enterprise through the process of converting innovative potential to strategically competitive solution.