Innovation has become an imperative for most private firms but increasingly also in the public sector. Therefore, competences in innovation management are emphasised as one of today's most important competences by CEO's and governments alike.
The programme provides a general background on innovation management including
- the management of innovation from invention to commercialisation
- innovation strategies, structures, and cultures
- market forces of innovation and market-oriented new product development
- the management of intellectual property rights
- Entrepreneurship
The programme creates a unique opportunity to experience the challenges throughout the new product development process and to develop a mutual understanding about the rationales on the technology as well as on the business management side. There is a broad empirical basis that such a mutual understanding is a key prerequisite for successful cooperation between R&D and marketing and ultimately for innovation success. The aim of the programme is therefore to enhance students' understandings about strategies, structures, processes, people and cultures to develop successful innovations and to enhance the innovative capability of firms.
PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
PREREQUISITE COURSES
Management Research Method
The learning objective of this course is to enable you to conduct empirical business research in a valid and reliable manner. You learn how to formulate research questions and to identify an appropriate research plan and methodology for the given set of research questions. This includes methodologies how to define unit of analysis and sample as well as methodologies how to collect, analyze and interpret data.
Entrepreneurship: Shaping Entrepreneurial Thinking
This course will enable you to develop entrepreneurial thinking and behaviour and to start your own firm based on your business ideas. Students develop and evaluate business ideas and learn how to develop a compelling business case based on entrepreneurial market research. The course furthermore includes the decision on the appropriate legal form for their new venture and new venture financing.
Classic and Contemporary Readings in Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The course enables students to create two forms of competences. 1) An improved ability to read, question, and form conclusions from research-based literature, and 2) an overview of the central classic and contemporary literature in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. Together these competencies provide students with the ability to critically evaluate and choose relevant literature in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship.
New Product Development Clinic
The learning objective is to enable you to understand and execute the crucial tasks in the new product development process from idea generation to commercialisation. The course takes a concrete development problem as point of departure. Students will generate ideas for the solution of this problem and then carry out concept testing, prototype development, market assessment and pre-launch activities. Therefore, you will experience all the challenges in the new product development process hands-on. The course will be co-taught with faculty from Aarhus BSS and Aarhus School of Engineering. The teaching method of the course is project-based.
SPECIALISATION COURSES
Appropriating innovation – Managing Intellectual property rights
In this course the aim is to develop an understanding of how intellectual property rights, particularly patents, can be used as tools for technology development. A short introduction to the history and theory of patents is followed by an examination of the use of patents as tools of technology development. The course will also consider the evidence in support of the theory that patents on significant inventions are used to control and block 'downstream' innovation. Furthermore, the course will consider the 'anti-trust'- patent so-called 'interface' and recent changes to policy in favour of patents in the US.
Organising for Innovation
In this course the aim is to develop an understanding of the firm-internal perspective and context on innovation. This includes the formulation of and decision for innovation strategies, organisational structures and designs for innovation, creativity and performance within innovation teams, cooperation between R&D and marketing in the new product development process, champions and promotors of innovation, the management of radical innovation and the measurement of innovation performance.
Open and User-Driven Innovation
Shorter product life cycles and increased technological complexity of new products and services force firms to increasingly open their innovation processes to external sources of innovation. The learning objective of this course is therefore to enable you to understand which relevant sources of innovation exist outside the firm and how a firm can systematically use these external sources as leverage for new product development and for enhancing the innovative capability of a firm. The course includes emerging forms of open and distributed innovation. Specific focus will be given to user-driven innovation, including market orientation in the new product development process, lead user innovation, user communities and user toolkits.
In the third semester you can choose elective courses within your areas of interest. The courses can either be taken at Aarhus BSS during the semester, at the Summer University or at one of our more than 200 partner universities abroad. You can also participate in internship programmes either in Denmark or abroad.
The fourth semester is devoted to the master's thesis. You may choose the topic of the thesis freely and get a chance to concentrate on and specialize in a specific field of interest. The thesis may be written in collaboration with another student or it may be the result of your individual effort. When the thesis has been submitted it is defended before the academic advisor as well as an external examiner.
Visit the
Innovation Management and Business Development MSc
page on the Aarhus University website for more details!
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