Strategic Innovation Management

llsmf2015  2024-2025  Louvain-la-Neuve

Strategic Innovation Management
5.00 credits
22.5 h + 7.5 h
Q1
Teacher(s)
Language
English
Prerequisites
The material covered in the corporate strategy course of bachelor in Business engineering. More generally, in terms of competencies, the students are expected to have knowledge of the basic concepts of strategic management.
Main themes
The design and implementation of innovation-based strategies by corporations.
Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

1 The purpose of the course is to develop students’ knowledge in corporate strategy with a specific focus on the strategic issues raised by IT innovations and, more generally, the rise of the knowledge economy. The course is a level II course in corporate strategy. It means we expect that the students have already attended an introductory course in strategic management and have acquired the fundamentals of strategic management (e.g.: external and internal analysis; generic strategies; portfolio analysis).
The study of corporate strategy is thus based on a synthetic approach that must look at the company as a whole and look at it from the perspective of its future, while expectations are becoming more and more uncertain.
The learning objectives are the following:
  • Help students develop their capability to recognize the strategic issues of innovation in terms of strategy formulation and implementation;
  • Help students develop their vision despite the complexity of business contingencies and determine a long-term path of development for their company; in an innovative way, in connection with its environment and other stakeholders;
  • Help students make strategic decisions integrating both the benefits for the company but also the costs and the risks for the company;
  • Help students improve their communication skills to clearly present their strategic reasoning and justify the “raison d’être” of their decisions;
  • Help students integrate the very concrete stakes that top managers face. In particular, strategic innovation requires to make decisions in highly turbulent and uncertain contexts. The confrontation with real company situations, - through case studies and BOSS simulation - will create the link between the more theoretical concepts and the concrete and pragmatic field of application that these concepts allow to address.
 
Content
This course is a Transdisciplinary Capstone Project, an integrative based approach of collective learning, active stakeholder engagement and collaborative research. The educational program has been developed to integrate disciplinary knowledge through practice-based and problem-focused learning at graduate level. It will also bring insight on a better understanding of why the persistent global problems such as current sustainability issues (e.g. climate change impacts), digital transformation (e.g.), geopolitical tensions (e.g. social inequality, economic crises), health issues (e.g. COVID pandemic) that plague nations around the world today will not be solved through siloed disciplinary thinking alone. Further, the fast-changing dynamics of industries caused by pressures of globalization have made it essential for companies/ change agents to adapt quickly. As a result of the intensification of those pressures, it is important that the next generation of leaders/managers understand how they can relate local, national and global perspectives, apprehend the macro environment, prioritize their actions for facing environmental changes and uncertainties, and adjust the organizational structure of their companies accordingly. The course aims to provide learners with a better understanding on the way companies or change agents can create and sustain competitive advantages from local to the international scene. To this end, theoretical tools and frameworks are introduced and applied to real-world situations. The centrality of transdisciplinary approach to future skill development and problem solving for society, adopted in this course, will help learners to gain real life experience in terms of how an educational ecosystem of students, practitioners and academics can jointly navigate intervening spaces of traditional scientific knowledge and societal knowledge as a levers to more effectively deal with our world most pressing issues.
  • This course is a blend of class lectures related to multiple mandatory readings, dialogue with and among students, and intensive group-project works.
  • This course is organized around 3 mean blocs: BLOC I- Bootcamp Early Growth Acceleration, BLOC II Fast Track and BLOC III Workshops.
Teaching methods
Strategic Innovation Management embraces global strategic challenges over 6 weeks, punctuated by regular delivery of deliverables around 3 mean blocs: BLOC I- Bootcamp Early Growth Acceleration, BLOC II Fast Track and BLOC III Workshops.
BLOC I - Bootcamp -EARLY GROWTH ACCELERATION (EGA). Through computer simulation, we will place you into a very realistic international business setting where you will run a company for two years in compressed time (rounds of decision-making). You will work closely with a team of fellow students to manage a highly complex and integrated business. Personal leadership and strong interpersonal skills will be necessary to succeed. Throughout the exercise, you will receive guidance and feedback from the instructor. He will challenge your business thinking and help you to become a good team player and business manager. The collaboration and team spirit are at the center of the pedagogic approach and provide a strong proximity to the reality of ‘born global’, from startup to scale-up. Multi-cultural and pluri-disciplinary, mixing complementary personalities and young talents. Interacting with the professors, coaches and experts brought together around the various activities. Next, the attention to the sustainability of business models discussion, embarking not only environmental sustainability, but also consideration about responsible innovation, sustainable finance and governance, and an alignment to Sustainable Development Goals outcomes as a key opportunity to develop next generation leadership for sustainability.
BLOC II Fast Track. speed dating work sessions approach with entrepreneurs and economic development agencies in search of change. Integrating disciplinary knowledge through practice-based and problem-focused perspective, Bloc II provides a framework that will help collaborative team to quickly gain high-level understanding of why the persistent global problems such as the current climate change impacts, social inequality and economic crises, digitalization transformation challenges, health issues (e.g., COVID) that plague nations around the world today will not be solved through siloed disciplinary thinking alone. Using a case-based approach and focusing on a particular world's most pressing issues, Bloc II Fast Track will also help collaborative teams of students to identify opportunities that can make a real difference to their bottom line.
BLOC III Workshops combining Grand Jury/ Poster sessions is designed to help you reflect on skill sets required on topics of interest in this transdisciplinary project. Focus will also be on the ability to communicate findings to lay audiences.
Evaluation methods
1-Collective (Team) Evaluation: 70%
1.1. Continuous assessment :20%
  • Oral defenses: Executives Briefings (Bootcamp)
  • Written: Reporting Delivery of deliverables (Bootcamp)
1.2. Final assessment : 50%
  • Simulation performance  (Bootcamp) :30%
  • Oral : Poster Session (Bootcamp +Fast Track):10%
  • Written Final: Report to the Board: 10%
2. Individual evaluation: 30%
2.1. Continuous assessment (active participation): 10%
2.2. Final assessment: 20%
  • Written Final: Report to the Board (Individual Reflective part): 10%
  • Self Evaluation + Peer Evaluation: 10%
B. Examination: second session 
  • Collective (Team) Evaluation: The simulation performance grade (30%) is systematically reported
  • Individual Evaluation (Written: Case study/ Research paper): 70%
  • If too few students are registered for the second session examination, the Written will be replaced by an oral exam (Case study/ Research paper) in English.
Other information
Additional information on calendaring and group work methods will be provided during the course.
Online resources
Course Material: A course pack containing the minimum required readings for each session, online platform licences and the cases are provided. All interactions on teaching materials, references and processing of case works and presentations is managed on Moodle.
Bibliography
  • Gailly B. (2018) Navigating Innovations, chap. 2, Palgrave.
  • Christensen, CM; Raynor, M; McDonald, R. What is disruptive innovation? Harvard Business Review. 93, 12, 44-53, Dec. 2015.
  • Linda A. Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove, Kent Lineback, The Capabilities Your Organization Needs to Sustain Innovation, Harvard Business Review, Jan. 2015.
  • Michael Schrage, How Innovation Ecosystems Turn Outsiders into Collaborators, Harvard Business Review, Apr. 2014.
  • Kim W, Mauborgne R. Red Ocean Traps. Harvard Business Review. March 2015; 93(3):68-73.
  • Kim, W.C. and Mauborgne, R.A., 2014. Blue ocean strategy, expanded edition: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Harvard business review Press. PART 1 & 2 (p.1 – 146).
  • http://www.startupwerkboek.nl/startupcenter/BlueOceanStrategy.pdf
  • Hagiu, Andrei, and Elizabeth J. Altman. "Finding the Platform in Your Product: Four Strategies That Can Reveal Hidden Value." Harvard Business Review 95, no. 4 (July–August 2017): 94–100.
  • Belleflamme P. and Neysen N. (2017), The Rise and Fall of Take Eat Easy or Why Markets are not Easy to Take in the Sharing Economy. Digiworld Economic Journal, 4th q., no. 108, pp. 59-76.
  • Curchod, C., Patriotta, G., Cohen, L., & Neysen, N. (2019). Working for an Algorithm: Power Asymmetries and Agency in Online Work Settings. Administrative Science Quarterly
  • Managing in a Post-Covid19 Era, ESCP Impact Papers, especially
    • Covid-19 and the scale-up of the platform revolution. R. Coeurderoy & U. Wiszniowska
    • A perspective on impact of covid-19 on European business: The risks of de-globalization and the promises of regionalization. R. Coeurderoy & X. Yang
Faculty or entity


Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)

Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Learning outcomes
Master [120] : Business Engineering

Master [120] in Management

Master [120] in Management (with work-linked-training)