Handbook

Organisations must increasingly innovate in order to survive and thrive. This course is designed for leaders who intend to apply their entrepreneurial spirit to innovating within established organizations, as well as for managers whose goal is to build and manage innovation processes in the organisation. 

This course sets the stage for intrapreneurship with the top management perspective on organisational innovation and the importance of managing the tension between top-down and bottom-up approaches. Students will learn how to recognise and leverage the innovation advantages existing organisations have over start-ups, and how to evaluate and mitigate factors that work against innovation. Students will explore some of the world’s most successful innovation companies (along with a notable failure) to contrast directed innovation models with under-the-radar “stealth innovation”. 

With this view of top-down innovation management as a foundation, the course then focuses on bottom-up intrapreneurial execution. Students will learn about their own “innovator’s DNA”, and intrapreneurial best practices that combine innovation strategies, start-up thinking and entrepreneurial methods to accomplish organisational innovation in its many forms by practising human centred design (HCD) methods and tools during the 10 weeks of the course.