Course Description

Typically offered in the Spring semester.
This is a Core Course of the MOT program.

Course Description
Most innovations fail. Yet companies that don't innovate die. Managing innovation thus constitutes one of the most difficult and critical tasks facing a manager. Nor is this solely the concern of high tech companies - companies in traditionally "low tech" businesses such as consumer packaged goods (like Procter & Gamble) find that innovation translates directly into growth in new businesses, and better profits in existing businesses.

The course adopts a capabilities-based view of the firm, drawing from economic, organizational, and engineering perspectives. The goal of the course is to identify the sources of innovative success and failure inside corporations, and how companies can develop and sustain a capability to innovate. The course will count towards students' Management of Technology (MOT) certificate, and graduate level cross-registrants from the Graduate College of Engineering (except those still in their first year of study) and School of Information are encouraged.

There are two books required for the course: 1) Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (Harvard Business School Press, 2003), and 2) Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape ( Harvard Business School Press, 2006). Full disclosure: I wrote both of these books. There is also a Course Reader. Continuation of course description

Course Syllabus (pdf)

Catalog type: 290 Series
Units: 2
MOT type: Core
Prerequisites: None

Course History

Spring 2008  |   Instructor(s): Chesbrough

Spring 2007  |   Instructor(s): Chesbrough