BA 714: Sustainability and Innovation in the Business Enterprise

Overview

This course is designed to give the doctoral student a comprehensive understanding of historical, current, and emerging perspectives on the theory and practice of management of innovation. Throughout the intersecting territories of business and technology lie tremendous opportunities for valuable research.  The seminar has been developed to help students understand the state of knowledge in management of innovation and to help them identify research opportunities in the field.  The course helps students understand how to frame research questions focused on the root causes of common problems in innovation and how these manifest themselves symptomatically in various stages of the development process, and in different areas of the company.  The emphasis throughout is on the development of conceptual models which clarify the interactions between competition, patterns of technological and market change, and the structure and development of internal firm capabilities.  The course approach will combine reading the seminal works (or recent summaries or synthesis) along with individual in-depth research by the students to explore their specific field of interest in management of innovations.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Develop both a historical and current perspective of management of innovation: the evolution of innovation and how theoretical perspectives have or continue to impact management practice and sustainable performance, and to understand the application of theoretical findings in a business enterprise.
• Review, analyze, and integrate the major theoretical underpinnings of innovation to help understand how these theories contribute to managerial strategies necessary for meeting the needs of the organization, the shareholders, customers and the business community.
• Analyze the current body of knowledge of innovation research pertaining to markets, competition and application of such findings in the current business environment.
• Apply research theories and identify methodological insights in beginning to build individual annotated bibliographic citations for use in the doctoral program.
• Identify applicable seminal research, theory, and/or methods from this course relevant to individual research question(s); and contribute to the field of study by extending previous knowledge.

Required Texts
BA 714 texts are available from the JIU/MBS bookstore