ME1033 Open and User Innovation 7.5 credits

1.      Innovation stratege

2.      Sources of innovation

3.      Opening up the firm

4.      Barriers to innovation

5.      Social structures of non-firm innovations

Each part of the course will include theory and new research, combined with exercises to analyze innovation and innovation processes in organizations.

This course starts with a discussion of what innovation is and how innovation relates to entrepreneurship. In this way we will also discuss the learning targets for the course and how this will be achieved. For example what skills can be expected to be learned and when can these be used, and how do these skills work in the context of your future professions as entrepreneurs, experts, developers, managers and so forth.

At the end the course, the students should be able to:

• Understand the historical context of innovation strategy and how the Internet affects innovation strategy.
• Understand how and why innovations appear in different sectors of the Economy.
• Analyze different approaches to innovation and what outcomes that can be expected.
• Understand the fundamentals of innovation communities.
• Develop skills to manage an R&D process external to a firm, e.g. the lead-user method or an innovation community.
• Increase your knowledge of real-life cases such as the Procter & Gamble “Connect + Develop”.

Completed upper secondary education.

“Democratizing Innovation”, von Hippel, Eric (2005), the MIT Press, Boston

http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm (Creative Commons License, download for free)
+ extra material (paper articles and academic articles)

If the course is discontinued, students may request to be examined during the following two academic years.

• INL1 - Assignments, 2.0 credits, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
• INL2 - Written Report, 4.0 credits, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
• SEM1 - Seminars, 1.5 credits, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F

Based on recommendation from KTH’s coordinator for disabilities, the examiner will decide how to adapt an examination for students with documented disability.

The examiner may apply another examination format when re-examining individual students.

Terrence Brown

• All members of a group are responsible for the group's work.
• In any assessment, every student shall honestly disclose any help received and sources used.
• In an oral assessment, every student shall be able to present and answer questions about the entire assignment and solution.

NB. The course has limited seats.