Overview

In a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, leaders require innovation skills. Thinking flexibly and developing an entrepreneurial mindset are critical to thriving in uncertain business environments. This Entrepreneurship and Strategic Innovation Certificate addresses how to recognize and question assumptions and constraints so learners can identify and capitalize on opportunities. Learning to change the rules of the game by creating innovative value propositions and discovering new market positions for sustained competitive advantage are some of the actionable lessons in this certificate.

Benefit from live, interactive learning sessions with instructors and receive actionable feedback from teaching staff and fellow learners. Through hands-on projects, exercises, and case studies, you’ll develop experience and insight in entrepreneurship and strategic innovation that you can apply immediately in your career.

The certificate stacks directly into the full Master of Business Administration (iMBA), Master of Science in Accountancy (iMSA), or Master of Science in Management (iMSM) from the University of Illinois.

Syllabus

Course 1: MBA 551: Strategic Innovation
- The motivation for this course is that leading innovation requires different skills than does management of established businesses. What is new simply behaves differently than what has been established over time. What is new brings with it uncertainty and ambiguity that can throw off even experienced managers’ intuitions. And of course, we have all heard about how innovation is changing business environments at a more and more rapid pace all the time. While there are many aspects to innovation and it makes appearances throughout the curriculum, this course takes innovation as its central focus.

Course 2: MBA 552: Fostering Creative Thinking
- Creativity is a skill you can learn. This course will examine what prompts us to be creative, how to navigate and support the process of generating creative ideas, how to pitch and evaluate new ideas, and how to help our teams be creative. The end result is that you will be able to think more flexibly, make wiser decisions, generate more effective solutions, communicate more effectively, reject fewer good ideas, and get more out of your teams and organization.

Course 3: MBA 553: Entrepreneurship: From Startup to Growth
- Entrepreneurship: From Startup to Growth is designed to introduce you to the entrepreneurial process. The first half of the course will explore the earlier stages by examining how entrepreneurs can develop new venture concepts, identify attractive market opportunities, build teams, and find early adopter customers. The course will be focused on practical ideas and techniques that entrepreneurs can use to evaluate the potential of market opportunities and make decisions about whether to pursue them in a startup company. The second half of the course builds on previous concepts and outlines strategies and tactics for forming, financing, and launching the new venture. Topics to be addressed will include developing a go-to-market strategy, selecting appropriate revenue and pricing strategies, preparing financial models, raising startup and initial growth financing, and preparing for and managing growth.