Strategic Innovation: Managing Innovation Initiatives

Overview

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You may have noticed that what is new often behaves differently than what has become accepted over time whether it is in a market, technology, or with people and firms. This course helps you develop a perspective on managing innovation. That is, you will build your capability to lead and design your organization in effectively implementing innovation initiatives and achieving their strategic intent. To do this, you will learn a set of frameworks, tools, and concepts that can help you address several important challenges in managing innovation. The first challenge is in regards to how to successfully implement innovation efforts within established firms and alongside established businesses. You then investigate the particulars of managing innovation when disruptive technologies are involved. Other topics include leadership of new product development teams, planning and evaluation of innovation initiatives, and management of innovation across organizational boundaries, as happens with alliances or virtual firms. You will be able to: - Analyze innovations and their impact on organizations - Articulate a research-informed perspective on innovation - Utilize frameworks, tools, and concepts to address challenges that arise in innovation This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

Syllabus

Course Orientation and Module 1: Managing Innovation

You will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and our learning environment. The orientation will also help you obtain the technical skills required for the course.

Module 2: Managing Innovation Through Teams and Strategic Choices

Innovation requires organizations to integrate across functions—engineering, marketing, production—under conditions of uncertainty. This module equips you to design and lead innovation initiatives by understanding team-based structures and broader organizational approaches, and by matching the right approach to a given innovation challenge.

Module 3: Managing Innovation Under Uncertainty: Planning, Evaluation, and Agile

The management approaches optimized for established operations—where predictability is high—often fail in innovation contexts. This module explores how to manage innovation initiatives under high uncertainty. The core insight: when you cannot reliably predict outcomes, management must shift from a results focus to a learning focus.

Module 4: Innovation Across Boundaries and Corporate Entrepreneurship

Previous modules focused on internal structures for managing innovation. This module examines two additional approaches: leveraging external partnerships across firm boundaries and enabling entrepreneurial activity within the organization.