Master Electives

Each of our master electives is driven by the state-of-the-art research of department members in conjunction with case material.  

Creativity for Innovation 

After this course you will understand why certain organisations are more creative than others concerning innovative products, services, processes, and procedures. You will also gain the practical skills to analyse organisations in order to make them more creative. 

Organisations that pay attention to creativity traditionally focus on the selection and training of creative individuals. However creativity depends also on the organisational context that an individual perceives around him. It is essential that an organisation provide a creatively stimulating organisational environment and physical work environment. A good interaction between the organisational and physical work environment and personal characteristics will affect creative efforts at work, and will help the organisation to become more innovative. n. 

Managing Open Innovation  

Open innovation systems (Chesbrough, 2003) are characterised by the flexible way in which a firm coordinates a large number of innovation projects and assesses their value. The system is open, because some projects come from outside into the company while other projects are internal projects which go outside, to other companies. 

By contrast, in closed innovation systems – which were typical for most firms in high tech industries two decades ago – companies hired the best researchers and engineers to develop technology internally and try to prevent other companies from using the same technologies. 

Students in this course will not only gain new insights on the latest developments in the field of open innovation, they will advise a company on the dilemmas that they currently face in open innovation. The final advisory report will be presented to the boards of these companies, who will also award the best report with a prize. Last years’ live cases were Chemelot, a large biochemical cluster co-located with DSM in Geleen, Unilever a large Dutch-British manufacturer of fast-moving consumer goods with locations in Rotterdam and Vlaardingen. This year the live case will be the Port of Rotterdam, one of the largest and most innovative ports in the world. 

Innovation in Services  

In recent years, much more attention has been given to innovation in services. During this course we explore how, in the different services sectors (professional business services, internet firms, retail, public sector etc.), innovation (new service development) can best be organised. What is the role of IPR? How do important customers influence this process? To what extent can principles of innovation management from manufacturing be applied? Students apply the various theories and concepts by doing assignments each week and by carrying out a business case on a successful new service.  

innovation and standardisation management

Innovation management implies the introduction of something new and making it a success. In company practice, not everything can be renewed at the same moment so companies have to balance ‘variety’ with ‘standard’: standards for products and services but also for processes and, for instance, management systems. Standards apply both inside and outside the company. Standards shape the market for products and services and the importance of standards is growing. One of the main reasons for this is that companies are increasingly part of supply chains where standards are needed for managing the interfaces between the different parts of the chain, in terms of the production and delivery of products and services, and related quality and environmental characteristics and data exchange. Therefore, standards are a prerequisite for innovation success.

Moreover, increasingly, companies apply internal standardisation for their innovation process, including the process of radical innovation. Standards make this process manageable while maintaining and even strengthening creativity and spontaneity.

Innovative entrepreneurship

In this elective you will look into what makes innovative entrepreneurs more creative than other entrepreneurs or managers, and how they succeed in bringing new ideas in the marketplace. The focus is on entrepreneurs that build their companies around groundbreaking ideas or incremental innovations that have the potential to disrupt existing markets. Rarely they are ‘heroic geniuses or ‘lonely inventors’, yet they apply principles and skills that differ from others. Entrepreneurs need to recognize market opportunities for new technologies and to mobilize resources to develop or apply this technology. By understanding how entrepreneurs systematically engage in the ‘practice of innovation’ you can learn to become more innovative yourself.

Topics include: creativity and search, knowledge brokerage, design thinking, new market creation, commercialization strategies, intellectual property rights, networks and communities, spin-offs and incubators, markets for technology. Different levels of analysis are covered: the individual entrepreneurs and their start-up companies, the stakeholders that entrepreneurs need to organize around a new venture and the recently developed, often global intermediary markets for innovation and intellectual property.