Course 2017-2018 a.y.

Classes: 31 (II sem.)

Instructors:
Class 31: BORIS DURISIN

Innovation increasingly takes place through communities and platforms driven by crowds of developers and problem solvers. At the same time, their outputs and products of the crowd contexts have come to shape the daily life of many. In some of the most dynamic sectors of the modern economy, such as apps for smartphones, video games, media content, scientific and technical problems solving, companies' overall performance already rely on individuals located outside the organization to become crucial sources of input. In their attempts to access and leverage these sources of innovation it is now quite common for companies to employ more open forms of innovation, and try to orchestrate innovative communities. The course develops the conceptual foundations, frameworks and methods for analyzing the relationships between communities and firms. The focus is on firm responses to outside communities' development activities, inside community processes and dynamics, how to access and leverage innovation communities, how to manage and strategize in this context.
In addition, the course allows students to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical context.
• Understand and analyze the determinants and the processes of community innovation and specify success and failure factors.
• Discuss ethical issues, complexities and hurdles surrounding.
• Use methods to apply insights to assess real business challenges.
  

Develop understanding of working with crowds and communities through hands-on exercises related to real business issues.

Part I.

• Wisdom of crowds.
• Management of innovation as it relates to communities and crowds.
• Brand communities.
• Open for innovation and Open Innovation.
• Customer empowerment and customer engagement.

Part II.

• Dynamic of innovation and community-focused strategies.
• Platform ecosystems.
• Innovation ecosystems.

Part III.

• Business ecosystems and open-source approaches.
• Business ecosystems and crowd sourcing.
• Business ecosystems and crowd funding and crowd lending.
• Business ecosystems and start-ups.
• The role of social media in enhancing distributed innovation.
  

The course deals with these topics through lectures, hands-on exercises, cases, real-world problem solving and strategizing with companies.

For attending students

• Grading of attending students is based on the participation in class, quality of output on assignments and a final written exam.

For non attending students

• Written exam only.

A selection of relevant research articles, readings and business cases is made available to the students at the beginning of the course.