Course 2017-2018 a.y.

Classes: 31 (II sem.)

Instructors:
Class 31: ALFONSO GAMBARDELLA

This course focuses on how firms manage innovation and the development of new technologies. Since these decisions are typically decisions under uncertainty, the course studies how to make effective decisions in these contexts. As a result, the course focuses on how and when to make these decisions, under what conditions, what are the tools to make these decisions in the most informed way, and the use of data to make them. The overarching goal is to provide the students with an analytic framework to make decisions like the launch of a new product, a new business idea, an innovation, a start-up. The approach is very practical and it involves concrete uses of data to make managerial decisions, as well as the realization of concrete projects in class by groups of 2-4 students about real managerial problems. The performance in the projects counts as part of the student’s evaluation for the course.

• How do managers and entrepreneurs make decisions?
• The use of theory and data to build analytical frameworks to make managerial decisions.
• Methods and instruments to test and predict the results of managerial actions.
• Building experiments to make informed managerial decisions.
• Making managerial decisions using qualitative data.
• Students’ projects.

The final evaluation is a weighted average of the grades that the students receive in the final written exam and the projects performed in class. The weight is defined at the beginning of the class, but the final written exam covers at least 50% of the final grade. Students who do not qualify as attending students (according to the rules) are not allowed to take the attending students exam.

For non attending students
The final evaluation is the grade that the students receive in a final written exam.

For attending students

• Course slides.

For non attending students

• Course slides.