Reassembling Innovation (Autumn 2024)

Abstract

The goal of the course is to address the complex entanglements of IT, innovation and society.

Description

Innovation is promoted as a key ‘good’ in current society. Innovation is seen e.g. as a way in which to save the welfare state, and innovation guides the allocation of major investments in research and development across the private and public sectors on both a national and international level. Therefore it is important to be able to both constructively and critically engage with innovation in both theory and practice.

Reassembling innovation will provide students with a range of theoretical perspectives and methodological tools to constructively and critically address innovation. Along with the theoretical exploration, emphasis will be also given on the organizational strategy and design within open ecosystems. In this emerging era of decentralization and networked collaboration, reassembling the pieces of innovation is an imperative for all types of organizations (private, public, NGOs and social enterprises). The course will, among other things, enable students to reflect upon your own role as active participant in future technological and societal developments, as well as to reflect on the politics and values embedded in the design and use of technologies.

The course will address topics such as Innovation models, innovation in science and technology, performativity of innovation science and models, innovative commons, organizational design in distributed innovation systems, critique of innovation, employee driven innovation, scaling innovation, innovation & politics.

Formal prerequisites

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Discuss classical and modern theories of innovation including their relevance for analysing the development of information and communication technologies.
• Analyse and critically reflect over the challenges and complexities of innovation including issues of governance, regulation, power, ethics and politics
• Apply different perspectives within the sociology and economics of science and innovation to particular cases.
• Put into perspective the different concepts, tools, business models and theories related to openness and open innovation appreciating the wider socioeconomic context.
• Reflect upon the practical implications of innovation strategies and models with a focus on insights from contemporary organizational settings.
• Situate innovation within political economy and power politics.

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
C: Submission of written work, External (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
C22: Submission of written work – Take home