MBA 2410 Idea Work and organizational creativity
MBA 2410 Idea Work and organizational creativity
This is a course about how to manage idea work and organizational creativity to achieve excellence in change, innovation and development projects in organizations.
We start from three premises: 1) that creativity is important in all industries and organizations, 2) that creativity can be thought of as practices for generating, shaping, communicating, and handling ideas idea work, and 3) that the such practices are collective as much as individual and can be systematically improved.
The course offers students novel and tested hands-on practices for managing idea work and organizational creativity. Students will learn from discussion of rich international cases from practice leaders, from new theory as well as joint work on real cases and a series of practical games and tools. You will be challenged to discover and cultivate those creative practices in which you yourself can thrive, manage at your best and be valuable to others.
Students will acquire solid research based knowledge on how to manage idea work in organizations with insights of key concepts, approaches, theoretical roots and rich examples of practice.
Students will acquire capabilities to manage organizational creativity through practical experiences with a range of tools for prepping, visualization of ideas, prototyping, prioritizing, generative resistance and making physical space for creative collaboration
Participants will engage in discussion of basic attitudes and virtues that are central in managing creativity. Key words here are initiative, action capability, openness, other-orientation, long terms views, tolerance for failure and holistic understanding.
The course is set to run for four days. The pedagogy is highly participant oriented, and each day will have an integrative mix of i) case discussion, ii) work on real life challenges, iii) lectures and iv) games and exercises
Day 1:
Introducing and preparing for idea work: What is idea work and organizational creativity? How do we manage it? Practices for prepping and zooming out. Games for opening. Case: Southwest Airlines in a different world.
Day 2:
Getting physical with idea work: Practices for getting physical and double rapid prototyping. Games for visualizing, exploring and selecting. Case: Design thinking and innovation at Apple.
Day 3:
Motivating creativity: Practices for activating drama and daring to imagine. Games for launching and imagining. Case: Managing creativity at Shanghai Tang.
Day 4:
Handling controversy in idea work: Practices for generative resistance and punk production. Games for playing and closing. Case: Rob Parsons at Morgan Stanley.
The course is conducted as a teaching module, where students have classes all day for four subsequent days, a total of 32 hours.
This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam components) and one final exam code. Each exam component will be graded using points on a scale 0 -100. The components will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course. Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam components will get a lower grade or may fail the course. Candidates may be called in for an oral hearing as a verification/control of written assignments.
Specific information regarding the points system and the mapping scale beyond the information given in the course description will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.
The course is a part of a full MBA and examination in all courses in the MBA programme must be passed in order to obtain a certificate for the MBA degree.
Granted admission to the BI-Fudan MBA programme. Please consult our student regulations.
| Assessments |
|---|
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 40 Grouping: Individual Duration: 1 Semester(s) Comment: Individual written assignment, counts 40% of the final grade. Exam code: MBA 24101 Grading scale: China Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Activity Form of assessment: Presentation Weight: 40 Grouping: Group (2 - 8) Comment: Presentations from group work on real cases, counts 40% of the final grade. Exam code: MBA 24101 Grading scale: China Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Activity Form of assessment: Class participation Weight: 20 Grouping: Individual Comment: Individual class participation, counts 20% of the final grade. Exam code: MBA 24101 Grading scale: China Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 4 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 110 hours.