Course:Innovation and Creativity for Entrepreneurial Practice

From SharedExperienceProject

This course has been submitted as ENTR 3302.

1 Course Description
2 Context and Motivation
3 Required Course Materials
4 Learning Objectives
5 Mark Allocation and Assessment Schedule
6 Learning Activities and Methods of Assessment
7 Content and Topic Schedule
8 Resources
9 Course authors and contributors
10 Copyright

Course Description

This course introduces the concepts of innovation and entrepreneurial creativity. Emphasizing the development of the student’s own entrepreneurial creativity and abilities to innovate, the experiential and reflective activities in this course encourage students to explore their potential as passionate agents of change – in their own lives and in society. In developing their own practice, students draw upon the inspired thinking and entrepreneurial pursuits of leaders in a variety of disciplines in order to understand the process of innovation and appreciate the role of creativity in making innovation possible.

Prerequisites: None

Context and Motivation

It is well recognized that the ability innovate results in an improved competitive position in a student's career, in the for- and not-for-profit organizations at which they will work, and at the level of interaction taking place between nations. Entrepreneurial creativity is understood to be a critical ingredient in the processes of discovery, invention and innovation. Peter Drucker suggests that innovation is the specific function of the entrepreneur. Similarly, entrepreneurship scholar Ed McMullen tells us that there is a direct causal relationship between one's entrepreneurial creativity assets and his or her ability to innovate.
Despite all of this, the skills, attitudes and behaviors required for innovation are often underdeveloped in business (and other) students. This course aims to challenge students in this respect. Innovation will be treated as a process of intentional change that can be optimized through an understanding of the concept, through exploration of theory using insightful examples, and through personal experience.
A major outcome of this course is a dossier (i.e. a collection of briefing papers written by you, for you) reflecting your own personal practice as a creative entrepreneur.

Required Course Materials

The readings for this course are available electronically. As such you will need a reliable internet connection and access to a printer.

Learning Objectives

The learning objectives and methods of assessment for this course are given in in the table below.

Four areas of focus have been identified for the objectives that you should achieve during your time in Mount Royal’s entrepreneurship program. The course objectives below are categorized according to these areas of focus that are common to all courses: 1) entrepreneurial toolset, 2) personal mindset and brand, 3) experiential and knowledge construction, and 4) team, networking and communication.

Mount Royal has identified six instutition-wide learning outcomes that describe the core abilities you should develop during your studies, regardless of your academic program. These outcomes and abilities help prepare you for a life of continuous learning, and have been identified as critical to success in the workplace. The relationship between the course objectives and the college outcomes is also shown below.

**Learning objectives for this course**
Outcome thread	Student learning objectives	Methods of assessment	Link to institution wide outcomes
Entrepreneurial toolset objectives	Demonstrate understanding of and ability to apply fundamental concepts of entrepreneurial creativity, e.g.: innovation and creative entrepreneurial assets such as intellectual abilities, personality, motivation, thinking style, entrepreneurial knowledge Recognize and demonstrate the attitudes, behaviors and personal characteristics required of successful creative entrepreneurs for innovation (a process of intentional change made to meet opportunity)	Topic quizzes Personal inventory exercises	Thinking
Personal mindset and brand objectives	Assess your own entrepreneurial assets, practice Develop strategies for strengthening and addressing gaps in one’s assets and practice Demonstrate reflective ‘habits of mind’ and ongoing commitment to developing your entrepreneurial creativity practices Produce a Professional Statement of Entrepreneurial Practice and a living dossier	Personal inventory exercises Mindset paper Innovation project Final practice dossier	Thinking Communication
Experiential and knowledge construction objectives	Apply your developing entrepreneurial practice to an opportunity using formative innovation processes Execute a ‘test of concept’ to a target group by networking Document feedback, reflect on implications and act on required changes to your innovation and practice Integrate consumer perspectives to improve the innovation opportunity and adapt your developing entrepreneurial practice prior to engaging with early-stage interest from other entrepreneurs Demonstrate persuasive communication by pitching	Innovation project Dossier activities	Thinking Information retrieval and evaluation Communication Ethical reasoning Group effectiveness
Networking, team and communication objectives	Apply your developing entrepreneurial practice and consumer feedback to attract early-stage interest from other creative entrepreneurs Develop a networking plan and work effectively in peer groups and with an external network (of supporters and experts) to achieve your objectives Collaborate, communicate clearly and manage projects using appropriate computing tools	Opportunity challenge project Student engagement	Group effectiveness Computer literacy Communication

Mark Allocation and Assessment Schedule

Your final mark for the course will be computed as a weighted average of the marks you receive in each of the above assessment tasks. The weights used to compute that final mark and the schedule of the assessment tasks are given below:

**Assessment for this assignment**
Methods of assessment	Weight	Scheduled due date
Topic quizzes and inventory exercises	20%	Weeks 1-6
Mindset paper	15%	Week 6
Innovation project	45%	Weeks 9, 11, 12
Final dossier	20%	Week after last class

Learning Activities and Methods of Assessment

For the purposes of formal feedback and grading, you will be assessed based on your performance in each of the following tasks:

Topic Quizzes and Inventory Exercises

Instead of a midterm exam, quizzes and/or in-class exercises will be used to provide regular feedback on how well you are meeting the learning objectives of each topic. Directions and timing will be announced in class, but expect to be assessed in this way most weeks, especially for the first half of the course. The exercises are designed to help you assess your own personal assets as a creative entrepreneur, in turn providing a foundation for your first assignment and the entrepreneurial practice dossier (both of which are described below).

Entrepreneurial Mindset Paper

You will carry out a reflective analysis to demonstrate how the concepts learned in class relate to what you have learned from the personal inventory exercises you are carrying out. Expect to examine your specific creative entrepreneurial assets, any potential gaps, and how you might respond in order to best develop your own practices.

Innovation Project

You will develop your personal entrepreneurial practice dossier through the activities in the following three-part project:

Part I: Innovation and the Creative Entrepreneur

Working on your own, you will use formative innovation processes to develop an opportunity based on collateral provided by your instructor and prepare a consumer test for delivery to a key potential market. This will include preparing a pitch presentation (Version 1) and developing a networking plan. As part of the process, you will document a post ‘process-reflection-strategy’ in your practice dossier.

Part II: Innovation and the Marketplace

Here you will implement the consumer test developed in Part I. This will include making the pitch, collecting data from the test market and documenting the results in an implications briefing. As part of the process, you will document a post ‘process-reflection-strategy’ in your practice dossier. You will then re-frame the pitch presentation (Version 2) to attract an early stage team or partner.

Part III: Innovation and the Partner/Team

Here you will present your pitch to a ‘qualified’ partner team. You will refine your innovation and pitch accordingly (Version 3), and again document a post ‘process-reflection-strategy’ in your practice dossier.

Final Entrepreneurial Practice Dossier

A major outcome of this course is a personal entrepreneurial practice dossier. In addition to the work already done throughout the course to create this dossier, you will complete a debrief on your work over the semester and present ten professional statements of practice. Details will be provided in class.

Content and Topic Schedule

The following tables provide the topic schedules and links to the content for each topic in this course. When curriculum development has been completed for the course, there will be one link for each topic to its own topic-level description of learning objectives, teaching and learning activities and assessment activities. As described in our Entrepreneurship Curriculum Design Principles and Process Document , this is intended to speak to future teachers of the program. A sample topic can be found here: Topic 1: Vision and Mission.

**Topic Schedule**
Week	Topics	Assessment tasks
#	Topic 1: Entrepreneurial process, principles and context Innovation and creativity Intellectual abilities Thinking styles	TBD
#	Topic 2: Personal characterstics Entrepreneurial personality Entrepreneurial motivation	TBD
#	Topic 3: Entrepreneurial knowledge and skills Models of innovation Opportunistic imagination Entrepreneurial judgment	TBD
#	Topic 4: Entrepreneurial behaviours Entrepreneurial motivation Iteration and design cycle Systematic development of alternatives Decision processes	TBD
#	Topic 5: Risk management Optimum product concept selection and economics Intellectual ability	TBD
#	Topic 6: Marketing Understanding the market Understanding your consumer Entrepreneurial knowledge	TBD
#	Topic 7: Human resources Conflict resilient group Processes and high performance teams	TBD
#	Topic 8: Skills and abilities for execution Persuasive ability Extraversion Negotiation Pitching Presentation Selling	TBD

Resources

The following sources are not intended to be read by the student. They are included here for completeness to provide a representative cross-section of the resources that are informing the development of this course:

Afuah, A. (1998). Innovation management: strategies, implementation and profits. New York: Oxford University Press. (Chapter 2 pgs 13-45)
Dodgson, M., D. Gann, and A. Salter (2005) Think, Plan, Do: Innovation, Technology, and Organization. London, Oxford University Press. pp. 1-5, 26-44.
Christensen, C. (1997) How Can Great Firms Fail? Chapter 1 in The Innovator’s Dilemma (MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997), pp. 3-28.
McMullan, E.W. (2009). The Creative Entrepreneur. Textbook in press.
Roberts, E. and A. Fusfeld (1981) Staffing the Innovative Technology-Based Organization. Sloan Management Review, Spring 1981, pp. 19-34.
Shane, S. A. (2005). Finding fertile ground: identifying extraordinary opportunities for new ventures. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Wharton School Pub.
Stevenson, H. and S. Spence. (2007). Identifying and exploiting the right entrepreneurial opportunity…for you. (MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2007), 9-808-043.
von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing Innovation. Accessed online at: [1]
Wheelwright, S. and K. Clark (1992) Structuring the Development Funnel. In Revolutionizing Product Development, (NY: The Free Press, 1992), Chapter 5, pp. 111-132.

Course authors and contributors


Role	Name(s)
Authors	Patricia Derbyshire
Contributors	Alex Bruton Laurie Jensen Stephen Kenny

Copyright

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