Managing Innovation for Sustainability

LED5025

This course explores the concept and practice of Innovation for Sustainability (IFS) in different contexts and paradigms. It covers various aspects of IFS, such as worldviews, practices, sustainability impacts, partnerships, multi-leveled innovations, methods and management. The course mainly focuses on three empirical contexts (tentatively) - tourism and experiences; local food and alternative food systems; and fish farming - but the core content is also relevant for other sectors. The course will analyze the sustainability challenges and opportunities, as well as the approaches and outcomes, in these contexts. The course will also discuss the increasing problems of spatial pressure and local conflicts. As the cross-sectoral and stakeholder challenges grow, finding new ways to collaborate in IFS is essential, not only in Norway but worldwide. There is no single solution for this issue, but it is very urgent to address it in careful ways.

The course is open to students in the Master of Science in Business and Master of Global Management study programmes. It can also be taken as single course, if relevant bachelor degree.

Upon successful completion of this course, students should have developed the following competencies:

Knowledge:

Advanced knowledge, as well as the ability to use and analyze knowledge/issues within the following topis:

- Paradigms for innovation of sustainability, their characteristics, value, management implications and key knowledge gaps. These include paradigms such as neo-liberal economy, ecological economy, regenerative, nudging (behavioral economics), indigenous and relational perspectives.

- Perspectives on sustainability within the three main empirical contexts. The challenges, potentials and approaches used in IFS within these contexts.

- Stakeholder theory, partnerships and participative methods in innovation and IFS. These cover network-driven innovation, lab-driven innovation, utopia-workshops and dialogues, management of and facilitation for open participative (co-creation) innovation/IFS processes.

- Causes and implications of spatial pressures and conflicts across sectors and stakeholder groups, and strategies to prevent escalation while promoting collaboration and coexistence.

- Examples of strategies used in IFS at different levels (e.g. product, process, organizational, business models, community), and new concepts such as workation/remote work and co-working spaces.

Skills: Upon completing the course, the candidate can:

- Work with innovative solutions for sustainability in various contexts, sectors and levels of governance.

- Design, implement and evaluate participatory and collaborative methods for IFS, such as conducting a lab process with stakeholders.

- Analyze, critique and discuss the main challenges and opportunities for sustainability and IFS within and across sectors and levels of analysis, and their implications for management.

General competence: The candidate can:

- To acquire and apply relevant research-based knowledge within the course topics, and communicate about it.

- To participate effectively in work with sustainability and innovation for sustainability.

Paid semester fee and syllabus literature. It is also required that students have a laptop at their disposal.

This course is based on active students. It is expected that students physically meet on campus. The learning process is based on lectures, discussions, exercises (e.g. case, paper) with supervision, throughout the semester. We will arrange business excursion which is compulsory. You will work on an innovation project in group that combines theory and practice, then you can choose one of the three main industries for your project.

The study programme is evaluated annually by students by way of course evaluation studies. These evaluations are included in the universitys quality assurance system.

The final grade is based on two components: a portfolio exam (50%) in group (3-4 students) and an oral exam (50%) individually. The portfolio exam is an innovation project with two subparts. There are two mandatory requirements: 1) You must attend the visit to firm(s) and 2) participate in the facilitation of one co-creation when this is included in the innovation project.

All support materials allowed in the work with innovation project, but one has to report references and mark if texts are made by others (including AI). In oral exam, one can bring own innovation project report, but no other aid. Generating an answer using ChatGPT or similar artificial intelligence and submitting it wholly or partially as one's own answer is considered cheating.

Pre-knowledge about sustainabiity and about innovation. The course MAF? 'Global trends' should have been completed.

Subject language

English

Credits

7.5

Study location

Bodø

Responsible faculty

Nord University Business School

Course coordinator

Professor

Dorthe Helen Næss Eide

dorthe.eide@nord.no