Advanced market research and innovation strategy / Advanced market research and innovation strategy

Department of Technology and Innovation, Odense
Teaching activity id: PDXMRPDIU1.
Teaching language: English.ECTS / weighting: 5 ECTS / 0.083 full-time equivalent.
Period: Spring 2017.Approved: 24-09-15.
Offered in: Odense.

Subject director:
Assistant Professor Steffen Michael Sørensen, Institut for Teknologi og Innovation.

Prerequisites:
The following courses are recommended: PDXSET4, Module PDXBAS3 including Market Research I

Content - Key areas:
This course develops in the first part students' understanding of how firms formulate themselves strategically. Firstly, this part of the course introduces the foundations of strategy, and will then turn to introducing the role of the environment, the state of the global industry, and the capabilities and position of the firm for strategy making. Secondly, this part of the course examines how innovation strategy is linked to the firm strategy, in order to analyze how firms use innovation to differentiate themselves from competitors. We conclude this part by paying attention to the implementation challenge - i.e. how to put technology and innovation strategy at works.
In the second part, this course provides strategy-relevant insights into different types of qualitative market research techniques and how they can be applied by managers and key decision makers in technology and innovation strategy building as well as in strategic new product development projects. Following this framework, the students will be introduced into different qualitative data collection and data analysis techniques. The two parts of the course will be taught alternating to ensure a close linkage.


Course Content:
  • Elements of Strategy
  • Process of Strategy
  • Technology and Innovation Strategy
  • Relevance of advanced qualitative research
  • Formulating an advanced, strategy-relevant research question
  • Introduction into advanced qualitative data collection techniques such as:
- Interviews
- Case Studies
- Focus Groups
  • Introduction into advanced data analysis techniques
  • Evaluating advanced qualitative research results
  • Formulating a report on the results summarizing the insights from the analysis of advanced primary and secondary market research and strategy-related data

Learning outcomes:
Knowledge
  • The student should know:
  • The most important elements and processes of strategy in general
  • The key areas of strategy development with relation to product development and innovation
  • The different types of technology and innovation strategy and their specific potentials and limitations
  • The most important advanced qualitative data collection techniques
  • Import potentials and limitation of these techniques
  • Recent business and research publications providing insights on the way of using market research data in the technology and innovation strategy as well as in the product development and innovation process.

Skills
  • The student should be able to:
  • Describe the foundational strategy of a firm
  • Describe the main elements of strategy
  • Describe and analyze the strategy process
  • Understand the means for innovation protection
  • To develop their own research questions
  • Collect innovation and strategy-relevant qualitative data
  • Analyze and interpret these qualitative data
  • Assess advanced qualitative research
  • Analyze advanced market research reports to capture insights relevant to the technology and innovation strategy as well as the product development and innovation process
  • Read and interpret some of the recent business and research publications providing insights on the way of using market research data in the technology and innovation strategy as well as in the product development and innovation process.

Competencies
  • The student should be competent in:
  • Analyzing and developing an technology and innovation strategy and discussing the main implementation challenges
  • Assessing firms’ strategy documents and critically discuss their implications for product development and innovation processes on different levels (sector, firm, team)
  • Interpreting different kinds of advanced qualitative market research data
  • Applying advanced qualitative market research data collection techniques to specific product development and innovation tasks.

Time of classes:
Spring

Lessons:
48

Form of instruction:
The course will consist of lectures, case presentations and discussions, practical exercises
(especially for the market research part of the course) and students’ presentations.

Examination conditions:
The portfolio consists of two assignments that must be handed in on time and in accordance with the requirements specified at the start of the semester.

The first assignment includes: i) the preliminary design of a set of qualitative market research questions associated to technology and innovation strategy processes and in relation to particular engineering products and/or services, ii) the performance of one specific qualitative data collection technique within one selected group of participants (e.g. decision makers in a firm, key customers etc.), and iii) the reporting of the results in one consistent document (max 10 standard pages).

The second assignment will be the delivery of a second consistent document with detailed results based on individual student work on a specific project defined jointly by the instructor and the student. It has to consist of the combined application of different advanced and strategy-relevant qualitative market research techniques with different selected groups of participants (see above).

The results of the first and second assignment have to be integrated with each other and summarized in an individual written assignment of maximum 25 standard pages.

Evaluation
Individual oral exam with an internal co-examiner. The individual portfolio will be included as basis for the examination.
Grade in accordance with Danish 7-point grading scale.

Programmes:
Bachelor of Science in Engineering (Product Development and Innovation)
6. semester, mandatory. Offered in: Odense