Individual Assignment: Module project: innovation and entrepreneurship
This Individual Assignment will combine your knowledge of innovation and entrepreneurship and allow you to demonstrate your understanding of these concepts.
The Weeks 1 and 2 readings and overviews explored the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation. Importantly, in Week 2 you considered that innovation is not confined to new products; innovation also relates to services (such as marketing and banking) and processes (such as improved production methods or improved ways of training employees).
For this Individual Assignment, you will develop an idea for a new product, service or process and present a business plan to implement this idea. This idea could be implemented by setting up a new enterprise. Alternatively, you can choose to implement this idea as part of an internal improvement plan within a larger entity, whereby revenues are increased or costs reduced.
In broad terms, the Individual Assignment is designed to allow you to demonstrate how you would commercialise the ideas that you have developed. Commercialising an idea means that you need to think about important matters such as: Why the idea is important? Is there a commercial or value-adding need for the idea, and if so, what will it be? How will you resource this idea (taking into account different types of necessary resources), and how will the idea be implemented and monitored?
To complete this Individual Assignment:
Submit 900 words assignment that includes these components:
- Discuss the innovation that you wish to implement.
- Outline the problem or opportunity that this innovation addresses.
- Consider the commercial benefits or value-adding consequences of this innovation.
To prepare for this Individual Assignment:
- Review the below mentioned readings for Weeks 1 and 2, along with the separately attached Key Concept Overviews.
Week1: Innovation and entrepreneurship: the rationale and relationship
There are many definitions of entrepreneurship, such as ‘starting up a new business’. One particular definition is given by Professor Howard Stevenson from the Harvard Business School who defines entrepreneurship as ‘the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled’. The definition implies taking an idea and developing that idea to create something. The reference to resources is an important one, as all entrepreneurs are resource-constrained. As you will read throughout this module, devoting resources to pursue a business idea involves risk. Some examples are: the risk of financial loss, the risk of market erosion and the risk that the idea pursued will not be welcomed by the market.
The word ‘opportunity’ provides an important link between the two concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship. Opportunity suggests something new. This ‘something new’ could be developing a new product that meets the needs of a particular market that the entrepreneur has identified, or it could be a new way of doing something that an entrepreneurial employee has developed. Alternatively, it could refer to the opportunity to become one’s own boss.
This week, you will analyse the definitions of innovation and entrepreneurship, and you will explore the value of innovation and entrepreneurship to the economy. You will also investigate the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship.
Week2: The importance and meaning of innovation
Many of the existing organisations provide new and innovative products. For example, mobile company leaders launch a newer version of the company’s smartphones. Similarly, if you look at television advertisements for automobiles, the word ‘innovation’ is used often to highlight the importance of innovation to a particular industry that seeks to maintain and grow market share through the introduction of newer designs and features to its products.
However, the importance of other sectors to national economies cannot be overlooked. For the purposes of consistency, you will use the word ‘processes’ to define how organisations manage themselves. This management includes the human resources, marketing, operations and financing functions of an organisation. Innovation within processes also adds value to what an organisation does.
In the following week, you will explore the sources of innovation. Having an understanding of the nature and scope of innovation can lead entrepreneurs to explore opportunities in many different industries and sectors of economy. However, the challenge lies in identifying where these opportunities reside and how to recognise them. In Week 3, you will consider some of the sources of innovation that can assist entrepreneurs in identifying opportunities.
This week begins a 2-week cycle where you will look in depth at innovation.
Read the following Resources:-
Week1 Resources
Journal
Baregheh, A., Rowley, J. & Sambrook, S. (2009) ‘Towards a multidisciplinary definition of innovation’, Management Decision, 47 (8), pp. 1323-1339.
Use the University of Liverpool Online Library to find this article.
Journal
Qian, H. & Haynes, K.E. (2014) ‘Beyond innovation: the small business innovation research program as entrepreneurship policy’, Journal of Technology Transfer, 39 (4), pp. 524-543.
Use the University of Liverpool Online Library to find this article.
Journal
Silva Néto, A.T. & Meira Teixeira, R. (2014) ‘Innovation of micro and small enterprises: measuring the degree of innovation of companies participating in the local innovation agents project’, Brazilian Business Review (English Edition), 11 (4), pp. 1-27.
Use the University of Liverpool Online Library to find this article.
Journal
Czarnitzki, D. & Delanote, J. (2013) ‘Young innovative companies: the new high-growth firms?’, Industrial & Corporate Change, 22 (5), pp. 1315-1340.
Use the University of Liverpool Online Library to find this article.
Week2 Resources
Journal
Birkinshaw, J., Hamel, G. & Mol, M.J. (2008) ‘Management innovation’, Academy of Management Review, 33 (4), pp. 825-845.
Use the University of Liverpool Online Library to find this article.
Journal
Varis, M. & Littunen, H. (2010) ‘Types of innovation, sources of information and performance in entrepreneurial SMEs’, European Journal of Innovation Management, 13 (2), pp. 128-154, Emerald Insight [Online].
Use the University of Liverpool Online Library to find this article.
Journal
Sawhney, M., Wolcott, R. & Arroniz, I. (2006) ‘The 12 different ways for companies to innovate’, MIT Sloan Management Review, 47 (3), pp. 75-81.
Use the University of Liverpool Online Library to find this article.
