Chair of the Strategy Division of the Academy of Management
Associate Dean of Faculty for the Olin School
Professor Argyres joined the Olin Business School faculty in 2008. He is currently the Vernon W. and Marion K.Piper Professor of Strategy. He has served as Chair of the Strategy Division of the Academy of Management, and as Associate Dean of Faculty for the Olin School.
Course Description
This course explores some of the most important ways in which senior executives manage innovation strategically. We’ll focus on analyzing technological changes in the firm’s environment, addressing challenges in commercializing innovations, designing the company’s formal and informal organization structures to foster innovation, choosing activities to conduct internally and by contract in the innovation process, and others. We’ll also practice critical thinking about innovation, especially formulating problems before solving them.
The course thus deals with how executives choose which problems to solve through innovation, and how they organize the knowledge resources to create and capture value with that innovation. The course cannot cover the full depth and breadth of materials on the strategic management of innovation. The course’s goal is therefore to provide a sufficient introduction to the topic so that students can continue learning through their own self-directed course of study.