Graduate Certificate in Corporate Innovation

Explores the challenges and processes for harnessing technological innovation for new-business development. Integrates technology strategy, innovation in marketing, product development, and organization design for the purpose of enterprise growth. Through readings, cases, and exercises, studies how firms from different industries gain competitive advantage through distinctive products and services, and leverage their technologies and skills into new emerging markets. Also focuses on processes for conceiving, financing, and organizing new ventures.

INNO 6200 | 3 Hours

Gives students the opportunity to build a complete business plan for new high-potential ventures. Covers all aspects of the planning process, from the point of view of both the prospective entrepreneur and the potential investor. Explores the demands of the entrepreneurial career through reading, self-assessment exercises, and group projects. Guest speakers from startup companies, law firms, and venture capital firms provide a window on current experiences in the small-business world. Recommended for prospective entrepreneurs as well as others who may become involved with new ventures.

ENTR 6212 | 3 Hours

Covers topics specific to managing a business or a strategic business unit within a firm. Considers the special issues related to technology-based firms. Topics include creating a culture, operations planning, staffing for technical excellence, dealing with technology vendors, dealing with advisers, supply chain management, and writing operations plans. Open to first-year graduate students.

TECE 6300 | 3 Hours

Focuses on the personal skills an entrepreneur needs to lead and persuade others. Students read about and complete exercises on leadership and selling ideas. In addition, students meet members of the entrepreneurship community in New England. Stresses communications skills, both written and oral, along with self-discovery of leadership style.

TECE 6340 | 3 Hours

Focuses on the main processes needed to develop a complex, high-technology product. Emphasizes the most important techniques and approaches used in a startup environment. Seeks to benefit students of all engineering disciplines including computer science and biomedical, industrial, electrical, mechanical, computer, and chemical engineering. Includes a running practical project in which a new product is designed and executed through a series of small projects for each phase of the product development process. Topics include the product life cycle, new product development processes, project planning and management, new product idea generation, the systems approach to product development, design for manufacturing, market testing and launch, and escalation to manufacturing.

GE 5100 | 4 Hours

Explores how corporate venturing and entrepreneurial teams can quickly and effectively bring new concepts to market. Demonstrates how small technical teams can quickly investigate opportunity spaces, develop and select concepts, and translate these into prototypes. Other topics include industrial design thinking, project teams, prototyping, and commercialization of design. Explores the challenges and solutions to managing a technology-based product within an established corporation and details frameworks on how innovative projects can be inexpensively tested and deployed within the organization.

ENTR 6217 | 3 Hours

Reviews the key theories and tools needed to understand how technological change creates new markets and prompts new business models, how technology-based firms can outcompete rivals in fast-growing markets characterized by high uncertainty, and how the evolution of technology in an industry affects the type of firm capabilities needed to succeed over time.

ENTR 6222 | 3 Hours

Offers students an opportunity to analyze whether, why, and how multibusiness corporations expand their operations into new business areas by questioning decisions to grow globally through mechanisms such as acquisitions or alliances. Uses rigorous case-based discussions, expert readings, and major current events to discuss issues related to the choice of make, buy, or partner. Offers students an opportunity to evaluate how these different corporate entrepreneurial strategies are used to help firms be more competitive and innovative.

ENTR 6225 | 3 Hours

Examines the actions that managers must take to stimulate innovation and direct it in ways that allow the organization to accomplish its goals. Topics include what organization forms are most conducive to innovation, what factors hinder innovativeness and how can they be overcome, and what role managers play in bringing about innovation. Focuses on the actions that companies and their managers can take to design their organizations and systems effectively in order to foster innovativeness. Elements of an organization's infrastructure include design, reward mechanisms, communication patterns, boundary spanning, control systems, leadership at all levels, and the organization's culture.

HRMG 6212 | 3 Hours

Examines the leadership and managerial skills required for effectively managing multifunctional teams engaged in product, service, and business process innovation. Incorporates fieldwork, corporate visits, and other experiential learning opportunities. Explores strategies for recruiting, motivating, and retaining high-performance people. Introduces models for leading systematic innovative change within established corporate cultures, including understanding senior management attitudes toward innovation and how to create executive sponsors and mentors.

HRMG 6280 | 3 Hours

Focuses on next-generation products, systems, and services with an integrated framework that applies market innovation, user-centered design, architectural and platform innovation, and business model innovation. Offers students an opportunity to apply these concepts to new product/service/business process innovation opportunities in their own organization with executive sponsorship and faculty guidance.

MGMT 6280 | 3 Hours

Focuses on the challenges and decisions new-product managers face as they take ideas through the new-product-development process. Companies need to create, develop, and market new products and services continually to compete effectively in a rapidly changing environment. Provides an overview of the new-product-development process, with an emphasis on customer involvement in this process. Provides detailed insights on such topics as new-product strategy, idea generation, idea selection and evaluation, concept development and testing, product development and testing, and market testing.

MKTG 6214 | 3 Hours