Master's in Innovation - D'Amore-McKim School of Business

Today’s tech-driven business environment demands constant adaptation. Successfully leading people and organizations over changing terrain requires not just agility and confidence, but a grounding in well-recognized principles of innovation. With a D’Amore-McKim Master’s in Innovation degree, you’ll challenge the status quo and champion of both continuous improvement and disruptive transformation.

Master’s in Innovation Program Overview

Program Structure: 10 core courses
Class Schedule: 100% online, with flexible study times, virtual class meetings, and regular deliverables for a strong learning experience
Time to Complete: 20 months

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Unique Features

#11

Among graduate entrepreneurship programs

(Princeton Review, 2021)

#61

Among graduate business schools

(U.S. News & World Report, 2021)

$180+ million

Raised through IDEA, Northeastern’s student-run venture accelerator

Our Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Bring Products to Life

Develop innovation skills that translate across all companies, industries, and functional areas
Understand how to leverage data and technology to evolve as your industry evolves
Advance your career via a project at your company—solving an existing challenge with fresh, innovative thinking and producing tangible results for your employer
Learn from faculty who are recognized thought leaders in both corporate innovation and entrepreneurship—including founders of tech startups, change agents from multiple industries, and top consultants
Increase your learning through our faculty’s emphasis on real-world case studies
Apply credits earned toward a future MBA degree at Northeastern
Get personalized career guidance from the D’Amore-McKim Graduate Career Center

Admissions

GMAT/GRE required? For the 2021-22 and 2022-2023 academic years, Northeastern University is test-optional and does not require applicants to submit GMAT or GRE scores to be considered for admission. For more information, review our admissions policies.
English language proficiency: English proficiency, both written and verbal, is necessary for success in D’Amore-McKim classrooms. For more information, review our admissions policies.
Where do I apply? Apply using this application.
Interview required? By invitation.

Deadlines & Decisions

Find the deadlines and decision dates you need to know. Submit your application by the earliest date possible for priority consideration.

Please visit the Northeastern Student Financial Services page. Click the dropdown under “Graduate Programs” and you will find the rate next to D’Amore-McKim.

At Northeastern, we value and celebrate diversity in all its forms and strive to foster an inclusive culture built on respect that affirms inter-group relations and builds community, which is vital to learning and discovery.

Scholarships and Fellowships

D’Amore-McKim offers and partners with organizations that provide a variety of scholarships and fellowships to foster diversity and inclusion. Examples of these include The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Graduate Fellowship, Prospansica MBA Scholarship, Posse MBA Scholarship and Reach Out MBA Fellowship.

View All Scholarships on Our Tuition & Aid Page

Clubs and Organizations

Northeastern has many opportunities for you to be engaged with our community. Examples include the following:

Graduate Students of Color Collective

The purpose of the GSCC is to build community for graduate students of color at Northeastern University by promoting education, professionalism, and civic duty. The GSCC fosters student, staff, and faculty relationships to establish a campus home for higher education at Northeastern. Through civic engagement with surrounding communities, the GSCC recognizes the continued struggles of marginalized populations, and the need for those who have succeeded to give back.

Grad Q

Grad Q is a student organization for LGBTQ+ graduate students at Northeastern. Grad Q is focused on building community, social events, advocacy, and mentoring undergraduate students.

Campus Resources

We have a number of cultural centers on campus to support our campus community by providing programs, lectures, and events for students with a range of affiliations and interests including the LGBTQA Resource Center, Office of Global Services, Latinx Student Cultural Center, Asian American Center, and many more.

View All Campus Resources

Apply for the Master’s in Innovation

Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to give you innovation skills across multiple business functions.

Through 10 core courses delivered in seven-week bursts of intensive learning—and enhanced by your in-depth personal innovation project—you’ll learn how to drive transformation and hone your company’s competitive edge. You’ll know how to design and market next-generation products and services, reinvent business processes, explore new business models and ventures, and lead teams of innovation practitioners in implementing change.

With our flexible online model, you’ll take two classes at a time in sequence with your classmates, studying when it’s convenient for you between regularly scheduled class meetings and deliverable deadlines. All courses are seven weeks long, allowing for an intensive learning experience.

Required Courses

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 credits

Introduces the substantive and procedural aspects of marketing strategy and customer markets. Topics include how to identify target markets, how to leverage data and analyses to enhance the development of a marketing strategy, and how to develop knowledge of various techniques for uncovering customer needs/wants. Studies the importance of customer insights to business success. Offers students an opportunity to develop and implement a concept test.
MKTG 6280 | 3 credits

Covers the fundamental methods by which the financial successes and failures of business enterprises are measured and reported to management and external capital providers. Offers students an opportunity to become proficient at analyzing financial statement information in order to assess the effects of business decision making on firm performance. Addresses analytics focusing on the identification of capital to fund innovation initiatives in conjunction with metrics to measure the potential value associated with new product and service offerings. Seeks to help students understand how management decisions and innovation initiatives affect enterprise financial statements and shareholder perceptions of value creation.
ACCT 6280 | 3 credits

Reviews the product portfolio concept, examining the need for balanced portfolios and focusing on issues related to product proliferation and simplification. Discusses market-based pricing strategies, sales efforts, distribution, and communication in the context of enhancing the firm’s product position in the marketplace. Focuses on developing and executing sales. Explores business-to-business and business-to-customer strategies.
MKTG 6283 | 3 credits

Examines innovation in services and the internal management of business processes. Uses a framework of service/process redesign. Emphasizes strategic initiatives and key organizational change elements critical for improving services to customers; increasing profitability; and building long-term customer loyalty across multiple industry sectors, including information technology, healthcare, financial services, and government. Introduces the various strategic aspects of process improvement in the delivery of services, including managing change and the resulting impact on the organization, supply-chain management in the service industry, process improvement, overcoming organizational resistance, customer involvement, empowerment, and the role of leadership in managing operations. Through guided project work, offers students an opportunity to apply these concepts to services and internal business processes at their own organizations.
MGSC 6281 | 3 credits

Offers an immersion in corporate finance with a specific focus on the financing of innovation and growth at firms. Topics include analyzing and applying finance from the perspective of intrapreneurship as well as entrepreneurship.
FINA 6284 | 3 credits

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 credits

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 credits

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 credits

Analyzes whether, why, and how multibusiness corporations expand their operations into new business areas by questioning decisions to grow organically or 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. Evaluates how these different corporate entrepreneurial strategies are used to help firms be more competitive and innovative.ENTR 5225 | 3 credits

*The curriculum is subject to change by D’Amore-McKim faculty. Please monitor for updates.