Dr Jonathan Liebenau NAB 5.14

This course is available on the BSc in Accounting and Finance, BSc in Management, International Exchange (1 Term) and International Exchange (Full Year). This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

The main focus of this course is on how innovative technologies are managed and their consequences. It includes technological innovation in areas such as telecoms, hi tech industries, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, space technology, financial technologies. Aspects covered are how new industries are created, how existing industries can be transformed by new technologies, linkages between technological development and the creation of wealth, and implementation success and failure of technological systems. Topics include: technology and entrepreneurship, technology strategy, R&D management, patents and intellectual property, disruptive technologies, project escalation, technological disasters. Economic, systems, managerial and sociological approaches will be compared using a variety of case studies.

15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of classes in the MT.

Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

Classes are based around reading and discussing selected journal articles and case studies from the course study pack on Moodle. Formative feedback is provided on class participation.

In addition, students will present an essay plan in preparation for the final case-based essay, on which formative feedback will be provided.

J Howells, The Management of Innovation and Technology, Sage, 2005; J Fagerberg, D.C. Mowery, and R.R. Nelson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation (Series Oxford Handbooks in Business and Management), Oxford University Press, 2006; D MacKenzie, Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change, MIT Press, 1998; M Bauer (Ed), Resistance to New Technology: Nuclear Power Information Technology and Biotechnology, CUP 1995; M Biagioli (Ed), The Science Studies Reader, Routledge, 1999; H Collins & T Pinch, The Golem at Large: What you should know about technology, Cambridge University Press, 1998; 

C Perrow, Normal Accidents: living with high-risk technologies, Basic Books, 1984; H Drummond, Escalation in Decision-making: The Tragedy of Taurus, Oxford University Press, 1996; D Mowery & N Rosenberg, Paths of Innovation: technological change in 20th century America, Cambridge University Press, 1998; J McLaughlin, P Rosen, D Skinner & A Webster, Valuing Technology: organisations, culture and change, Routledge, London and New York, 1999; J R Chiles Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the edge of technology, 2001; P Hall, Great Planning Disasters, 1982; C Sauer, Why Information Systems Fail: A Case Study Approach, Alfred Waller, 1993. 

Exam (40%, duration: 2 hours) in the summer exam period.
Essay (50%, 5000 words) in January.
In class assessment (10%).