Бакалавриат 2025/2026

Открытые инновации

Статус: Курс обязательный (Управление цифровым продуктом)

Кто читает: Департамент бизнес-информатики

Где читается: Высшая школа бизнеса

Когда читается: 4-й курс, 1 модуль

Охват аудитории: для своего кампуса

Преподаватели: Текич Желько

Язык: английский

Контактные часы: 40

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Open Innovation (OI) is defined as a distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries. In essence, it encompasses a wide range of practices related to external knowledge acquisition and commercialization—from simple crowd engagement (such as choosing a new ice cream flavor) to the involvement of lead users in developing medical devices, R&D purchases, venturing, licensing agreements, and free revealing of inventions. In the OI approach, firms look beyond their boundaries to exploit the creativity and expertise of users, customers, experts, and online communities to co-create new products and services. By expanding firm boundaries, open innovation reshapes how companies—whether large corporations, SMEs, or startups—strategize, compete, create, deliver, and capture value. The additional layer of complexity brought by artificial intelligence (AI) further increases the importance of collaboration. In the era of AI, open innovation becomes a vital driver of competitiveness: it enables companies to gather and access data, acquire cutting-edge technologies, attract top talent, and leverage diverse expertise. To thrive in this landscape, organizations must master the art of complex, open collaboration. To prepare students for this context, the Open Innovation course covers the fundamentals of open innovation ideas, tools, practices, and strategies, aiming to equip students with the understanding, knowledge, and skills required to manage open and user innovation projects in their future workplaces. A distinctive feature of the course is a company-sponsored hackathon, where students participate in an intensive, practice-based co-creation process. The hackathon allows them to experience open innovation both as active participants—collaborating, prototyping, and pitching solutions—and as innovation-aware observers, who develop insight into what motivates companies to engage in such collaborations and how these processes are managed.

Learning Objectives

• The course is designed to help students understand, experience, and manage open innovation (OI), reflecting the fact that collaboration has become a central feature of contemporary innovation. Few firms today rely solely on closed, internal R&D; instead, most combine in-house efforts with partnerships, user involvement, and ecosystem collaboration. As a result, open innovation has become a mainstream approach in many industries, and future managers need to be fluent in its logic and practice. While grounded in research and theory, the course is practice-oriented and built around a company-sponsored hackathon, which gives students a concentrated co-creation experience. They learn from both perspectives: as active participants, developing and pitching solutions to authentic company problems, and as innovation-aware observers, analyzing the motives, practices, and challenges companies face when engaging in open innovation. The course highlights the role of the innovation manager, who must be able to design, coordinate, and extract value from collaborative innovation processes. By integrating case studies, analytical frameworks, and the hackathon experience, students gain a holistic understanding of how OI works across large corporations, SMEs, startups, and non-commercial organizations. In doing so, the course prepares students to contribute as innovation managers, product and project managers, ecosystem collaborators, and co-creators who can thrive in a world where innovation is increasingly open and collaborative, particularly in the development of new products and services.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• • Understand, explain and apply fundamental open innovation concepts and practices.
• • Understand and explain the main motivation for organizations to use OI, what OI practices organizations use, who are their main partners in OI, and how they profit from open innovation.
• • Understand, explain and critically discuss the differences between open and closed innovation.
• • Differentiate between the different types of OI tools (co-creation with users, crowdsourcing, Lead Users, Innovation Intermediaries, in-licensing, open source…) and choose the right OI tool for different problem sets.
• • Understand the basics of intellectual property rights and their role in OI.
• • Understand, explain and critically discuss the role of open innovation in managing Digital transformation and AI projects.
• • Analyze and synthesize companies’ open innovation strategies.
• • Effectively communicate innovative initiatives in oral and written form.
• • Productively work in groups.
• • Critically reflect on its own learning.
• • Analyze viable business models, develop an initial business model and test its feasibility • Co-create a minimum viable product (MVP) in a group • Shape technology-based ideas into workable business concepts and learn how to test them in the marketplace. • Differentiate and distinguish the different process activities associated with new product/process/service development, inside or outside an established firm.

Course Contents

• What is innovation and why does it matter – intro to the topic and the course
• From closed to open innovation: Innovation as a process and its models
• Sources of innovation
• Value appropriation mechanisms, IP rights, and Open innovation
• Business models and open innovation – user-centricity
• How technology is commercialized
• User Innovation
• Open and user innovation in Russia
• Open innovation in the era of AI

Assessment Elements

• New Product Development Hackathon
  The hackathon is an intensive problem-solving environment in which students work in teams to address authentic challenges provided by companies. Unlike traditional project work, the hackathon places students under tight time constraints, resource limitations, and real-world complexity, requiring them to make decisions quickly, prioritize effectively, and deliver tangible outcomes. By working under these conditions, students develop a range of transferable skills, including: Analytical problem-solving – breaking down complex, ambiguous challenges into solvable components. Creativity and innovation – generating and testing ideas rapidly, often in the form of prototypes or MVPs. Collaboration and teamwork – coordinating roles, managing conflict, and building on diverse perspectives. Communication and pitching – presenting solutions clearly, persuasively, and under pressure. Resilience and adaptability – learning to respond to feedback, setbacks, and changing constraints. The hackathon thus acts as both a trigger for action and a learning accelerator, providing students with a unique opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge in practice while developing the entrepreneurial, analytical, and interpersonal skills required in professional environments.
• In-Class Discussion & Engagement
  In-Class Discussion & Engagement This is not simply lecture attendance, it is ENGAGEMENT and PARTICIPATION in the lectures, with timely and relevant comments and discussion, comments linked to the previous lectures, assigned readings (including videos), personal experience, or other courses; opinion based on evidence, thinking, responding to the lecturer’s questions. On each lecture day, a student can get engagement points based on its engagement and participation in-class activities. Assessment is done by the course instructor during and immediately after each class. To get these points, the following must be done: • Attend a lecture, AND • Active and voluntary participation in class discussions (by talking or typing in chat – if online) • Being able to address the readings critically during class, thus displaying a good understanding of the subject matter • Being analytical and concise in oral interventions, i.e., backing up arguments by facts and references rather than “feeling this or that” • Monopolising the floor with fluffy, unstructured and redundant monologues will NOT be seen as a positive contribution.
• Exam
  Exam - An individual assessment combining multiple-choice questions (to test conceptual understanding) and long-answer questions (to assess application and critical thinking). The exam covers theories, frameworks, and case-based problem solving in open innovation.

Interim Assessment

• 2025/2026 1st module
  0.4 * Exam + 0.1 * In-Class Discussion & Engagement + 0.5 * New Product Development Hackathon

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Chesbrough, H. W. (2003). The Era of Open Innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(3), 35–41.
• Tidd, J., Bessant, J. R., & Pavitt, K. (2012). Managing innovation : integrating technological, market and organizational change. Chichester [Etc.].
• von Hippel, E. A. (2016). Free Innovation. United States, North America: MIT Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.606752F7

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Baldwin, C., Hienerth, C., & von Hippel, E. (2006). How user innovations become commercial products: A theoretical investigation and case study. Research Policy, (9), 1291. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.eee.respol.v35y2006i9p1291.1313
• Brunswicker, S., & Chesbrough, H. (2018). The Adoption of Open Innovation in Large Firms. Research Technology Management, 61(1), 35–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/08956308.2018.1399022
• Chesbrough, H. (2020). To recover faster from Covid-19, open up: Managerial implications from an open innovation perspective. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.04.010
• Chesbrough, H., & Rosenbloom, R. S. (2002). The role of the business model in capturing value from innovation: evidence from Xerox Corporation’s technology spin-off companies. https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/11.3.529
• Chesbrough, H., Lettl, C., & Ritter, T. (2018). Value Creation and Value Capture in Open Innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 35(6), 930–938. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12471
• Hienerth, C., von Hippel, E., & Berg Jensen, M. (2014). User community vs. producer innovation development efficiency: A first empirical study. Research Policy, (1), 190. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.eee.respol.v43y2014i1p190.201

Authors

• Tekich Zhelko