SMO 686
Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Study Tour
WINTER TERM 2019
Section 850
BUS 2-09 Instructor: Dr. Anthony R. Briggs
Office: BUS 2-29C or eHUB, 9007 HUB Mall Office Phone: (780) 492-4993
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: Before class and by appointment
Required Materials: SMO 686 Back Bay Pack ($15.00US)Available @ https://hbsp.harvard.edu/import/601007 Course Web Site: https://eclass.srv.ualberta.ca/portal/
COURSE GOALS:
The study tour is intended to be an interesting and provocative study tour for the MBA curriculum. The material in this course is to introduce you to leading organizations in the management of technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. The study tour will help us explore three questions:
• What is a technology, innovation and/or entrepreneurial ecosystem?
• How do we learn from other ecosystems to understand how we can change the world around us?
• Most importantly, how can learning from other ecosystems and cultures help us develop meaning in our own careers and lives?
DESIGN OF THE COURSE:
The course is in three parts. The first part of the course is designed to help us understand a different ecosystem. Each student will explore one pioneering organization and share its role in the local ecosystem.
The second part of the course is designed to introduce an understanding of patterns of change in
technology and markets. The main evaluated component of this part of the course will be the Harvard Business School Publishing Back Bay Battery simulation. In this component students will manage innovation strategies during a disruptive market shift.
The third part of the course is designed to be reflective. How can students learn from other ecosystems that could work in our ecosystem? What can’t work in our ecosystem? Finally, how can we further develop our own careers and interests to lead more fulfilling and meaningful lives.
EVALUATION Your evaluation will be based on the four sets of deliverables below:
1. Current Company Presentation /20%
2. Technology Strategy with Back Bay Battery
a. Technology Strategy 10%
b. Individual Performance 10% /20%
3. Tour Participation /30%
4. Individual Reflection Paper /30%
Course Total /100%
Assignment Format and Submission
All written assignments should be 11 or 12 point font, one and a half or double spaced with one inch margins all around. Title pages, references and appendices are not included in page count. When appropriate, you should use diagrams and tables in an appendix. References should be cited using APA Style. Assignments are to be submitted by email (as a PDF or MS Word attachment).
Grading
All grading will be done by the instructor. Detailed grades will be posted on uLearn as soon as they are computed. Please review them and send any feedback about any potential errors. You are welcome to discuss your individual class performance and standing in the course with me during my office hours.
Grade Distribution Constraints
I will follow the official grading policy found in §23.4(4) of the University Calendar. Grades will be calculated using a combination of the recommended distribution and absolute measures. If the class as a whole is highly engaged, lower grades will be rare and the distribution may be higher than guidelines.
Late Policy
Because of the timing and nature of the simulations, and to maintain fairness among all students, late assignments will lose 10% of the grade for every day that it is late.
COURSE OUTLINE
• Required
o Recommended / Reference
January 12 Part 1: Innovation Ecosystems
• Spigel, B. (2015) The Relational Organization of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. 41(1): 49-72. WEB
Part 2: Patterns of Technological Change
• Moore, G.A. (2004) Darwin and the Demon: Innovating within Established Enterprises. Harvard Business Review. 82(8):86-92. uLearn
• Kim, W.C. and Mauborgne, R. (2007) Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Boston: Harvard Business School Press Chapter 1 (p.3-23). uLearn
• Christensen, C.M. and Raynor, M.E. (2003) The Innovators Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Ch. 2 (p. 31-71). uLearn January 29 Part 3: Exponential Organizations
• Diamandis, P. and Kotler, S. (2016) Goodbye Linear Thinking: Hello Exponential. Rotman Magazine, 38-43. WEB
• Hodgson, L. (2018) A Day in the Life of a VC Investor. Pitchbook, November. WEB
• Levy, S. (2011) Y Combinator is Boot Camp for Startups. Wired, May. WEB
• Diamond (1997) The Curse of QWERTY. Discover Magazine. WEB
• Ransdell, E. (1999) Network Effects. Fast Company, August. WEB
DUE: Current Company Presentations
February 9 DUE: Christensen, C.M. and Shih, W. (2009) Back Bay Battery Simulation. HBSP February 22 Dinner Discussion
o Christensen, C. (2010) How Will You Measure Your Life? Harvard Business Review. 88 (7/8), 46-51.uLearn
March 8 DUE: Individual Reflection Paper Additional Strategy References
o Barney, J.B. (1995). Looking Inside for Competitive Advantage. Academy of Management o Executive, 9(4): 49-61. WEB
o Roberts, E.B., and Berry, C.A. (1985). Entering New Businesses: Selecting Strategies for Success. Sloan Management Review, 26 (3): 3-17. WEB
O Eisenhardt, K.M. and Sull, D. (2001) Strategy as Simple Rules. Harvard Business Review.
WEB
DETAILS ON EVALUATED COMPONENTS 1. Current Company Presentation – DUE January 29th
You will have the opportunity to showcase your interests, presentation skills and research skills in a short presentation about a pioneering organization listed in Appendix 1. The presentation will have five components:
1. What is the organizations origin and what does it do?
2. Where is the organization located? What other organizations are nearby?
3. Does the organization have a competitive advantage? (Use Barney VRIO)
4.
What major problems is the organization facing? Can they organization solve this problem?5.
What recent industry or organization news best exemplifies a new key issue for this organization? (Share link)This assignment will be a 5-6 minute presentation. Students will each pick an organization in class.
Individual presentations are graded out of twenty points. The quality of the content for the five items above will each be graded out of three. The remaining five points will be assessed on the quality of the presentation, the use of visuals and good mechanics on structure and timing.
2. Innovation Strategy with Back Bay Battery ® (20%)
Back Bay Battery is a simulation offered by Harvard Business School Press. It is based on a classic management dilemma: do managers focus on investing in existing technologies and risk being displaced by new technologies, or do they focus on investing in new technologies and risk their existing markets?
The Back Bay Battery simulation mimics this management dilemma very well.
Back Bay Battery is an individual exercise where individuals compete against the computer. In the simulation you will be responsible for making R&D allocation decisions for two different technologies, in three different market segments, over eight simulated years.
In this simulation you will be playing against the computer and your round feedback is immediate. The simulation itself only takes about 60-70 minutes to run as it has very few decision elements per round.
You will be able to play the game up to three times and I will take your best performance. Between the assignments and multiple simulation runs, you could spend upward of 4 to 6 hours on the requirements.
Before the simulation, I will introduce the general management dilemma in the first class. From there, students will have approximately three weeks to complete the assignment outside of class. The assignment will be in two parts:
• Back Bay Battery ® “Technology Strategy” (10%) – Do this first!
A maximum 2 page “Technology Strategy” is due before your first decision in the Back Bay Battery simulation. You may also include appendices. Please submit this via email, anytime, at your convenience.
I will grade this Technology Strategy on your ability to identify the key problem facing the firm and their strategy for investment. A thoroughly considered strategic plan is sufficient to solve the simulation.
• Back Bay Battery ® Performance (10%) - DUE February 9th
You will have three opportunities to run the simulation. Scores will be graded based on your best single performance during the simulation. This performance will be a function of your ability to improve two performance metrics: “Total Cumulative Profit” and the “UC Revenue Growth Rate.” Mediocre improvement in either metric will warrant a grade of 6. A high level of improvement on only a single metric will warrant a grade of 7. To receive a grade of 8, 9, or 10, you will need to improve both profit and UC revenue growth. All simulations must be completed by February 9th.
3. Tour Participation
Your participation grade will be a combination of your engagement (20%) and your regular submission of three informed questions (300 words max for 10%), posted to eclass, specific to any three of the
organizations we are visiting. The “informed question” will be topic relevant that organization, such as a current topic, a issue about competitiveness or a question about the organizations environment, followed by a short explanation of how the student might initially explore answering the question (300 words max).
Each student will post three questions and must do so before 6pm the night before the organization is visited. Some questions may be shared in advance with the host, or discussed later, at the instructor’s discretion.
4. Reflection Paper (30%) – DUE March 8th
This course is a study tour and as such it is important to integrating the different experiences from the tour with concepts learned in the lectures. This assignment, 5 pages maximum, gives you a chance to reflect on the learning you have gained from the class discussion, lectures and assignments. You are to write, in detail, on three key areas.
A. Using the Spigel paper, and the pyramid models, can you define and illustrate how the Silicon Valley’s and Seattle’s ecosystems are similar and different? How similar are they to Edmonton’s? What could Edmonton gain by imitating aspects of other ecosystems? Could it also lose?
B. Is the ecosystem or the organization more important? What organization most interested you during the tour? Does that organization have a competitive advantage (see recommended references) and would it be successful in Edmonton? Why are why not?
C. Considering the Christensen (2010) article, do different ecosystems impact your ability to accomplish your individual goals? How about different existing
organizations? Would you need to build a new organization to achieve your goals, or would that be counter-productive? Be specific.
The individual reflection paper will be graded on (1) the breadth and quality of use of readings and examples from the course and (2) the information richness of your arguments. I encourage you to be creative, but also rigorous, with this exercise.
UNIVERSITY COURSE PROCEDURES AND POLICIES
Policies about course outlines can be found here and in §23.4(2) of the University Calendar.
Missed Assignments: Approval for an excused absence from term work is at the discretion of the
instructor as per §23.3(1) of the University Calendar. Any student who is incapacitated because of illness, is suffering from severe domestic affliction, or has other compelling reasons (including religious
conviction) may apply for an excused absence for a missed assignment. If you have a conflict please discusses it with me beforehand and I will be happy to find a good solution with you. In fairness to other students, I will rarely accept excuses once an assignment deadline has passed.
Appropriate Conduct: My goal in this course is to create a supportive environment for learning based on open, constructive debate. This requires all of us to be engaged with the material and with each other in a professional manner, with courtesy and respect for each other’s individuality. Discrimination, malicious criticism, and disruption of class are examples of conduct that are not acceptable.
Lecture Recordings: Audio or video recording of lectures, labs, seminars or any other teaching
environment by students is allowed only with the prior written consent of the instructor or as a part of an approved accommodation plan. Recorded material is to be used solely for personal study, and is not to be used or distributed for any other purpose without prior written consent from the instructor.
Academic Integrity: The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behaviour (online
at www.governance.ualberta.ca) and avoid any behaviour which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.
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Note: This syllabus may be subject to minor modifications (January 12, 2019).
Appendix 1 – Pathbreaking Organizations Buck Institute
Microsoft Boeing Facebook OtherLab!
Plug and Play Stanford University Hewlett Packard Uber
Starbucks Gilead
Kleiner Perkins Silicon Valley Bank
Amazon
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati Verily
Google Apple
Institute for Systems Biology Zillow
Costco
Singularity University Expedia
Electronic Arts
Cliff Lede Vineyards
Genentech
Appendix 2 – Rough Schedule Class Sessions:
Saturday, January 12, 2019 - 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm in room 2-09 Saturday, January 26, 2019 - 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm in room 2-09
Friday, February 15
th•
Noon EIA check-in and 1pm tour
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4:15pm Flight, Arrive Hilton San Francisco Union Square Saturday, February 16
th•
Morning – Novato, Buck Institute
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Afternoon – Napa, Cliff Lede Vineyards Sunday, February 17
th•
Morning – Mountain View, Computer History Museum, NASA AMES
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Afternoon – Stanford, Stanford University, Gott’s Roadside Monday, February 18
th•
Free day
Tuesday, February 19
th•
Morning – Menlo Park
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Afternoon – Mountain View
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Evening - Sunnyvale Wednesday, February 20
th•
Morning – San Francisco
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Afternoon – San Francisco
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7:54 Flight to Seattle, Arrive Mayflower Park Hotel Thursday, February 21
st•
Morning – Redmond
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Afternoon – Bellevue Friday, February 22
nd•
Morning – Mukulteo
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Afternoon – Seattle
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Evening – Seattle, Dinner Saturday, February 23
rd•
Free day
•
