::University of Leicester Management Centre:: Management and the Shaping of Innovation::
Module Information

Academic Year: 2004/2005
Sessions: 5
Year: MBA
Time: Friday 9:30-1:30 (week 2, 4, 5, 6) & 11:30 – 1:30 (week 3)
Semester: 2
Venue: Ken Edwards Building, Lecture Theatre 2

Module Coordinator: Stevphen Shukaitis
Room: Ken Edwards 529A
Email: ss325 [at] leicester [dot] ac [dot] uk
Office Hours: Mondays 3:30 – 5:30, or by appointment

MODULE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Aims
Innovation, understood as the creation or introduction of new elements into a system of meaning, is a critical aspect of all areas of human culture and social interaction. Traditional approaches to the teaching of innovation and its management have often tended to take a narrowly technical angle on the matter, disregarding or downplaying the social and cultural nature of innovation that is necessary for any new development to be regarded as innovative in the first place. This module will take a broader, more sociologically and culturally informed approach to the study of the processes of innovation and human creativity, in particular paying close attention to the changing nature of innovation through distributed networks and collaborative practices found within the realm of digital economy and network culture.

Objectives
At the end of this module students should:
1.be able to describe processes through which innovative ideas and practices emerge, are validated, and diffuse;
2.possess a historically informed view of the changing nature of how innovation is regarded as a socially, politically, and economically embedded process

TEACHING METHODS
Teaching will consist of lectures and in-class discussions of assigned readings. Lecture materials will be supplemented by smaller group discussions and the use of audio-visual materials. In class discussions will also be supplemented by an on-line listserv / discussion forum (information about which will be provided separately).

MODULE CONTENTS

28 January: Introduction + Overview / Longitude
4 February: Structures of Knowledge and Symbolic Meaning
11 February: Foundations of Network Culture / Harry Halpin Guest Lecture
18 February: General Intellect and Post-Fordist Capitalism
25 February: Copyrights + Innovation / Concluding discussion

REQUIRED READING
There are two main required books for the class and a third that is recommended. All will be made available in the bookstore and through the library. Additional materials and photocopies of readings will be made available in class and will also be held at the Full Time office.

Required:
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (New York: Harper Collins, 1997)

Tiziana Terranova. Network Culture: Politics and the Information Age (London: Pluto Books, 2004)

Recommended:
David F. Noble. The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (New York: Penguin Books, 1997)

Session One (28 January): Introduction + Overview
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
-Setting the Stage, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4

In class viewing and discussion of "Longitude" (BBC Channel 4, 1999)

Session Two (4 February): Structures of Knowledge and Symbolic Meaning
Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, “The Foundations of Knowledge in Everyday Life,” from The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Anchor Books, 1966), 19-46.

Materials on the social imaginary; John B. Thompson / Cornelius Castoriadis, from Class. Edited Patrick Joyce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 113-124.

Case study:
Thomas B. Hughes, “Edison and the Electric Light,” The Social Shaping of Technology. Ed. Donald McKenzie and Judy Jacjman (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1985), 39-54.

Session Three (11 February): Foundations of Network Culture
Tiziana Terranova. Network Culture: Politics and the Information Age
-Introduction, Chapter 1, 2

Case study:
Michael Lewis. The New New Thing: How Some Man You've Never Heard of Just Changed Your Life (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999)
-Preface, Chapter 5, 6

Guest Lecture:
Harry Halpin, Institute for Collaborative and Communicating Systems School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh: “Examining the Architecture of the Web: Social Implications of a Universal Information Space”

Harry Halpin, “Reviewing the Architecture of the World Wide Web,” available at http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2005/01/19/review.html

Tim Berner-Lee, “Weaving the Web.” Available at http://www.w3.org/1999/04/13-tbl.html

Eric Steven Raymond. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Available at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar

Also, GNU General Public License: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

Session 4 (18 February): General Intellect and Post-Fordist Capitalism
Terranova. Network Culture
-Chapter 3, 4

Franco Piperno, “Technological Innovation and Sentimental Education,” in Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 123-130.

Karl Marx, excerpt from the “Fragment on Machines,” from The Grundrisse. Translated Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin Books, 1973), 704-706.

Case study:
Andrew Ross, “Fixing How You Feel,” from No Collar: The Humane Workplace and Its Hidden Costs (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 87-122.

Recommended:
Peter Kropotkin, “Brain work and Manual Work” from Fields, Factories, and Workshops Tomorrow. Ed. Colin Ward (London: Freedom Press, 1985), 169-187.

Paolo Virno, “Labor, Action, Intellect” from The Grammar of the Multitude. Trans. Sylvčre Lotringer (New York: Semiotext(e), 2004), 47-71. Available at http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcmultitude3.htm

Session 5 (25 February): Copyrights + Innovation
Debate on the merits of intellectual property rights and alternate schemes for the encouragement of innovation

Martin Kretschmer, “Intellectual Property in Music: A Historical Analysis of Rhetoric and Institutional Practice,” Studies in Cultures, Organizations, and Societies. Volume 6 Number 2 (2000), 197-223.

Richard Stallman, “Why Software Should Not Have Owners.” Available at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html

First Monday interview with McKenzie Wark. Available at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_12/wark/

-Further information and materials will be provided during module sessions

Conclusion and general discussion

ASSESSMENT

Essay
Your grade for the module will be based on a 2,000 – 3,000 word essay using theoretical approaches from module lectures and sessions to analyze a particular case or process of innovation or the situation in which it is found. Further information on the assignment will be given in module sessions. Students will be expected to discuss their proposed essay with instructor (either via e-mail or in person) before February 18. Essays are due in the Full Time office no later than 12 PM on Friday March 18.

There will also be an integrated case study examination. Further information about this will also be provided in module sessions.