Innovation and entrepreneurship assignment

Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Assignment Brief (2011/12)
All Centres
The aim of the assignment is to provide students with the opportunity of exploring:

· The role and value of entrepreneurship and innovation in their own professional working environment

· An understanding of how these may be applied to their organisation

· The particular barriers to entrepreneurship and innovation in their own organisation

· An appreciation of how their working environment might be adapted to facilitate an entrepreneurial management orientation with increased innovation outcomes for organisational economic renewal

The individual assignment consists of a management report wherein students are asked to:

· Working within your own organisation, critically analyse and evaluate the organisation's ability to innovate and behave entrepreneurially, using the assumption that entrepreneurial management delivers innovation. Identify a potential innovation for your organisation and outline a plan “to make it happen”

If the organisation is a very large one, select a discrete / independent area within your work organisation on which to carry out the analysis. The influence of the rest of the organisation on the area you are considering should be included.

These are the necessary elements to the task:-

· Define your terms carefully at the outset

· From your learning within the module and from reading, identify the management and employee behaviours that support / create a barrier to successful achievement of information

a) Consider these factors in an innovation audit on your organisation Identifying recent innovation across the categories product, service, process at a basic level, then organisational or strategic innovation at a higher level. The innovation categories maybe further considered as incremental, radical or transformational

b) the organisational behaviours that either impede or facilitate entrepreneurial management with innovation outcomes, either by management or other employees

c) Identify the specific critical factors/barriers for successful innovation in your organisation

d) Propose a potential innovation at any level , outlining how they would make the innovation happen, taking into account the factors indentified above that would need to change?

Word limit 3,000

Marking criteria: The following areas will be taken in to account when marking the assignment:

· Underpinning Theoretical Knowledge Breadth and depth of academic knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurial management/entrepreneurship ie) understanding of organisational behaviours that facilitate entrepreneurial management orientation and innovation

· Application And Evaluation Thoroughness of the organisational innovation audit applying the concepts learnt, including careful consideration of any barriers identified with suggestions for improvement

· Synthesis ability to outline the management process whereby successful innovation can be achieved within your organisation

· Clarity of presentation and report writing style: the structure of the content , standard of English expression, use of Harvard business referencing & presentation on the page

Please consult the BLASC library website for details 1) on the form of referencing required.2) Report Writing