SEMINAR IN CONTEMPORARY TOPICS: DIGITAL ECONOMY, ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION - 2020/1

Module Overview

A key purpose of this unit is to equip students with knowledge of contemporary topics and concepts as well as expose them to the range of in-depth research expertise on digital economy and/or entrepreneurship and innovation held by academics within the Department of Digital Economy, Entrepreneurship and Innovation within Surrey Business School. Therefore, all doctoral student members of the department would take the unit. This unit also further enables and supports students to gain further in-depth understanding of specializations in the areas of digital economy and/ or entrepreneurship and innovation.

By offering students interactive discussion via seminars with renowned experts and researchers, this course enables students to develop ideas for concepts, issues and/ or research questions that they may choose to develop for their own research or as part of their broader academic knowledge base. These will be an important part of their academic and doctoral training for the purposes of having a robust discipline-specific knowledge of these research areas.

Module provider

Surrey Business School

Module Leader

DI DOMENICO MariaLaura (SBS)

Number of Credits: 0

ECTS Credits: 0

Framework: FHEQ Level 8

Module cap (Maximum number of students): 10

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

NIL

Module content

Indicative content (the following is indicative and not exhaustive of the content to be covered):

- Critically unpacking the nature of innovation and entrepreneurship: Questioning assumptions and the boundaries of legitimacy

- Innovation and entrepreneurship for social inclusion

- Unanticipated outcomes of innovation

- Social entrepreneurship

- Digital innovation

- Platforms and innovation

- Digitisation, spaciality, mobility and the future of work: Implications for entrepreneurs, employees and organisations

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

Revised written assignment

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate:
• Their knowledge of issues pertaining to the academic study of the digital economy and/or entrepreneurship and innovation.
• Their ability to critically appraise literature and concepts when reading academic articles on the digital economy and/or entrepreneurship and innovation.
• Their ability to apply concepts and learning to specific research situations, contexts or examples.

Thus, the summative assessment for this unit consists of:

A 4000-word written assessment (individual essay) in which the student analyses one chosen focal theory, concept or theoretical approach (to be selected from the range of seminar topics/ literature covered on the course). The student should critically discuss the chosen issue, concept or theoretical approach in terms of its key tenets, merits and possible flaws. This must be done by drawing upon the context, pertinent examples and literature relating to the digital economy and/ or entrepreneurship and innovation.

Feedback

Verbal discussion and feedback on pre-class reading and any preparation activities will form part of interactive in-class seminars.

Students will be provided with written feedback on the submitted written summative assessment

Module aims

• Examine a range of issues, theories and concepts applied in the areas of digital economy, entrepreneurship and innovation, specifically using the individual expertise of academics’ own research as well as articles published in leading peer-reviewed journals.
• Equip students with the knowledge to understand these issues, theories and concepts when used in the academic literature, and to critically evaluate them including being able to identify their potential advantages and limitations.
• Understand the process of describing and critically appraising issues, theories and concepts explored on the unit based on in-depth reading and desk research. This will also enable students to be able to identify research gaps, areas requiring further research and knowledge creation, and relate issues, theories and concepts where appropriate to their own doctoral research agenda.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy:

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to give students an overview of a number of key contemporary, and possibly under researched, topics in the academic study of the digital economy and/ or entrepreneurship and innovation. To do this students have a series of seminar-style sessions, each with an instructor who has expert knowledge on the topic under discussion for that session.

The learning and teaching methods include:

• Pre-class reading (instructors may also choose to send students preparation activities/ questions for consideration if applicable).
• In-class interactive discussion.
• In-class student-led reviews/ discussion/ presentation of set readings as per individual instructors’ guidance.
• In-class discussion and review of assessment preparation (see also ‘assessment strategy’ below).

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: MAND041

Other information

The following list of readings is indicative. Readings are to be advised/ confirmed by instructors leading the individual sessions. Alaimo C. and Kallinikos J. (2017) Computing the everyday: Social media as data platforms. The Information Society, 33 (4), pp. 175-191. Avgerou, C. and Bonina, C. (2018) Ideologies implicated in IT innovation in government: a critical discourse analysis of Mexico’s international trade administration”, Working Paper. Bartel, C. A., Wrzesniewski, A. and Wiesenfeld, B. M. (2012). ‘Knowing where you stand: Physical isolation, perceived respect, and organizational identification among virtual employees’. Organization Science, 23, 743–57. Battilana, J., & Lee, M. (2014). Advancing research on hybrid organizing–Insights from the study of social enterprises. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 397-441. Baumol, W. J. (1990) ‘Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive’. Journal of Political Economy. 98(5), 893-921. Paper also republished as Baumol, W. J. (1996) ‘Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive’. Journal of Business Venturing. 11(1), 3-22. The following list of readings is indicative. Readings are to be advised/ confirmed by instructors leading the individual sessions. Alaimo C. and Kallinikos J. (2017) Computing the everyday: Social media as data platforms. The Information Society, 33 (4), pp. 175-191. Avgerou, C. and Bonina, C. (2018) Ideologies implicated in IT innovation in government: a critical discourse analysis of Mexico’s international trade administration”, Working Paper. Bartel, C. A., Wrzesniewski, A. and Wiesenfeld, B. M. (2012). ‘Knowing where you stand: Physical isolation, perceived respect, and organizational identification among virtual employees’. Organization Science, 23, 743–57. Battilana, J., & Lee, M. (2014). Advancing research on hybrid organizing–Insights from the study of social enterprises. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 397-441. Baumol, W. J. (1990) ‘Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive’. Journal of Political Economy. 98(5), 893-921. Paper also republished as Baumol, W. J. (1996) ‘Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive’. Journal of Business Venturing. 11(1), 3-22. Bonina, C. and Eaton, B. (2018) Cultivating Open Government Data Platforms Ecosystems: Lessons from Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Montevideo, Working Paper. Castelló, I. Etter, M. and Årup Nielsen, F. (2016) Strategies of legitimacy through social media: The networked strategy. Journal of Management Studies. 53(3), 402-432. Chesbrough, H. and Rosenbloom, R. (2002) ‘The Role of the Business Model in Capturing Value from Innovation’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 11(3), pp. 529-556 Chesbrough, H. and Socolof, S. (2000) ‘Creating New Ventures Out of Bell Labs Technology’, Research Technology Management, 1(11) Dacin, M. T., Dacin, P. A., & Tracey, P. (2011). Social entrepreneurship: A critique and future directions. Organization science, 22(5), 1203-1213. Daniel E, Di Domenico M, Nunan D (2017) Virtual Mobility and the Lonely Cloud: Theorising the Mobility-Isolation Paradox for Self-Employed Knowledge-Workers in the Online Home-Based Business Context, Journal of Management Studies 55 (1) pp. 174-203 Flyverbom, M., & Murray, J. (2018). Datastructuring - Organizing and curating digital traces into action. Big Data & Society, 5(2), 2053951718799114. Gawer, A. (2014) Bridging differing perspectives on technological platforms: Toward an integrative framework. Research Policy, 43, 1239–1249. Hall, J., Matos, S., Sheehan, L. and Silvestre, B. (2012). Entrepreneurship and innovation at the base of the pyramid: a recipe for inclusive growth or social exclusion? Journal of Management Studies, 49(4), 785-812. Hall, J., Matos, S., Gold, S., & Severino, L. S. (2018). The paradox of sustainable innovation: The ‘Eroom’ effect (Moore’s law backwards). Journal of Cleaner Production, 172, 3487-3497. Hall, J., Matos, S., & Bachor, V. (2017). From green technology development to green innovation: inducing regulatory adoption of pathogen detection technology for sustainable forestry. Small Business Economics, 1-13. Jacobides, M. G., Cennamo, C. and Gawer, A. (2018) Towards a theory of ecosystems. Strategic Management Journal. DOI: 10.1002/smj.2904 Miller, T. L., Grimes, M. G., McMullen, J. S., & Vogus, T. J. (2012). Venturing for others with heart and head: How compassion encourages social entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Review, 37(4), 616-640. Nunan D. and Di Domenico, M. (2018) ‘Theorizing piratical innovation: Regulatory illegitimacy and firm growth’. Journal of Small Business Management. Sarasvathy, S. D. (2008) ‘What makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial’, Harvard Business Review, pp.1-9. Sutter, C., Bruton, G. D., & Chen, J. (2019). Entrepreneurship as a solution to extreme poverty: A review and future research directions. Journal of Business Venturing, 34(1), 197-214. Vaghely, I.P., Julien, P.A. (2010) ‘Are opportunities recognized or constructed? An information perspective on entrepreneurial opportunity identification, Journal of Business Venturing 25, pp. 73–86

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2020/1 academic year.