Project-Based Learning

In our MBI Program, Project-Based Learning (PBL) is promoted as a mean of acquiring knowledge, facilitating critical thinking, enhancing communication, developing curiosity, creativity and, as such, favors inter-personal exchanges.

" This pedagogical approach relies upon complex tasks, based on challenging questions or problems, that involve students in design, problem-solving, decision making, or investigative activities. This approach give students the opportunity to work relatively autonomously over extended periods of time; and culminate in realistic products or presentations."

(Thomas, 2000)

The Project-Based Learning curriculum focuses on knowledge, core competencies and, soft skills development through concrete applications in project management.

"Project-Based Learning processes rely on the necessity for students to select and use more adapted knowledge and skills to identify the relevant issues in a specific situation and to solve problems. Through this process, students develop their own questions to drive learning, study concepts and information that answer those questions, and apply that knowledge to products they develop. In addition, Project-Based Learning encourages more rigorous learning since it requires students to take an active role in understanding concepts and content, and it enables them to develop 21st -century skills, which foster an enduring curiosity and hunger for knowledge. Since students are able to apply classroom content to real-life phenomena, Project-Based Learning also facilitates career exploration, technology use, student engagement, community connections, and content relevancy."

(Bradley-Levine & Mosier, 2014, p.117).

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project-based learning

Graphic inspired from
Thomas, J. (2000). A review of research on project-based learning. Report prepared for The Autodesk Foundation.
Bell, S. (2010). Project-based learning for the 21st century: Skills for the future. The Clearing House, 83(2), 39-43.
Bradley-Levine, J., & Mosier, G. (2014) Literature Review on Project-Based Learning
Project-Based Learning
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Curriculum

 

mbi curriculum 1

 

PL108: Preliminary Course in Business Management

Participants with no previous business-related studies will be required to take business management and Innovation classes.
The business management module presents and debates contemporary business management practice. A case-based approach is used to examine the adaptation and application of strategic management and marketing concepts in a range of business development contexts and market situations. Detailed analysis of this practice/theory interface in varying sectors, industries, and international locations will contribute to enhanced understanding of the process, characteristics, and challenges of contemporary business development in practice. This course also presents the key business concepts and theories for participants from a non-business background.

PL109: Preliminary Course in Business Innovation

The business innovation module is concerned with strategic innovation management for corporate competitive advantage. It provides participants with the knowledge and skills required to understand and manage innovation at the operational and strategic level. Specifically, it integrates management of the market sector with organizational and technological change to enhance the competitiveness of the company. Participants will acquire a critical understanding of strategic innovation at an operational level in an innovation management context, including the tenets of managing growth through innovation in a fast-changing global business environment.

BI611: Creativity and Ideation Techniques

The creativity and ideation module introduces participants to an exploration of creativity and ideation within the discipline of business and management. The changing understanding of creativity is explored as well as personal approaches to creative problem solving. The broad nature of ideation is examined in terms of idea generation, evaluation, and concept development. The role of both creativity and ideation in gaining strategic advantage is introduced. Participants will be exposed to creativity in different fields, for example. Business, Arts, Science, Engineering and Social Science.

BI622: Innovation Design

The innovation design techniques module seeks to develop basic skills in design thinking and innovative problem solving. Design thinking is a methodology of innovation based on a deep understanding of what people want and need. Within this module, participants will be presented with various approaches and techniques that can be used to design new products and services. Hands-on experience will be provided in developing physical prototypes, mockups.

BI613: New Product Development

During this course students will be presented with the New Product Development process including services as well as techniques to manage innovation teams composed of members from different departments such as marketing, engineering, R&D, sales, etc. This course examines the strategies, processes, methods and techniques used for new‐product development. The first part of the course focuses on new product development strategies. The second part considers techniques and processes for managing different stages of product development, from idea generation to market testing.

BI614: Global Market Research

The aim of this course is to provide knowledge on the qualitative and quantitative methodologies used in global market research, which provides a foundation to understand markets and consumers. A variety of qualitative and quantitative data collection and data analysis methods for descriptive, causal, and exploratory research designs will be discussed and compared, alongside the utilization of these techniques in market research. The research design process (problem identification, proposal writing) will also be taught. During this course students will be presented with the concepts of marketing in all types of organizations and various techniques and approaches used to study the market, competitors, competitive intelligence, as well as emerging weak signals.

BI623: Innovation Research Methodology

This module is designed to provide participants with the necessary training to undertake advanced level research in business and management. The module has two aspects. Firstly, it focuses on the nature of research in a chosen area, the field of social sciences, and an evaluation of the study skills necessary to manage and undertake a research project. Secondly, it provides participants with the opportunity to become familiar with the seminal, empirical and theoretical extant research and literature in the domain of innovation management. Such skills are intended to provide a good foundation for undertaking a dissertation at an advanced level.

BI621: Strategic Innovation Management

During this module various aspects of the innovation implementation process will be presented including strategy, change, implementation, motivation and sustainability. The module aims to provide an understanding of key innovation and entrepreneurship management concepts and principles. This becomes a reference point for managing product innovation and development at operational and strategic levels and enhancing competitiveness through innovation. The processes involved in the development of new products and services, including the management of resources and key activities form part of the module alongside an examination of internal and external factors that influence and facilitate organizational innovation.

BI624: Knowledge-based Innovation

Students will learn innovation concepts and techniques that allow innovation to emerge from a better use and combination of existing knowledge. Concepts of Knowledge management (C-K) will be presented as well as techniques such as the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ). TRIZ is an inventive problem-solving process and a structured, left brained approach to breakthrough innovation through the use of patterns of invention documented in the most inventive of the world's patents. The C K design theory or concept knowledge theory is both a design theory and a theory of reasoning in design. The theory builds on several traditions of design theory, including systematic design, axiomatic design, creativity theories, general and formal design theories, and artificial intelligence-based design models.

BI625: Team Project (in partnership with a company)

Teams of students will work on a real project, helping a local organization to overcome an innovation challenge.
Each team will have a coach that will guide them through the project. This project will allow students to apply the knowledge gained a classroom setting to a live innovation project.

BI612: Innovation Project Feasibility

The innovation project feasibility module will present the various methods and concepts that can be used to assess the feasibility, viability, and sustainability of an innovation project in terms of economic feasibility, legal feasibility, operational feasibility, technical feasibility and schedule feasibility. Accounting, finance, risk and budgeting concepts will also be covered. The innovation project feasibility allows the participant to apply theories of design and learning innovation in their chosen study environment through completing and documenting a small-scale research project.

 

curriculum 2

 

Students interested in doing a Ph.D in the future are highly encouraged to take plan A, so they will gain some initial research experience that will be very beneficial for their work in the Ph.D program.

BI700

Plan A: Research Thesis
Option 1: Thesis (Bangkok University)

BI715

Plan B: Independent Study + 3 Electives (Bangkok University)

Elective Courses

At the beginning of the second year of the MBI program, students are allowed to choose 3 electives courses among the following list:

BI633: Emerging Technology Trends

This course covers the technical, market and application trends for Emerging technology. In this course, students will learn about the latest emerging technologies as well as technology forecast (broad technologies, not only information technology based). It will focus on understanding how technologies evolve, how their utilization impact current product and services and behaviors, and the potential pitfalls as well as benefits of adopting a new technology.

BI634: Global Project Management

This course will develop the skills and knowledge necessary to manage international projects in global settings, with particular focus on project management techniques, project systems thinking, and relevant management theories. It focuses both on the hard side of project management, referring to schedule, cost, resource, risk management, and quantitative modeling and analysis, as well as the soft issues such as concept generation and teamwork that must be dealt with in order to ensure success of the projects. The course will cover the core principles of managing project development and the key elements required to bring projects to successful fruition.

BI635: Knowledge-Based Systems

This course describes and explains the recent developments in the field of Information Technology that open up new vistas in computer‐aided management decision‐making. This course will cover the role of various technologies that can enable and support innovation: collaborative systems, data mining and data warehousing, content management techniques, co‐creation tools, simulation (3D), and group sense making.

BI636: Creative Leadership

This course describes and explains as we have entered the Knowledge Economy, Business Creativity and Innovation have become more important than ever for business success. Nevertheless, the business world struggles coping with the key drivers that influence its current affairs and future trends: change, speed, complexity, ambiguity, risks, and surprises. Consequently, creativity, innovation and design have become major challenges in business. Six out of ten CEOs of the world’s leading companies regard creativity as the key characteristic of successful leadership to cope with the increasing complexity of the business world and to produce superior and sustainable growth of revenues and profit margins. In Asia, this call for creative leadership is even higher as the key drivers have emerged on top of the leadership agenda of the Chief Executive Officers of the world’s largest corporations.
Since all of us were born creative and exhibited high levels of creativity as young children, this module proposes tools and techniques to rediscover your creative self and become a creative leader through a ten steps program: The Genius Journey.

BI637: Strategic Foresight

This course describes and explains 1) define markets and technological trends, 2) ensure the continuity of the innovation development process and 3) sustain the firm’s performance. Forecasting allows firms to structure their innovation strategy while preventing them from the potential damages of uncontrollable external events (originating with the national economy, governments, customers, and competitors). Innovation management allows firms to schedule controllable internal events (such as marketing or manufacturing decisions within the firm). The success of a company depends on both types of events, but forecasting applies directly to the former, while decision making applies directly to the latter. Planning is the link that integrates both.

BI638: Agribusiness of Biotechnology Strategic Management

Food and health are the two largest markets in volume at the global scale. These two industrial fields were the first to integrate modern biotechnologies in their innovations. As the biotechnological toolbox provides creative solutions to innovate, its application have been progressively enlarged to a broad diversity of industries: industrial production process (White Biotechs), alimentation (Green Biotechs), health (Red Biotechs), environment (Yellow Biotechs), marine applications (Blue Biotechs)... Biotechnologies are nowadays considered as the basis for a new perspective for industrial development balancing economic growth and natural ecosystems preservation which could lead to the emergence of a new economic paradigm: the Bioeconomy.
To achieve such goal, companies have developed more collective innovation logics involving new forms of ecosystemic strategies. The use of biotechnology allows these firms to 1) better integrate recycling, 2) easier apply circular production processes (Cradle to Cradle) and 3) decrease their impact on natural environment.
This module presents the challenges attached to biotechnology exploration and exploitation strategies in various industries, explain the ubiquity of biotechnology in all industries, as well as the innovation strategies attached to their development. Tools are proposed to distinguish 1) the innovation logics, tactics and strategies associated with the use of the biotechnological tool box and 2) the steps that characterized the development of biotechnological innovations.

Curriculum
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Fast track Ph.D. in Knowledge and Innovation Management

Students who select the Plan A (Thesis) and wish to pursue a Doctoral study in Knowledge Management and Innovation Management can apply for the combined Master + Ph.D program. Qualified students will be allowed to extend their thesis to the doctoral level and complete both degrees in 4 years instead of 5 years.

Ph.D in Knowledge and innovation

It is all about Knowledge and Innovation!

By looking at the essence of the evolution of societies and organizations, two main factors stand out: knowledge, and innovation (creativity). Everything around us, except nature, emerged from a combination of knowledge and innovation. Knowledge and innovation have always been, and will always be, at the center of any development and improvement. It has been estimated that 70 to 80% of economic growth and development is now due to new and better knowledge. By living and working in a knowledge and creative economy, it becomes essential for us to study and better understand how knowledge and innovative assets can be created, managed, leveraged and applied more effectively to benefit organizations and societies. This will allow us not only to be prepared and capable of solving today's problems and challenges, but also tomorrow's unknown ones.

The Knowledge and Innovation Management (KIM) Ph.D. program is designed to produce researchers, academics and professionals able to study and develop new knowledge, theories and tools in these relatively young and promising academic disciplines.

The multi-disciplinary make-up of the Knowledge and Innovation Management disciplines opens up an almost infinite space for research and creative exploration. It will be up to students and their advisers to decide on which particular aspect of Knowledge Management and Innovation Management they want to explore for their dissertation. We encourage students with various academic and professional backgrounds to join our Ph.D. program. This diversity will enrich the learning experience of all the students in the program and will promote cross disciplinary research.

Fast track Ph.D. in Knowledge and Innovation Management
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