Academic Focus: University of Pavia

The Centre for International Business and the International Economy at the University of Pavia is conducting a comprehensive study on how companies leverage innovation as a competitive weapon.  It seeks to uncover the different strategic models and managerial practices adopted by the most successful and innovative firms to achieve a competitive advantage. 

I encourage you to participate by following this link:  Innovation Survey 

The survey will be followed by companies like Microsoft, Alessi, Accenture, Siemens AG, and Deutsche Bank.  The survey is a replica of a similar one conducted in Italy in 2009 that involved over 120 companies.  Results are expected mid March.

The University of Pavia, one of Italy’s oldest and best, has a strong offering in innovation.  Dr. Stefano Denicolai, Professor of Innovation Management, teaches a course on “Innovation Management.”   The aim of the course is to develop specific skills in the field of innovation process, management, and entrepreneurial activities at the global level.  The program proposes basic notions, theoretical models and case studies about topics such as: development of new product, implementation of new processes, network management, appropriability of the competitive advantage.

Course topics include:

• Entrepreneurship, theories of the firm and role of innovation within multinational companies
• Understanding and renewing business models of the firm
• From Ego to Open innovation
• Knowledge generation vs knowledge brokering at the global level
• Network practices (partner selection, contract negotiation, appraisal of alliance performance)
• The geographical dimension: Innovative clusters and global networks
• Appropriability of the competitive advantage: legal vs strategic mechanisms

In case you are wondering what the word appropriability means, it is defined as: the environmental factors that govern an innovator’s ability to capture profits generated by an innovation.