This course will examine the social and cultural environment that enables or hinders the innovation process in business. The course starts by reviewing how companies can create and foster innovative cultures and organize for innovation, and reviews differences between countries in innovativeness. It continues by examining the factors which influence whether innovations are or are not adopted. It addresses some social and ethical issues of innovation, examines the social role and context of entrepreneurs, and closes with some case studies.

The basic premise of this class is that sociology has a great deal to offer not only to the theoretical understanding of innovation and entrepreneurship, but also to entrepreneurship as a practical enterprise. This perspective, while popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has gotten steadily lost in the entrepreneurial fervor of the 1980s as the study of entrepreneurship was passed almost exclusively into the hands of people in and around the business-school community. The objective of this class is to (re-) incorporate critical social analysis into the field. Throughout the semester, we will explore the various ways in which the social sciences have provided fresh new insights into entrepreneurial behavior by placing innovation in its broader social, cultural, and cross-national contexts. Additionally, we will look at entrepreneurship from the perspective of a much wider range of actors (classes, genders, racial and ethnic groups) than is typically done by the business community. By the end of the semester, you should have a firm grasp of what entrepreneurs do (the usual purview of modern business schools), as well as the causes of entrepreneurship and its cumulative (often not so positive) effects.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills