Creativity, innovation and change
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| Examination | Includes residential school |
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This course is available for study in the countries shown. Fees may vary by country.
Summary
How do perception, style and culture affect thought and action? How can you develop a more creative approach yourself, and sustain a creative climate in your organisation? This innovative and interdisciplinary course will give you an excellent grasp of the principles underlying creative thinking and problem-solving and help you to promote imaginative, flexible and practical thought and action. You’ll learn about organisational restructuring and renewal strategies; how to develop partnerships across organisational boundaries; and how to involve people and share knowledge. You’ll also discover tools and techniques for developing ideas, managing innovation, and transforming organisations.
This course is offered with a combination of face-to-face and online tuition. If you would prefer entirely online tuition please use the course code BZX822.
Course content
This course offers techniques and processes to help managers maximise opportunities and manage innovation and change by:
- Developing a more creative attitude in themselves and others.
- Improving their own and others’ capacity to respond practically and creatively to problems and opportunities.
- Learning a variety of approaches designed to develop ideas, manage innovation and transfer knowledge (including scanning the environment, changing structures, improving systems and involving people).
- Being better placed to help establish an organisational climate in which creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation can grow.
- Understanding a variety of approaches to restructuring organisations (including the learning organisation, the use of partnership, networks and self-organisation).
- Appreciating the contextual nature of knowledge.
By the end of the course you should be able to:
- Understand how cognition, style and culture affect thought, action and policy.
- Be better placed to relate effectively to the way different people behave in organisations.
- Understand the principles underlying creative thinking and problem-solving.
- Use a range of tools, procedures and behaviours as aids to problem-solving, creative change and the management of innovation.
- Appreciate the impact of information and communication technologies on problem-solving, data access and networking.
- Help develop a more creative climate in your organisation.
- Use a range of structures, processes and systems (such as quality, six sigma, outsourcing, empowerment and partnership) to help develop and sustain innovation in your organisation.
- Adapt and apply the processes and approaches taught to involve people, develop ideas, manage innovation, and share knowledge in a wide range of organisational settings and cultures.
- Initiate appropriate action towards organisational transformation and renewal.
- Appreciate the implications of environmental issues and organisations’ role in social responsibility.
The course offers a range of materials from which you select for detailed study those most suited to your own needs and interests. It is divided into three main blocks:
Creativity, cognition and development offers an introduction to creative approaches to management, focusing particularly on the individual level of creativity. It examines how cognition, perception, style and role affect managers’ thought and behaviour, and traces the influence of cultural and historical values on personal, organisational and global development. It also discusses ways in which organisations can develop sustainably and responsibly, and introduces complexity. A personality inventory is included. This block has a psychological orientation.
Managing problems creatively looks at ways in which managers and teams can approach problem management creatively. It describes a variety of problem-solving and opportunity-finding approaches and frameworks such as staged problem-solving, orchestrated debate, mapping, and narrative approaches such as storytelling and the use of imagery and metaphor. It presents principles that underlie creative problem management. The associated Technique Library (available in print and web versions) includes over 150 creativity, problem exploration, mapping, idea generation, decision-making, acceptance-finding and action planning techniques. There is an electronic technique selector to help you choose between them.
Changing organisations deals with ways of managing innovation, developing a creative organisational climate, and approaches to transforming and revitalising organisations. It shows how ideas about innovation have changed, and introduces ways of scanning the environment, such as scenario building and benchmarking. It looks at organisational structures and systems designed to help manage innovation (including idea elicitation and screening systems, ways of sharing knowledge and involving people), and discusses entrepreneurship, climate and culture change. The block compares various approaches to organisational change and restructuring, including the quality movement, lean engineering, empowerment, reengineering, the learning organisation, partnership and self-organisation.
Two accompanying readers, one DVD, five audio CDs, media notes, course website, online forums, extensive electronic resources and a short residential school give you opportunities to follow up the parts of the course that are most relevant to your situation. The course as a whole has a slightly maverick quality.
Vocational relevance
The course is related to the N/SVQ in strategic management at Level 5.
Residential school
2.5 day residential school or online alternative
The residential school is designed to teach creative approaches to problem-solving, ways of accessing tacit knowledge and group process skills. The cost of the school is included in the course fee. There is an alternative online learning experience which acts as a substitute for the residential school where necessary. See our Residential Schools website for more information.
Entry
You can take this course on its own, or include it in a number of our postgraduate programmes including our MBA programme, various masters courses and the Postgraduate Certificate in Creative and Knowledge Management. The course may also be included towards an undergraduate degree. To register for the MBA you must, normally, have a degree or equivalent professional qualification, and you must have a minimum of three years’ experience in a managerial, professional or technical role. Usually this means that you are at least 25 years old. If you are taking the course as part of an MBA we expect you to have already completed Stage 1 and normally the compulsory Stage 2 course Strategy (B820). If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
Qualifications
B822 is an optional course in our
- MBA (F02)
- Advanced Diploma in Environmental Decision Making (C18)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Technology Management (C49)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Creative and Knowledge Management (C81)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Systems Thinking in Practice (C72)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Computing for Commerce and Industry (C02)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Development Management (D37)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Environmental Decision Making (D38)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Information Systems (E10)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Management of Software Projects (E19)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Systems Thinking in Practice (E28)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Technology Management (E08)
- Master of Public Administration (F44)
- MBA (Technology Management) (F03)
- MSc in Computing for Commerce and Industry (F05)
- MSc in Development Management (F11)
- MSc in Environmental Decision Making (F13)
- MSc in Human Resource Management (F40)
- MSc in Information Systems (F37)
- MSc in Software Development (F26)
- MSc in Management of Software Projects (F43)
- MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice (F47)
- MSc in Technology Management (F36)
Some postgraduate qualifications allow study to be chosen from other subject areas. We advise you to refer to the relevant qualification descriptions for information on the circumstances in which this course can count towards these qualifications because from time to time the structure and requirements may change.
Excluded combinations
Sometimes you will not be able to count a course towards a qualification if you have already taken another course with similar content. To check any excluded combinations relating to this course, visit our excluded combination finder or check with our Student Registration & Enquiry Service before registering.
If you have a disability or additional requirement
Printed course material is available on audio CDs, and there are transcripts of the audio and video programmes. You will need to spend considerable amounts of time using a personal computer and the internet. After you have registered you will receive detailed information about the residential school site(s) and the facilities available to help with the academic programme. (There is an alternative learning experience for those who cannot attend the residential school.)
If you are a new student, or new to courses using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our booklets Meeting Your Needs and Meeting your residential school needs, which you can download or request from our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
You can also find information about accessible course materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.
Course materials
What's included
Course books, other printed materials, audio CDs, DVD, online forums, course website, downloaded software.
Computing requirements
This course includes online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave. Some of your course software will be provided on disk.
You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new Windows computer since 2002 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual. Please note that you cannot use an Apple Mac or Linux computer unless it is running windows Boot Camp or similar.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
You will have a tutor who will help you with the course material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance. You can contact your tutor by telephone, correspondence, email and possibly fax. We may be able to offer group tutorials or day schools that you are encouraged, but not obliged, to attend. Where tutorials are held depends on the distribution of students taking each course. Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.
You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.
Students also studied
Students who studied this course also studied at some time:
Future availability
The details given here are for the course that starts in May 2010. We expect it to be available once more, in November 2010.
How to register
To register a place on this course return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button. For more information and advice about registration see OU Study Explained.
About this page
A postgraduate course in Business and Management and Engineering and Technology.
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Student Reviews
B822 was my final course and probably one of the most diverse ones I have studied through OUBS. The course ...
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A life changing course ! I found B822 difficult to get into because the presentation is somewhat different from the ...
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