Description:

Are you eager to apply your knowledge in a hands-on setting that mirrors the fast-paced startup world? Do you want to explore how digital ideas evolve into real ventures? If so, Digital Ideation and Entrepreneurial Design is the course for you!

The master course Digital Ideation and Entrepreneurial Design introduces students to the basics of digital entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation with a focus on digital ideation and entrepreneurial design. Conducted in a practice-oriented approach, students work in teams to tackle real-world challenges provided by an external collaborator in order to develop solutions themselves. 

In the course, you develop adequate strategies to find and assess problems of individual and societal significance. Building on methods of design thinking, you are introduced to design-oriented research methodology, where you learn to systematically define relevant solution spaces to solve these problems. Through this approach, you learn to analyze complex requirements under time pressure, systematically develop alternative decisions and reflect on possible options in different contexts. You systematically analyze possible causes of deviations from plans and develop suitable response measures.

Individually or in teams, you prepare written analyses and illustrate their decision-making processes to later on present them appropriately to various target groups. To mirror this methodological approach, you engage in the scenario of an entrepreneurial context that requires you to search (or design) an opportunity through means of effectuation. 

The course consists of an individual assignment (40% of the grade) and group work project, together with an external partner, that involves implementation of courses' concepts, methods, and design-oriented research (60% of the total grade).

Learning Targets:

After the successful completion of the module, students will be able to After the successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

• Employ methods of design thinking for innovation search (fit of problem and solution space)
• Apply a design-oriented research methodology from information systems and entrepreneurship research
• Explain opportunity design and opportunity search
• Apply an effectuation approach
• Differentiate principles of effectuation from the principles of causal logic
• Decide in which situations it makes sense to act according to effectuation logic
• Select and apply effectuation tools in a targeted manner

Outline:

• Sustainability
• Startups
• Team work
• Design Thinking
• Design Science Research
• Digital Entrepreneurship
• Innovative Entrepreneurship
• Business research

Literature:

• Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., Rothenberger, M. A., & Chatterjee, S. (2007). A design science research methodology for information systems research. Journal of management information systems, 24(3), 45-77.
• Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., & Niehaves, B. (2018). Design science research genres: introduction to the special issue on exemplars and criteria for applicable design science research. European Journal of Information Systems, 27(2), 129-139.
• Sarasvathy, S. D. (2009). Effectuation: Elements of entrepreneurial expertise. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Seckler, C., Mauer, R., & vom Brocke, J. (2021). Design science in entrepreneurship: conceptual foundations and guiding principles. Journal of Business Venturing Design, 1(1-2).
• Sein, M. K., Henfridsson, O., Purao, S., Rossi, M., & Lindgren, R. (2011). Action design research. MIS quarterly, 37-56.
• Venable, J., Pries-Heje, J., & Baskerville, R. (2016). FEDS: a framework for evaluation in design science research. European journal of information systems, 25, 77-89.

• Additional literature is provided in the first session of the class.

Methods of Assessment:

Portfolio

Formalities:

The course will be provided as a lecture and exercise based on the following timetable; both are highly suggested to take in order to fully grasp the subject matter and for the successful completion of course final-deliverables:

• Dates for lectures TBD; course to start after winter holidays (from January 2027)