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Business Innovations for a Sustainable and Digital Society

Course overview

Current businesses are facing increased pressure to become more sustainable, due to issues concerning climate change, high pollution levels, and the scarcity of natural resources. At the same time, the proliferation of digital technologies is paving the way for business innovations capitalising on an increasingly connected society. To respond to such pressures and opportunities, businesses are using digital technologies to change business models and production systems from ‘take, make, dispose’ models of the linear economy to more sustainable ‘take, make, recover’ models typical of the circular economy. Such a change is not exempt from substantial challenges, as highly connected businesses and consumers are facing serious issues concerning cybersecurity, data privacy, and information trust.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to sustainable organisational approaches, strategies, marketing, and business models innovations enabled by digital technologies. Through a combination of interactive workshop-style lectures and tutorials involving case studies, practical activities and analysis of current industry trends and publications of relevance to post-graduate level students, the course covers relevant theoretical and practical aspects of sustainability, responsible management, digital technologies, and key principles of the circular economy.

The Global Innovation Challenge at Aston Business School is a project-based course, which will provide students with the unique opportunity to work in a multicultural team of talented international master students from eight triple-accredited Global Innovation Alliance partner schools. Supervised by experienced academics, and with firsthand access to real-life business experiences shared by industry practitioners, the students will work on real-life business challenges faced by corporations required to make strategic changes to improve their market competitiveness through business innovations for a more sustainable and digital society.

The course will enhance the students’ managerial and problem-solving skills, which will be applied to develop potential solutions to address the specific business challenges presented by top executives during the course. Through a series of workshops covering important business management and interpersonal development subjects such as Strategy, Marketing, Sustainable Operations, Information Management, Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Creative Problem-solving, Change Management, and so forth, the course will provide the students with key managerial knowledge and professional skills required to develop creative solutions for the business challenges presented. Overall, the course at Aston will provide students with a distinct advantage by developing their professional competence as future managers, preparing them for employment in an increasingly competitive business environment.

Academic year

2024/25

Duration and dates

2 weeks from June 23 to July 7, 2025

Teaching format

Face-to-face on campus in Birmingham UK

Coordinators

Luciano Batista and Geoff Parkes

Biography

Dr Luciano Batista

Luciano is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Sustainable Operations Management at Aston Business School and founding Director of the Centre for Circular Economy and Advanced Sustainability (CEAS) at Aston University. He is also a Member of the SCALE (Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence) group at MIT, and a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. Luciano co-authored the book Sustainable Operations Management: Key Practices and Cases, published by Routledge. With large industry experience acquired during many years working in large corporations in Brazil and USA, his areas of expertise include sustainable operations and supply chains, technology management, strategy and competitiveness, and applications of digital technologies to enable industrial transitions to the circular economy.

Dr Geoff Parkes

Associate Professorial Teaching Fellow in Marketing & Strategy, Geoff has expert knowledge in the areas of entrepreneurship and international marketing. Most recently he was seconded for 12 months to Aston University Hong Kong. He teaches extensively in the Aston’s MBA programme and leads a research project on the use of foreign language capability as a source or competitive advantage in small firms. He has industry background as marketing practitioner, acting as Sales & Marketing Director of Aga Cookers and Armitage Shanks. He managed a number of MBIs and currently acts as an Advisor and Non Executive Director at a number of other businesses including a children’s day nursery and a management consultancy practice.

Learning outcomes

On completion of this course a student should be able to:

  • Identify and articulate business and management challenges and design potential solutions to address them.
  • Apply managerial, analytical, and interpsersonal skills to develop implementable innovative solutions for business challenges.
  • Evaluate businesses scenarios and their market contexts.
  • Develop a conceptual understanding of key tools and frameworks available to identify enterprise opportunities.
  • Effectively work in international teams and multicultural environment.
  • Prepare project reports and presentations.
  • Present and communicate in an effective manner.
  • Develop a culture of ambition and personal excellence to succeed through and with others in challenging business scenarios.

Course content

The topics covered in the course are designed to lead students through relevant skills and managerial approaches and practices that can be applied to address challenging business innovation initiatives. There will be opportunities to explore major business challenges linked with managerial approaches to support the identification of potential solutions based on informed strategic decisions.

The students will engage with a series workshops and group activities throughout the course. They course activities will develop fundamental knowledge and skills that will allow students to work on specific business challenges as well as elaborate and present solutions to tackle the identified challenges. Working in a team, the students are expected to agree on a problem-solving work plan involving an implementation strategy.

Indicative topics of the course are:

  • Strategic business innovation and change management
  • Entrepreneurship and leadership
  • Effective teamwork, network building and intercultural ethics
  • Consultancy skills and problem solving techniques
  • Marketing strategy and customer relationship management
  • Sustainable operations and supply chains
  • Circular economy approaches and responsible management
  • Strategic information and technology management

Course value

6 ECTS

Required background

Students must have completed one semester of coursework at the Master's level in one of the participating business schools.

Assessment

The evaluation of this course is based on the group project content and context, as well as the final presentation. Assessment will be done as follows:

  • Internal evaluation by academics at the host school, based on the context, structure and content of the proposed business innovation.
  • External evaluation by industry executives, based on the functioning of the project team, applicability and content of the recommendations.
  • Post course assignment of a report documenting the proposed solution.

Bibliography

  • Amit, R. and Zott, C. (2020), Business Model Innovation Strategy: Transformational Concepts and Tools for Entrepreneurial Leaders, Wiley.
  • Nunes, B., Batista, L., Masi, D. and Bennett, D. (2023), Sustainable Operations Management: Key Practices and Cases, Routledge.
  • Porter, M. (2008), On Competition: Updated and Expanded Edition, Harvard Business Review.
  • Semeradova, T. and Weinlich, P. (2022), Achieving Business Competitiveness in a Digital Environment: Opportunities in E-commerce and Online Marketing, Springer.
  • Wickham, L. and Wilcock, J. (2016). Management Consulting. Delivering an Effective Project, 5th edition, Prentice Hall.

Extra cost

Student contribution towards the social programme: £100

Miscellaneous information

Students will bear the costs of travel and accommodation. Students who wish to book accommodation organised by Aston will have to confirm by Friday, May 5.

About the School

Aston Business School is a global business school that offers a diverse range of programmes and creative teaching methods and works with local, national and international businesses to help them embed new strategies and practices which emerge from the School’s research findings.

Our departments and research centres work together to further our understanding of key business disciplines and issues, with a focus on innovation and impact.

Students at Aston Business School experience real-life business activities and engage with organisations of all shapes and sizes – from start-ups to multinationals.