Master 2019/2020

Social Impact Strategy: Tools for Entrepreneurs and Innovators

Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'

Type: Elective course (Project Management: Project Analysis, Investments, and Implementation Technologies)

Area of studies: Management

Delivered by: School of Management

Where: Faculty of Economics, Management, and Business Informatics

When: 1 year, 2 module

Mode of studies: distance learning

Instructors: Dmitry V. Gergert

Master’s programme: Project Management: Project Analysis, Investments, Implementation Technology

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 2

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course offers an introduction to social impact strategy and social entrepreneurship, including key concepts, an overview of the field, and tools to get started as a changemaker. Students will learn how to innovate and design new ideas and new organizational forms to implement those ideas. Students who take this course will be better prepared to launch social impact organizations of their own invention. Blended format, based on https://www.coursera.org/learn/social-impact

Learning Objectives

• By moving through four stages, Define, Design, Pilot, and Scale, students will turn their passion for changing the world into concrete plans for launching a nonprofit or for-profit venture designed to achieve a social goal. This course will allow students to systematically think through problems; develop and test an innovative solution; assess risk, competition, and performance; and spread impact in a way that is financially sustainable.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• know the term amd logic of social impact strategy
• can define and design social initiative
• assess whether and how to approach scale for your social innovation
• define organizational forms and modes of delivering impact across the business model spectrum

Course Contents

• Introduction to Social Impact Strategy
  Learn about the key qualities of social innovation, social enterprise, and social entrepreneurs. How do social entrepreneurs approach problem solving? How might we identify social initiatives that are truly innovative in their approach to delivering on their mission, sustaining their venture, or scaling their impact? This module introduces the topic and offers examples of initiatives you might study as cases organizations throughout the course.
• Define and Design
  Learn the inputs and basic blueprints of a well-articulated vision. Develop an understanding of the design process, and learn to use an empathy map and a mind map for client-oriented innovation. Learn to build a logic model, which will help you articulate your innovation's theory of change from resources (inputs) to activities to impact. We encourage students to apply these tools immediately, to an active or idea-stage social initiative, that you are working directly on or that you admire.
• Pilot and Scale
  We must test our ideas in the real world, early and often, to determine if they can truly deliver on either their social or financial mission. Learn to build and use the balanced scorecard, a key tool to assess the real-world performance of a social innovation. The scorecard will allow you to measure and articulate both the initiative's current reach and health, as well as the work that is left to be done. An innovation achieves the intended social impact in a way that is financially supportable may be a candidate for scale. Learn to assess whether and how to approach scale for your social innovation.
• Sector Selection and Business Models
  This course concludes with an exploration of the organizational forms and modes of delivering impact across the business model spectrum.

Assessment Elements

• online course results
  Passing an online course of students in the discipline includes studying the course on the platform https://www.coursera.org/learn/social-impact with the passage of all mandatory control points.
• independent study
• in-class examination results

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (2 module)
  0.4 * in-class examination results + 0.2 * independent study + 0.4 * online course results

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Nour, D. (2012). Return on Impact : Leadership Strategies for the Age of Connected Relationships. Washington, D.C.: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=662718

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Epstein, M. J., & Rejc, A. (2017). Making Sustainability Work : Best Practices in Managing and Measuring Corporate Social, Environmental and Economic Impacts (Vol. 2nd edition, completed revised and updated). London: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1592394