Dr. David Sarpong, on assessing and understanding technological competences.
Dr. David Sarpong from Brunel University of London, UK visited the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge at HSE Moscow as a guest lecturer for the Innovation Strategy class on October 2nd, 2020. He is also Reader in Strategic management, and Head of Globalization, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Division at the Brunel Business School (BBS).
Dr. David Sarpong gave a thought-provoking lecture on the subject of core competencies and their importance at a corporate level to achieve a competitive advantage. He started by introducing the paradigm shift from resources to knowledge as the main factor for determining the success of a firm. One of the key messages of this part of the lecture was the significance of a firm’s ability to successfully reconfigure its bundle of resources into unique core capabilities to gain competitive advantage in a given market. During the lecture, students got acquainted with many real-world examples of successful enterprises that illustrated the relationship of these core competencies to maintained success and their links to the process of innovation.
The lecture further developed around the question of why successful firms fail.
Dr. Sarpong covered several classic academic papers and models that juxtaposed the nature of incremental and disruptive innovation processes and their development trajectories along the S-curve, explored firms’ core capabilities vs. their core rigidities, frameworks for evaluating types of innovations based on their effect on respective competencies and capabilities of a firm. These frameworks provided an interesting point of view on the managerial & advisory aspects of running an innovative business and collaborating with big corporations in this time and age.
Those who had the pleasure of attending this lecture in online format were 1st-year students of the Master´s program Governance of Science, Technology, and Innovation at HSE Moscow. Although this was not an in-person meeting, our guest lecturer succeeded not only in delivering the content of the lecture in a comprehensible manner, but also in engaging the audience through many anecdotes and his per-secharming approach to teaching.
The lecture left the students with many takeaways and insights on the nuances of assessing and understanding technological competencies, which will likely enrich their academic background, and make them more competent professionals in the future.
We thank Dr. David Sarpong and HSE staff at the ISSEK department for organizing this event and hope to have many more guest lecturers of such quality in the upcoming future.
Written by:
Manuel Alejandro Bernal Alvarez.
1st-year student Master´s program Governance of Science, Technology, and Innovation,
ISSEK, HSE Moscow
Reviwed by:
Raushan Akhmetova
1st-year student Master´s program Governance of Science, Technology, and Innovation,
ISSEK, HSE Moscow