This is the introduction to the special issue of World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development (WREMSD) dedicated to workplace innovation and social innovation related to work and organisation. As technological and business model innovations alone are not sufficient to enhance opportunities for businesses and employment, awareness is rising that better use should be made of human talents and new ways of organising and managing. In order to make working environments more receptive for innovation, and to enable people in organisations to take up an entrepreneurial role as intrapreneurs, a shift towards workplace innovation can be observed. Workplace innovation is complementary to technological and business model innovation, and a necessary ingredient for successful renewal, in that it addresses a type of management that seeks collaboration with employees through dialogue and employee engagement.
DOCUMENT
With Fontys' new educational developments we became part of the project called 'BILOBA'. The principal outlines of this new education are based on developing competences, communication by ICT and setting up a major-minor educational system. Fontys has already developed 40 minors with topics related to several areas from institutes' backgrounds. One of the minor courses is 'Strategic Innovation'. The main goal of this minor is to make students competent to contribute to innovation in the SME's. Students will acquire relevant knowledge as well as relevant competences for developing innovation in companies. The outline of the minor is 50 % knowledge development and 50% project work, where the knowledge is used in practice. New in the project is the so-called 'Innovation Simulator'. In this simulator as part of the project students will be confronted with the real world of initiating innovation in the context of a real company. Role-play is an important element to this simulator. We need to learn more about this approach. We have done some evaluations during the spring of 2007 and have found some imperfections, which will be changed in June of 2007/2008 as an outcome of an evaluation with all of the participants.
DOCUMENT
Innovation seems to be the most important element of activities of companies to stay vital in a very competitive international market. Innovation is the process of developing products or services in an organisation for a market. Especially small and medium-sized companies, for which it is difficult to invest in innovation research and development, need to be provided with young professionals to help them make the right decisions on innovation development. At the moment higher professional education in the Netherlands is not preparing students enough as future professionals in SMEs, for the task if initiating and to developing innovations in these SME's. Therefore it is needed that higher professional education comprehensively implement these innovation competences in its curriculum. At the Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, innovation has become an important element in teaching students innovation competences. In 2007/8 a pilot has been introduced the department of Engineering with first year students in a multidisciplinary and action-based setting. First year students of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in a 5-credit programme try to find new patentable products. The outcome of this first try-out was that students realized the importance of innovation for the profession and they were eager to work in this innovative setting. Some adjustments in the education will be made as there are: timetable and project settings to timetables and schedules will have to be made.
DOCUMENT
