Design Thinking for Social Innovation Course
This is an experiential project-based course which introduces participants to the value of the design thinking process and a human-centered approach to social innovation to develop meaningful and sustainable solutions (products, services, communication, processes etc.).
Such an approach highlights the complexity of many social issues and the need for interconnected and systemic responses. Designing for social innovation requires taking a system approach that involves multi-disciplinary collaboration and engagement of all stakeholders including the end-users or beneficiaries.
Through multiple activities, mini-challenges, and a semester-long project, the course invites participants to experience the whole design innovation process (researching, ideating, prototyping, testing, communicating, and implementing) with a focus on developing and sustaining social innovations.
Course designed and taught by Anne-Laure Fayard
Impact Makers Course
First edition in Fall 2022
Society needs agents of change who not only can develop ideas to address complex challenges but can also make those ideas work. Coming up with and developing ideas is important, yet that is only the beginning. To make ideas tangible and to create positive impact, there’s much more work to do. Therefore, impact making relies on three main principles:
• To change the world, is to change oneself
• To change the world requires a deep understanding of the context and the different stakeholders
• To change the work requires “doing”
This course is highly experiential, project-based and embraces a design thinking methodology. It provide the participants with experiences, tools and an environment to explore what it takes to make positive impact.
Course designed and taught by Anne-Laure Fayard
P.h.D research seminar on qualitative methods
This course provides a “how-to” of ethnographic research. Students will conduct an ethnographic project of their own, complemented by weekly readings and discussions. It deals in an applied way with two interrelated topics: Field methods of research (in particular observations and interviewing) and exploratory data analysis (i.e. inductive analysis; grounded theory).In this course participants will read and discuss many examples of published field research. In addition, they will be given ample opportunities to learn from their own mistakes as they design and conduct a small field research project. There will be methodological readings as well but, for the most part, these will be of secondary importance to one’s own learning by example and learning from experience.
Course designed and taught by Anne-Laure Fayard
Business Ethics by Alison Holm
Spring 2023 – coming soon
Open Innovation by Paolo Leone
Spring 2023 – coming soon
Organizing for Good in the Digital age
Spring 2023 – coming soon
Qualitative Research Methods Workshop
June 29th – July 2nd
Qualitative research methods bring us closer to the organizations and the social action that we study. Using these methods, scholars can develop rich, relevant and more interesting contributions to organizational theory. Anne-Laure Fayard along with 4 other international experts in qualitative methods, Beth Bechky (NYU / UC Davis), Ruthanne Huising (EM Lyon), Melissa Mazmanian (UC Irvine) and Hila Lifshitz-Assaf (Harvard / Warwick) offered an intensive 4-day experiential workshop in qualitative research methods at NOVA SBE.
The goal of this workshop, open to doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows and early-career faculty, was to provide project-based, interactive training in qualitative research methods and build community and networks across qualitative researchers. We hosted 30 participants from top international schools: Harvard, MIT, UCLA, NYU, McGill, Oxford, Cambridge, ESSEC, VU, etc.
Testimonials
“Thank you so much for all the effort you put into crafting and facilitating this workshop. I am walking away from the experience with greater confidence in my methodological training, a renewed sense of conviction in my chosen methods, and invaluable connections with my peers in the qualitative community. I am so grateful to you all for taking it upon yourselves to provide this opportunity to emerging scholars and for putting so much thought into the tone, content, and structure of the workshop.”
“Thank you for a wonderful workshop last week. I learned an incredible amount from each of you that I am already putting to use on my dissertation research. Your presentations each morning were exceptionally useful in helping me to reflect on where I can improve my techniques/ approach to this work, and your incredibly generous one-on-one advice in the afternoon Q&As, over lunch, or in our team breakouts offered some very generative thinking points for me. I have been combing through my pages of notes to make sure I apply all of these lessons in the coming months/years.”
Projects
During the year we work on a diversity of projects. Explore some of them.
DESIS Lab
Learn more about the DESIS Lab @ NOVA SBE.
Mentors
Discover the mentors of the DESIS Lab @ NOVA SBE.