Concept

Innovation today considers the economic, environmental, and/or social sustainability of an innovative initiative from its inception or idea generation through to its commercialization or implementation. This concept applies to many types of innovation such as products, processes, services, technologies, and business models. Companies use innovation as a means to gain competitive advantage and bring value to business stakeholders. This book introduces business innovation, from incremental innovation such as enhancing the performance of an existing product, service, or process, to radical or disruptive innovation such as one that has a significant impact on a market. Content examines how leaders foster a culture of innovation, how companies turn creativity into innovation, and how innovation transforms not only organizations, but economies as well.

Chapter Features

• Learning outcomes (what students should expect to learn after completing each chapter)
• Example-rich narrative
• Embedded videos with PDF transcripts
• Graphic elements which illustrate and reinforce concepts
• Self-assessments (e.g., quiz, game, or other H5P content)
• Explore the Concept and End-of-Chapter Exercises
• Key Takeaways
• Additional resource links and Chapter references for additional reading
• Embedded navigation and image alt-text for screen readers
• Free online, PDF, and various other book formats
• PowerPoint slides to support the presentation of chapter concepts
• Glossary of Terms
• Open license, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License permits adoption, adaptation (customization), and sharing

eCampus Ontario and BCCampus

eCampusOntario is a provincially-funded non-profit organization that leads a consortium of the province’s publicly-funded colleges, universities, and indigenous institutes to develop and test online learning tools to advance the use of education technology and digital learning environments.^[1]

This textbook is part of the eCampusOntario and BCCampus open textbook library, which provides free learning resources in a wide range of subject areas. These open textbooks can be assigned by instructors for their classes and can be downloaded by learners to electronic devices. These educational resources are customizable to meet a wide range of learning needs.

If you decide to adopt this book for a course or training program (or other) please report your adoption as eCampusOntario or BCCampus are keen to report students’ savings and connect with successful OER adopters.

Accessibility

Every attempt has been made to make this OER accessible to all learners and compatible with assistive and adaptive technologies. The Pressbooks content management system was chosen for its commitment to built-in accessibility. The Web version of this resource has been designed to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, level AA and follows all guidelines in Appendix A: Checklist for Accessibility of the Accessibility Toolkit – 2nd Edition. In addition to the web version, additional files are available in a number of file formats including PDF, EPUB (for eReaders), and Course Cartridge (for LMS).

If you are having problems accessing this resource, please contact kshields@centennialcollege.ca. Please include the following information: The location of the problem by providing a web address or page description. A description of the problem. The computer, software, browser, and any assistive technology you are using that can help us diagnose and solve your issue (e.g., Windows 10, Google Chrome (Version 65.0.3325.181), NVDA screen reader)

Each chapter has been evaluated using WAVE® and modified as needed to meet zero errors in accordance with WCAG AA. “WAVE® is a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content. Our philosophy is to focus on issues that we know impact end users, facilitate human evaluation, and to educate about web accessibility.”^[2]

• All images that convey information include alternative text (alt text) descriptions of the image’s content or function. Graphs and charts also include contextual or supporting details in the text surrounding the image. Images do not rely on colour to convey information.
• All colours meet WCAG contrast requirements.
• Content is organized under headings and subheadings. Headings and subheadings are used sequentially (e.g., Heading 1, Heading 2).
• Embedded videos are from YouTube and do have closed captioning available, although many YouTube videos have captions that are auto-generated and these do not always translate correctly. To combat this issue, PDF (English) transcripts have been posted for download with each chapter video.
• Tables are used to structure information and not for layout. Tables include row and column headers. Row and column headers have the correct scope assigned. Tables include a caption. Tables avoid merged or split cells. Tables have adequate cell padding.
• The Microsoft Accessibility checker was run on PowerPoint slides that accompany the book. ALT tags were added to images, PDF (English) transcripts are posted with embedded videos, colour contrast was checked.
• All Web links describe the destination of the link and do not use generic text such as “click here” or “read more”. If a link will open or download a file (e.g., PDF), a textual reference is included in the link information (e.g., [PDF–New Tab]).
• In-text citations are embedded using the Footnote feature of Pressbooks, therefore, footnotes appear as References at the end of each chapter with Web links to the original sources.
• Font size is 12 points or higher for body text in PDF documents. Font size can be enlarged to 200 percent in Webbook or Ebook formats without needing to scroll side to side.
• An H5P element is included with each chapter as a quick review of the chapter’s content. These are accessible based on the H5P type. The goal for the accessible content types is WCAG 2.1 AA support, so the content types have been tested against these criteria and more by the H5P.org developers. Refer to the accessible content types list for additional information.
• PowerPoint slides have been checked with the Microsoft Accessibility checker to ensure proper colour contrast. Images contain ALT text. Fonts are 24 points or larger. PDF Transcripts are linked with each Video.

Author

As a college professor, I have developed many courses and used creativity and innovative skills to develop projects and engaging content for students. What I have learned about innovation, is that it takes a lot of hard work and a little creativity to be innovative. I have built skills in researching, developing partnerships, networking, solving problems, and spotting opportunities to make changes and improvements. Some of my successful innovative ideas include: embedding industry certifications in courses to enable students to gain industry credentials, using open educational resources (OER) to reduce student fees, partnering with software vendors to embed current business technologies within courses to enable students to practice with current systems and prepare for the work world.

Prior to my career as a college professor, I worked in the human resource solutions industry and used creativity and innovative thinking to design corporate training modules that fit the unique needs of each client. Clients would have a need but often did not have a solution. My job was to identify the problem/need and recommend solutions, then apply creativity and innovation to implement the clients’ vision. Win-win for everyone!

I hope you find the content in this book interesting and the lessons helpful. You may find some tips for improving your personal creative thinking skills as well as learn some of the important concepts pertaining to business innovation.

I will try my best to update the book content from time to time and check that videos or resources do not become obsolete or outdated.

Sincerely,

Kerri Shields