Stimulating innovation with an innovative curriculum: A curriculum design for a course on new product development

Abstract

In a dynamic marketplace, new product development (NPD) is considered the pivot of an organization's competitive strategy. However, little research has been conducted on the teaching material, pedagogical approach, and learning objective that should be part of a course on NPD. The study introduces a methodology for designing a curriculum with limited prior knowledge. First, latent semantic analysis was applied to extract the main research themes from journal articles on the subject, which are considered potential teaching materials. Next, the modified Delphi method was applied to identify their eligibility as teaching materials. Finally, both a revised Bloom's taxonomy and analytic hierarchy process were applied to establish learning objectives and determine the priorities in teaching materials and pedagogical approaches, respectively. The paper presents a case study to show that the proposed methodology can induce faculties to consider student requirements, evaluate the feasibility of teaching materials and pedagogical approaches, and develop assessments with concrete learning objectives. Moreover, the study found that the pedagogical approaches of experiential learning and constructivist learning were effective for teaching innovation management, knowledge management, project management, and risk management in courses at business schools in new product development.