Degree Requirements:
Completion Time: 1.5 years
Earned Credits: 36
Saybrook University’s M.A. in Leadership and Management: Innovation Leadership Specialization develops fundamental business management skills while employing a humanistic approach that better informs leadership development. Our innovation management program concentrates on the following key areas:
- Developing cutting‐edge leadership and professional practices
- Honing systems analysis and decision-making skills
- Expanding ability to exercise viable solutions to complex issues
- Increasing capability to design engaging workplace environments
- Leading dispersed team members and facilitating effective social networks
- Expanding professional confidence and socially responsive business vision
Fast-paced progress and change is indicative of the current business environment. Leaders are asked to deliver innovation on all fronts. This specialization prepares them to launch, skillfully implement, and evaluate cutting-edge approaches to business.
Students who enroll in this M.A. in Management and Leadership program have the opportunity to study innovation management at a university dedicated to making substantive positive changes in the world. Through a comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of various systems, graduates emerge with skills needed to align business objectives with those of their teams.
Graduates of this innovative leadership program will be able to perform as cross‐cultural managers able to establish dynamic globally distributed organizational cultures, management practices, and collaborative workplace systems, incorporating:
- Cultural sensitivity and global interdependence
- Diverse human resources and collaboration processes
- Human‐centric technology and information systems
- Strategic knowledge management and innovative decision making
- Organizational integrity and civic responsibility
Saybrook University’s Innovation Management Specialization is an 18‐month, 36-credit lockstep cohort program that is completed in four consecutive semesters (including summer sessions). At the completion of this program, graduates are awarded an Innovation Management degree that can be used to demonstrate their leadership capability for assisting for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental industries and agencies.
More program information can be found in our academic catalog.
Residential Requirements
Participation in three five-day Residential Conferences (RCs) is required. Students must attend the RC each semester they are enrolled except for summer. Dates are announced well in advance so students can plan for and prioritize the required participation.
Course Requirements
The 12 courses are taken in a prescribed sequence. All courses are 3 credits, comprising the 36 credits required to graduate. Coursework must be evaluated as equivalent to B or better at the graduate level to earn credit.
Course Participation
Satisfactory “class attendance” in online courses requires students to log into the university’s online course site multiple times during the week to participate in discussions and other learning activities. Course syllabi indicate their specific participation requirements.
Innovative Leadership: Principles and Practices
Innovation in leadership requires the capacity to be entrepreneurial, adaptive, decisive, collaborative, and ethical. This course introduces the core principles required to launch entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial efforts in a variety of organizational settings. It identifies the competencies required to create an innovative mindset in an organization. Students will explore a range of theories of innovation, their limitations, and applications. Particular attention is given to the characteristics of leading successful change efforts and to the analysis of a variety of examples of innovations. Students will be encouraged to launch innovations in their practice of leadership and management. 3 credits
Communication and Group Dynamics
Organizations function through networks of formal and informal communication and group dynamics. This course exposes students to the complexity of social systems and networks of relationships within organizations. The course explores the nature of group behavior and group dynamics. Theories of communication and group dynamics are examined through a critical lens. Students examine approaches to managerial communication and the impact of those approaches on outcomes. They examine challenges inherent in building sustainable collaboration. 3 credits
Transforming Organizations: Principles of Change and Development
Forward-focused leaders must be able to advance successful change agendas and build the requisite alliances for transformations to occur. In this course students explore the interplay between organizational learning, innovation, and transformation. They learn multiple theoretical approaches to change and the challenges that each approach presents in actual practice. Further, students explore the role of individual and organizational resilience. The course addresses the impact of resistance, resource allocations, and conflict on organizational transformations. 3 credits