We propose a reframing of business innovation – join us to experience how!
Innovation and organisational creativity is at the core of any business wanting to be a step ahead and future-ready. But innovation practices in itself is in need of some new thinking. By looking to creativity, design, architecture arts and even performance, business leaders and innovators can discover new ways of co-creation and innovation management, that can propel their product development and growth strategies.
For this event, professors Daniel Hjorth (Lund University and CBS) and Roberto Verganti (Stockholm School of Economics) will propose a new way to think and practice innovation centred on the concept of meaning-making. The idea is that the future strength of European business will increasingly be found in how it relates aesthetics and economy in creative ways. Following their presentations, the speakers will lead a panel discussion featuring Ana Maria Munar, Silviya Svejenova and Christian Bason.
Regardless of whether you see your business as part of cultural and creative industries or not, your product development and innovation processes have to increasingly attend to the way aesthetics is a source of meaning in value-creation that attracts customers to European businesses. This has fascinating leadership implications that will be addressed in Hjorth and Verganti’s dialogical talk.
This event is relevant for a broad scope of innovation management – people involved in product development, strategic change and strategy revision as well as those working on corporate entrepreneurship and with open innovation strategies.
Aesthetics and Business Innovation: Rethinking our Approach
Type
In-person
| Date | 20 February |
| Time | 16:30-18:30 |
| Place | CBS |
| Format |
In-person |
TBA
Daniel Hjorth
CBS Professor, Department of Business, Humanities and Law
Daniel Hjorth is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Organisation at the Department of Business Humanities and Law, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Between 2013 and 2018 he served as Academic Director for the across CBS Entrepreneurship Business in Society Platform.
Daniel is also one of the Co-founders of the Centre for Aesthetics and Business Creativity at Lund University. The centre wants to extend the research-basis for understanding and practicing organisational creativity as well as blends ethics, aesthethics and business creativity to continually inspire new ways of thinking and doing.
Roberto Verganti
Professor of Leadership and Innovation at Stockholm School of Economics
Roberto Verganti is Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the Stockholm School of Economics, where he co-directs "The Garden - Center for Design and Leadership". He is also in the faculty of the Harvard Business School where he teaches Integrated Design and has been a visiting scholar at the Copenhagen Business School and at the California Polytechnic University.
Roberto’s research focuses on how leaders and organizations create meaningful innovations. He explores how to nurture radically new visions, and make those visions come real, by engaging people. His studies lie at the intersection between leadership, design and technology management.
Ana Maria Munar
CBS Associate Professor, Department of Business, Humanities and Law
Ana Maria Munar is Associate Professor at the Department of Business Humanities and Law, CBS. Her scholarship applies experimental writing, critical theory and philosophical thought to study gender, higher education, and tourism. Ana’s latest book “Desire: Subject, Sexuation and Love” is an exploration of desire through Lacanian psychoanalysis, philosophy, art and literature. Her passion lies in philosophising and developing creative academic communities, where love and joy are possible. One of these is the Critical Tourism Studies network that she co-chaired together with Professor Kellee Caton. She is the author and editor of several book anthologies and special issues, and has written over forty academic articles and book chapters. Her philosophical and gender research combines academic publications with advocacy and action research projects.
Silviya Svejenova
CBS Professor, Department of Organization
Silviya Svejenova is Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the Department of Organization and Academic Co-director of the CBS Leadership Centre. She investigates how creativity, innovation, and strategic leadership can enable sustainable futures, inclusion, and positive impact. She is co-editor of the 2024 “Leadership for the Future” report with insights from the CBS Leadership Think Tank. Her co-authored book “The Changing C-suite: Executive Power in Transformation” (Oxford University Press) won the 2024 EGOS Book Award for contribution to the knowledge about organizations. Silviya is the Chair of the Board of SCANCOR, the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research with locations at CBS, Harvard and Stanford Universities and Division Program Chair-Elect of the Organization and Management Theory (OMT) Division of the Academy of Management, a leading global professional association for scholars of management and organizations.
Christian Bason
Leader in Residence (CBS), Co-founder (Transition Collective), Adjunct Professor (UTS Sydney)
Christian Bason, Ph.D., is Leader in Residence with Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Co-founder of Transition Collective and Adjunct Professor with University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Christian is a writer, speaker, trainer and strategic advisor on design, innovation and leadership. From 2014 to 2023 he was CEO of the Danish Design Center, a government-backed non-profit foundation. From 2007-2014 he was Director of MindLab, the Danish government’s innovation team. From 1998-2006 he held various leadership positions in Ramboll, a global advisory group. He is the author of nine books on leadership, innovation and design, including "Expand: Stretching the Future by Design" (2022), "Leading Public Sector Innovation: Co-creating for a Better Society" (2018) and (in Danish) "The Organization Was Set Free and the Leadership had to be Rediscovered" (2023). Christian is M.Sc. (Political Science) from Aarhus University and Ph.D. (Design, Leadership and Governance) from Copenhagen Business School. Christian holds Danish and American citizenship and lives with his family in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Please note that photographs/videos will be taken/recorded during the event. These will be used by CBS as a record of the event, for digital marketing and publicity purposes on our websites/social media as well as for marketing and publicity purposes in printed formats. Photographs/videos will be stored until it is no longer necessary in order to meet these purposes. Please contact executiveeducation@cbs.dk if you have any concerns or you wish to have a photograph/video of you deleted.