The Suffolk University MBA has been created with you, the student, at its core. It has been designed to give you deep yet integrated knowledge and skills to solve a client’s innovation problems. For the entire course, we have one client company with an innovation challenge. Past clients include DraftKings (daily fantasy sports) and Liberty Mutual (insurance). These are very different companies in totally different industries. Yet they both have innovation challenges. This course is unlike any you have taken before.
Innovation is a critical foundational component for today’s manager. It does not exist, however, in a traditional vacuum relegated to a single discipline or a single class. Suffolk Innovation spans those traditional boundaries. Entrepreneurial thinking is a critical element in the creation, growth, and sustainability of an organization. In new ventures, entrepreneurs drive innovation with limited resources and in existing organizations, corporate entrepreneurs may have an abundance of resources but have to develop new skills to navigate innovation through a hierarchical structure in a complex global organization. In both new ventures and existing organization businesses compete in a highly digital, inter-networked global economy. Information technology, strategically selected and implemented, can provide a significant, competitive advantage. The law as Framework often provides the framework under which entrepreneurial thinking and technology selection exists. Not understanding the legal implications of protecting intellectual property and securing data while not realizing individual and corporate liability are just a few examples of regulatory pitfalls. Together, these three elements – Entrepreneurial Thinking, Information Technology, and The Law as Framework – are the foci of the course.
We are visited at the start of the semester by an executive from the client company to describe their innovation challenge(s). We then focus on the three aspects taught by three SBS faculty members, each focused on one of the aspects. Learning from those modules is both general and particular to the client company. We learn via a variety of methods, including ideation and opportunity evaluation, business case discussions, technology presentations, and legal case discussions. 
Finally, we synthesize your specific ideas into a proposal at the end of the semester. That is when the executive returns to hear your proposal. This is academic theory firmly situated in a real-world business context and problem solving. Where will it take you?
– Arnold Kamis, Professor of Information System and Operations Management