This course is about the strategic management of innovation in modern organisations and the interaction of innovation processes and the wider economic and social environment. The course aims to show; how innovation processes maybe conceptualised, the helpfulness of thinking about innovation in a systems framework in which business organisations are key players, the meaning and contributions of technological innovation, widely understood, the ways in which innovation is used strategically by business organisations to pursue competitive advantage, the dynamic relationships between innovation and economic competition, the socio-economic benefits and costs of innovation, and the potentital for government innovation policy. Ideas and analysis are tied into the Australian experience of innovation and questions raised about the downsides as well as merits of innovation.