UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2018/2019
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF BUSINESS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BUSS303 TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
FULL TIME / PART TIME / DISTANCE LEARNING
DATE: APRIL, 2019 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One & ANY OTHER TWO questions.
QUESTION ONE [30 MARKS]
a) What do you understand by the term idea diffusion [2 Marks]
b) Explain FOUR reasons why it is important for innovation to diffuse a move [8 Marks]
c) Explain FIVE ways in which technology and innovation can assist a company to achieve its major
development plans. [5 Marks]
d) Discuss with examples the following types of Innovations.
i. Product Innovation
ii. Process Innovation
iii. Organizational innovation [6Marks]
e) Brainstorming is one of the idea generation processes; explain FOUR guidelines to brainstorming
process. [4 Marks]
f) Discuss FIVE forces that promote research and development in an organization
[5 Marks]
QUESTION TWO [20 MARKS]
a) Explain FIVE measures that a company can use to determine the effectiveness and appropriateness of
an innovation. [10 Marks]
b) With the aid of examples example the following strategies of technology transfer: [4 Marks]
i) Conventional strategies
ii) Commercial strategies
c) With the aid of examples, explain the advantages and disadvantages of small and large firms in regard
to innovation. [6 Marks]
QUESTION THREE [20 MARKS]
Innovation raises fundamental strategic dilemmas for strategists.
Innovation is more complex than just invention.
Invention involves the conversion of new knowledge into a new product, process or service.
Innovation adds the critical extra step of putting this new product, process or service into use, in the
private sector typically via the marketplace and in the public sector through service delivery.
Discuss the above INNOVATION DILEMMAS Quoting relevant live examples you have come across.
[20 Marks]
QUESTION FOUR [20 MARKS]
Uber: Transport sector’s ‘M-Pesa’ moment?
Uber’s technology-driven business model, which seeks to provide timely, low-cost and satisfactory service,
has landed in town with a bang. The American multinational company works by allowing consumers with
smartphones to submit a trip request, which is then routed to Uber drivers, who use their own cars. Since
entering the Kenyan market in 2014, the firm has ruthlessly eaten into the conventional taxi market, which
has already been facing rising competition in recent years. Taxi drivers have been steadily losing market
share to professionally-managed companies that offer a more orderly service. Bigger threat but now, mobile
technology poses a much bigger threat than any other previous changes in the industry. Uber greatly
capitalises on this, and conventional taxi operators have said they are not going down without a fight. While
they agree that it is futile to fight technology, they do not think technology is the reason Uber has upended
them. …Kenyans have been busy on social media platforms asking “old school” drivers to innovate, rather
than resort to violently trying to oust Uber operators. Moses Nderitu on Twitter, for instance, said: “I will
keep using Uber. We cannot continue to be fleeced and given poor service at higher costs. Innovate or
perish.” Harvard Business School professor, Clayton Christensen, coined the term disruptive technology to
describe an innovation that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry, creating a
completely new industry.
a) Would you consider Uber Taxi services as disruptive innovation? Justify your answer [10 Marks]
b) Would this scenario in the case be considered as a blue ocean strategy? Discuss [4 Marks]
c) One way the Uber taxi services could have done to enter the Kenyan market is to form strategic alliance
with local or conventional taxi services in Kenya. Describe some of the most appropriate forms of
strategic alliance that Uber would have considered to avoid conflict and violence. [6 Marks]
QUESTION FIVE [20 MARKS]
a) Innovate or perish’ has become the mantra of the 21st century organizations. Discuss why
technological innovation is critical for survival in a globalized competition [10 Marks]
b) Diffusion of innovation has been defined as “the process by which an innovation is spread within a
market, over time and over categories of adopters”. Using illustrations, describe the categories of
adopters [10 Marks]
