OUTCOME DRIVEN INNOVATION IN THE CONTEXT OF BLENDED LEARNING – A NEED-BASED INNOVATION APPROACH FOR DIGITALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Current changes in the field of digitalization increasingly affect higher education. Students’ behavior to seek, gather and process information during learning has transferred from analog to digital services. The shift from analog to digital learning patterns challenges traditional universities and offers potential market opportunities as well as risks. Especially new, disruptive technologies and business models in the field of e-learning services may yield a potential threat for traditional universities. Therefore, universities have to anticipate changes in their environment and turn them into opportunities. The traditional strategic orientation has to be adapted and a new value propositions needs to be created, which effectively targets problems and needs in learning and teaching. This Paper employs an Outcome Driven Innovation (ODI) approach as a methodological contribution to support need based strategic orientation of a German university. The ODI methodology enables the identification and exploration of university students’ and lecturers’ needs in order to translate these into innovation potentials. The results can be used to develop a need based digitalization strategy and digital learning solutions based on a blended learning approach. The ODI methodology has been applied in a real-world setting with some 260 Professors and roundabout 3,500 students. Our project contributes a methodical approach to assist incumbent organizations like universities with a structured process to identify needs and the job-to-be-done within the learning and teaching process of digitalized higher education. Traditional universities are challenged by new and disruptive technologies in the field of e-learning. Therefore, it is crucial for established universities to reconfigure their current organization and strategy in order to react to the changing environment of the education sector in the digital age. In line with the propositions and implications of resource dependency theory, we applied the Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) methodology to support the digital transformation of our university. The ODI approach is a systemized innovation approach that enables organizations to gain a deep and validated understanding of customer needs and problems, in order to develop need-based strategies and solutions. The purpose of this study was to identify distinct learning and teaching needs and problems in a qualitative way and evaluate these needs quantitatively. Hence, it is fundamental for universities to establish a need-based digitalization strategy in order to target the diverse and complementary needs of students and lecturers. From our ODI study at our university we could derive a need-based digitalization strategy based on a blended learning concept, which merges traditional/analog with digital learning and teaching concepts. The key action points of the strategy are based on interactive support and encouragement, incentivize and motivation as well as sureness within the learning process. Based on the three core jobs-to-be-done and their underlying needs our university is now able to nurture its blended learning strategy for digitalized learning and teaching. Based on the strategic orientation on blended learning and the underlying ODI results, our university is capable to make effective user-centric strategic decision according to investments, development and organizational integration of new learning and teaching solutions for higher education.