Innovation in an Academic Setting: Designing and Leading a Business Through Market- Focused, Interdisciplinary Teams ARTHUR A. BONI LAURIE R. WEINGART SHELLEY EVENSON Carnegie Mellon University The focus on entrepreneurship in business schools has never been stronger; however, preparing students for a career in developing new business innovations and ventures is challenging, and no shared set of “best practices” exist. Our purpose here is to describe efforts at developing a curriculum for entrepreneurship and to consider the role of academia in business commercialization. Central to our efforts is the development of an innovative capstone course in the MBA program at Carnegie Mellon University, offered jointly by faculty in the Tepper School of Business and the School of Design. The interdisciplinary course blends three perspectives needed for the effective commercialization of innovation: entrepreneurial thought, action, and leadership; design thinking; and team building. ...................................................................................................................................................................................... In recent years, many universities have developed interdisciplinary project courses in service of inno- vation. A typical course will bring together stu- dents from different colleges working with exter- nal client companies to solve specific product design challenges. These projects are largely com- pany-centric, since the intent is to develop a prod- uct or services that would fit within the corporate innovation portfolio. We describe an innovative, interdisciplinary, project-based capstone course in the MBA program at Carnegie Mellon University, which was devel- oped jointly by the Tepper School of Business and the School of Design. A unique feature of this course is that the projects are student/team centered, with a focus on creating disruptive (and sustainable) innovations of general interest to external clients aimed at the potential for commercialization. Thus, student teams attempt to develop business models around their solutions while simultaneously design- ing a customer-centered and -driven solution. The intent may be to carry out the solution by way of an existing organization, but it is most often not. All options are considered for implementation, includ- ing new entity formation; networked, open-innova- tion business models; and new team formation. We present our perspective on innovation and entrepreneurial leadership and then provide de- tails about a course designed to prepare students for the challenges they will face in innovative or- ganizations and entrepreneurial ventures. We dis- cuss the philosophy driving the course, discuss details regarding its implementation, and provide examples of projects from its first year of imple- mentation. Finally, we reflect on the role of aca- demia in entrepreneurship as it relates to intellec- tual property and commercialization. Our Perspective In our approach to technology commercialization and business development we recognize that few The authors thank David Westfall, Intel Research Lab, Pitts- burgh, and UPMC Health System for providing us the opportu- nity to develop the designing a business concept via 3 years of sponsored summer projects involving integrated teams of de- signers, entrepreneurs, and technologists.  Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2009, Vol. 8, No. 3, 407– 417. ........................................................................................................................................................................ 407 Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download or email articles for individual use only.