Links:
[1] http://www.iesabroad.org/study-abroad/programs/barcelona-liberal-arts-business
[2] http://www.skillcast.co.uk/documents/49.html
[3] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.76.4474
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_chain
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_competency
[7] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5308/is_200906/ai_n32128895/?tag=content;col1
[8] http://www.inc.com/magazine/20010801/23220.html
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource-based_view
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_chain.URL:
Entrepreneurship: An European Perspective
While there are many definitions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, most will agree that entrepreneurship is more than just “starting your own business”. It is a practice and discipline rather than a science or an art and it is believed to be the driving force of most economies and societies. New entrepreneurial ventures are seen as the sources of job creation and economic growth as well as personal satisfaction. In this course, we will analyze the meaning of entrepreneurship, its linkage to innovation, what it means to be an entrepreneur and explore ways to become one. We will learn that entrepreneurship means change, that changes lead to opportunities and that group work and networking is essential. We will approach entrepreneurship as a process that can be applied in virtually any organizational setting. The emphasis of the course will be in the creation of new ventures, studying the different factors that can determine their success. The course prepares students to search for ideas and opportunities and transform them into viable businesses.
Attendance is mandatory for all IES classes, including field studies. Any exams, tests, presentations, or other work missed due to student absences can only be rescheduled in cases of documented medical or family emergencies. If a student misses more than three classes in any course half a letter grade will be deducted from the final grade for every additional absence. Seven absences in any course will result in a failing grade.
By the end of the course, the students should be able to:
• recognize the complexity of the entrepreneurial process, its role in society and its importance in a global context;
• understand the role of the entrepreneur within society, within organizations and at the personal level;
• explore the entrepreneurial potential of students and develop aptitudes towards entrepreneurship;
• appraise the nature of creative new business concepts that can be turned into sustainable business ventures;
• take advantage of peer-group review and feed-back during the process of developing a business
venture;
• appreciate the ethical issues of entrepreneurial activities, and develop a personal framework for dealing with them;
• develop specific skills, competencies, and points of view needed by professionals in the field most
closely related to this course;
• acquire skills in working with others as a member of a team;
• develop creative capacities needed to design new business concepts;
• acquire the capability to search, recognize and evaluate opportunities that can be turned into viable ventures
The course consists of twenty four 1 1/2-hour sessions twice a week. Classes will involve a mixture of lectures, discussions, case study analysis, in class exercises, video watching and discussing, and assignments that will promote the understanding of critical issues faced during the development of new enterprises. It is a ‘hands on course’ since we will establish ideas for enterprise formation and develop them through team projects.
• Case studies – Cases are examples of real life challenges, opportunities, problems or risks faced by entrepreneurs. Guiding questions will be given to aid the analysis.
• Field studies – These are studies that the students will undertake in the real market and in real social and business situations.
• Lectures – Will present up to date theories and examples. Students gain an overview of course
content, and develop critical thinking about the subject.
• In class exercises – These are short exercises used to emphasize a point made during lectures, to promote creative thinking and team interaction.
• Reader – It is a selection of key readings in the field chosen to develop a general understanding of the subject matter.
• Team project - Presents students with on hands experience to develop a business idea.
• Student presentations – They provide students with opportunities for oral delivery and experience at teamwork. Students will be asked to present case studies, in class exercises, field studies and
final projects
• e learning – These on-line materials are meant to offer up-to-date practical information on cases and life stories of entrepreneurship.
• Entrepreneur events – Students will learn from real entrepreneurs and have the opportunity to
ask questions. These will be done in accordance to availability of the speakers.
• Videos – Provides examples and information about entrepreneurship.
LANGUAGE OF PRESENTATION: English
In class performance and participation (25%); Real case study assignment (20%); Open book exam (20%); Business model (35%)
Active participation is required. Students are expected to come to class prepared, and play an active role in the discussions that take place during class sessions. This means reading the required material in advance or searching for additional information. The issue is the quality of the contribution more than the quantity. Participation/contribution includes asking questions, answering questions, agreeing
or disagreeing with points made by the instructor or peers, insights provided regarding the assigned cases, the students presentations and examples that brought into class of issues we are discussing.
Students will work in teams. They should form teams of up to 4 students per team and develop a team organizational structure and work plan. Student teams will present their team plan, structure and team dynamics.
Teams will brainstorm to come up with an original business idea, translate the idea into a strategic business concept and build a business model around that business concept. This business model must demonstrate the basic market and economic feasibility of the proposed business. Please note that the students will not develop a full business plan, and the specific issues to be addressed in the business model differ from those in a full business plan. In addition to the written business model, each team will give a business-like presentation of their model and the rest of the class will evaluate it. The appropriate media should support the presentation: PowerPoint, flip charts, and transparencies.
Student teams will present oral advances on the development of their business models and their case study assignment. All students in the course will provide feedback on these advances.
Students will analyze three or four case studies using the questions posted as a guide. It is expected that students go beyond the obvious in their analysis and will use the learning obtained from course readings and previous session discussions. The case studies will be discussed in class sessions. No written report is required
There will be an open book exam about the course material. The exam will consist of multiple choice, true and false and open questions.
Each team will write a short case study of a real entrepreneur of their choice. The cases will tell the story of an enterprise and describe situation, problems and outcomes. Instructions for the assignment will be provided in class. Each team will do a presentation of their case study. Case studies reports and presentations will be evaluated in terms of originality, written skills and educational value.
In addition, all papers and presentations will be graded according to the following criteria: 1: How well students integrate concepts and examples from the readings, lectures and class discussions during into their analysis. 2. How well the analysis is developed. 3. How well the discussion flows. 4. Does it goes beyond the merely descriptive and incorporates insights? 5. How well do students promote class participation in the discussions when presenting? 6. How relevant and valuable are the recommendations provided?
All teams are expected to evaluate the work of other teams and provide constructive criticism to each other.
Session 1: Introduction to the Course. Formation of teams.
Session 2: Who is the Entrepreneur? The nature of Entrepreneurship and its role in the Economy. Entrepreneurship an international phenomena.
Required Reading:
Byers, T., Kist, H. and Sutton, R.I. 1997. “Characteristics of the Entrepreneur: Social Creatures, Not Solo Heroes”. Prepared for The Handbook of Technology Management,
Richard C. Dorf (Editor), CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL. Downloaded June 2010 http://www.skillcast.co.uk/documents/49.html [2]
Kuenmerle, Walter, 2002. A Test for the Fainthearted.
Harvard Business Review, May: 122-127.
Session 3: Creativity. Creativity exercises.
Session 4: Weird objects exercise.
Session 5: The business model
Required Reading:
Morris, M., Schindehutte, M., Allen, J. 2005. “The entrepreneur’s business model: towards a unified
perspective”. Journal of Business Research, 58; 726-735.
Mauborgne, R.A. and Kim, W.C. 2004. “Blue Ocean Strategy”, Harvard Business Review, October: 76-85.
Schoenberg, Richard, 2003. “An integrated approach to strategy innovation”. European Business Journal, 95-103.
Session 6: Brainstorming session ideas
Session 7: The Value Proposition
Required Reading:
Bhide, Amar, 1994. How entrepreneurs craft strategies that work. Harvard Business Review, March-April, 150-161.
Anderson, James C., Narus, James A. and van Rossum, Wouter. 2006. “Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets”. Harvard Business Review, March 91-99.
Session 8: Discussion of Case study
1: Genersys Plc (A)
Required Reading:
Genersys Plc (A). London Business School, May 2006. Case #s: LBS-CS05-059.
Session 9: Model construction: Presentation and discussion of the
team’s value propositions
Session 10: Customer Phase. Who is the customer? The market targets. Segmentation of the market. Customer profile.
Required Reading:
Yankelovich and Meer. 2006. “Rediscovering Market Segmentation”. Harvard Business Review, March: 122-131.
Kim, W,C. and Mauborgne, R.A. 1999. “Creating New Market Space”, Harvard Business Review, January- February: 83-93.
Session 11: The customer phase: How to reach your customers and create relationships.
Required Reading:
Mc Kenna, R. 1988. “Marketing in an age of diversity”. Harvard
Business Review, September-October: 88-95. Domingos, Pedro. 2005 Mining Social Networks for Viral Marketing (short paper). IEEE Intelligent Systems, 20(1),
80-82. Downloaded September 2009 from:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.76.4474 [3]
Rust, Roland T., Christine Moorman, Gaurav Bhalla. 2010.
Rethinking Marketing. Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb: 94-101.
Session 12: Discussion of Scotbottle case study
Required Reading:
McLeod, Rob. 2004. Scotbottle. The Scottish Institute for Enterprise and the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Napier University Edinburgh.
Session 13: Model construction: Presentation and discussion of the team’s customer interface: profiles, segments, channels and relations.
Session 14: Real case study reports due. Presentations of assignments of real entrepreneurial case studies.
Session 15: Presentations of assignments of real entrepreneurial case studies.
Session 16: Finance phase I: Revenue flows. The importance of cash flow. Discussion of the case
study: What serves the customer best.
Required Reading:
Nunes, Paul F.; Driggs, Woodruff W. What serves the customer best? Harvard Business Review, October: 37-50.
Session 17:The infrastructure phase: Key Resources, key activities and key networks.
Required Reading:
Resource-based view: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource [4]- based_view.
The value chain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_chain [5].
Core competencies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_competency [6]. van den Berg, Ed, 2009, Outsourcing for SMEs. Credit
Management. Downloaded September 2009 from
BNET: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5308/is_200906/ai_n32128895/?tag=content;col1 [7]
Session 18: Model construction: Presentation of revenue flow
strategy and infrastructure phase.
Session 19: Finance phase II: The cost strategy. Discussion of the case study: The Pita Principle.
Required Reading:
Bhide, Amar, 1992. “Bootstrap Finance: The art of start-ups”.
Harvard Business Review, November-December: 109-117. Stuart, Anne. 2001. The Pita Principle. Inc. Magazine.
Downloaded September 2009 from:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20010801/23220.html [8]
Session 20: Model construction: Student presentations of cost strategy
Session 21: Open book test
Session 22: Business models due. Student presentations of Business
model projects
Session 23: Student presentations of
Business model projects
Session 24: Discussion of results.
Anderson, James C., Narus, James A. and van Rossum, Wouter. 2006. “Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets”. Harvard Business Review, March 91-99.
Bhide, Amar, 1992. “Bootstrap Finance: The art of start-ups”. Harvard Business Review, November- December: 109-117.
Bhide, Amar, 1994. How entrepreneurs craft strategies that work. Harvard Business Review, March- April, 150-161.
Byers, T., Kist, H. and Sutton, R.I. 1997. “Characteristics of the Entrepreneur: Social Creatures, Not
Solo Heroes”. Prepared for The Handbook of Technology Management, Richard C. Dorf (Editor), CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL. Downloaded June 2010
http://www.skillcast.co.uk/documents/49.html [2]
Core competencies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_competency [6].
Domingos, Pedro. 2005 Mining Social Networks for Viral Marketing (short paper). IEEE Intelligent
Systems, 20(1), 80-82. Downloaded September 2009 from:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.76.4474 [3]
Genersys Plc (A). London Business School, May 2006. Case #s: LBS-CS05-059.
Kim, W,C. and Mauborgne, R.A. 1999. “Creating New Market Space”, Harvard Business Review, January- February: 83-93.
Kuenmerle, Walter, 2002. A Test for the Fainthearted. Harvard Business Review, May: 122-127.
Mauborgne, R.A. and Kim, W.C. 2004. “Blue Ocean Strategy”, Harvard Business Review, October: 76-
85.
Mc Kenna, R. 1988. “Marketing in an age of diversity”. Harvard Business Review, September-October:
88-95.
McLeod, Rob. 2004. Scotbottle. The Scottish Institute for Enterprise and the Centre for
Entrepreneurship, Napier University Edinburgh.
Morris, M., Schindehutte, M., Allen, J. 2005. “The entrepreneur’s business model: towards a unified perspective”. Journal of Business Research, 58; 726-735.
Nunes, Paul F.; Driggs, Woodruff W. What serves the customer best? Harvard Business Review, October: 37-50.
Resource-based view: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource-based_view [9].
Rust, Roland T., Christine Moorman, Gaurav Bhalla. 2010. Rethinking Marketing. Harvard Business
Review, Jan-Feb: 94-101.
Schoenberg, Richard, 2003. “An integrated approach to strategy innovation”. European Business
Journal, 95-103.
Stuart, Anne. 2001. The Pita Principle. Inc. Magazine. Downloaded September 2009 from:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20010801/23220.html [8]
The value chain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_chain.URL: [10]
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.76.4474 [3]
van den Berg, Ed, 2009, Outsourcing for SMEs. Credit Management. Downloaded September 2009 from BNET: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5308/is_200906/ai_n32128895/?tag=content;col1 [7]
Yankelovich and Meer. 2006. “Rediscovering Market Segmentation”. Harvard Business Review, March:
122-131.