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Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Teaching and Learning Resources

Entrepreneurship in the Twenty-first Century
The Entrepreneurial Perspective
Developing the Entrepreneurial Plan
Initiating Entrepreneurial Venture
Growth and Development of Entrepreneurial Ventures
Contemporary Challenges in Entrepreneurship

Chat Lines, Discussion Forums, Wikis (under construction)

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Wahaha Group - Cola Wars in China: The Future is here

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Entrepreneurship - Theory, Process and Practice

Rationale

Creating Entrepreneurship: entrepreneurship education for the creative industries

The ADM-HEA Subject Centre has just published its' research report that looks at what educational provision should be made to help prepare students to grow their own creative businesses.

The report is downloadable as PDFs in separate 7 sections:

Foreword and Executive Summary

Section 1.0 Entrepreneurship education is important to sustainable growth in the creative industries

Section 2.0 Entrepreneurship education for art, design and media students

Section 3.0 What are the barriers to effective collaboration?

Section 4.0 The research informs a model for entrepreneurship education

Section 5.0 Conclusions and recommendations

Entrepreneurship is the practice of starting new organizations, particularly new businesses generally in response to identified opportunities. Entrepreneurship is often a difficult undertaking, as a majority of new businesses fail. Entrepreneurial activities are substantially different depending on the type of organization that is being started. Entrepreneurship may involve creating many job opportunities.

Many "high-profile" entrepreneurial ventures seek venture capital or angel funding in order to raise capital to build the business. Many kinds of organizations now exist to support would-be entrepreneurs, including specialized government agencies, business incubators, science parks, and some NGOs.

Our understanding of entrepreneurship owes a lot to the work of economist Joseph Schumpeter and the Austrian School of economics. For Schumpeter (1950), an entrepreneur is a person who is willing and able to convert a new idea or invention into a successful innovation.

Entrepreneurship forces "creative destruction" across markets and industries, simultaneously creating new products and business models and eliminating others. In this way, creative destruction is largely responsible for the dynamism of industries and long-run economic growth.

Research and Explore Options and Opportunities

Despite Schumpeter's early 20th-century contributions, the traditional microeconomic theory of economics has had little room for entrepreneurs in their theories. (ref. The Economist Magazine, March 11, 2006, pp 67).

For Frank H. Knight (1967) and Peter Drucker (1970) entrepreneurship is about taking risk. The entrepreneur is the kind of person that is willing to put his career and financial security on the line for an idea, spending his time and capital in an uncertain venture. Still another view of entrepreneurship is that it is the process of discovering, evaluating and exploiting opportunities. An entrepreneur could be defined as "someone who acts without regard to the resources currently under his control in relentless pursuit of opportunity " (Jeffry Timmons).

See also

Community Forums:

Organisations:

Other Links:

Definitions of entrepreneurship
Funding Universe Strategy Tree Wiki is a network for angel investors and entrepreneurs.
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation largest U.S. philanthropy dedicated to entrepreneurship.
Texas Entrepreneurship Network
Reference article on Entrepreneurship by Mark Casson
Award-winning film, LEMONADE STORIES, on entrepreneurs and their mums by Mary Mazzio
Asian-Nation: Asian American Entrepreneurship by C.N. Le, Ph.D.
Entrepreneur Interviews nPost.com
Entrepreneurship Properly Understood
University and College Entrepreneur Societies
US Small Business Administration
Artistic Entrepreneurship
Large Network of Entrepreneurs

Blogs About Entrepreneurship:

Business pundit- Entrepreneur
Dry. Jeff Cornwall Professor of Entrepreneurship
Barry Moults- Entrepreneur

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

This is a non-taught unit designed for self-directed study by those planning to start or grow their own business.

Knowledge

After completing the module, student will:

understand the process of entrepreneurship and the current thinking in entrepreneurship
understand the ethical and social responsibility challenges for entrepreneurs
understand the legal structures for new business ventures
understand the acquisition and valuation of business ventures
understand the family business perspective
understand the total quality management and continuous improvement challenges for entrepreneurs

Skills

After completing the module, student will be able to:

apply ideas and develop useful analytical skills
assess and evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities
conduct an environmental assessment in preparation for a new venture
undertake marketing research for new ventures
undertake the necessary financial preparation for entrepreneurial ventures
develop his/her individual creativity and understanding of innovation
develop an effective business plan
develop strategic plans for emerging ventures

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Teaching and Learning Resources

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Learning Contents

Entrepreneurship in the Twenty-first Century

Tutorials

Readings

The Four Models of Corporate Entrepreneurship – The Producer

This is the last in a series of posts describing the essence of the four models of corporate entrepreneurship and the conditions it takes to succeed. The four models are based on organisational ownership—who, if anyone, within the company has primary ownership for creating new businesses?—and resource allocation—is money dedicated to corporate entrepreneurship or are new business concepts funded in an ad hoc manner, from any sources that have the interest and the available budget?

In our last posting, we described the Advocate Model, in which a company assigns organisational ownership for driving the creation of new businesses to a designated corporate-level group, but it intentionally provides the group with only a modest budget. In the Producer model, the group assigned to drive new business creation is also provided significant dedicated funds.

Read More ...

Intrapreneurship is the act of behaving like an entrepreneur, except within a larger organization.

See also

External links

Intrapreneurship - Small Business Notes
Intrapreneurship - MIT class notes

The Entrepreneurial Perspective

Tutorials

Readings

Although the idea and discussion about some consequences (especially the inter-firm cooperation in R&D) date back at least to the 60s, Open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Centre for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology^[1]. The concept is related to user innovation, cumulative innovation, Know-How Trading, mass innovation and distributed innovation.

“Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology”^[2]. The boundaries between a firm and its environment have become more permeable; innovations can easily transfer inward and outward. The central idea behind open innovation is that in a world of widely distributed knowledge, companies cannot afford to rely entirely on their own research, but should instead buy or license processes or inventions (i.e. patents) from other companies. In addition, internal inventions not being used in a firm's business should be taken outside the company (e.g. through licensing, joint ventures or spin-offs).

See also

External links

Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, a solution, a work of art, a novel, a joke, etc.) that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs. What counts as "valuable" is similarly defined in a variety of ways.

Scholarly interest in creativity ranges widely: Topics to which it is relevant include the relationship between creativity and general intelligence; the mental and neurological processes associated with creative activity; the relationship between personality type and creative ability; the relationship between creativity and mental health; the potential for fostering creativity through education and training, especially as augmented by technology; and the application of an individual's existing creative resources to improve the effectiveness of learning processes and of the teaching processes tailored to them.

Creativity and creative acts are therefore studied across several disciplines - psychology, cognitive science, education, philosophy (particularly philosophy of science), technology, theology, sociology, linguistics, business studies, and economics. As a result, there are a multitude of definitions and approaches.

See also

Brainstorming
E-scape, a technology and approach that looks specifically at the assessment of creativity and collaboration.
Innovation
Invention (such as "artistic invention" in the Visual Arts)
Musical improvisation
Music therapy
The heroic theory of invention and scientific development
Greatness
Creative Culture
Why Man Creates (film)
Confabulation (neural networks)
Notes
References
Further reading

What is Creativity?

By Linda Naiman

I define creativity as the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don't act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.

"Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being ...creativity requires passion and commitment. Out of the creative act is born symbols and myths. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness-ecstasy."
- Rollo May, The Courage to Create

"A product is creative when it is (a) novel and (b) appropriate. A novel product is original not predictable. The bigger the concept, and the more the product stimulates further work and ideas, the more the product is creative."
- Sternberg & Lubart, Defying the Crowd

Read More ..

See also

Developing the Entrepreneurial Plan

Tutorials

Readings

A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.

Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. When the existing business is to assume a major change or when planning a new venture - a 3 to 5 year business plan is required since investors will look for their annual return in the 3 to 5 year time.^[1]

See also

References

Got an Entrepreneurial Itch? Launch a new business with power and style

Activity

What is Enterprise? - The Characteristics of an Entrepreneur

Image: Every business had to start somewhere with the dreams and ideas of just one person in many cases. Sam Walton opened a small grocery store in Bentonville, Arkansas in the United States. Today, Wal-Mart has over 5,000 stores and sells goods to the value of $9.1 billion each year - that's $9,100,000,000! Title: Wal-Mart Dominates U.S. Retail Economy. Copyright: Getty Images, available from Education Image Gallery

Initiating Entrepreneurial Venture

Tutorials

Readings

Venture Management is an emerging business management discipline.

This discipline is focused on the skills and practices required to manage the rapid growth of new business in highly dynamic environments. These environments are often, but now always, characterized by rapid technology change.

Venture Management techniques apply equally well to Venture Capital funded firms, self-financed firms, and new ventures that are managed with a large degree of independence within a large established firm.

External links

A definition of venture management as contrasted with traditional management.
Example of syllabus from university level venture management course
MBA program focused on New Venture Management
American Venture article on venture management
Choosing a Legal Structure for your Business

Growth and Development of Entrepreneurial Ventures

Tutorials

Readings

Strategic Planning consists of the process of defining objectives and developing strategies to reach those objectives. By labelling a piece of planning "strategic" we expect it to operate on the grand scale and to take in "the big picture" (in contradistinction to "tactical" planning, which by definition has to focus more on the tactics of individual detailed activities). "Long range" planning typically projects current activities and programs into a revised view of the external world, thereby describing results that will most likely occur. "Strategic" planning tries to "create" more desirable future results by (a) influencing the outside world or (b) adapting current programs and actions so as to have more favourable outcomes in the external environment.

Within business, strategic planning may provide overall direction strategic management to a company or give specific direction in such areas as:

Financial strategies
Human resource/organisational development strategies
Information technology deployments
Marketing strategy

We want to do Strategic Planning to:

1. Have the capability to obtain the desired objective

2. Fit well both with the external environment and with an organization's resources and core competencies - it should appear feasible and appropriate

3. Have the capability of providing an organization with a sustainable competitive advantage - ideally through uniqueness and sustainability

4. Prove dynamic, flexible, and able to adapt to changing situations

5. Suffice on its own - specifically providing favourable outcomes without the need for cross-subsidization

See also

References

Contemporary Challenges in Entrepreneurship

Tutorials

Readings

Business Valuation is a process applied by qualified valuation experts to determine the fair market value of an owner’s interest in a business. Business valuation is often used to resolve disputes related to estate and gift taxation, divorce litigation, allocation of business purchase price, and many other business and legal disputes.

External links

Valuecruncher.com - Blog on business valuation
Rules of Thumb for Business Valuation - A collection of industry metrics for determining the value of a business
BVSource.com - A law blog containing news and analysis of business valuation issues in divorce litigation

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organisational processes. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.

Total Quality provides an umbrella under which everyone in the organization can strive and create customer satisfaction.
TQ is a people-focused management system that aims at continual increase in customer satisfaction at continually lower real costs.