Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship

Module Handbook

Introduction

Welcome to the entrepreneurship course intended to provide students with a solid foundation in terms of the vital role played by entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in the 21st century global economy. Entrepreneurship is approached as a way of thinking and acting, as an attitude and behaviour. Our emphasis is on entrepreneurship as a manageable process that can be applied in virtually any organizational setting. Moreover, our interest is in sustainable entrepreneurship, in entrepreneurship over the life cycles of people’s careers, of organizations as they evolve from start-up enterprises to sizeable corporations, and of societies as they move from undeveloped to post-industrial.

However, our principal focus will be on the creation of new ventures, the ways that they come into being, and factors associated with their success. This is a course of many ideas and questions, and you will be encouraged to develop and defend your own set of conclusions regarding each of these issues. It is also a course that integrates a number of different disciplines, ranging from sociology and psychology to economics, finance, marketing, and human resource management. Further, it is a course that mixes theory with practice, and you will be challenged to apply principles, concepts and frameworks to real world situations.

Objective

The course is built around a number of core objectives. By the end of the semester, you should be able to:

• Recognize the entrepreneurial potential within yourself and others in your environment;

• Appreciate the role of entrepreneurship within society, at the level of the organization, and in your own personal life;

• Develop an appreciation for opportunity, how to recognize it, and how to evaluate it;

• Appraise the nature of creative new business concepts that can be turned into sustainable business ventures;

• Appreciate the ethical issues that are intimately intertwined with...