MBA Entrepreneurship Track

General Presentation

Thursday 06 November 2014

EDHEC Business School at Nice

MBA FULL-TIME

ACADEMIC YEAR 2014-2015

Professor : Charles LUMBERS

OVERALL OBJECTIVE

The Global Entrepreneurship track is, indeed, designed for students aiming to set up or take over a business, but it offers a compelling learning experience to a larger range of the MBA student population. The sixty-hour programme is structured in two parts: 30 hours of course work (split evenly between lectures and tutorials), and 30 hours of specialty seminars.

COURSE WORK

The course focuses on the theory and practice entrepreneurship from three different perspectives:

1. entrepreneurship as a style of management and the special collection of skills possessed by an entrepreneur;

2. entrepreneurship as an analytical and organisational process; and

3. entrepreneurship as cognition. The course will be based on the interplay of conceptual

frameworks and current best practice. A particular emphasis will be placed on systematic approaches to entrepreneurial idea creation and evaluation. The priority is placed on the transfer of knowledge which is conceptual, practical, and applicable.

Course Work Lecture topics include: conceptual models and analytical frameworks

in entrepreneurship; opportunity as an objective phenomenon and opportunity as perception; nature and identification of opportunities; managerial aspects of entrepreneurship; contextual dynamics and the search for entrepreneurial opportunities; business Plan as document and as process; complexity perspective on entrepreneurial leadership; business models (underlying business logic: numbers and narratives); revenue and cost streams: aspects of the financial context of entrepreneurship;

The essential characteristic of the teaching is that students will work in entrepreneurial project groups and the tutorial periods will be devoted to applying the concepts and analytical approaches from the lectures to their own project. The dozen or so entrepreneurial projects will be drawn from the individual Innovation projects developed in the course with Professor Maital.

SPECIALTY SEMINARS

The following topics will be addressed by outside specialists:

innovation management and performance measurement (Sorin Cohn-Sfetcu)

entrepreneurship and the Cynefin (complexity) framework (Dave Snowden)

finance and entrepreneurship (a VC perspective) (Barend van der Worm)

cash management and bootstrapping (TBA) international entrepreneurship (Alan Barrel) round table on IPR personal experiences and lessons learned (TBA)

THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRACK WILL CONCLUDE WITH THE PRESENTATION BY EACH ENTREPRENEURIAL PROJECT GROUP OF THEIR BUSINESS PLAN BEFORE A PANEL OF INVESTORS AND EXPERIENCED ENTREPRENEURS.

TARGET PARTICIPANTS This Track is designed to appeal to and satisfy the expectations of MBA

students who fall into one of three categories:

1. those who already have an entrepreneurial idea in mind and who have the firm intention of pursuing this ambition upon graduation or shortly thereafter;

2. those who do not yet have a precise entrepreneurial idea in mind (or who are presently thinking one over) but who are seriously attracted to the possibility of being master of their own business, through the creation of their own firm, by taking over an existing company, or within the context of an existing firm (intrapreneurship); and

3. those who do not a priori have the intention of running their own independent business entity (aiming rather at a senior management position in an existing organisation) but who wish to participate in an intense analysis, and the preparation and presentation of the business plan, concerning the economic viability a new business project.