The expected learning outcomes of the course are the following ones:
- Knowledge of the relevant literature trends concerning entrepreneurship
- Understanding of the contribution of entrepreneurship to society
- Understanding of the entrepreneurial process
- Comprehensive vision of the different characteristics generally associated with entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs
- Openness to alternative forms of entrepreneurship
- Research capabilities: Writing skills, content analysis, project management, critical thinking
The course aims at
- giving students the fundamental knowledge, from the angle of management science, economics and sociology, concerning entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs ;
- accompanying students in the building of a collective research project related to the theory and practices that are studied in the course.
The course is made of three main parts. The first one is dedicated to the study of the various perspectives that scientific literature has produced concerning this field:
- Literature on the persona of the entrepreneur, its traits, its behaviours, its skills and motivations;
- Literature on the context of entrepreneurial processes;
- Entrepreneurial processes themselves.
In the second part, we shall study the different entrepreneurship types, in order to better understand how persons and contexts meet in a given project, but also to open the field to alternative entrepreneurial actions, as social entrepreneurship.
The third part will focus on the development of a new venture.
Additional and mandatory activities will also be offered to students, as conferences, interventions of guest speakers and coaching sessions for their project. If the course had to be organised partially or totally remotely, those activities will be replaced by some Youtube conferences. A list will be provided by the professor.
Table of contents
As said in the previous section, students will be asked to read and analyse literature. Their participation in the in-class debate and/or their production of reports and analysis will be graded. //2,5 points//
As mentioned earlier, additional activities are mandatory. Students are asked to attend at least 3 conferences or workshops related to entrepreneurship during the semester. The purpose of this is to open the perspectives of students through other viewpoints than the one of the professor. Students are asked to report briefly the main lessons they learnt from the activities. This report will be graded. The absence of a report will be graded negatively (malus). //1,5 points or possibly -1,5 points//
During this Academic Year, students are invited to work in small groups on the analysis of a piece of classical literature through the lens of entrepreneurship. A standardised questionnaire will be used by all groups to analyse the chosen book. A list of interesting books will be provided by the professor, but students can also come with a proposal that should be validated by the professor. The book can come either from classical Anglo-Saxon literature or from classical French literature. The goal of this project is to test the theory against a "reality", as presented in a piece of literature. The deliverable will be a paper following a template that will be provided by the professor and respecting the standards of scientific writing, especially concerning bibliography. This paper will be graded through a common grade for all group members. //10 points//
All students will also have to present an individual oral exam that can be held face-to-face or remotely following the constraints. This oral exam will be based on a 3-minutes pitch of the group work, followed by a 10-minutes interaction with the professor discussing the links beteen the course and the group work.
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