Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the participants will be able to

  • Understand the management and organization of entrepreneurial firms
  • Comprehend the financing challenges met by start-ups
  • Identify the factors that determine a venture’s valuation
  • Develop their critical thinking regarding a specific question in entrepreneurship
  • Program in a statistical software (e.g., R) to answer a specific and current research questions
  • Provide a concise report that answers a specific research question
  • Efficiently present their research results

 

Goals

The goal of this course is to initiate participants to a better understanding of venture capital, the management and organization of entrepreneurial companies and the financing challenges met by start-ups. This course covers both theory and practice. In addition to a theoretical introduction, students will work in groups to tackle a specific topic in the field of entrepreneurship. Each group will tackle this topic from a different perspective in the form of a Mini Thesis of 5,000 words maximum. The topic will be decided at the beginning of the year in function of the current interests of the press, academia and regulators. In addition to covering a specific topic from different perspectives, this course discusses and illustrates different empirical approaches to tackle the research questions of the MiniThesis in R and prepares the student for the actual Master Thesis. Using papers on this specific topic, the course will highlight the following empirical topics: endogeneity, difference in difference estimators and event studies.

 

Assessment method

  • This class takes place both online and in person. A schedule is provided at the start of the semester that specifies the dates on campus.
  • Students are expected to write a MiniThesis of 5,000 words maximum for this course. The short length of this thesis does not reduce the amount of work. On the contrary, the short length aims at learning how to increase the impact of the writing and communication. The students will for groups of maximum five people. Depending on the number of people attending the course, this limitation might change. The MiniThesis will be conducted in a time frame of six weeks and include sections regarding the 1) Motivation/introduction, 2) contribution, 3) Data & method, 4) Result, 5) robustness tests and 6) Conclusion/Discussion. The students will have to organize themselves to collect their own data on a specific topic and conduct the analyses in R. The students will present their research proposal in the third week and defend their findings in the final week of the course with a podcast. Each group will be evaluated by their peers on a list of pre-defined criteria. 
  • The final grade is distributed as follows:
    • 15% – 3-min presentation the review of the literature (peer-reviewed but adjustable according to the instructor's discretion).
    • 30% – 3-min presentation on your methodology and findings in the form of a podcast. Originality is key! (peer-reviewed but adjustable according to the instructor's discretion)
    • 35% Final report: A 5,000-word paper that summarizes your research question (peer-reviewed but adjustable according to the instructor's discretion).
    • 20% Active presence & participation in class (peer-reviewed but adjustable according to the instructor's discretion). To avoid free-riders in the group, an intra-group evaluation will be performed. Bad scores will downgrade your own grade. If you do not fully peer-review all the groups, your grade will be reduced by 40% for that part.
    • To avoid any abuse or manipulation, the final grade remains at the instructors' discretion, which is final.
    • Active participation in class is mandatory and absence in class or presentation leads to a zero.

 

Language of instruction

Français