Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Business Administration.

The MBA Entrepreneurship Designation (ENT) allow students to develop requisite knowledge, skills, initiative and creativity in order to succeed in:

1. Starting their own businesss
2. Joining an early stage or rapidly growing company
3. Managing an entrepreneurial venture
4. Launching a new division within an existing corporation

Courses include:

Entrepreneurship Electives

• Venture Practicum (Greenhouse for Launching a New Venture)
• Entrepreneurship & New Ventures (Developing a Business Plan)
• Management Skills for Entrepreneurs
• Social Entrepreneurship
• New Product Development
• Venture Capital Financing
• Project Management
• Business Design Through IT
• Web & E-Business Technologies
• E-Marketing
• Financial Modeling
• Business Law I
• Sales Management
• Business Finance
• Business Valuation
• High Technology Management
• Project Management
• Consumer Behavior
• Product Management
• E-Business Strategies and Applications
• Leadership and Change
• Strategy Implementation
• Business Entity Taxation
• Partnerships

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FN 7499 SPECIAL TOPICS: Financing Modeling

This course helps students develop the type of Excel-based financial models that businesses use every day to analyze a wide range of financial problems and make decisions. Students deliver written and oral presentations of their models and practice critical skills for a successful career in finance.

BL 6310 Business Law I (MBA required course)

Introduces the fundamental concepts and legal principles that are applicable to the American legal system, its development, and inherent ethical considerations. Discusses the basis and structure of business contracts; the creation and characteristics of agencies, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations; and the rights and liabilities of agents, partners, directors, and shareholders. Students analyze cases and discuss and solve problems.

FN 7499 SPECIAL TOPICS: Venture Capital Financing

When it comes to raising capital for start-up companies, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, agent bankers, and their research analysts often find themselves at cross purposes. By examining the issues of valuation, structure, and control in this course, students gain the perspective needed in the fund-raising process. Given that objective, team case studies are chosen to illustrate how different viewpoints can be reconciled

Project Management

Provides the skills project managers need to complete projects on time and on budget. Technology improvements in organizations are implemented through projects, and strong project management skills are a key success factor for companies to achieve the expected benefits from their technology investments. Topics include setting and maintaining project scope, developing work plans, estimating required resources, developing work programs, organizing project teams, super-users, monitoring and controlling projects, maintaining relationships with users and management, status reporting, and key factors for realizing the anticipated benefits from the investment.

Business Design Through IT

This course examines the IT-enabled global business transformation phenomena. To be effective in this era of globalization, businesses are redesigning their processes and organizational structures to effectively harness the potential of IT. The impact of IT such as the global CRM & ERP, Internet, global supply chain systems mobile computing, Web 2.0 and others can be felt across the global value chain as businesses form virtual teams, partnerships and value webs to expand markets and promote growth. The course provides an in-depth understanding of the key IT applications, drivers, and models of global business strategies. Students apply the core approaches to a series of global cases. As their final project student teams will develop an IT-related global business plan. The course is intended to help prepare students to perform IT-enabled transformations in global settings.The forces of globalization are having immediate and profound effects on business structure, operations and strategy. As businesses expand globally they confront differences in governance & regulatory environments, workforce diversity, and sustainability practices, to name just a few. In this rapidly changing global environment, information technology has a critical role to play in promoting growth, raising the standard of living and reducing poverty. IT-enabled pandemic surveillance systems and global food supply chains are only two examples among numerous others that play a critical role in the collection, storage and dissemination of critical information at the macro level. From the farmer in Bangladesh who uses the internet to trade in the commodities market and the fisherman in India who uses mobile technologies to optimize the fish catch for the day, to giant multinationals such as Wal-Mart which uses RFID and complex global supply chain systems, the ubiquitous and pervasive impact of information technology is being felt across the globe. Its enabling and global transformational effects have been documented at the firm, industry and country levels in numerous studies.

Web and E-Business Technologies

Begins with a brief review of e-business models and applications, such as online purchasing, customer relationship management, electronic marketplaces, application service providers, supply chains, enterprise resource planning, and enterprise portals. Studies enabling technologies, such as Web, XML, Semantic Web, HTML, wireless web, and XML web services. Also discusses web-based platforms for e-commerce, B2B trade, and mobile applications. Reviews emerging XML standards, such as ebXML, Rosettanet, and Biztalk, and web-based platforms, including Dot Net and J2EE. Students will experience the systems development lifecycle while developing a website to meet business requirements and will also review real-life examples and case studies.

E-Marketing

Focuses on the "new" marketing, enabled and challenged by rapidly evolving technologies. Explores how marketers can wed the interactive power of technology with proven marketing principles in order to entice customers to "opt in" to the marketing message and offer. The class surveys relevant technologies, controversies, and methods via discussion, case analysis, short research presentations, and a team project.

FN 8414 Modern Financial Analysis & Valuation Techniques

This course teaches how the financial services industry applies valuation techniques in actual deals. Students learn to appreciate the context of the transaction and the current market conditions, as well as the “art” and “science” of valuation analytics. Prerequisite: FN 7421.

AC 7184 Individual and Business Entity Taxation

Explores the sources and ideas underlying tax laws and their development in relation to fiscal and social policy. Emphasizes the application of basic concepts in tax planning for individuals and businesses. Topics include gross income, exclusions, deductions, credits, property transactions, basis, and the alternative minimum tax.Prerequisite: AC 6111.

TX 7015 Partnerships

Analyzes the uses, formation, operation, and termination of partnerships. Topics include the substantial-economic-effect doctrine, distributions, sale and exchange of interest, death of a partner, liquidating and disproportionate distributions, and limited partnerships and their use as tax shelters. Prerequisite: TX 7001.

MG 7636 High Technology Management

Explores the key characteristics of how high technology allows and induces managers to perform differently and to accomplish different things. Examines how the resulting change in the nature of work must be managed through proper organizational and educational transitions. Prerequisites: MG 6613, MG 6627.

MG 7637 Entrepreneurship and New Business Ventures

Focuses on the initiation and development of the first stages of a new business. Students are required to search out business opportunities and develop a business plan. Examines the particular problems of new business start-ups, emphasizing financing arrangements. Prerequisites: MG 6613, FN 6411.

Management Skills for Entrepreneurs

The number one reason for success or failure of a small business is management.  Good management skills are not necessarily innate and can be taught in an academic environment.  The recommended skills may require some behavioral modification and learning them in a controlled environment encourages experimentation without the drawbacks that trial and error usually entail.  The emphasis on "small business" skills is to recognize that a large corporate culture has a dramatically different management structure with a radically different focus.  This is a survival course for the owner who is directly responsible to the customers and the employees.  Prerequisite: Organizational Behavior.
The course will examine small businesses that have succeeded and the techniques used to achieve this status.  The successful implementations of these techniques are the result of good management.  We will then examine the people skills needed for successful implementation.  The course will use student participation to make the materials relevant and useful.  For the student that already possesses management skills, the course will provide ways to intentionally achieve results, rather than depending on intuitively choosing the right course of action.  For those not sure of their management skills, it will provide a core of tested approaches that can be used in everyday situations.

Course Objectives

1)   Provide a set of management milestones that characterize well managed small companies.
2)   Utilize knowledge of accepted "people" skills to establish a pattern of effective management behavior.
3)   Concentrate on a family/small business framework in applying good management skills and emphasize the unique nature of this environment.

Social Entrepreneurship

Call #14190 MGGB7699-00A, Prerequisite: FNGB7421; Taught by Professor Pirson. This course discusses ways of creating social value through the principles of entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is a rapidly developing movement that is blurring the boundaries between government, business, and the NGO sector. Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem, spread the solution, and change the system by persuading entire societies to take new leaps. In the first part of the course, we will focus on how entrepreneurial efforts can be conceived to realize a sustainable value proposition in the social or public sphere. We primarily focus on case studies and theoretical background readings to cover topics such as: understanding what it means to be an entrepreneur in general, and a social entrepreneur more particularly; developing and testing social value propositions; mobilizing resources -- human and financial – necessary to achieve desired results; engineering value chains through which the accumulated resources can be deployed to achieve the desired results; and developing systems that can recognize the social as well as the financial value created by an enterprise. We study examples of successful social entrepreneurs, such as Mohammad Yunus (Nobel Laureate, 2006) and identify patterns that promote positive social change. In a second part participants will be able to work on their own ideas for socially entrepreneurial endeavors and write a social business plan. Guided by applied readings, we focus on identifying the problem and opportunity, defining vision and mission, formulating a coherent theory of change, creating a sound strategy and business model, assembling a functioning team, acquiring the necessary resources and evaluating success. In the end students will present their social business plan to the class. Students attending should have a good idea of what kind of social/environmental problem they would like to work on and ideally have a project in place.

MG 7610 Leadership and Change

Prepares students to meet the requirements of today’s economy, where leadership demands a combination of personal capabilities and insights, as well as in-depth knowledge of organizational change processes and practices. Through readings, cases, class discussions, self-assessment exercises, and leader-directed learning projects, participants gain important insights into their own management style and develop essential knowledge and skills for successful implementation of major change initiatives. Prerequisite: MG 6613.

MG 7673 Strategy Implementation

Addresses how managers turn strategy into reality. Increasing evidence suggests that the best companies in globally competitive industries excel through superior implementation of strategy more often than through possession of a superior strategy. Key issues addressed include the acquisition, allocation, and use of resources; organizing for performance; selecting and motivating individuals; and controlling strategy implementation. Prerequisite: MG 6627.

MG 7675 Strategic Management of Innovations and Technology

Investigates the theoretical and practical issues of managing innovations and technology to achieve competitive advantage. Case studies provide an understanding of how technologically-dependent organizations succeed. Prerequisites: MG 6627, FN 6411, MK 6710.

MK 7730 Marketing Research

Demonstrates how marketing research enables the organization to represent the customer in the firm’s decision-making structure. Prepares managers to work with professional marketing researchers and obtain customer input for new products, advertising, pricing, and distribution systems. Topics covered include the use of secondary information sources, preparation and evaluation of surveys, basics of data analysis, the marketing research process, and the selection and evaluation of research vendors. Applications discussed include demand estimation and sales forecasting, product concept testing, customer satisfaction analysis, and overall evaluation of a firm’s marketing strategies. Prerequisites: MK 6710, DG 6820.

MK 7765 Sales Management

Focuses on personal selling and its management in the context of the organization and an overall marketing strategy. Examines the sales process, cost control, evaluation of salesforce performance, and the function of the sales manager. Also studies recruiting, selecting, motivating, and compensating sales personnel. PrereqUisite: mk 6710.

MK 7792 New Product Development

Provides a sequential methodology for identifying new product opportunities, designing products and services to meet consumer needs, testing and improving products, and managing throughout the product lifecycle. Actual case studies investigate examples of marketing successes and failures. Prerequisite: MK 6710.

MK 7720 Consumer Behavior

Analyzes current theories and research of buyer behavior from marketing, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and economics, with special attention to applications in managerial decision-making. Uses theories of buyer learning, attitude development, perception, group interaction and decision-making, organizational dynamics, personality, and culture to explain and to predict customer response to market offerings. Prerequisite: MK 6710.

IC 7901 E-Business Strategies and Applications

Introduces students to concepts, issues, and technologies essential to conducting business in information-enabled economies. Students will look at the transformation of traditional marketplaces into electronic market spaces, from traditional supply chains to virtual alliances and industrial webs, from traditional product focus to mass customization. Reviews common e-Business applications, such as customer relationship management, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), e-procurement, supply chains, and web portals. Issues discussed include the reactions of consumers to e-retailing, regulatory and tax concerns, use of vertical and horizontal exchanges in managing supplier-customer interactions, security and privacy concerns, digital rights management and mobile commerce. This course has a global perspective: many case studies focus on international issues in a variety of business sectors, including retailing, financial services, and information services.

IC 7955 Project Management

Provides the skills project managers need to complete projects on time and on budget. Technology improvements in organizations are implemented through projects, and strong project management skills are a key success factor for companies to achieve the expected benefits from their technology investments. Topics include setting and maintaining project scope, developing work plans, estimating required resources, developing work programs, organizing project teams, super-users, monitoring and controlling projects, maintaining relationships with users and management, status reporting, and key factors for realizing the anticipated benefits from the investment. Students use a computer-based project management tool as part of this course. Prerequisite: IC 6910.

MK 7790 Product Management

Provides an introduction to the theory and methods of product management. Presents the analysis necessary to develop a product strategy and the elements required for a marketing plan. Discusses broader strategy issues, such as new product development, product mix, and product lifecycle. Students are required to create an annual marketing plan for a real product. Prerequisite: MK 6710.

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Entrepreneurship at the College of Business Administration

The CBA Entrepreneurship Concentration has been designed to foster initiative, creativity and social responsibility while helping build the practical knowledge necessary for students to be successful as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are characterized by the ability to recognize business opportunities and create or grow a new enterprise despite limited resources. They succeed by developing innovative products, services and market niches. Innovative socially and environmentally responsible products and services offer attractive opportunities for entrepreneurs operating in today's highly competitive and tightly linked global marketplace. The courses in the Entrepreneurship Concentration offer a wide range of educational and outreach options. They are appropriate for anyone interested in learning about sustainable development, starting or joining entrepreneurial ventures, or managing entrepreneurial ventures within multinational organizations.

To qualify for an Entrepreneurship Concentration, students must take 12-credits, including one introductory course and two core courses (Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Business Ventures and New Ventures Practicum I) and one additional entrepreneurship course.

Students can enhance their academic experience in entrepreneurship by participating in supervised independent research on a range of entrepreneurial studies, including field studies. In addition, with prior approval, selected courses in other areas that have substantial content in entrepreneurship may be counted towards the Entrepreneurship Concentration. For example, a course in Finance on Venture Capital or in Accounting on Tax Planning for the Closely Held Business could count towards the Entrepreneurship Concentration.

Offerings planned for 2007-2009 in the Entrepreneurship Concentration will include the courses below. In addition, other courses may be offered according to the interests of faculty and students. Please check with your advisor.

ST: Money and the Meaning of Life (introductory course) (3 Credits)
This course is suitable as a first course for students who want to pursue a concentration in entrepreneurship or for students who simply want a general overview of the area. The course is designed to help students envision and take the first steps toward planning and realizing life-paths that will be personally fulfilling, socially responsible and profitable. It introduces students to a variety of business concepts and entrepreneurial models. The course is based on readings, films and lectures. Guest speakers who are entrepreneurs will share their experiences with students.

ST: Innovation and the Entrepreneurial Mindset (introductory course) (3 credits)
This course is designed for students who believe that they may want to pursue a concentration in entrepreneurship and/or who have had some experience working in their own business or a family business. It will expose students to a variety of strategic options as well as building an appreciation of the demands of an entrepreneurial career and the consequences of a life choice to start a new venture independently, with partners, or within an existing organization. Certain readings, other course materials and guest appearances will be directed toward developing students' understanding of business ventures that have succeeded by capitalizing on principles of sustainable development.

ST: Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Business Ventures (core course) (3 credits)
(Pre-requisite: either Money and the Meaning of Life or Innovation and the Entrepreneurial Mindset)
This core course focuses on the process necessary to create a new enterprise with emphasis on exploring and evaluating innovative ideas, engaging in preliminary business planning, building social networks and investigating alternative forms of financing. Students will be expected to experiment with initial steps toward establishing a business. For example, they may be asked to create a customer profile and interview potential customers associated with their new product or service, to build a website, or to experience selling samples of their own or other's products or services.

ST: New Venture Practicum I (core) and II (3 credits each semester)
(Pre-requisite: Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Business Ventures)
Students will work on all aspects of starting a new business or bringing a creative idea to market, including uncovering and evaluating opportunities for new ventures, resource acquisition and pre-launch planning. Ideally, students will be able to launch and manage the preliminary or experimental stages of their venture.

ST: Entrepreneurial Communication & Negotiation (3 Credits)
(Pre-requisite: Business Communication and either Money and the Meaning of Life or Innovation and the Entrepreneurial Mindset)
This course develops communication and negotiation skills specific to entrepreneurship. It is appropriate for anyone wishing to win business by communicating innovative ideas in concise formats and to negotiate effectively with suppliers, employees, landlords, partners and the range of other stakeholders with whom an entrepreneur deals.