Entrepreneur­ship for De­vel­op­ment

Course content

Entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as playing a key role in economic growth and poverty alleviation, and the rapidly growing markets of developing countries are often portrayed as booming with unexploited opportunities for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs in developing countries are, however, often faced with a range of challenges related to difficult business environments with many institutional voids, resource constraints, and widespread poverty. While such challenges often act as barriers to business start-up and growth, resource scarcity and uncertain institutional contexts may also create opportunities for entrepreneurship. Accordingly new forms of entrepreneurship, which seek to bring solutions to poverty, environmental degradation, and institutional voids, are gaining salience. While such initiatives are diverse and span for-profit, non-profit and hybrid organizations, a common element is that they employ business principles to generate social, environmental and/or institutional change.

The course “Entrepreneurship for Development” examines the opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurship in developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The course examines different theoretical approaches to entrepreneurship and scrutinizes different forms of entrepreneurship (such as entrepreneurship in the informal economy, social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship with the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), sustainability entrepreneurship, digitial entrepreneurship and institutional entrepreneurship). The course examines the relationship between entrepreneurship and development and critically scrutinizes if and how entrepreneurship can contribute to sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. The course directs attention to the influence of the institutional, economic and cultural environment for entrepreneurship levels, opportunities and strategies, and scrutinizes how business models are adapted to the particular contexts of their operation.  

First, students will be introduced to theoretical perspectives on entrepreneurship and will unravel the links between entrepreneurship and development. Second, students will examine different forms of entrepreneurship and will scrutinize different concrete entrepreneurship cases and business models. Finally, students will generate their own ideas and will formulate a concept for a venture in a developing country.