Entrepreneur­ship: The­ory and Evid­ence

Course content

The course intends to cover the several elements of the entrepreneurial process – the individual entrepreneur, the idea generation and implementation processes, the main challenges faced by the founder (or founding team), and their importance for the success of the new venture. The content of the course will therefore be organized around the following topics:

• The transition into (and out of) entrepreneurship and career dynamics

• Founding team formation; Human resource acquisition and management in startups

• Entrepreneurial strategy – the key choices behind it and the types of strategies

• Entrepreneurial finance

• Business model design and testing/experimentation; The scientific method of decision making;Business model types

• Growth paths and scaling challenges; Exit and founder succession.

These topics will be covered in two ways:

1. a theoretical component, based on lectures covering the key theoretical frameworks, which students should complement with the suggested references (textbooks, academic papers, and/or more applied articles); short videos may occasionally complement some of the theoretical part of the course.
2. an evidence-based component, based on the discussion and analysis of real business cases.

Central to this course is the continuous integration between theoretical insights from the lectures and their application to the analyses of business cases. Key takeaways for entrepreneurial practice will be derived at the end of each topic.This integration will be complemented by guest speakers and real life examples prepared by the students in voluntary assignments and/or discussed in class.

The order in which these parts are covered may be adjusted in some topics, if relevant.

The participation and engagement of students is crucial in all components of the course (lectures, case discussions, guest visits, voluntary assignments). Students are expected to prepare the cases and a set of questions to be discussed in specified classes, and to gather information about a specific topic, research question, or a particular firm, to be debated in certain sessions.The theoretical component of the course will also require preparatory readings of academic and applied articles. This preparatory work is encouraged to be done in groups, as a preparation for case discussions and the final exam.