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Bus162 S18 PDF
Bus162 S18 PDF
BUS162G
INTRODUCTION TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP
CONTENT OVERVIEW
Syllabus Section
1. Explore and experience the joy of creating unique solutions to market opportunities
In terms of skills
➢ Use appropriate referencing and bibliographic methods
➢ Demonstrate effective oral presentation skills
➢ Demonstrate effective and integrative team-work
Teaching methods:
During the course, you will present ideas to both peers and experts from the community who
provide feedback and insight into what it takes start a successful business
The teaching will be done using lectures, seminars/tutorials, powerpoint slides, guest lectures,
case studies and videos whenever available. Due to the highly practical nature of the course
the guest lecturing will prevail. The invited guest speaker in the course will be Ulrich Penzkofer.
Formerly, a VP Corporate Finance at Hypo-Vereinsbank New York, Director Mergers and
Acquisitions at Siemens AG, CEO and Regional Head EMEA of Siemens IT, CEO Siemens IT
BeLux, CEO of NRB Group Belgium and Owner and Founder of UJP Consulting Sprl. Marc
Van Gastel and Michel de Kemetter will also do a lecture each during the semester.
Main Course Materials (please note that you can find the readings for each week and
session in the Course Schedule section below):
Every successful entrepreneur is an avid reader. Immersing oneself in material of all kinds
broadens your perspective and helps you see patterns that others might miss (Zacharakis,
20011).
The course material consists of powerpoint presentations, lecture notes and readings from the
textbook. Powerpoint presentations will be made available after the respective classes have
taken place. A week-by-week overview of the course readings can be found in the section
below.
The syllabus, powerpoint presentations and important messages will be uploaded to the
Vesalius portal ‘Pointcarré’. Students are expected to visit this site regularly to keep abreast of
course evolutions.
Course material marked as ‘suggested readings’ and ‘additional sources’ is helpful for research
and to gain an increased understanding, but is not mandatory. This material can be found
online or will be made available upon individual request.
Textbook:
Bygrave, W., & Zacharakis, A. (2017) Entrepreneurship, 4th Edition (3rd Edition is ok too) Wiley.
Active Learning and Intensive ‘Reading around the Subject’: Additional Sources,
Recommended Journals and Websites:
Learning should be an active and self-motivated experience. Students who passively listen to
lectures, copy someone else’s notes, and limit their readings to required chapters are unlikely
to develop their critical thinking and expand their personal knowledge system. At the exam,
these students often fail to demonstrate a critical approach. Students are strongly
recommended to have an updated understanding of developments related to this course and
related to their wider Major. Active and engaged learning will turn out to be enriching to the
overall course and class discussions. Students are invited to deepen their understanding of
both theoretical and current issues from a variety of sources. Please find a list of suggestions
compassing the entire course below. You are encouraged to read and browse in the leading
journals of your discipline.
Websites of Interest:
Really Great Website with All Kinds of Links to Other Entrepreneurship Websites:
http://www.entrepreneurship.org/
This course is not heavy lecture based course. Instead the course hours will be used to guide
students in the establishment of their final business plan.
Each day another aspect of developing a business is discussed. Students are offered adequate
time to work on including the new knowledge into their business plan. However, they will have
to show time management skills in order to end up with a satisfactory end-product. Feedback
will be given regularly during the course.
You are expected to spend roughly 10 hours per week on this course. This includes 3 hours
of lectures or seminars per week and 7 hours ‘out of class’ time spent on preparatory readings,
studying time for exams as well as time spent on preparing your assignments, and group
project.
Course Assessment: Assignments Overview
Mid-Term Exam (written): Mid-term exam will test you on the chapters that were covered
before the mid-term (Ch. 1-8). 20% of the mid-term will be multiple choice questions, 40%
short answer and 40% long answer questions. The exam will test how well you understood
the knowledge from the classes, core book, and the cases.
The presentation
You will present your business plan in front of a jury. There you will pitch your business idea
and lay out in as much your ideas are ready for the market. You will be evaluated on clear
defined guidelines (see grading rubric presentation).
Due date: Week 12: 20th and 23rd of April during class time.
Deliverable: In class presentation of the hard copy of the PowerPoint slides (please print 2-3
slides per page)
Articulating your business concept is critical. First impressions matter and many potential
investors or other stakeholders may never read your plan. You will have 10 minutes to pitch
your plan followed by some Q&A.
You will be evaluated on the basis of defined rubrics on how to make a business plan.
The business plan should be externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are
important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have
detailed information about the organization, the strategy and the organization’s goals.
The business plan is written in order to provide the most important information to external
shareholders. It should be a convincing, well-written and well-researched document using
feasible assumptions in order to predict future flows.
- Cover page
- Table of contents
- A description of the business
- The market analysis (SWOT analysis, industry background, competitor analysis,
market analysis) based on primary and secondary resources
- The strategical plan
- The financial plan
- Conclusions
- If needed, the necessary attachments
- (Include the documents requested for your group work too as an attachment)
Written plan due date is week 12: On Monday 30th of April you need to submit it during the
class through turninit and bring the hard copy to the lecture. Turnitin will no longer accept
papers after 13.30 on the 30th of April.
Please submit one hard copy and one copy through turnitin. The access code is given above.
Deliverable: 15-17 pages (including financials and appendices)
Teams will work together over the term to write a business plan. The team goal is to produce
a final plan and presentation that you would be proud to present to an angel, a venture
capitalist, a banker, or private investor (or Mom and Dad ☺).
Group work
One of the main emphasis lies on group work. During group work you will :
Sometimes, even the most well-meaning group members might run into troubles, particularly
in more stressful times. Group members are required to refer all major disputes to the course
instructor – this is not a case of “grassing up on your peers”, but a must for the fair and smooth
running of your semester’s work.
In order to ensure that group work and each individual contribution are fairly assessed, the
course facilitator will organize at least two 360 Degree Team evaluation sessions, through
which each group member has to evaluate him/herself and evaluate the other group members.
The 360 Degree evaluation is described below:
In order to ensure that each student does his/her best in terms of contributing to the group
effort, there will be a 360 evaluation session on two occasions (at the beginning and end of the
course). As part of this evaluation, you are required to assess yourself and the members of
your group on the following aspects:
The group evaluations will be used by the course facilitator as “moderation tools” that will
contribute to the final grade of the group assignment. An unsatisfactory evaluation may result
in the student’s group grade being discounted (i.e., ‘O points’)
The Importance of Group Work and Individual Contributions to the Group’s Success
Even though individual assessments and individual skill training is also part of the course, the
core emphasis lies on group work. The purpose of the group is:
The Student Groups are encouraged to keep minutes of their meetings and manage their tasks
effectively with an effective division of labour and an effective inter-group communication
process.
The evaluation categories range from ‘individual contributions to the group, leadership,
punctuality, diligence to the division of labour etc.
The final decision on a “classification” of a student’s group contribution rests with the course
facilitator, who will take into consideration the results of the group evaluation.
Vesalius College grading policy follows the American system of letter grades, which
correspond to a point scale from 0 – 100. All assignments (including exams) are be graded on
the scale of 0-100. To comply with the Flemish Educational norms, professors can on request
also provide the conversion of the grade on the Flemish scale of 0-20. The conversion table
below outlines the grade equivalents.
1
I.e. receiving “below average/poor” on average.
Description of Activities, Grading Criteria and Deadlines:
The nature of this course does not lend itself to objective questions; there is no "right" or
"wrong" answer per se. However, there are different levels of quality. Just as a venture
capitalist ranks the attractiveness of proposals, I will rank your work against that of your peers
and assign an appropriate grade.
Turnitin
All written assignments that graded and count for more than 10% towards the final course
grade need to be submitted via the anti-plagiarism software Turnitin.
26 Jan Objectives:
Extra activity
F. Students present within 2 minutes 1 slide with
few business ideas to find teams that fit their
interests
2 Feb Objectives:
G. Examine the link between problems,
resolutions and opportunities
H. Develop an understanding of how to identify
the problems, test hypotheses about those
problems, and build a unique solution that
addresses the opportunity.
I. Learn how to recognize an opportunity,
identify gaps in the market and learn how to
exploit this market opportunity.
J. Design Thinking: how to address the gap in
the market?
16 Feb Objectives:
19 Feb Objectives:
A. Generate multiple ideas
B. Intensive brainstorming on the several initial
ideas generated.
C. Conduct secondary research in order to get a
background
D. (if necessary, draft a survey (primary
research))
E. Select the most attractive idea to develop
further in detail.
F. Upload and make available to all lecturers
idea selection and related ideas
Readings:
Chapter 4 Prototyping your ideas
23 Feb Objectives:
A. Identify the target market
B. identify a unique selling proposition
C. conduct an analysis of the competitive
environment
D. build a SWOT analysis
E. Use Porter’s 5 forces model to identify
competitive market threats
F. develop your strategic thinking
G. ensure that the idea is tailored to resolve a
gap in the competitive market.
Format: Workshop
Website: http://extrapreneurs.org
19 Mar Objectives:
26 Mar Objectives:
Mode: Lecture/Workshop
Format:
Location:
Readings:
Alexander Osterwalder.
http://nonlinearthinking.typepad.com/nonlinear_thinki
ng/2008/07/the-business-model-canvas.html
Readings:
Shoemaker, P.J.H. (1991). When and how to use
scenario planning: a heuristic approach with
illustration, Journal of Forecasting, 10, pp. 549-564.
Format: Teamwork
20 Apr Objectives:
Mode: Presentation
The purpose of this assessment is to provide you with feedback about both the
content and style of your presentation. The scale used goes from 1 = poor, to 5 =
excellent.
Speed of delivery: 1 2 3 4 5
Time keeping: 1 2 3 4 5
Your name:
Name of Evaluated Peer:
Please evaluate your peer using a numerical scale for each criteria. The scale used goes from 1 = poor, to 5 = excellent. (1 = poor; 2 = below average 3 =
average 4 = good 5= very good). Please indicate in the comment box your reasoning for awarding the score and any additional information per criteria you
would like to share.
2. Were the behaviours of any of your team members particularly valuable or detrimental to the team? Explain.
4 What did you learn about working in a group from this project that you will carry into your next group experience?
LINK BETWEEN MAJOR OBJECTIVES, COURSE OBJECTIVES, TEACHING METHODS, ASSIGNMENTS AND FEEDBACK
(BA Business Studies)
Major Learning Objectives Course Learning objectives Methods used to Methods (and Type, Timing and
addressing the Major Objectives Teach Course numbers/types of Instances of
(testable learning objectives) Objectives assignments) used Feedback given to
to test these Student
learning objectives
Lectures Business plan On-going weekly
The bachelor has a broad knowledge of the different functional fields
Demonstrate understanding and Seminar
of business management. S/he is able to apply this knowledge in the group presentation; Immediate oral
application of the tools necessary to Tutorials
analysis of business-oriented problems and is able to propose group paper feedback after
create sustainable and viable Videos
solution to specific business problems. presentations
businesses Case studies Mid-term exam
Guest lecturers Oral and written
feedback within 2
The bachelor has an open and academic attitude characterized by
weeks of the mid-term
accuracy, critical reflection and academic curiosity.
exam