Durham University
Programme and Module Handbook
This is an archived handbook for a previous year. The current undergraduate and postgraduate handbooks can be viewed using the links above.

Postgraduate Handbook 2012-2013 (archived)

Module BUSI44W15: New Venture Creation and Enterprise Skills (Block Taught)

Department: Business School (Business)

BUSI44W15: New Venture Creation and Enterprise Skills (Block Taught)

TypeLevelCreditsAvailabilityModule CapLocation
Tied 4 15 Available in 2012/2013 None. Durham

Tied To

Pre-requisites

  • None.

Corequisites

  • None.

Excluded Combinations

  • New Venture Creation and Enterprise Skills (Distance Learning)

Aims

  • To provide students with an advanced understanding of, and practical skills relating to, key processes associated with starting, operating and growing a successful entrepreneurial venture, including its financial dimensions.

Content

  • The entrepreneurial process and new venture creation
  • Creativity, innovation and idea generation
  • The opportunity business model
  • Competitors and the external environment
  • Strategies for sustainable competitiveness
  • Entrepreneurial marketing
  • Entrepreneurial finance — theory and raising capital
  • Accounts — interpreting financial performance
  • Building an entrepreneurial organisation
  • Management team and leadership
  • Managing enterprise growth
  • Learning from entrepreneurs’ experience

Learning Outcomes

Subject-specific Knowledge
  • By the end of the module students should have:
  • an advanced understanding of the concepts associated with recognising and developing entrepreneurial opportunities;
  • a critical appreciation of the theories and tools relevant to entrepreneurial strategies, management team formulation and managing growth;
  • an advanced understanding of the role and impact of investors in entrepreneurial firms;
  • a nuanced understanding of the challenges involved in new venture creation and achievement of sustainability.
Subject-specific Skills
  • By the end of the module, students should be able:
  • to prepare a commercially viable business plan;
  • to critically evaluate business plans.
Key Skills
  • Written communication;
  • practical planning processes;
  • organising and time management;
  • problem solving and analysis;
  • computer literacy;
  • data gathering;
  • networking;
  • interpersonal communication.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

  • Learning outcomes will be met through a combination of taught input, groupwork and discussion, supported by guided reading.
  • The summative assessment of the module, by written assignment, is designed to test the acquisition and articulation of knowledge and critical understanding, and skills of application (including data collection, interpretation and presentation

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

ActivityNumberFrequencyDurationTotal HoursAttendance Monitored
Workshops (a combination of taught input, groupwork, exercises and discussion), timetabled in blocks 24 Yes
Preparation and reading 126
Total 150

Summative Assessment

ComponentComponent WeightingElementLength/DurationElement WeightingResit Opportunity
Written Assignment 100% Business plan 3000 words 100% Same

Formative Assessment

Students receive feedback on their contributions in the workshops.


Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.