Module BUSI47G15: The Entrepreneur's Environment

Department: Business School (Business)

BUSI47G15: The Entrepreneur's Environment

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To provide students with a holistic appreciation of the environment within which entrepreneurial activities take place and the nature and importance of interactions among them.
• To provide students with knowledge and understanding about managing the environments in which entrepreneurial activity take place.
• To develop students’ skills about entrepreneurial decision-making and entrepreneurial management

Content

• The module is structured around three entrepreneur environments: the economic and policy environment, the external market environment, and the internal firm environment
• Drivers and barriers in firm start-up and growth
• Market failures and policy intervention
• Hard and soft support forms of policy intervention (government/legislative) to support entrepreneurs, and issues involved in their effective adoption and use
• Financial systems and capital access
• Attitudinal and financial challenges to securing finance and strategies to acquire finance
• Market environmental context and managing the external environment
• Social capital and the roles of networks in enabling and expanding entrepreneurial activity
• International market environment and international strategies for entrepreneurship and innovation
• Personal task environment context for entrepreneurship and innovation activity
• Building and sustaining the innovative and entrepreneurial organization
• Corporate environment: clusters, and large-small firm relationships

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of the module, students should have an advanced knowledge and critical appreciation of how external market and internal firm structures and processes impact upon entrepreneurial opportunities and activity, and of the management techniques and tools entrepreneurs can use to respond to fundamental challenges in these environments.
• A cross-cutting aspect of the module is the recurring themes of entrepreneurial decision-making and entrepreneurial management. Students will develop the capability to make effective decisions when faced with uncertainty, adversity and opportunity in their three primary operating environments.

• By the end of this module, students should be able to:
• Provide in depth analysis of the way in which elements of the wider environment, including market opportunities and regulatory constraints, interact with and impact upon entrepreneurial activities;
• Critically discuss tools and strategies entrepreneurs can use to respond to contextual conditions in their three primary operating environments.

• Written communication;
• planning;
• organising and time management;
• problem solving and analysis;
• decision-making.

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 and interpretation within the management context.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Individual written assignment (1500 words). Students also receive feedback on their contributions in class.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University