Please note! Course description is confirmed for two academic years, which means that in general, e.g. Learning outcomes, assessment methods and key content stays unchanged. However, via course syllabus, it is possible to specify or change the course execution in each realization of the course, such as how the contact sessions are organized, assessment methods weighted or materials used.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Credits: 6

Schedule: 17.08.2022 - 21.09.2022

Teacher in charge (valid for whole curriculum period):

Teacher in charge (applies in this implementation): Arne Kroeger, Johannes Gartner

Contact information for the course (applies in this implementation):

Ass. Prof. Dr. Arne Kröger (arne.kroeger@aalto.fi)

Dr. Johannes Gartner (johannes.gartner@aalto.fi)

CEFR level (valid for whole curriculum period):

Language of instruction and studies (applies in this implementation):

Teaching language: English. Languages of study attainment: English

CONTENT, ASSESSMENT AND WORKLOAD

Content
  • applies in this implementation

    1. Objectives, relevance for practice and lecture topics

    At the end of this course, students i) are able to describe and discuss basic entrepreneurship and innovation tools, ii) are able to explain the central entrepreneurship frameworks about opportunity recognition, effectuation and business models, iii) are able to apply those frameworks to a real case, iv) are able do understand the fundamentals of current innovation management in large multi-national companies and v) are able to make rational adoption or rejection decisions of corporate entrepreneurship.

     

    Launching an enterprise has several advantages, such as being your own boss, realizing your own ideas and experiencing greater autonomy in general. However, entrepreneurship is more than founding an enterprise. It is a particular way of thinking and an approach of solving problems and can, therefore, also be practiced in large corporations (corporate entrepreneurship).

     

    This course investigates the entrepreneurship process in a consecutive order. It starts with the venture idea which emerges from receiving it from someone else (e.g., via open innovation), accidental discovery or the desire to start a business. The theory of effectuation developed by Saras Sarasvathy (2001) offers an approach how wanna-be entrepreneurs can generate a venture idea. Having created a venture idea, entrepreneurs enter into the process of developing a business opportunity (Vogel, 2017). Peter Vogel (2017) provides a comprehensive overview of attempts to conceptualize the development of business opportunities and develops his own framework that ends with the exploitation of business opportunities. A key contributor for the successful exploitation of a business opportunity is a business model. One of the first conceptualizations of the business model construct is provided by Raphael Amit and Christoph Zott (2001). This article can therefore be seen as a key article for understanding the sources of value creation that determine the success of a new venture. Furthermore, entrepreneurs need funding for growing their enterprise.

     

    The following topics will be discussed in this course:

    • Basics of entrepreneurship
    • Creativity, Idea Development & Innovation
    • Venture Opportunities
    • Business Models
    • Case Study Module: Corporate Entrepreneurship
    • Venture Funding (incl. Impact Investing)
    • Venture Growth (incl. Growth Strategy Implementation)

Assessment Methods and Criteria
  • applies in this implementation

    2. Didactic approach and organization

    Like the metaphor of the three blind men feeling an elephant, this course combines different lenses on entrepreneurship: i) a scientific, more abstract lens, ii) a lens on entrepreneurship tools that entrepreneurs can use and iii) a lens on the practices of actual enterprises. Aggregating those lenses aims to demonstrate that entrepreneurship is more holistic than a cookbook of recipes.

    The course comprises a lecture and a case module. The course will take place in MyCourses and will be complemented by Zoom lectures. It contains individual and group work and individual and group assignments and will build on a variety of methods: front teaching (Zoom), video self-study, group work (including peer evaluation), development of MC-questions, and audience response system.

     

    Lecture module

    2.1 Paper Discussion

    Please prepare the article of Sarasvathy (2001) for the lecture on 31.08.! This is extremely important for your ability to participate in the lecture on the 31.08.!

    The article of Sarasvathy (2001) has gained a lot of traction in entrepreneurship research and practice because it suggested a new approach to starting a business. It therefore gave impetus for effectuation research and is the most frequently cited effectuation article in the entrepreneurship literature. A description of how this article fits into the big picture of this course is provided in the section 1. Objectives, relevance for practice and lecture topics.

    In the lecture on the 31.08.2022, the students will discuss the principles of “Causation and Effectuation based on three cases. Furthermore, 5 randomly chosen MC-Questions will be discussed. The final exam will also contain 3 MC-Questions of the total pool of suggested MC-questions.

     

    2.2 Video self-study:

    The videos for self-study will be available in MyCourses in the section “Materials” from the first lecture on. They explain the essential knowledge of entrepreneurship and innovation management. The corresponding slide deck is also available in MyCourses in the section “Materials”. Consecutive watching of the videos is recommended. Students will have several opportunities to ask questions about the content of the videos. It is highly appreciated if students e-mail their questions to the lecturer two days before the lecture.

     

    2.3 Group work (including peer evaluation):

    For the group work, all students will have the same submission deadline and are required to read two scientific articles. This task addresses the learning outcomes ii) and iii). The this purpose students need to familiarize with the two central concepts of Entrepreneurship of Venture Opportunity and Business Models. One approach to familiarize with a concept is to read an article and write an essay about it in which of the content of article is transferred to a real case. Another approach is to read an article and an essay and to judge the transfer of the content of article to a real case. The group work will cover both approaches.

     

    The article of Vogel (2017) summarizes the most important opportunity recognition frameworks about in the entrepreneurship literature. The article of Amit & Zott (2001) is the most frequently quoted business model article because it gave impetus to the debate on conceptualizing business models. A description of how these articles fit into the big picture of this course is provided in the section 1. Objectives, relevance for practice and lecture topics.

     

    • Vogel, P. 2017. From venture idea to venture opportunity. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 41(6): 943-971.
    • Amit, R. & Zott, C. 2001. Value creation in e-business. Strategic Management Journal, 22: 493-520.

    The group work will follow four consecutive steps.

     

    Step 1: Team formation

    Students are asked to form groups of min. 3 and max. 5 students themselves and to indicate their team formation in the Group Choice Module in MyCourses until 21.08. at 23:59 pm.

     

    The groups will perform different tasks (see below for further details). They can connect with each other via MyCourses (General Discussion Module on the course homepage) and work on the tasks online or in face-to-face meetings.

     

    Step 2: Development phase

    Each group will be randomly assigned to one of two cohorts: Venture Opportunity or Business Models

    Depending on the assigned cohort, the groups are supposed to answer one of the following questions:

     

    Cohort

    Article

    Task

    Venture Opportunity

    Vogel, P. 2017. From venture idea to venture opportunity. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 41(6): 943-971.

    Please illustrate the “Venture Opportunity Development and Exploitation stage” (as outline in Vogel, ETP 2016) for a freely chosen enterprise in Finland.

    Business Model

    Amit, R. & Zott, C. 2001. Value creation in e-business. Strategic Management Journal, 22: 493-520.

    Please explain the framework “Sources of value creation” (Amit & Zott, SMJ 2001) for a freely chosen enterprise in Finland.

     

    Depending on the assigned task, each group will prepare an essay of 1500-2000 words + 5 PPT slides (excl. cover page and references) in which the essay is visualized.

    The 5 PPT slides (excl. cover page and references) should include min. 1 PPT Slide explanation of the framework and 1 PPT slide case description. The deadline for uploading the essay and presentation is: 01.09. at 23:59 pm.

    Step 3: Evaluation phase

    Afterwards, the evaluation round starts. In this round, each essay and presentation of one group from the development round is evaluated by one assigned group of the cohort.

    The lecturer will send the evaluation excel file and the essay and presentation of the group that is supposed to evaluate its peers. 


    Afterwards, each group uploads their completed excel file in MyCourses until 08.09. at 23:59 pm.

    The submissions and evaluations will be reviewed by the lecturer afterwards and the grades adjusted if necessary to assure fairness and comparability.

    Step 4: Presentation

    Each group from the development phase will present is essay in the lecture on the 14.09. to its peers. Participation of the entire team is preferable. Participation of at least one member per team is mandatory.

    2.5 Case Module

    The aim of the course is to introduce the participants to the fundamentals of technology innovation management. The focus is on adoption or rejection decisions of external innovations and the successful implementation of these in a company. The following topics are dealt with within the module:

    ·       Emerging vs disruptive technologies

    ·       Analysis of market development, market dynamics, trends and hypes

    ·       Innovation diffusion, adoption and acceptance Model

    ·       Methods for creating technology forecasts/assessments

    ·       Technology monitoring and potential identification

    Preparatory work

    • The course builds on the Harvard Bang & Olufsen case, which you need to study before May 20 (download available at MyCourses).

    Online lecture

    • You are required to participate in the online lecture and to be able to apply the B&O case in the in-class discussion.

    Groupwork assignment

    • You then need to write a full analysis of an emerging technology in groups with a length of 1500 words per student. Details are provided during the Zoom session on 07.09. at 16:30.
    • The groups will be the teams as in the lecture module.
    Essay is required to be submitted until 28.09.2022.

Workload
  • applies in this implementation

    3. Assessment of the course

    3.1 Final Exam on 21.09. at 16:30-17:30

    The final exam of the lecture module will be a one hour open book online exam in MyCourses of 33 MC questions. It can contain questions about everything that has been uploaded in MyCourses. You can attend the re-exam if you are not able to attend the final exam.

     

    Exam Grading:

    50-59 points              1

    60-69 points              2

    70-79 points              3

    80-89 points              4

    90-100 points            5 (best grade)

     

    3.2 Re-Exams

    There will be a Re-Exam on the 02.11. at 16:30-17:30 and a second one on the 08.12. at 13:15-14:15. It will take place in MyCourses. No separate registration is necessary.

     

    The final grade will be calculated as follows:

     

    Group assignments

    Grade achieved in the development round

    15%

    Case lecture + Long essay

    50%

    Individual assignment

    Final MC-Exam

    35%

    Total:

    100%


DETAILS

Study Material
  • applies in this implementation

    4. Literature

    Compulsory literature (uploaded in MyCourses in the section “Materials”)

    Amit, R. & Zott, C. 2001. Value creation in e-business. Strategic Management Journal, 22: 493-520.

    Sarasvathy, S. D. 2001. Causation and Effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management Review, 26(2): 243-263.

    Vogel, P. 2017. From venture idea to venture opportunity. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 41(6): 943-971.

    Austin, R. D., & Beyersdorfer, D. (2007). Bang & Olufsen: design driven innovation. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.

    Swanson, E. B. (2012). The managers guide to IT innovation waves. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(2), 75.

     

    Recommended complementing literature

    Zacharakis, Andrew, William Bygrave, Andrew Corbett, 2016. Entrepreneurship, 4th Edition. Wiley.
    For the chapter Creativity, Idea Development and Innovation.

    Bessant, John R., Tidd, Joe 2015. Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 3th Edition. Wiley.

     

    Titles of relevant journals in the field

    Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice

    Journal of Business Venturing

    Entrepreneurship & Regional Development

    Academy of Management Journal

    Academy of Management Review

Substitutes for Courses
Prerequisites

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further Information
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    Course Homepage: https://mycourses.aalto.fi/course/search.php?search=A25C00100

    Registration for Courses: In the academic year 2021-2022, registration for courses will take place on Sisu (sisu.aalto.fi) instead of WebOodi.

Details on the schedule
  • applies in this implementation

     

    5. Lectures, Formats, Content & Submission Deadlines

    Lecture date

    Format

    Content

    17.08.

    Zoom lecture

    (16:30-19:30)

    ·       Practicalities

    ·       Basics of Entrepreneurship

    ·       Creativity, Idea Development & Innovation

    24.08.

    MyCourses, self-study, group work

    ·       Watching and understanding the videos about essential entrepreneurship and innovation management knowledge

    ·       Preparation of intermediate assignment (group work)

    31.08.

    Zoom lecture

    (16:30-18:45)

    ·       Discussion of the effectuation model in smaller groups

    ·       5 audience response system questions (randomly selected from the pool) + discussion afterwards

    ·       Audience response system questions on the videos

    ·       Opportunity to ask questions about the videos

    07.09.

    Zoom lecture

    (16:30-18:45)

    ·       Case Study: Technology & Innovation Management

    14.09.

    Zoom lecture

    (16:30-18:45)

    ·       Presentation and feedback of presentations à max. 20 minutes

    ·       Opportunity to ask questions about the videos and the exam

    21.09.

    MyCourses

    (16:30-17:30)

    ·       MC-Online Exam

    02.11.

    MyCourses

    (16:30-17:30)

    ·       1st re-exam in MyCourses (No separate registration necessary)

    08.12.

    (13:15-14:15)

    ·       2nd re-exam in MyCourses (No separate registration necessary)

     

    Deadlines

    Tasks to Pass the Course (details see below)

    21.08. at 23:59 pm

    Indicate team formation in Group Choice Module in MyCourses

    01.09. at 23:59 pm

    Submission of essays: 1500-2000 words + 5 PPT slides (excl. cover page and references)

    08.09. at 23:59 pm

    Submission of Evaluations: Review criteria + Grades on the essays and presentations + 3 suggestions for improving the presentation

    14.09. at 16:30 am

    Presentation of the Essay from the Development Round

    21.09. at 16:30 am

    Final exam in MyCourses

    28.09. at 23:59 pm

    Submission of the analysis of a corporate innovation challenge

    02.11. at 16:30-17:30 pm

    1st re-exam in MyCourses (No separate registration necessary)

    08.12. at 13:15-14:15 am

    2nd re-exam in MyCourses (No separate registration necessary)