64.361.202 STARTING A NEW VENTURE
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUETTS LOWELL Manning School of Business
Tuesday & Thursday, 3:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m Room Falmouth 311
Dr.
Jack M Wilson, Distinguished
Professor of Higher Ed., Emerging Technologies, and Innovation
Falmouth 418
Jack_Wilson@uml.edu
978-934-2540 (Please use email rather than phone)
course Site: http://www.jackmwilson.net/SNV
SCHEDULE: http://www.jackmwilson.net/SNV
Office hours:
The office hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 1:30-2:30 pm. I am
also happy to schedule individual appointments. Email is an excellent
way to reach me as well.
CATALOG DESCRIPTION:
64.361.202:
This course is designed to help students to identify, evaluate, and
obtain control over opportunities that can be exploited by starting new
companies.
TEXTBOOK:
Bruce Barringer and Duane Ireland: “Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures (4th edition) from Pearson Prentice Hall. I will also be providing access to a couple of online case studies including the ILinc-LearnLinc Story at ../LearnLincStory2.htm and The ILinc-LearnLinc Case
PLACE IN BSBA CURRICULUM:
This is one of the required courses for students with a major of
entrepreneurship and one of the COM electives for students in the
College of Management.
REQUIREMENT FOR GRADUATION:
Effective January 2003, the minimum Grade Point Average required for
graduation is 2.20 for all College of Management (6x.xxx) courses and an
overall Grade Point Average of 2.00.
COURSE OVERVIEW:
Welcome to 64.361!
This course is designed for students with a curiosity about
and/or interest in starting a new business.
In this course, students will explore the entrepreneurship
process including how entrepreneurs discover and evaluate the sources
and opportunities for new business ventures; how they assemble the
resources, how they operate and grow a new business; and finally how
they harvest their hard work as successful entrepreneurs.
The course covers a variety of topics associated with launching
and running a new venture, such as marketing, financing, building the
venture team, legal and regulatory issues, and social and environmental
issues.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Upon successful completion of the course, you should be able to:
(1)
discover and evaluate the sources and
opportunities for new
business ventures;
(2)
describe the process of assembling the
resources necessary to
launch a new venture;
(3)
be familiar with the activities and concepts associated with
launching and running
a new venture, such as marketing issues, financing issues,
global and ethical issues,
political, legal and
regulatory issues,
social and environmental issues, and issues involving rapidly changing
technology.
During the course, students are required to complete a variety of
individual and team assignments, including a team based presentation of
a business case to the class. To successfully accomplish these tasks,
student are expected to
(1)
demonstrate the ability to think critically and communicate effectively;
(2)
exhibit the ability to complete intellectual projects independently and
in collaboration with others;
(3)
exhibit the ability both to use appropriate media to gather information
relative to their major field and to access reliable general
information.
TEACHING METHOD:
This course is taught with a combination of lecture, in class
activities, case discussions, on-line discussion, elevator pitch, and a
term project. You will
form class groups for the in-class activities at the first class
meeting. Each team will be
responsible for preparing and presenting a case to the class on one of
the scheduled weeks.
You should choose and sign up for one of the cases in the first week.
EVALUATIONS:
|
|
Points |
|
(1) Class Participation in discussion |
10% |
|
(2) Exams midterm and final ( 20% each) |
40% |
|
(3) Team or Individual Case Analysis Reports |
20% |
|
(4) Term Paper Analyzing Proposed New Venture |
20% |
|
(5) Elevator Pitch: Describing your proposed business venture |
10% |
|
(deduct) Attendance* |
Possible point deductions |
|
Total:
|
100% |
Course grades will be determined as follows:
|
Deductions are possible:
1. Attendance is mandatory. I will take attendance each week.
You may have
three excused absences
if you clear it with
me ahead of time and make arrangements to hand in any written
assignments.
Leaving the classroom early will be counted as an
absence. Each
absence after the third will result in a lowering of your grade
by an additional grade (e.g., if you do C work with 3 absences,
your grade will become a C-, 4 absences would lower your grade
to a D).
2. Working in teams is essential for this course as well as in
the real business world.
Your work as a member of the team will be subjectively
evaluated as part of the grade.
3. This is your minimum grade.
I may curve resulting in a higher grade. |
ACADEMIC HONESTY
The University and this College expect high standards of ethical and
moral conduct. Except on group projects, you are expected to prepare and
present your own original work. The penalty for plagiarism or any other
form of cheating will be failure of the course. Review the University’s
statement of Academic Honesty/Plagiarism in the University Code of
Academic Behavior as set forth in the Bulletin of Undergraduate Studies.
EXPECTATIONS:
(1) Participation (10%)
Class attendance is a necessary but not satisfactory condition for the
course to be successful. I strongly advise that everyone be prepared to
participate in each class meeting. Participation will be graded
according to the following categories:
• Active participation (full credit):
-
100% attendance is required
-
Actively participates and contributes in class discussion and
in-class activity
-
Contributions are consistently relevant, valid and may introduce
new ideas
Contributions consistently demonstrate the completion of assigned
readings and an ability to apply those readings to the discussion
• Occasional participation (80% credit):
-
Occasional participates and contributes in class discussion and
in-class activity
-
Contributions are usually relevant, valid but may not be new
ideas
-
Contributions may or may not demonstrate the completion of
assigned readings
• Rare participation (50% credit):
-
Rarely participates and contributes (i.e. does not participate in
every session)
-
Contributions may or may not relevant, valid or new.
-
Contributions may or may not demonstrate the completion of
assigned readings
• No participation (no credit)
-
Does not participate or contribute to the class discussion
(2)
Exams midterm and final exam(20% each )
There
will be two written examinations in this course.
Questions in the examinations will test understanding as opposed to
simple recognition or memory.
To perform well students will need to have kept up with the reading
throughout the course and thought deeply about the material.
The first exam, listed on the schedule will cover materials taught
before the exam date. The
final is scheduled in the exam week and will cover all materials.
These exams are closed book examinations.
Make-up exams will only be given in the case of a serious emergency that
prevents attendance at the scheduled exam. In the case of a non-emergency
situation that prevents attendance at the scheduled exam, the student should
notify me at least two weeks in advance to discuss alternative
arrangements. In either case,
the student should provide verification of the situation.
(3) Case Analysis Team Presentations (20%)
You
are required to sign up as an individual or team of two to prepare and
present one case to the entire class.
There are 12-18 cases. Please
read the cases using the questions as a guideline, and then write an
analysis report addressing these questions from the list.
You should use the theories or concepts we discuss in class to analyze the
case and
answer the questions.
The written cases are only the starting point for each team.
You are expected to research each case in addition to the information
provided in the cases. Each
individual or team will prepare a PowerPoint, Prezi, or other presentation
for the class and turn that presentation in following the live presentation.
(4) Term Paper on a Proposed new Venture:
(20%)
You are to prepare a term paper (summary business plan) that does an analysis of a potential new
venture. You may chose
that on your own or interview potential entrepreneurs to obtain and idea.
I will be available for discussion of ideas.
Use the text and the syllabus to prepare an analysis that covers
everything such as opportunity recognition, feasibility, industry and
competitor analysis, business model, legal issues, financial analysis, team
selection, getting funding, marketing, intellectual property, and strategies
for growth and overcoming challenges.
(5) Business Elevator Pitch (10%)
Develop an elevator pitch for your proposed venture and deliver it to the
whole class in sixty seconds.
Your elevator pitch must include
To better prepare your pitch, you are require to complete a preliminary
analysis of the idea you are going to pitch based on 4 criteria:
1. Attractiveness—is it
attractive risk-reward balance?
2. Timeliness—“window of
opportunity: is still open?
3. Value—does it create
significant value to customers?
4. Durability—can it sustain
over time?
Before your presentation, please remember the following:
You must include
secondary and primary
research and citations must be included in the body of the paper and at the
end of the paper.
If you do not have bibliographic references, you will not receive full
credit because the lack of references will be interpreted as a lack of
research.
OTHER
ISSUES:
-
Please set all cell phones silent upon entering the classroom!
-
Turn in assignments on time. Late submission will be accepted unless
special arrangements are made with teh Professor.
- If you have a physical or learning disability you should ask the Office of
Disability Services to identify you to the Instructor so that appropriate
accommodations may be provided.