English   Danish

2024/2025  BA-BHAAV2260U  Entrepreneurial Strategy

English Title
Entrepreneurial Strategy

Course information

Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Elective
Level Bachelor
Duration One Quarter
Start time of the course First Quarter
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Study board
Study Board for BSc in Economics and Business Administration
Course coordinator
  • Toke Reichstein - Department of Strategy and Innovation (SI)
Main academic disciplines
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Strategy
Teaching methods
  • Face-to-face teaching
Last updated on 09-02-2024

Relevant links

Learning objectives
To achieve the grade 12, students should meet the following learning objectives with no or only minor mistakes or errors:
  • Be able to identify the various elements of an entrepreneurial strategy and address how these are linked.
  • Account for how to identify the right customers and form a formal strategy for addressing such customers.
  • Be able to assess various technologies as the appropriate ones for a given opportunity and make a coherent choice as to the identified customers.
  • Explain what a startup identity is and how the entrepreneurs should proceed in creating a sensible identity for the firm.
  • provide an assessment of the important organizational choices a startup needs to make in the early stages
  • Make comparative judgments across entrepreneurial strategies and assess their relative strengths and weaknesses.
  • Describe various forms of leadership for small teams and account for the dis(advantages) of each of these forms of leaderships.
Course prerequisites
The course is offered to bachelor students in the 5th semester as an elective regardless of study line. The course builds on the principles of strategy adapted to the entrepreneurial setting.
Examination
Entrepreneurial Strategy:
Exam ECTS 7,5
Examination form Home assignment - written product
Individual or group exam Individual exam
Size of written product Max. 10 pages
Assignment type Written assignment
Release of assignment The Assignment is released in Digital Exam (DE) at exam start
Duration 48 hours to prepare
Grading scale 7-point grading scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Autumn
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
If the number of registered candidates for the make-up examination/re-take examination warrants that it may most appropriately be held as an oral examination, the programme office will inform the students that the make-up examination/re-take examination will be held as an oral examination instead.
Description of the exam procedure

 

 

Course content, structure and pedagogical approach

Course Description:

High tech entrepreneurs face a number of choices from the very beginning of their new business endeavors. Making these choices in the blind may lead to inefficiencies and incoherent behavior even within a relatively narrow scope of activities which can have major implications for the startups overall performance. Determining and understanding the decision landscape as well as making coherent and consistent choices is at the very heart of starting and running a business. As a potential investor in start-ups, it is also of the outmost importance to assess whether a newly established firm is pursuing a strategy that is sensible and coherent with the identified goals. Like established firms, startups benefit greatly from forming a strategy. But the strategizing for small firms differs somewhat from that of the more established firms. Fundamentally the course presents the perspectives that a subset of key choices cannotbe left to happenstance. 

 

This course provides an actionable framework for aspiring and already active entrepreneurs, which can help them make better and the right coherent choices with regard to establishing and growing their business. 

 

Course Contents:

The course starts by addressing why entrepreneurs really need a strategy and identifying the dimensions of an entrepreneurial strategy. 

 

The course will highlight four dimensions, which should be addressed in an entrepreneurial strategy: 1) identifying the right customers from the beginning, 2) choosing the appropriate technology, 3) choosing the organization, and 4) forming the entrepreneurial strategy by chosing the competition or choosing not to compete. The approach also covers a set of four archetype strategies which may be used as a guidance for undersstaindg the start-up's positioning and early choices. Indeed, it wil be argued that most high-tech startups may be established in various ways with the aim of converting value creation into value capture. Furthermore, the course includes a section which discusses how entrepreneurial firms can be lead in various ways and how various forms of leadership in small teams may produce different (dis)advantages. 

Description of the teaching methods
The pedagogical method is a combination of lectures and cases. A satisfactory high outcome of the exercises requires an active participation with basis in the literature and the lectures. The homework assignment is an integrated part of the learning process and not only a part of the exam. Case discussion is central and plays a large role in the course. The course will in fact seek to depart from case material and from the cases draw theoretical and managerial implications.
Feedback during the teaching period
Office hours for feedback and time reserved in each lecture for questions and answers
Student workload
Lectures and exercises: 166 hours
Exam: 40 hours
Last updated on 09-02-2024