Entrepreneurship (ENT)
Exploration of entrepreneurship as a career and the journey to become an entrepreneur. Topics include fundamentals of entrepreneurship and developing an entrepreneurial mindset. Experiential learning with creativity and imagination in solving entrepreneurial problems. Counts as Fine Arts credit for BBA students.
An introductory course for students other than entrepreneurship majors. The course, which is designed around the business plan, examines how to formulate business ideas, select a location, select a legal form of organization, locate financing sources, assess the market, develop a human resource management system, and establish budgets for control.
An introductory course in entrepreneurship designed to explore the development of innovative thinking and venture exploration which would ultimately lead to a new venture. Topics covered include: Developing an innovative perspective as well as identifying and testing venture concepts. Topics are introduced through the use of creative exercises, team projects, concept identification journals, discussion of entrepreneurship cases, and a business venture startup game.
Focuses on the individual and the skills and behaviors necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. Students will develop creative thinking skills that will enable them to recognize business opportunities. Other skills include team building, goal setting, leadership, and negotiation. Significant portions of the course are conducted through experiential exercises and simulations.
Examines entrepreneurship in other countries by focusing on the unique opportunities and problems associated with the particular country being studied. Comparisons are made between the host country and the United States. General issues related to doing business across national boundaries are included. This course is taught only outside the United States.
Entrepreneurship is increasingly global in nature, continuously creating new opportunities and competitors. Global Perspectives on New Ventures provides a deep understanding of these dynamics and helps students develop startup concepts that are more likely to succeed in the country-business context in which they may one day launch new international ventures.
Successful entrepreneurs must effectively manage scarce resources in an increasingly complex and global world. This course is designed to provide students with a wide range of financial skills to more effectively manage their resources. Specific issues critical to emerging businesses such as financial forecasting, effective financial management, sources of financing, bootstrapping, and exit planning will be examined.
Explores the unique personal and interpersonal issues, as well as the business issues, associated with the family-owned and managed firm. Topics evaluated in the course include the competitive strengths and weaknesses of a family firm; the dynamics of family interactions and the family business culture; conflict resolutions; estate planning; and planning for succession.
Accelerated Ventures (AV) is a two-semester program designed to provide an innovative educational experience for students. During the first semester, students enrolled in ENT 4321 create real companies, raise funds, launch products and services, and generate sales. The second component of AV (ENT 4322) teaches students how to grow and sustain that company.
Accelerated Ventures Capstone (AVC) provides an integrative an innovative educational experience with emphasis on experiential learning. Focus is on start-up and new venture growth activities. Teaches students to use all functional areas of business to optimize options to expand firm revenue, finance firm growth and insure long-term sustainable value creation.
This class is a practicum in which the student will prepare a written business plan for an actual venture, business or nonprofit, which he/she plans to implement in the future. It will be very helpful if the student enters the course with the idea for this venture. Typed drafts of the plan and oral presentations of various sections will be submitted and presented during the course. Individuals from the business and/or nonprofit sectors will be involved in providing constructive criticism throughout the process.
The initial modules of the course explore the nature of innovation--its drivers, patterns and impacts on society and organizations of all sizes and missions. A core aim is delivering tools for recognizing breakthrough-level innovation opportunities and then practicing their use by inventing needed solutions. Subsequent modules focus on the use of these tools and processes in a larger organizational context where selecting the best innovation target is critical, and where stagnation and inertia tend to pull the firm away from the leading edge over time. The goals of the course include demonstrated skills needed for creating and implementing sustained, innovation-driven growth in corporate settings.
Business based on patentable technologies display different business models and characteristics from those of non-technical, mainstream businesses. Understanding these distinctions is critical to technology commercialization. Technology Entrepreneurship examines the entire technology commercialization process, from concept to market. It is intended to provide students in business, engineering, and the sciences with the knowledge needed to participate effectively in the processes required for the successful introduction of new technology products in the marketplace.
A summer study abroad program that covers a broad range of topics that critically affect startup concerns of businesses in the European Union. Primary emphasis is placed on marketing concerns, economic analysis, and business plan preparation for business. Other issues to be investigated include identifying venture opportunities, concept development, market analysis, pricing, budgeting, legal forms of organization, management of the team, and business valuation and dilution. The students will apply this knowledge by preparing a business plan for a business venture -- based on a well-defined concept of the product or service that could develop within their discipline -- and by presenting their final plans to a panel of private equity holders, venture capitalist, bankers, and other entrepreneurship experts. The course is only offered as part of a Baylor study abroad program.
The Shanghai Summer Program includes this version of Technology Entrepreneurship wherein the hands-on projects undertaken for companies are within Chinese entities, and the cross-functional teams are also cross-cultural (American and Chinese). The course is structured around the key elements of commercializing technology as in ENT 4340, the technology entrepreneurship class offered on the Baylor campus. After learning the core elements, students explore the differences of how they are applied to the Asian (especially Chinese) context, and the in-class learning is coupled with the opportunity to visit companies in China that are practicing these same elements. This course is designed to prepare the student for technology-based innovation in the global context.
Is capitalism good for the poor? This course examines the morality of capitalism, the role of institutions in perpetuating or eliminating absolute poverty, and the contextual challenges of entrepreneurship. Recognizing the socio-cultural, political, economic, and technological challenges of doing business in the third world, we use organizational theory to design for-profit ventures that use appropriate technologies to create sustainable solutions to social problems. Course projects are intended to produce organizations that will be partially owned and operated by the members of the communities that benefit from their goods and services.
A study abroad course that helps students understand business in Latin America through first-hand experience. Students will study the social, cultural, historical, economic, and political issues that impact entrepreneurship and small businesses in the Latin American country visited and gain insights into the general environment in which they operate. They will learn from visits to a variety of business enterprises, cultural sites, and educational institutions, in addition to exploring geographic places of interest. Insights gained will allow enrolled students to grasp the dynamics of participation in the local economy and society of the specific country visited.
This course is designed to introduce the student to the business concept of franchising from the perspectives of both the franchisee and the franchisor. The student will learn to evaluate a franchising opportunity from the point of view of the franchisee by completing a feasibility study of a currently available franchise and the potential for franchising a business idea by completing a business plan. Managing the franchise will be covered as well.
An advanced course designed to develop, integrate and immediately apply through experiential learning the processes of evaluating angel-stage opportunities. The heart of the course is focused on experiential learning activities provided in connection with real-world companies seeking capital from the Baylor Angel Network. Students evaluate firms while working in close collaboration with practicing angel investors.
This course is a summer study abroad program. Students enrolled in the class will visit one of the following three African countries: Kenya, Rwanda, and Ghana. The content of the course examines the use of entrepreneurial skills to craft innovative responses to social problems in Africa. In particular, the ability of microlending practices to stimulate economic activity and alleviate poverty will be studied.
Supervised work by a manager in a firm involved in entrepreneurship. Application and requirements for the entrepreneurship internship are available from the chair of the management and entrepreneurship department.
Consent of instructor; not open to pre-business students.
A study abroad course with emphasis on topics that affect technology-based companies and startup businesses. Concepts covered are identifying venture opportunities, concept development, market analysis, pricing, budgeting, prototype development, and business plan preparation for technology-based businesses. Also included are a formal presentation to a group of European venture capitalists and lectures by European business leaders. This is a cooperative program between the School of Engineering and Computer Science and the Hankamer School of Business.