In an ever-changing business landscape shaped by increasingly competitive markets, the entrepreneurial mindset is crucial for managers to bring about creative changes and growth. This program explores the main components of innovation and new venture creation and provides an insight into entrepreneurial endeavor and the conditions within which it can be cultivated effectively. Focusing on the development of creative thinking and executive skills, students will discover entrepreneurial challenges and solutions, while taking the opportunity to evaluate and conceptualize business models.
Applicants must also meet one of the following:
The Master in Innovation & Entrepreneurship (60 ECTS) is a one-year program, divided into three terms. Each term comprises four courses (4 ECTS each) and one seminar (2 ECTS). Throughout the year, students are also exposed to real-life case studies, games and business simulations. In order to graduate, participants must also complete a business plan (6 ECTS).
YEAR 1
Foundations of Business Management
This course focuses on the management of organizations. It will examine the skills and functions needed by managers to run efficient and effective organizations. Themes such as motivation, communication, leadership and strategy will be covered.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Business Environment
This course offers a participative introduction to business environment analysis. The business environment of a global firm is presented in order to familiarize students with concepts related to the international economy and demonstrate how to apply theories to the current global context. Firstly, it provides an overview of the international economy, finance and international economic organizations, which gives students who do not have a background in economics an insight into the drivers and effects of globalization. Secondly, it puts the global firm into the broader context of global politics and economy and considers its role in society. Topics covered in this course include global competition, multinational firms in developed and developing countries and the identification and assessment of the forces that shape the international economic environment.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Applied Finance
This course discusses the relevant accounting and finance functions required for decision-making in corporate and financial institutions. In this course, students learn about legal forms of business organizations, and the pros and cons of different types of company. This course helps students differentiate between terms like revenue, profit and costs. This will enable managers to analyze financials in order to understand areas of concern and ensure efficiency. This analysis is imperative for making key investment decisions regarding financing, investing, working capital and dividends. The corporations interact with financial markets in order to raise finance through equity, working capital finance, issuing bonds, distributing dividends, etc. They are also required to value their stocks or businesses, which form the basis of transactions in financial markets.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Business Model
This course focuses on how to develop effective business models through marketing. The course will emphasize the design of customer-driven strategies and developing distinct competitive advantages.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Seminar: Boosting Creativity
This seminar addresses the modern management process, including decision-making and planning, motivating others and efficient communication. Students will focus on exploring the rationale of organizational design and structure to achieve firm objectives, positive employer-employee relations, managerial ethics and the use of control systems.
1 CH | 2 ECTS
New Product Development
This course establishes a framework for developing and maintaining new product development capabilities in the corporate world. It allows the practical development of new products and defines the conditions under which they can be successfully launched. The course is designed to integrate the various elements of the program within a practical problem-solving environment. Students are expected to read extensively, complete all assignments, participate in discussions and cooperate in the identification and application of their learning to new situations.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Strategic Management of Innovation
Innovation management establishes a framework for developing and maintaining innovation and new product development capabilities in the corporate world. It identifies the opportunities for innovation and research and development in the firm, while linking it to the practical development of new products and the conditions for launching them successfully. The course is designed to integrate the various elements of the program within a practical problem-solving environment. Students are expected to read extensively, complete all assignments, participate in discussions and cooperate in the identification and application of their learning to new situations.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Intellectual Property
This course will focus on the body of intellectual property law encountered by managers of public and private companies, consultants, and entrepreneurs. Topics for discussion include, but are not limited to, licensing agreements and copyright laws; the various forms of intellectual property (e.g., trade secrets, patents and trademarks) and doing business; and specific issues regarding startups and intellectual property laws. Legal strategies related to intellectual property and innovation for early-stage business ventures will also be covered. We will use the life cycle of a startup – from invention and early assessment, through incorporation and product development, growth, and on to a major financing event or exit strategy – as a framework for analyzing the intellectual property and innovation legal strategy behind creating and executing a scalable and repeatable business model. Last but certainly not least, this course will emphasize the need to align a company’s intellectual property strategy with its business model.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Customer-Centric Strategy
As customers become increasingly discerning and demanding and the business environment increasingly competitive, enterprises are responding by changing their approach to marketing. They are creating a stronger customer-centric focus with specific attention on building long-term customer relationships as a means of developing a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. The emphasis is on engaging the customer in a more meaningful way and creating customer experiences that translate into loyalty and a long-term commitment to the firm. This course considers the marketing strategies required to build and maintain these customer relationships. The course begins with an examination of the major themes in relationship marketing along with implications for today’s marketing practitioners. It then turns to a study of specific strategies for incorporating a customer-centric focus into a firm’s operations.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Seminar: Authentic Leadership
Organizations are increasingly aware of the importance of intellectual and human capital. Leadership and trust are two drivers of human capital development. Trust is at the heart of organizational and personal issues and rests on rational and emotional foundations and on contractual and affective exchanges. To become a leader, you have to know yourself, be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and understand others. This course focuses on effective communication, support, teamwork, leadership and team-building.
1 CH | 2 ECTS
Entrepreneurship Strategy
The course applies key theoretical concepts drawn from the general body of entrepreneurship knowledge and from understanding of best business entrepreneurial management practice. It is oriented predominantly toward the new venture startup process: how entrepreneurs identify a business opportunity and creatively develop the initial ideas into commercial reality. It also provides students with a broader perspective and deepens their understanding of entrepreneurship by examining entrepreneurial behaviors and capabilities for sustained business development beyond new venture startups.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Entrepreneurial Finance
The course provides students with the knowledge and skills to identify and assess the financial implications of planning and managing a new business. The course content provides the essentials any manager should have when assessing financial viability of a new business venture. The course is designed for students who plan to get involved with a new venture at some point in their career – as a founder, employee, advisor, consultant or investor. It is also appropriate for students interested in gaining a broader view of the financing for startup firms.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Private Equity & Venture Capital
The course provides a practical, in-depth look into venture capital and private equity from the perspectives of both the investor and the entrepreneur. The course content covers the investment process, conducting due diligence, valuation methods, adding value to business, exploring exit pathways.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Strategic Management of Growth & Exit
This course provides a survey of international business management in the context of the increasing economic interdependence of nations. Theories of international business are examined in conjunction with strategic planning, intercultural factors, foreign management techniques and political risk analysis. The activities of multinational enterprises in home and host countries are also examined. The course focuses on strategic management, utilizing the full business context focus of the discipline to pull together, integrate and contextualize the learning undertaken by the students throughout their program in its totality. The course draws upon strategic management theories, concepts, methods and tools to nurture student capacity to think strategically about organizations in their uncertain external development contexts and their current strategic positions and to identify the potential for pursuing alternative strategic development paths and sustaining a distinguishing competitive posture. The course fosters student interactivity and action learning through discussion and debate, considering case study-portrayed real-life examples and assessing and analyzing recent developments in research.
3 CH | 4 ECTS
Seminar: Effective Negotiation
Negotiating is part of our personal and professional daily lives. This is a skill that all organizations value. Being an effective negotiator promotes career development. The main objectives of the course are to help students build and strengthen their negotiation skills by developing an analytical understanding of business negotiations, so they can become more effective negotiators and problem-solvers.
1 CH | 2 ECTS
Business Plan
Students will also be required to submit a business plan (6 ECTS) at the end of their studies and to attend field trips, company visits and fairs as part of the experiential learning method.
4 CH | 6 ECTS
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