Entrepreneurship (ENT)

This course is designed for business and nonbusiness students who want to learn about entrepreneurship and its importance to the economy and society, entrepreneurial skills, values and characteristics to create their own job inside and outside the corporate world. This course teaches transferable skills required to become an entrepreneur, a small business owner or an entrepreneur, and raises the student's awareness of the legal, business, managerial, creative, analytical and interpersonal skills relevant to setting up and running an innovative organization.

In this course, students will develop creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial thinking and begin to apply these as a unified 'success' mindset. The course will explore the skill sets of high performing and motivational leaders through case studies and guest lecturers. Students will examine a number of leadership theories and begin to develop their own leadership style.

In this course, students will learn to apply the concepts, theories and methodologies of design thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurship to develop process, service, product, and business design models. Students will focus on customer(client) centric interactions with the local entrepreneurial ecosystem and develop transferable skills including client presentation, networking, collaboration, and leadership.

This course is designed for business and non-business students who want to use their creativity and knowledge to create and market novel products and services for consumers. Students pursuing for-profit or non-profit entrepreneurship ventures will be required to create a value proposition for their new innovation, strategies to protect their intellectual property, and a marketing plan to deliver their new product/service to customers. As a result of this course, students will be capable of conducting effective market analysis, industry analysis, competitive analysis, and risk analysis to successfully market an innovation for an entrepreneurship venture.

This course offers a hands-on opportunity for undergraduate students to experience the practice of qualitative research. This course will provide an overview of the nature of qualitative research in entrepreneurship and organizational studies including philosophy of science; qualitative methodologies; research methods including interviewing, focus groups, surveys, document analysis, participant observation and other forms of field work; project design, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination of research; and evaluation of qualitative research. We will explore the advantages, challenges, and ethical implications of research decisions. Students will participate in a faculty-led research project on entrepreneurship with topics and methods that vary from semester to semester. The course requires reading and writing, team discussion, and individual research activities such as interviewing, fieldwork, and/or document analysis. This course is especially helpful for students wishing to pursue a graduate degree.

In this course students will explore what a social enterprise is and how it is the same as well as different from other types of organizations. Students will investigate how social entrepreneurs are creating new business models in markets that blur the traditional distinctions between for profit and nonprofit companies. Students will explore the use of Franciscan values in developing social enterprises.

This course is designed to help new or aspiring small business owners learn how to analyze financial statements, create financial forecasts, and evaluate their ventures. Additionally, students will become aware of the methods used in determining how much money their venture needs in order to be viable, explore tools and approaches used when selling an idea to potential investors, and learn about the different types of financing alternatives available to new and small ventures. The venture capital market will be investigated in detail, including angel financing, as will other financing options including self-financing and debt financing.

The course is designed for students from any major who want to learn about international entrepreneurship and its importance to the economy and society, and the specific entrepreneurial skills, values and characteristics needed. The course raises students' awareness of the legal, business, managerial, creative, analytical and interpersonal skills relevant to setting up and running an innovative organization in the international context.

This course will provide an overview of the relevance of technology to the success of new ventures, and highlight specific technology tools, including financial management software, website development services and programs, e-commerce, and social media and e-marketing tools that are crucial for 21st century entrepreneurs in any industry. As part of the course, students will have the opportunity to develop their own website for their small business and e-marketing plan.

This course combines design thinking methods, traditional business strategy, and the entrepreneurial and innovation mindsets. The course will also focus on the importance of combining these analytical and creative tools to maximize entrepreneurial opportunity. The impact of these mindsets and methods on critical organizational building blocks such as value proposition, revenue streams, customer segments, and sales channels will be explored. The importance of multistakeholder collaboration will also be discussed.

This course builds on the content material of ENT 2003 and allows for students to develop a more advanced understanding of social entrepreneurship. In this course students explore significant social problems and innovative solutions that drive transformative social change. Students will dive deeper into business models and strategies that social entrepreneurs employ to create high-impact ventures. The course will also cover how multistakeholder collaboration is fundamental for sustainable social change initiatives and will examine how they can be successfully established and maintained.

Through the entrepreneurial viewpoint and innovation mindset, this course focuses on the circular economy business model (think recycling or reducing resource use) and shared economy business model (think ride-shares or renting out spare space in your home as a hotel room). Students will examine how these innovative business models create sustainable social impact and a unique competitive advantage (think triple bottom line). Students can expect instructor lecture, case study analysis requiring individual written assignments or small group discussions, and experiential projects to explore entrepreneurial opportunities applying the circular and shared economy models.

This course builds on the content material of ENT-3001 and allows for students to develop a more advanced understanding of entrepreneurial funding for startups. Students will develop a deeper understanding of how and why individual and institutional investors fund entrepreneurial startup ventures. Students will examine the many financing options available to get a new startup venture funded. Students will learn about harvesting via the various types of exits and recapitalizations.

Students find internships through their own initiative, the Career Development Office, and occasionally through Faculty. Placements depend on the availability of suitable positions and must amount to a minimum of 45 hours for 1 credit, 90 hours for 2 credits, and 135 hours for 3 credits. The faculty internship coordinator, along with the site placement supervisor, will guide and evaluate the quality of the work. Internships must relate to a student's area of focus or proficiencies within the Entrepreneurship and Organizational Innovation major and will provide the student with an opportunity to apply knowledge and skills gained through coursework.

Individual research and study under supervision of a department faculty member. Student develops topic which is approved by the faculty advisor. Student and faculty advisor agree upon a schedule of deliverables.

The capstone focuses on identifying and assessing business opportunities. In this course students will apply previous course materials to develop a capstone project which will cover material from business idea to prelaunch stage. During multiple team-based projects, students engage in a broad range of important entrepreneurial activities, including team and culture development, customer discovery, solution ideation, business model generation, product development, proof of concept (POC) testing, marketing & preselling, entrepreneurial funding, and other prelaunch activities.

Students will investigate how social entrepreneurs are creating new business models in markets that blur the traditional distinctions between for profit and nonprofit companies. Students will explore the use of Franciscan values such as social justice, social equity, and collaborative service-oriented leadership in developing social enterprises.

Students will learn how social entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs act as agents for social change. Through the lens of a social entrepreneur, students will learn how to create their own mission and impact driven enterprises or make impact driven investments. Through the lens of a social intreprenur, students will learn to facilitate social impact and change through corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives.

Students will learn about the different forms of social enterprises, non-profits, and NGOs and how to quantify social impact and calculate financial metrics for each. The course will explore how the social sector is evolving from traditional philanthropic and charitable models to include new organizational types and hybrid structures that can deliver both sustainable social and economic value.