Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Core Modules

• Ideation and Product Development

  In this module you’ll acquire the knowledge and skills needed to facilitate the ideation process: generating, developing, refining and testing ideas. The module introduces students to frameworks that support creative problem-solving and innovation, helping individuals to move from vague concepts or challenges to concrete ideas that can be explored, prototyped, and implemented. The principles of effective product design that lead to the creation of products and services that are functional, aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly, and aligned with business goals will be explored. This module introduces a variety of concepts including product specification, life cycle, market positioning, and sales and planning.

• Venture Finance and Growth

  This module introduces students to the theories and practices of venture finance and funding for start-ups with high growth potential. Emphasis is given to understanding different investment stages and the strategies used by investors to value start-ups, including the techniques used to evaluate proposals. The module examines the capital structure of start-up governance and control, exit strategies and the performance metrics used by investors. The module also explores financial planning and the need for flexibility to foster long term growth.

• Market Analysis and Business Modelling

  This module will introduce you to critical tools and skills needed to undertake a comprehensive assessment of a new market. These frameworks will enable the students to conceptualise, structure, and segment a market. Students will develop their skills in gathering and interpreting data to understand market size, trends, competitors and customer needs. In addition, you will examine successful business models, their components and arrangement. Building on this understanding, you will learn to structure appropriate business models and evaluate their design, to ensure they are effective in satisfying market demand and delivering the product/service to customers. Subsequently, you will experiment with creating, refining, and implementing strategies that align with identified organisational goals and market demands.

• Entrepreneurial Skills and Network Development

  This module is designed to develop your entrepreneurial skills and capabilities through action learning seminars, interactive workshops, activities including field trips and interactions with expert external speakers. Students will be invited to evaluate their development needs at the start of the module and embark on a personal development project. This module will help you to develop key entrepreneurial skills, for example, in team working, time management, problem solving, forecasting, Excel skills, Report writing including infographics and online presentation, pitch performance, networking and negotiations.

• Business Proposal Project

  The Business Proposal Project is the culmination of the MSc course where students produce a practical and outcome oriented business proposal. The overall objective of this module is that students on completion of their studies will have a fully developed and implementable business proposal that has been developed under supervision and vetted by both industry and academic experts.  This module is supported by all the mandatory modules in the Autumn Term and the Skills Spine module “ESND” that runs over both the terms, which provides the necessary scaffolding through summative and formative feedback including a detailed presentation pitch to develop a detailed business proposal and also to reflect on their skills development. This BPP module also has in built supervisory support while the students complete the proposal.

• Academic Integrity

  This module will describe the key principles of academic integrity, focusing on university assignments. Plagiarism, collusion and commissioning will be described as activities that undermine academic integrity, and the possible consequences of engaging in such activities will be described. Activities, with feedback, will provide you with opportunities to reflect and develop your understanding of academic integrity principles.

   

Optional Modules

Below is a taster of some of the exciting optional modules that students on the course could choose from during this academic year. Please be aware these do change over time, and optional modules may be withdrawn or new ones added.

• Technology Entrepreneurship

  This module explores the role played by technology entrepreneurship, like identifying emerging technologies, launching- and growing firms, regional economic development and selecting the appropriate stakeholders for effective commercialisation. You’ll be introduced to the management tools and frameworks needed for successful exploitation of technology-based opportunities and will develop a theoretical understanding of the process of market opportunity identification, evaluation and planning in the context of new technologies. Areas around value proposition design, business model construction, intellectual property protection and securing a sustainable advantage will be explored.

• Family and Small Business Management

  This module explores the management processes of family businesses, reflecting both small and medium-sized enterprises SMEs and large multinationals-conglomerates. The module aims to explain the particularities of family businesses as a distinct type of organisational entity-especially, family-run businesses that are SMEs. The module provides students with the necessary knowledge and skills to negotiate with family businesses and deal with the challenges that family businesses face. Important topics represent the prevalence and economic contribution of family firms, as well as governance, strategic management, succession, change and transgenerational value creation, relationships and conflict in the family business.

• Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Emerging Markets

  This module develops an understanding of the key skills required for identifying entrepreneurial opportunities in emerging markets. The characteristics of emerging markets are explored before introducing frameworks for considering drivers and challenges of entrepreneurial behaviour in seeking market entry.

• Design Thinking

  This module will use the principles of Design Thinking to consider how digital customer journeys are designed and delivered.  Students will learn how to develop salient consumer insights to be able to explain multi-touch point customer experiences.  Using the principles of agile design, students will learn how to develop emotionally engaging customer personas and use them to design extraordinary experiences.  The module will consider how to develop effective email and social customer relationship management engagement. 

• Digital Brand Storytelling

  This course aims to provide students with an overview of the art and discipline of digital brand storytelling across social media and online platforms. Students will learn how to harness the power of storytelling to build brands across digital platforms thus forging relationships with consumers and driving revenue.

  The first part of the course will introduce students to the concept of storytelling as adopted by organizations to build relationships with the brand. Taking a historical view, students will recognize how the growth of social media and digital platforms has taken the role of digital storyteller to new heights, helping organizations to drive their brand value proposition.

  Students will learn how narratives and content creation as originating from consumers outweigh the impact of firm-oriented narratives. They will be introduced to brand personas and brand narratives, as strategic tools adopted by business leaders in storytelling and in so doing will also address the issue of authenticity. The course will examine the science behind stories, exploring a number of different tried and tested storytelling frameworks for digital story building, including the story (narrative) arc, and Gustav Freytag’s pyramid. Students will be expected to critically assess the pros and cons of each and to identify which frameworks are most effective in constructing stories, which maximize impact on consumer-brand relationships.

  Finally, taking a case study analysis approach, the course will unpack a series of real-world digital brand stories including for e.g. Burberry, Airbnb and Naked Wines. Focus will also be on the inspiring, higher purpose, social stories which have emerged from brands such as TOMS, Dove and Lifebuoy. Students will learn how to create storyboards and to undertake a story brand audit, critically examining how real brands have utilized multiple digital platforms to tell and sell their stories.