MBA Specialism in Entrepreneurship

Programme Overview

In the context of financial decision-making, it is critical that firms identify the opportunities and challenges and position themselves in the market by correctly evaluating and analysing their actual and potential profitability, growth, and development. Firms go throw different stages of development from start-up to survival, growth, and maturity, facing different business markets, and financial challenges and opportunities. Many of the companies that operate in our economic system are micro to small-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), where they were originally founded by entrepreneurs. To understand the development and success or failures of enterprises, it is important to analyse the characteristics and foundation of entrepreneurship and the financial conditions that impact an entrepreneurial venture. 

Understanding entrepreneurial finance is an important part of analysing the potential factors that lead to success and failure and the opportunities and challenges that face small enterprises. One of the ways which allow entrepreneurs to make effective decisions to develop their ventures is to establish a comprehensive structure of analysis that considers finance and financial management. Financing sources is particularly difficult for a small firm due to the high uncertainty about cash flow and future liquidity requirements. Small firms face unique financial problems that overshadow the barriers hindering their survival and growth. 

This course aims to identify the key financial challenges faced by entrepreneurial ventures, which can range from seed and start-up capital to the management of working capital, and the different possible options available to SMEs by financial institutions, and private equity and venture capital. Entrepreneurial Finance combines the basic concepts of entrepreneurship, economics, and finance. 

Programme Overview

This module is designed to introduce students to the entrepreneurial process. The course highlights the entrepreneurial perspective and mindset required to take an initial entry-level idea through the creativity, operating strategies, and funding needed to turn opportunity into reality while focusing on core business practices. Since an entrepreneur is someone who takes on a venture to create something new that solves a problem, this course helps students recognise opportunities and then act on those possibilities. The process involves establishing an entrepreneurial vision. 

Choosing the path of entrepreneurship requires a willingness to take on calculated risks. Many factors drive the growth of entrepreneurship, including employment instability, motivation to create something new, financial factors and free time associated with retirement, and the greater acceptance of entrepreneurship as a career choice. The entrepreneurial mindset discussed in this course helps the entrepreneur view the world as full of possibilities, which then helps entrepreneurs overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. 

Programme Overview

This module will equip intending entrepreneurs with the knowledge and skills needed to transform an initial business opportunity into a new business venture. It begins by reviewing those special characteristics of entrepreneurial behaviour that are especially helpful in new venture creation; and by assessing the further assistance available through the adoption of a strategic perspective on future business planning. It then discusses the need for a clearly defined business model that will take full advantage of the business opportunity that has been identified; and the subsequent need for a formal business plan that outlines the new venture’s intended direction and the methods it intends to use to pursue that direction. The course concludes with a brief discussion of those aspects of the entrepreneurial strategy process that require us to think ahead into a largely unknown future.