6193 - ORGANIZATIONAL NETWORKS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The course provides tools for the design and governance of entrepreneurial activities, through the founding of new firms, the growth through interfirm networks and the promotion of entrepreneurship within established firms (corporate entrepreneurship). Structures and strategies based on networks are central in firms' practices on all those grounds. The class format is typically trough the presentations of analytical models and case studies for applications and class discussions. 

• Nature and forms of entrepreneurship.
• The foundation and development of new firms. Opportunity recognition, the entrepreneurial team, forms of financing and types of investors, governance and organizational structure of the new firm.
• The internal and external growth of the enterpreneurial firm. Interfirm networks and alliances: social (e.g. industrial districts), contractual (e.g franchising, consortia) and proprietary (e.g. joint ventures).
• Corporate entrepreneurship and strategic innovation. The large firm as a bundle of strategic initiatives. Entrepreneurial behavior and strategic discipline.
• Network organization in large firms (Network forms, Internal corporate ventures, spin-offs, M&A).

There is no difference in the evaluation procedure for attending or not attending students. Students are evaluated on a written exam based on theory and case analysis in any exam session of their choice. The exam will be structured into parts according to course structure. It will include some conceptual questions and at least one question of applied analysis of a case.

Optional: The student can analyze a real case of his/her choice applying any relevant tools learned in the course. These works will be evaluated on a simple binary scale: particularly good or not particularly good.  The grade obtained in the written exam is increased by 1 point, if the case is particularly good.

• Grandori A. , Hayton J.,  Oganizing Entrepreneurship, London Routledge, forthcoming 2011.
• Selected articles and parts of books available at the beginning of the course.