Course Meeting Times
Sessions: 1 session / week, 2.5 hours / session
Prerequisites
15.310 Managerial Psychology or 15.311 Organizational Processes.
Introduction
Large, established companies are under unyielding pressure to discover new ways to grow. For many firms, efficiency improvement, M&A and even incremental innovation have failed to meet the strategic need. In the face of this gap, corporate entrepreneurship is now appearing, often reluctantly, on the executive agenda of executives leading those companies and for people joining those firms or advising them.
Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) has classically been about building new businesses inside established firms—starting new lines of business or new product units, setting up new practice areas, beginning offices in new geographies, managing spinoffs, or creating joint ventures, and establishing firm-level systems and processes to support these efforts. But CE is actually a much more widely applicable. Entrepreneurship is required whenever a firm or individual ventures into any unfamiliar (“far from core”) area in which success is significantly uncertain. We will reserve the term for this use to distinguish it from innovation in all its other forms.
The need for CE is painfully clear; how to do it is often poorly understood and managed, and inherently resisted. This course addresses challenges of making an established company entrepreneurial. It will help you prepare for various roles related to corporate entrepreneurship efforts: Working as an individual, managing the “Entrepreneur Inside” (EI), leading a small team trying to build a new business in a company, working as a management consultant advising a client, or leading an entire firm.
We will cover the basics of entrepreneurship in and by corporations in three ways. First, Why entrepreneurship? How does corporate entrepreneurship connect with a firm-level strategy? Second, What challenges will you face? And third, How to become entrepreneurial? What approaches are available to the large firm to create new products and businesses and new internal processes and methods beyond their current area of expertise? And how does the large company acquire, employ, manage and refresh these tools and methods?
We will come at these two issues from the perspective of four stakeholders:
- How do you as an Entrepreneur Inside manage yourself, your boss and your peers, and navigate the larger corporate system and structures? How can you start a new business or do something radically new inside a corporation without “getting yourself killed in the process.”
- How do you as a manager manage the EI and “work” the systems and structures in which they operate. How do you participate in larger company-wide efforts aimed and making the firm more entrepreneurial and innovative?
- How do you as an executive lead and sponsor CE and create and manage the systems and structures conducive to an entrepreneurial company?
- How do you as an organizational advisor help a client diagnose and implement efforts aimed at instilling CE?
CE itself is a volatile field at present with only modest coherence, at best. Theorists, consultants and practitioners disagree on definitions and methods. Our aim is to give you a roadmap of the territory, not a recipe for success.
Outside speakers supplement faculty lectures.
Course Objectives
This course will give you the tools, methods and logic that will enable you to participate in or lead successful efforts in Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE).
By the end of the course you will:
- Have an overview of the field of Corporate Entrepreneurship
- Be familiar with the various tools, methods, approaches and architectures that organizations are employing and have an in-depth understanding of a few of them
- Understand the major challenges that militate against CE and how you can successfully and safely navigate them
- Have interacted with executives in a number of different companies, each facing its own practical challenges on its path to CE
- Know whether this is an appealing career for you and what you must do to develop and maintain professional capacity in this field in the near future, should you want to.
Grading and Requirements
This class can only be taken for a grade. The grading is divided as follows:
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Class participation | 25% |
| Pre-Class Surveys | 10% |
| Term Paper | 50% |
| Career Reflection paper | 15% |
Class Participation (25%)
The character of the course naturally lends itself to active exchange among participants, thus we encourage, value, and recognize in-class contribution. Effective class participation includes attendance, preparation, and making an active and constructive contribution to the class discussion.
- You cannot contribute when you are not in class. As such, both lateness and absences will count against your in-class contribution grade. If you must miss a class, please let the TA (and instructors) know beforehand.
- You should be prepared for every class. If for some reason you are not prepared, please let the TA and instructor know before the start of class.
- The value and quality of this class depends critically on the quality and diversity of the class discussion. Part of your contribution grade is based on your in-class comments. Both quantity and quality are relevant, and thoughtful, consistent contribution is ideal. Sharing your perceptions and ideas with others is crucial for learning and for understanding how the diverse opinions that you are likely to encounter in an organization are debated. You will find yourself presenting and testing new ideas that are not wholly formulated and assisting others in shaping their ideas as well. You should be prepared to take some risks and be supportive of the efforts of others.
Pre-Class Surveys (10%)
For some classes a required brief pre-class survey will be distributed prior to the class session.
Term Paper (50%)
You will as a team of two or three prepare a term paper that will focus on the area of interest to you: Either a contemporary CE tool or method or the use of CE in a particular firm. We are looking forward to a significant and thoughtful original paper-preparation effort, one that could produce a first draft of a publishable managerially interesting piece of work.
Personal Career Reflection (15%)
In preparation for the final class you will prepare a short reflection (500± words) on your thoughts on your future regarding corporate entrepreneurship.
Teaching Assisstance and Help Sessions
The teaching assistant is available to conduct individual or group “help” sessions on an occasional basis for any students who might find them useful. Students are encouraged to contact the TA prior to class sessions where materials are reviewed. You should feel free either to approach the teaching assistant or to make an appointment to see the instructors if you have any questions regarding the course or the material.
Class Sessions and Readings
The course is divided into two main modules designed to cover areas of challenges and best practices for successful business building inside firms. The modules are highly connected. Therefore, while each session is standalone in that it focuses on a specific challenge area and best practice, we will build on previous sessions in each discussion.
The primary text for this class is Burns, P. Corporate Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Large Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ISBN: 9780230304031. [Preview with Google Books]. A supplementary text is Morris, M. H., D. Kuratko, et al. Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Cengage Learning, 2010. ISBN: 9780538478922. [Preview with Google Books] which duplicates much material in Burns and also covers other topics. However, it is quite expensive and beyond the excerpts listed in the Readings section is unnecessary to purchase for this course.
MIT Sloan Policy on Classroom Behavior
In order to create a productive learning environment and to ensure mutual respect it is essential that the norms and rules of classroom etiquette and behavior reflect the highest standards. It is also important that these norms be consistently enforced by the faculty across all classes. Although in the final analysis each faculty member is responsible for his or her own classroom, there are significant negative consequences for other faculty and for the School if rules are not consistent and are not enforced. Therefore it is the policy of the MIT Sloan School that
- Students are expected to arrive promptly on time and to stay for the entire class.
- Faculty are expected to begin and end class on time.
- Laptops and e-readers are not be open in the classroom except with explicit permission of the faculty (e.g., when used as part of the instructional program or when required by students because of physical or other challenges)
- Cell phones and PDAs are not to be used or permitted to ring in the classroom.
- Students are expected to attend all classes.
It is expected that faculty will articulate how these rules apply in their class as well as how the rules will be enforced.
