This course explores the skills, techniques, and strategies that are required to instill entrepreneurial behavior and subsequent venture activity in established and large organizations.
The class explorers current concepts on how organizations “venture” by creating new businesses within their organization and how these organizations find and groom individuals to take on the role of “Intrapreneurs”, the corporate equivalent of the entrepreneurs. Students are encouraged to bring their experiences with the organizations they are currently with or have been to contribute to discussions on various aspects of Corporate Venturing.
At the core of the assignments is a real-life effort to describe, define and structure a corporate venturing process for an organization of the student’s choosing (mostly their current organization). A carefully crafted team project put students in charge of creating a real-life venture for an organization to apply concepts and learning in parallel to the class process. The class will also discuss and explore the obstacles that organizations typically face when trying to become more “intrapreneurial” and why intrapreneurs are still a rare but sought-after breed of employee.