Week 1 Assessments
This week you submit:
·
Collaboration
initial response to Turnitin and to the Collaboration Forum (Saturday, Day 3).
·
Collaboration
responses to the Collaboration Forum (Wednesday, Day 7).
·
Post
your venture idea to the Collaboration Forum by Saturday (Day 3).
·
Submit
your Module Project to the Turnitin link provided by Wednesday (Day 7).
Collaboration: Implications of entrepreneurial activity
The goal of entrepreneurs is to
recognise opportunities and bring about change in their personal or family life
as well as in their professional life. However, change can be uncomfortable for
a small community, even if the entrepreneurial venture will provide benefits.
You may often hear of cases where well-intentioned entrepreneurs want to
improve their social and financial status but neglect to involve key community
members, thus compounding the fears of said communities, especially in emerging
markets.
Despite some of the negative stories,
emerging market examples such as Brazil, India, Poland and Myanmar illustrate a
positive picture for entrepreneurs. However, some of these markets do suffer
from resource scarcity, raising the question of whether entrepreneurial
activity is always helpful to indigenous communities. With that in mind, are
there situations in which entrepreneurial activity could hinder the social and
economic livelihoods of people living in certain emerging markets? For this
first Collaboration, reflect on these thoughts and evaluate the positive and
negative attributes of entrepreneurial activity in emerging markets. Then, take
a position on whether or not entrepreneurial activity adversely affects
communities in emerging markets.
To prepare for this Collaboration:
Review your Learning Resources with a
focus on emerging markets and the effects of entrepreneurial activity.
Research the current state of emerging
markets.
Take a position on whether
entrepreneurial activity within emerging markets provides a social and economic
hindrance or benefit.
Research two emerging markets to defend
your position.
Identify the effects of entrepreneurial
activity within emerging markets.
Reflect on the positives and negatives
of entrepreneurial activity with respect to its effects on indigenous
communities.
Note: Be sure to read over your post
before submitting it to make sure the spelling and grammar for your post are
correct, and the language you are using is appropriate for academic writing.
To complete this Collaboration:
By Saturday (Day 3)
In an approximately 300-500 word
response, address the following
·
Evaluate
the positives and negatives of entrepreneurial activity in regards to its
social and economic implications regarding indigenous communities. Justify your
reasoning.
·
Analyse
how these implications affect indigenous communities within your two researched
emerging markets.
·
Based
on your evaluation and analysis, explain your position as to whether or not
entrepreneurial activity within an emerging market is socially and/or
economically beneficial.
·
Support
your position with specific examples from your researched emerging markets.
Fully justify all your assumptions and
claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or your own research.
Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing System.
Post your initial response to the
Collaboration Forum.
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Post 3-5 responses to your colleagues
in which you:
Support or refute their position on the
social and/or economic benefits or hindrances caused by entrepreneurial
activity within emerging markets.
Compare the effects of entrepreneurial
activity in their researched emerging markets to your researched markets.
Support any claims you make with
evidence from the Learning Resources, your own research and/or your own
experiences.
Ensure that you spread your
collaboration posts across at least three separate days of each week. This will
help maximise the value of your collaboration with colleagues and serve to meet
the Learning Objectives for each activity.
To access the Collaboration Forum,
click on the "Week 1 Collaboration Forum" link.
To submit your initial response to
Turnitin, click on the "View/Complete" link for Week 01 Collaboration
Initial Response -- Turnitin.
Week 2 Assessments
This week you submit:
·
Collaboration
initial response to Turnitin and to the Collaboration Forum (Saturday, Day 3)
·
Collaboration
responses to the Collaboration Forum (Wednesday, Day 7)
·
Submit
your PDP to the Turnitin link by Wednesday (Day 7)
Collaboration: Evolution of emerging markets: Part 1 (2-week
activity)
In the late 1990’s, there was an
explosion of technology start-up businesses centred on the onset of the
Internet. Known as the ‘dotcom bubble’ of 1995–2001, it refers to the rapid
growth of Internet businesses over a rather short period, before ultimately
bursting, which resulted in many of these start-ups failing.
Entrepreneurs thought that anything
could be sold if it were online, regardless of their marketing (or lack
thereof). Those that survived dropped considerably in their value.
Nevertheless, the Internet has become a catalyst to many other technology
start-ups. The entrepreneurs at the helm of these small businesses often seek
to develop some new, innovative piece of technology (code, applications or
hardware) with an exit strategy of acquisition by a larger corporation.
The globalisation of business has
enabled many of these entrepreneurs to seek these goals more effectively as
well, allowing them more options when it comes to building teams and acquiring
necessary development resources. However, as with the dotcom bubble, any
entrepreneurial boom can be affected by associated markets. With the global
nature of business within today’s emerging markets, entrepreneurs must be all
the more vigilant to indigenous political, social, environmental and economic
issues. With these considerations in mind, for this Collaboration select an
emerging market not discussed in this week’s Learning Resources and analyse how
changes in its market have impacted both entrepreneurial activities and
start-ups over the last 10 years.
To prepare for this Collaboration:
Review your Learning Resources with a
focus on the growth of globalised entrepreneurial activities in emerging
markets.
Select an emerging market of interest
to you that is not covered in the Learning Resources.
Research how that market has changed
and evolved over the last 10 years.
Reflect on how changes in your selected
market have affected entrepreneurial activity and start-up businesses.
Identify the market factors that have
facilitated these changes.
Identify the societal benefits and
hindrances of entrepreneurial activity and start-up businesses within your
selected market.
To complete this Collaboration:
By Saturday (Day 3)
In an approximately 300-500 word
response, address the following
·
Briefly
summarise your selected emerging market and explain the changes that market has
undergone over the last 10 years.
·
Analyse
how your identified changes, and the market factors that facilitated these
changes, have affected entrepreneurial activities and start-up businesses over
the last 10 years.
·
Based
on your analysis, explain whether these changes have promoted or impeded
start-up businesses within your selected market. Justify your reasoning.
·
Evaluate
the social value that entrepreneurial activities and start-up businesses bring
to your selected emerging market. Justify your reasoning.
·
Support
your analyses and evaluations with specific examples of start-up businesses
within your selected emerging market or comparable emerging markets.
Post your initial response to the
Collaboration Forum.
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Post 3-5 responses to your colleagues
in which you:
Support or refute their evaluation on
the social value entrepreneurial activities and start-up businesses bring to
their selected emerging market.
Offer contributions based upon your
prior experience.
Extend the discussion into new but
relevant areas.
Model or promote critical reflection
from what you have read.
Ensure that you spread your collaboration
posts across at least three separate days of each week. This will help maximise
the value of your collaboration with colleagues and serve to meet the Learning
Objectives for each activity.
The Collaboration Activity 2-Week Cycle
For the next 6 weeks, your
Collaboration Activities will follow a 2-week cycle, throughout which you will
interact with your peers on the Collaboration Forum to generate insights, hone
your discussion and analysis skills and challenge your conclusions.
At the beginning of every 2-week
Collaboration, you have until Saturday (Day 3) to post an initial individual
response of approximately 300-500 words to the Discussion prompt, as informed
by the readings and your prior knowledge. Then, you will engage in a dialogue
with your Discussion group to develop your thinking as best as possible until
Wednesday (Day 7).
You should use the Collaboration Forum
in any way that enhances your learning: share analyses, external resources,
personal experiences or notes on the module content. You are expected to
organically interact with your Discussion group, and you will receive feedback
on your interactions from your Instructor.
The second part of the 2-week
Collaboration will supply you with a new prompt to extend your collaboration
discussion until Monday (Day 5). Then, you have until Wednesday (Day 7) to
write and post your final individual summary reflecting on what you have
learned. Your collaboration participation will be assessed and graded over the
2-week cycle.
To access the Collaboration Forum,
click on the "Week 1 Collaboration Forum" link.
To submit your initial response to
Turnitin, click on the "View/Complete" link for Week 02 Collaboration
Initial Response -- Turnitin.
Personal Development Plan: Professional effectiveness action
plan
In the first week of this module, you
developed an initial idea for a venture business within a new market. However,
when you developed that idea, how much time did you spend formally scrutinising
its merits and weaknesses? What about your own strengths and weaknesses as an
entrepreneur or even as an individual? Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is
critical to succeed in any endeavour, and the more you understand these
strengths and weaknesses, the better you can leverage opportunities and
neutralise potential threats.
Because of the importance of knowing
this information, throughout this module, you will conduct reflective
assignments in the form of a Personal Development Plan (PDP). Like other modules
in the Master of Business Administration programme, PDP assignments will
alternate with Module Project assignments. In the case of this first PDP task,
you are to reflect on the venture idea you depicted in the Week 1 Module
Project deliverable. Based on that idea, and the emerging market within which
you will deliver said idea, conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats) analysis on yourself and develop a professional
effectiveness action plan for how you will progress in further developing your
venture idea and your career. Please note this will enable you to look ‘inside
yourself’ so be candid in your self-analysis.
To prepare for this Assignment:
Review your venture idea from the Week
1 individual Assignment.
Identify the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of your venture idea from the Week 1 Assignment.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses
as an entrepreneur with respect to working within emerging markets.
Identify your opportunities for
personal and professional (i.e. with your venture and your career) growth.
Identify threats (challenges) to your
personal and professional progress.
Reflect on how you will effectively
grow professionally as an entrepreneur.
To complete this Assignment:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Submit an approximately 1000-word PDP
in which you address the following:
In your plan, conduct a SWOT analysis
on yourself and your venture idea from the Week 1 Module Project submission
with respect to your personal and professional progress.
Develop a professional effectiveness
action plan. This should be a plan depicting how you will deliver your venture
idea, within your emerging market, in an effective manner.
Note: Your professional effectiveness
action plan should be reflective of all of your learning thus far in the
Masters of Business Administration programme. It is intended to be
introspective only for you and your Instructor.
This Assignment should also be prepared
and submitted to Turnitin using the Word (.doc or .docx) format no later than
midnight (Day 7) your local time.
Week 3 Assessments
This week you submit:
·
Collaboration
initial response to Turnitin and to the Collaboration Forum (Saturday, Day 3).
·
Collaboration
responses to the Collaboration Forum (Wednesday, Day 7).
·
Submit
your Module Project to the Turnitin link provided by Wednesday (Day 7).
Collaboration: Evolution of emerging markets: Part 2 (2-week
activity)
Is there a challenge or obstacle that
is impossible to overcome? As you might expect, entrepreneurs encounter any
number of barriers that they must overcome in order to make their venture a
success.
As the last few weeks have shown, the
prospect of pursuing such ventures in an emerging market creates a completely
new breed of challenges. In fact, you may even live in an emerging market. Do
you see any similarity to our module topics in your own environment? You may be
aware of risks to your venture; have others overcome those risks? As the
emerging market ‘emerges’ and becomes more sophisticated in finance,
information and technology, will those risks lessen?
As a graduate student of the University
of Liverpool, the idea of insurmountable barriers might seem somewhat
ludicrous, as your role is to identify, understand and create rational
solutions to challenges. As an entrepreneur, you have the drive to succeed and
may believe certain barriers are merely challenges to be overcome. Regardless,
reflect on the emerging market you researched in last week’s Collaboration. Are
there perhaps political, cultural or social barriers that you could never
overcome? For this Collaboration, continue the discussions from last week and
take a position as to whether insurmountable barriers, in regards to starting a
venture, exist in your previously researched emerging market. Moreover,
evaluate the risks of that market’s top three barriers.
To prepare for this Collaboration:
Review your Learning Resources with a
focus on the barriers of starting new ventures within emerging markets.
Review your Week 2 Learning Resources
as necessary.
Research your selected emerging market
from the Week 2 Collaboration with a focus on barriers to starting a new
venture.
Identify the main barriers to starting
a new venture within your selected emerging market.
Reflect on the feasibility of any of
these barriers being impossible to overcome.
Reflect on how these barriers could be
overcome.
To complete this Collaboration:
By Monday (Day 5)
Engage in a discussion by posting and
replying to each other’s posts (minimum three to five substantive responses you
should aim to collaborate on three separate days).
·
Identify
the main barriers to starting a new venture within your selected emerging
market.
·
Explain
which of your identified barriers to be the top three. Justify your reasoning using
specific examples from the Learning Resources or your own research.
·
Evaluate
the risks associated with your top three barriers. Explain what you based your
evaluation on and justify your reasoning.
·
Explain
whether any of these barriers are insurmountable and why.
·
Recommend
strategies for overcoming or mitigating the risks associated with your
identified barriers.
Fully justify all your assumptions and
claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or your own research.
Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing System.
Post 3-5 responses to your colleagues
in which you:
Ask additional questions about their
posts and offer additional suggestions regarding strategies for overcoming or
mitigating their evaluated risks.
Offer contributions based upon your
prior experience.
Extend the discussion into new but
relevant areas.
Support any claims you make with
evidence from the Learning Resources, your own research and/or your own
experiences.
Ensure that you spread your
collaboration posts across at least three separate days of each week. This will
help maximise the value of your collaboration with colleagues and serve to meet
the Learning Objectives for each activity.
Individual Summary:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
In an approximately 250-word response,
address the following:
Create a new post in which you provide
a final summary of what you have learned from this two-part Collaboration.
In your summary, address key themes,
issues, debates and/or arguments regarding the long-term potential of a viable
opportunity and how your personal values can contribute to a new business
venture.
Submit this summary to Turnitin and
post it to the Collaboration Forum.
To access the Collaboration Forum,
click on the "Week 3 Collaboration Forum" link.
To submit your initial response to
Turnitin, click on the "View/Complete" link for Week 03 Collaboration
Initial Response -- Turnitin.
Module Project: Summary and feasibility analysis rationale
You have a great idea for a new venture
and have discovered a phenomenal opportunity in a rapidly growing emerging
market. What do you do next?
While there are any number of things
you could do, perhaps one of the most prudent is to find a way to finance your
venture. That means meeting with a myriad of potential investors and trying to
convince them just how great of an opportunity your idea and market truly are.
Unfortunately, regardless of the size and type of your proposed venture,
finding enough money to start is usually a significant challenge.
In order to better your chances, a
feasibility analysis is an excellent tool to leverage your chances to find
money as it allows you to systematically break down and evaluate the potential
of your project. Consequently, the first part of such a feasibility analysis is
your next task for your Module Project. For this Assignment, you need to
incorporate viable feedback (from your colleagues and Instructor) for your
venture idea, which you developed during Week 1, and prepare it for evaluation
by potential investors. This means summarising your entire venture idea in
1,000 words or less. Moreover, you must include the first part of your
feasibility analysis, which is an evaluation of your venture idea’s strengths.
To prepare for this Assignment:
Review the venture idea you began
developing in the Week 1 Assignment.
Download and review the Feasibility
Analysis Template from the Learning Resources.
Complete the Week 3 Collaboration. It
will help inform this Assignment.
Incorporate all Instructor and viable
colleague feedback regarding your venture idea.
Research the emerging market within
which you will deliver your venture idea. Note that you can incorporate
research you conducted during Week 1.
Identify the opportunities provided by
your venture idea within your selected market.
Identify the strengths of your venture
idea.
Reflect on the personal and/or societal
impact your venture might have on its founders, employees, your community and
society.
To complete this Assignment:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Submit a 1000-word paper in which you
address the following:
Summarise your venture idea, and the
market you will deliver it in, from the Week 1 Assignment and present your
summary as if you were presenting it to potential investors. In your summary,
address the following:
·
Explain
the ways in which your venture idea, within your selected market, is an
important opportunity.
·
Evaluate
the impact your venture will have on its founders, employees and society.
·
Include
graphics, tables and/or charts where appropriate.
·
Complete
the first section of the Feasibility Analysis Template, titled ‘Strength of
Business Idea’. Identify the strengths of your venture idea, within your
selected market, in this section.
·
Explain
the rationale for what you deemed strengths of your venture idea. Would your
family and friends agree with you?
Fully justify all your assumptions and
claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or your own research.
Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing System.
This Assignment should also be prepared
and submitted to Turnitin using the Word (.doc or .docx) format no later than
midnight (Day 7) your local time.
Week 4 Assessments
This week you submit:
·
Collaboration
initial response to Turnitin and to the Collaboration Forum (Saturday, Day 3)
·
Collaboration
responses to the Collaboration Forum (Wednesday, Day 7)
·
Submit
your PDP to the Turnitin link by Wednesday (Day 7)
Collaboration: Growing entrepreneurial ventures: Part 1 (2-week
activity)
Drive is a critical trait that any
entrepreneur must have in order to be successful. However, drive alone can
typically only take one so far. Most generally accept that entrepreneurs need
some form of support for their venture, be it financial, advisory, labour, or
otherwise, derived from social capital.
The question to consider though is that
even though many deem support as a requisite to venture success, is it at all
possible for a lone entrepreneur to be just as successful as one with support?
Though a minority, some businesspersons would agree, saying that ‘going it
alone’, with limited resources, results in a stronger business venture. These
individuals believe that a high level of social capital is not a necessity.
Assume, for a moment, that the
minority’s perspective is true. If this is so, do the chances for success then
increase with the level of social capital or does it matter at all? For this
Collaboration, take a position on this debate. Do you agree that support at the
country level is a requisite for venture success?
To prepare for this Collaboration:
Review your Learning Resources with a
focus on factors influencing venture growth and social capital.
Research examples of entrepreneurial
success in emerging markets with and without support garnered from social
capital.
Reflect on your own perspectives and
experiences regarding the value of social capital in business.
Identify factors, other than resources,
that contribute to entrepreneurial success in emerging markets. Focus on
country-level factors.
Reflect on the importance of your
identified factors.
To complete this Collaboration:
By Saturday (Day 3)
In an approximately 300-500 word
response, address the following
·
Evaluate
the value of social capital in entrepreneurial success within emerging markets
and use this evaluation to support your position in the social capital debate.
·
Evaluate
other factors that you would consider key to the success of entrepreneurial
ventures in emerging markets. Explain your reasoning and support your
evaluation with your researched examples.
·
Analyse
methods in which countries can develop a ‘climate of innovation’ and how these methods
also impact an entrepreneurial ventures’ success. Explain whether this impact
affects your original position on whether support is necessary for the success
of an entrepreneurial venture in an emerging market.
Fully justify all your assumptions and
claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or your own research.
Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing System.
Post your initial response to the
Collaboration Forum.
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Post 3-5 responses to your colleagues
in which you:
Support or refute their position on
whether support is necessary for the success of an entrepreneurial venture in
an emerging market. Justify your reasoning.
Identify and explain other
country-level factors, not discussed by your colleague, that contribute to
entrepreneurial success in emerging markets.
Offer contributions based upon your
prior experience.
Extend the discussion into new but
relevant areas.
Model or promote critical reflection
from what you have read.
Ensure that you spread your
collaboration posts across at least three separate days of each week. This will
help maximise the value of your collaboration with colleagues and serve to meet
the Learning Objectives for each activity.
To access the Collaboration Forum,
click on the "Week 4 Collaboration Forum" link.
To submit your initial response to
Turnitin, click on the "View/Complete" link for Week 04 Collaboration
Initial Response -- Turnitin.
Personal Development Plan: Overcoming new challenges
Statistically speaking, the most
difficult time period for new entrepreneurial ventures is within the first year
(especially the first six months). Moreover, should a new venture fail, it also
typically occurs within this time frame.
The factors that lead to such hardships
range widely, but some of the more common ones consist of a lack of product or
service uniqueness, insufficient capital planning and even poor leadership.
Expectantly, such issues compound when associated with the global settings of
any entrepreneurial venture you wish to pursue within an emerging market.
Just as with a domestic venture, one
within an emerging market requires you to build credibility and a positive
reputation. However, new markets come with new cultural and societal nuances
that you must make yourself privy to. There will also be a myriad of different
regulations, tax laws and political factors to challenge your success further,
making that first year all the more difficult. Regardless, such is not
insurmountable, thus for this next PDP submission, you are to critically
reflect upon yourself and your learning thus far in this module. Based on this
reflection, your task is to propose methods for building a reputation and
credibility, within an emerging market, in order to access customers and
people. Moreover, you must recommend a plan for remaining positive during the
first year of your venture.
To prepare for this Assignment:
Reflect on the process of learning,
past readings and the knowledge you have gained over the past weeks.
Review your selected venture and
emerging market from the Week 1 Assignment.
Research the culture, society, laws and
any other factor that might influence your ability to build your ventures
reputation, credibility and/or may affect success.
Reflect on how you could bolster your
venture’s credibility and reputation within your selected emerging market.
Identify your concerns in seeking
access to customers and people for your venture.
Reflect on the dangers and challenges
within the first year of a new venture within your selected emerging market.
Reflect on how you intend to remain
positive during this first year initial time period.
To complete this Assignment:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Submit an approximately 1000-word drawt
of your Personal Development Plan in which you address the following:
·
Provide
evidence of your reflection that describes your learning, past readings and
knowledge gained of the past weeks in relation to entrepreneurship in emerging
markets.
·
Analyse
how the culture and society of your selected emerging market could impact your
attempts to build your venture’s credibility and reputation.
·
Based
on your analysis, propose methods for building your venture’s credibility and
reputation and accessing customers and people.
·
Evaluate
at least three country-level challenges and/or dangers (e.g. tax laws, trade
regulations, etc.) that will impact your chances of venture’s success.
·
Explain
how you will overcome these challenges/dangers and remain positive during the
first year of your venture’s operation within your selected emerging market.
Fully justify all your assumptions and
claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or your own research.
Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing System.
This Assignment should also be prepared
and submitted to Turnitin using the Word (.doc or .docx) format no later than
midnight (Day 7) your local time.
Week 5 Assessments
This week you submit:
·
Collaboration initial response to Turnitin and to the
Collaboration Forum (Saturday, Day 3).
·
Collaboration responses to the Collaboration Forum (Wednesday, Day
7).
·
Submit your Module Project to the Turnitin link provided by Wednesday
(Day 7).
Collaboration: Growing entrepreneurial ventures: Part 2 (2-week
activity)
Innovation derives from the
needs and wants of society, and as you know from your studies of different
regions, those needs and wants can vary quite differently. These differences
are what make the study of innovation interesting at the individual level.
To illustrate some
examples, consider the astounding innovations from India, covered in your
Learning Resources, such as the Mitticool Fridge from engineer Mansukhbhai
Prajapati, which costs only $50, uses no power and can keep food fresh for up
to five days (McNicoll, 2014). There is also the Mansukhbhai Jagani’s
motorcycle-based tractor (which is exactly what it sounds like) that costs only
$318 and is far more fuel efficient than a traditional tractor.
Each of these examples was
born from the needs of India’s more rural environments where resources like
electricity and fuel are scarcer. Moreover, you can see the tremendous value
that local entrepreneurs can bring to an organisation. For this Collaboration,
you are to build upon the thread of thought from the Week 4 Collaboration, on
support for entrepreneurs, from the perspective of a hiring manager for a
venture capital firm. Your task is to explore investment opportunities in
emerging markets and thus develop a profile of the qualities, backgrounds and
skills you would like to see in indigenous emerging market entrepreneurs that
your firm would consider funding. Furthermore, you must analyse the
organisational characteristics you think new ventures, within the indigenous
emerging market and started by your noted entrepreneurs, must exhibit in order
to be successful.
To prepare for this Collaboration:
Review your Learning
Resources with a focus on the various innovations and entrepreneurs found in
emerging markets.
Review your Week 4 Learning
Resources and Collaboration as necessary.
Research an emerging market
of your choosing. Focus on the types of entrepreneurs and innovations within
that market as well as factors for success.
Identify the knowledge,
skills and abilities you would want an individual to have before you invested
in them as an entrepreneur.
Reflect on the
organisational characteristics you think new ventures, within your researched
emerging market, should have.
To complete this
Collaboration:
By Monday (Day 5)
Engage in a discussion by
posting and replying to each other’s posts (minimum three to five substantive
responses you should aim to collaborate on three separate days).
Develop a KSA (knowledge,
skills and abilities) profile that explains what a successful entrepreneur in
your selected emerging market would need. The knowledge, skills and abilities
should represent what you want that individual to possess. Justify your
reasoning.
Analyse the organisational
characteristics you think new ventures, within your researched emerging market,
should have. In your analysis, explain why you think these characteristics are
necessary.
Fully justify all your
assumptions and claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or
your own research. Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing
System.
Post 3-5 responses to your
colleagues in which you:
Evaluate their KSA profile
and recommend additional knowledge, skills and/or abilities you think a
successful entrepreneur, in their selected emerging market, needs to succeed.
Explain why.
Ask additional questions
about their posts.
Offer contributions based
upon your prior experience.
Extend the discussion into
new but relevant areas.
Support any claims you make
with evidence from the Learning Resources, your own research and/or your own
experiences.
Ensure that you spread your
collaboration posts across at least three separate days of each week. This will
help maximise the value of your collaboration with colleagues and serve to meet
the Learning Objectives for each activity.
Individual Summary:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
In an approximately
250-word response, address the following:
Create a new post in which
you provide a final summary of what you have learned from this two-part
Collaboration.
In your summary, address
key themes, issues, debates and/or arguments regarding the long-term potential
of a viable opportunity and how your personal values can contribute to a new
business venture.
Submit this summary to
Turnitin and post it to the Collaboration Forum.
To access the Collaboration
Forum, click on the "Week 3 Collaboration Forum" link.
To submit your initial
response to Turnitin, click on the "View/Complete" link for Week 05
Collaboration Initial Response -- Turnitin.
Module Project: Resource assessment
Logistical, physical and
human resources are all crucial to ensuring business sustainability, and
knowing the answers to these resource queries will go a long way in garnering
the support your venture business will need to thrive.
What resources are
indispensable for your ventures to succeed? Think about the venture idea you
began cultivating back in Week 1. Based on the market in which you are entering
with that idea, what necessities do you need in order to sustain your business
over the course of six months to one year? Remember, that such resources can,
and will, include more than the financial.
In Week 3, you created a
feasibility analysis of your venture idea centred on the opportunity within a
selected emerging market and the overall strengths of the idea. Assume that you
pitched this analysis to an investor and gained their interest. However, they
require you to ease their trepidations before they commit to anything. In light
of this, for this Module Project submission, your challenge is to assess the
resource requirements of your venture idea for the first year of operation. To
do so, you must analyse what resources you have available and what still you
need in order to carry out your venture.
To prepare for this
Assignment:
Review your work from the
Week 1 and Week 3 Module Project submissions.
Review your Learning
Resources with a focus on resource assessment.
Identify the financial,
logistical, physical and human resources required to sustain your venture
business, within your selected emerging market, for at least 1 year.
Research sources of
financial, logistical, physical and human resources needed to sustain your
venture business.
Identify which resources
you are short on.
Reflect on how you can
allocate available resources to sustain your venture business for one year.
Assume you acquire the
resources you are short on from the hypothetical investor. Reflect on how you
will utilise their investment to sustain your venture.
To complete this Assignment:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Submit a 1000-word paper in
which you address the following:
·
Evaluate the financial, logistical and physical resources
necessary to sustain your venture business, within your selected emerging
market, for at least one year. Justify your evaluation.
·
Analyse the resources you have available (consider all potential
resource sources) and how they can best be utilised to sustain your venture
business for at least one year.
·
Based on your evaluation analysis, explain the likelihood that you
will have the resources necessary to carry out your venture business for one
year. Be sure to address all potential resource sources and where your sources
are insufficient.
·
Explain what resources you still require and how any investment,
from the hypothetical investor, would be used to remedy this insufficiency. In
your explanation, include the amount of funding you will need from the
investor.
Fully justify all your
assumptions and claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or
your own research. Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing
System.
This Assignment should also
be prepared and submitted to Turnitin using the Word (.doc or .docx) format no
later than midnight (Day 7) your local time.
Week 6 Assessments
This week you submit:
·
Collaboration initial response to Turnitin and to the
Collaboration Forum (Saturday, Day 3)
·
Collaboration responses to the Collaboration Forum (Wednesday, Day
7)
·
Submit your PDP to the Turnitin link by Wednesday (Day 7)
Collaboration: Bottom of the pyramid markets: Part 1 (2-week
activity)
Currently, there are over 7
billion people on this planet and approximately 3 billion of those people live
on roughly €2.00 a day (Shah, 2013). The socio-economic group made up of these
individuals is the largest in the world and the regions in which they reside
are commonly referred to as ‘bottom of the pyramid’ markets. This is because,
like a pyramid, the group is the largest yet earns the least amount of income
(of all socio-economic groups). Nevertheless, entrepreneurial activity can
dramatically affect such poverty for the better, and with more and more
entrepreneurs reaching out overseas, a larger volume of markets has begun to
emerge.
However, despite the
increase in entrepreneurial ventures worldwide, there are still emerging
countries with a low level of total entrepreneurial activity (TEA). This begs
the question as to why? Why do you think entrepreneurs are so challenged in
these countries? The possibilities could be historical, cultural or societal.
With these factors in mind, for this Collaboration, consult the GEM Consortium
web site from your Learning Resources and compare the characteristics of at
least two emergent countries with low TEA. Based on your comparisons, your
challenge is to assess why this TEA is so low.
Reference:
Shah, A. (2013) Poverty
facts and stats [Online]. Global Issues. Available from: http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
(Accessed: 21 January 2015).
To prepare for this
Collaboration:
Review your Learning
Resources with a focus on bottom of the pyramid markets and country level
factors that influence entrepreneurial activity.
Visit the GEM Consortium
web site from your Learning Resources and select at least two emergent,
bottom-of-the-pyramid markets from its list of countries to compare. Your
selected markets must have a low TEA.
Research the histories,
cultures and customs of your selected markets.
Reflect on how the
histories, cultures and customs of your selected emerging market impacts
entrepreneurial activity.
To complete this
Collaboration:
By Saturday (Day 3)
In an approximately 300-500 word response,
address the following
·
Briefly summarise your selected emerging, bottom of the pyramid,
countries. Indicate where they are ranked on the list of countries from the GEM
Consortium web site, located in your Learning Resources.
·
Compare the characteristics of your selected markets.
·
Analyse how these markets’ cultures, histories and customs affect
entrepreneurial activity.
Fully justify all your
assumptions and claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or your
own research. Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing System.
Post your initial response
to the Collaboration Forum.
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Post 3-5 responses to your
colleagues in which you:
Support or refute their
position on the potential of their selected markets.
Propose your own ideas in
which the potential of your colleague’s selected markets could be reached.
Offer contributions based
upon your prior experience.
Extend the discussion into
new but relevant areas.
Model or promote critical
reflection from what you have read.
Ensure that you spread your
collaboration posts across at least three separate days of each week. This will
help maximise the value of your collaboration with colleagues and serve to meet
the Learning Objectives for each activity.
To access the Collaboration
Forum, click on the "Week 6 Collaboration Forum" link.
To submit your initial
response to Turnitin, click on the "View/Complete" link for Week 06
Collaboration Initial Response -- Turnitin.
Personal Development Plan: Reflection and re-evaluation
During the course of the
last 5 weeks, your expertise in entrepreneurship within the emerging market
space has undoubtedly grown. Each Collaboration, Module Project submission and
reading has bolstered your knowledge, but you have likely not yet had
sufficient opportunity to reflect on all of your growth as a whole. At least
not in the same manner as you did in Week 2’s PDP submission. To remedy this
issue, take some time to consider and reflect on all of the reading and
learning you have experienced in this module.
For this next PDP
Assignment, leverage this reflection to further develop your PDP in preparation
for your final submission in Week 8. As you perform your reflection and work on
your PDP, pay particular attention to where you are now (regarding your
entrepreneurial expertise) versus where you were early in the module. To
facilitate this, revisit your professional SWOT analyses from the Week 2 PDP
Assignment. Use these analyses to reconsider your professional effectiveness
action plan (also from Week 2).
To prepare for this Assignment:
Reflect on the process of
learning, past Learning Resources, personal research and the overall knowledge
you have gained thus far in this module.
Review your SWOT analysis,
competency audit and professional effectiveness action plan from the Week 2 PDP
submission.
Based on the knowledge you
have now, reflect on changes you would make to your professional effectiveness
action plan.
To complete this Assignment:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Submit an approximately
1000-word of your Personal Development Plan in which you address the following:
·
In your PDP, provide evidence that describes your learning in
relation of entrepreneurship and innovation in an emergent market.
·
Explain your level of expertise regarding entrepreneurship and
innovation in an emergent market, versus where you were at the start of this
module.
·
Conduct another SWOT analysis on yourself and your business
venture idea from the Assignments.
·
Based on your new SWOT analysis, revisit your professional
effectiveness action plan from the Week 2 PDP submission and modify it based on
what you know now.
Fully justify all your
assumptions and claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or
your own research. Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing
System.
This Assignment should also
be prepared and submitted to Turnitin using the Word (.doc or .docx) format no
later than midnight (Day 7) your local time.
Week 7 Assessments
This week you submit:
·
Collaboration initial response to Turnitin and to the
Collaboration Forum (Saturday, Day 3).
·
Collaboration responses to the Collaboration Forum (Wednesday, Day
7).
·
Submit your Module Project to the Turnitin link provided by
Wednesday (Day 7).
Collaboration: Bottom of the pyramid markets: Part 2 (2-week activity)
Non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) tend to be problematic to define as they vary quite widely
throughout the world. In essence, though, these organisations are common in
emerging markets, typically formed by volunteers and, as the name would suggest,
do not affiliate with any form of government and are typically non-profit.
However, NGO members are
occasionally subject to suspicion of their motives as they may promote free
elections, freedom of speech, religion or gender equality. While this may be
admirable, some of these goals may be contrary to those of their host country.
This attitude can be especially prevalent in autocratic or dictatorial
governments who see NGOs as a threat to their system of ‘command and control’
government.
The issues of NGOs,
cultures and customs of an emerging market impact each other. However, none in
particular can stand out as a motivator or impediment to entrepreneurial
activity. For this Collaboration, select an emerging, bottom of the pyramid
market, with NGOs, and explain the value of an NGO to that emerging market. As
with any organisation, some NGOs are more effective than others, thus you must
also analyse the NGO’s effectiveness within your selected market.
To prepare for this Collaboration:
Review your Learning
Resources with a focus on the influence and design of NGOs.
Review your Week 6 Learning
Resources as necessary.
Research your Week 6
Collaboration discussions.
Visit the GEM Consortium
web site from your Learning Resources and select a new emergent,
bottom-of-the-pyramid market from its list of countries to compare. Your
selected markets must have a low TEA and the presence of NGOs.
·
Identify an NGO within your selected market.
·
Research your NGO’s purpose and activities.
·
Reflect on the value that this NGO brings to your selected market.
·
Reflect on the indications of an NGO’s effectiveness within a
market.
·
Identify country level factors that may impede your NGO’s
effectiveness.
To complete this Collaboration:
Until Monday (Day 5)
Engage in a discussion by
posting and replying to each other’s posts (minimum three to five substantive
responses you should aim to collaborate on three separate days).
Briefly summarise your
selected emergent, bottom of the pyramid market and NGO. Include information on
what the NGO does and its regular activities.
Explain the value you think
an NGO (in general) brings to an emerging market.
Analyse how your selected
NGO is impacting its associated market.
Based on your analysis,
evaluate the effectiveness of your NGO with respect given to country level
factors that may impede it.
Fully justify all your
assumptions and claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or
your own research. Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing
System.
Post 3-5 responses to your
colleagues in which you:
Ask additional questions
about their posts and offer additional suggestions regarding their analysis and
evaluation of NGO effectiveness.
Offer contributions based
upon your prior experience.
Extend the discussion into
new but relevant areas.
Support any claims you make
with evidence from the Learning Resources, your own research and/or your own
experiences.
Ensure that you spread your
collaboration posts across at least three separate days of each week. This will
help maximise the value of your collaboration with colleagues and serve to meet
the Learning Objectives for each activity.
Individual Summary:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
In an approximately
250-word response, address the following:
·
Create a new post in which you provide a final summary of what you
have learned from this two-part Collaboration.
·
In your summary, address key themes, issues, debates and/or
arguments regarding the long-term potential of a viable opportunity and how
your personal values can contribute to a new business venture.
Submit this summary to
Turnitin and post it to the Collaboration Forum.
To access the Collaboration
Forum, click on the "Week 3 Collaboration Forum" link.
To submit your initial
response to Turnitin, click on the "View/Complete" link for Week 07
Collaboration Initial Response -- Turnitin.
Module Project: Final Submission
During the course of this
module, your plans for starting a new business venture within an emerging
market have likely changed dramatically since Week 1. In the subsequent weeks,
you have analysed your own aspirations and values for this business and
explored ways in which to infuse those aspirations and values into your venture’s
culture. You also scrutinised your venture’s target market and analysed
appropriate marketing plans. Now, it is time to assemble all of this
information together for the final submission of your Module Project.
For this Module Project
submission, you must finalise your venture idea’s business plan. In this plan,
you must include an introduction to your venture and its emerging market, a
complete Feasibility Analysis and concluding remarks regarding the overall
potential of your proposed venture. As you complete your business plan, utilise
your past Module Project submissions to inform your work. You should also apply
any applicable Instructor feedback from those past learning activities.
To prepare for this Assignment:
Download and review the
Feasibility Analysis Template from your Learning Resources.
Review your business plan
from your Module Project Assignments from Week 1, 3 and 5.
Reflect on any feedback
received from your Instructor regarding your Module Project.
Reflect on the overall capabilities
and potential of your venture business within your selected emerging market.
To complete this
Assignment:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Submit a 4000-5000-word
final draft of your business plan in which you address the following:
·
Compose an overview of your venture business idea and the emerging
market within which you will launch it.
·
Complete all sections of the Feasibility Analysis Template:
·
Complete and explain your rationale for your analysis of ‘Strength
of Business Idea’ (this was done in Week 3, but you should make any appropriate
updates now).
·
Complete and explain your rationale for your analysis of
‘Country-Related Issues’.
·
Complete and explain your rationale for your analysis of ‘Business-
and Customer-Related Issues’.
·
Compose a biography of hypothetical or real venture founders.
·
Complete and explain your rationale for your analysis of
‘Founder-Related Issues’.
·
Complete and explain your rationale for your analysis of
‘Financial Issues’.
·
Incorporate any applicable Instructor feedback, from your past
Module Project submissions, into your final business plan.
·
Compose concluding remarks regarding the overall potential of your
proposed venture as you see it. Justify your position.
This Assignment should also
be prepared and submitted to Turnitin using the Word (.doc or .docx) format no
later than midnight (Day 7) your local time.
Week 8 Assessments
This week you submit:
Collaboration initial
response to Turnitin and to the Collaboration Forum (Saturday, Day 3)
Collaboration responses to
the Collaboration Forum (Wednesday, Day 7)
Submit your PDP to the
Turnitin link by Wednesday (Day 7)
Collaboration: Model for entrepreneurship in emerging markets
Nestlé, Goldman Sachs
(10,000 Women), Richard Branson, James Dyson and many other individuals and
firms are sponsoring centres of entrepreneurship, training, forums and projects
to alleviate poverty and stimulate empowerment via entrepreneurship throughout
the world. However, these benefits are not available to most early-stage
entrepreneurs, be they need-based or opportunity-based entrepreneurs.
This requisite for support
is one of the many obstacles that any entrepreneur must face, but as you have
seen throughout this module, there are many more to overcome, especially in an
emerging market. Nevertheless, while you might be confident in your ability to
overcome these obstacles, do you think an indigenous entrepreneur, within an
emerging market, could be taught the same?
For this final
Collaboration, you must articulate your own answer for this very question. To
do so, your challenge is to reflect on all that you have learned these past
weeks and synthesise it into a model that an indigenous entrepreneur could
leverage in order to succeed in their market. If you do not believe such a
person can be taught, your challenge remains the same, but you must still
devise a model that will give them the best possible chance to succeed.
To prepare for this
Collaboration:
Review your Learning
Resources with a focus on early entrepreneurship.
Reflect on all of your
learning in this module from the last 8 weeks.
Review prior Learning
Resources, Collaborations and Assignments as necessary.
Select an emerging market
of interest to you and research that market as necessary.
Identify the common
obstacles entrepreneurs face within your selected emerging market.
Reflect on how you would
teach, if you could at all, an indigenous entrepreneur to overcome these
obstacles and become successful in your selected emerging market.
To complete this
Collaboration:
By Saturday (Day 3)
In an approximately 300-500
word response, address the following
·
Explain your position on whether it is possible to teach an
indigenous entrepreneur to be successful within your selected emerging market.
·
Describe the obstacles inherent within your emerging market and
use this to support your position.
·
Synthesise your existing knowledge of entrepreneurship in emerging
markets to create a model with which an indigenous entrepreneur could leverage
in order to succeed in your selected emerging market. Even if you do not
believe an indigenous entrepreneur can be taught, devise a model that will give
them the best chance at success.
·
In your model, also analyse how international firms (e.g. Nestlé,
Goldman Sachs (10,000 Women), etc.) could support an indigenous entrepreneur.
Fully justify all your
assumptions and claims using your own experience, the Learning Resources or
your own research. Cite your work using the Harvard Liverpool Referencing
System.
Post your initial response
to the Collaboration Forum.
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Post 3-5 responses to your
colleagues in which you:
Support or refute their
position on whether an indigenous entrepreneur can be taught entrepreneurship
in an emerging market.
Offer suggestions to
further improve their proposed model.
Offer contributions based
upon your prior experience.
Extend the discussion into
new but relevant areas.
Model or promote critical
reflection from what you have read.
Ensure that you spread your
collaboration posts across at least three separate days of each week. This will
help maximise the value of your collaboration with colleagues and serve to meet
the Learning Objectives for each activity.
To access the Collaboration
Forum, click on the "Week 6 Collaboration Forum" link.
To submit your initial
response to Turnitin, click on the "View/Complete" link for Week 08
Collaboration Initial Response -- Turnitin.
Personal Development Plan: Final Submission
To succeed in a new venture
creation, especially within an emergent market, entrepreneurs must develop the
ability to think holistically.
This means you need to be
able to reflect on processes, past successes and past failures in order to form
solutions that synthesise multiple sources of knowledge and span a range of
contexts. Considering all of the obstacles you have discovered over the past 8
weeks, such skills are inarguably invaluable. Such is because there are no easy
solutions, and most challenges will not have a boilerplate answer. To succeed,
you need to be able to apply reflective and synthesis skills to devise,
evaluate and apply probable resolutions to the entrepreneurial challenges that
you will inevitably encounter.
To bolster your abilities
to reflect on your own existing knowledge and synthesise solutions, your final
challenge in this module is to critically reflect upon all of your previous
Learning Resources, Collaborations and Assignments. If you have not yet
completed your Week 8 Collaboration, it is advisable to complete it and use the
collaboration with your colleagues to further inform your work for this final
PDP submission. In this Assignment, however, you are not passively reflecting,
as you must provide evidence of your reflection. This includes, but is not
limited to, your personal abilities as an entrepreneur, what topics you learned
that would benefit a new venture and any additional competencies you have
acquired.
To prepare for this
Assignment:
Reflect on the process of
learning, past readings and the knowledge you have gained over the course of
this module.
Reflect on your abilities
to succeed with a venture within an emerging market.
Identify topics covered in
this module that most benefit you as an entrepreneur.
Identify newly acquired
skills and competencies.
To complete this
Assignment:
By Wednesday (Day 7)
Submit a Personal
Development Plan of 1000-1500-word in which you address the following:
·
Provide evidence of your learning in relation to developing and
sustaining a new venture in an emerging market. As part of your reflection,
analyse how you feel (i.e. your confidence) as an entrepreneur.
·
Explain how you feel about your abilities to succeed with your
ventures in the future.
·
Explain what was covered in the last 8 weeks that you think you
and your future/current ventures can benefit from.
·
Explain any critical skills or competencies that you acquired in
this module and how you think they will help you to develop your ventures.
·
Provide further evidence of a critical reflection on the material
by questioning assumptions, revealing new personal insights, probing and/or
posing questions for further investigation.
This Assignment should also
be prepared and submitted to Turnitin using the Word (.doc or .docx) format no
later than midnight (Day 7) your local time.
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