Designed for Harvard College sophomores.
Course Description: Why do so many individuals choose to pursue entrepreneurship despite substantial risks? How do these entrepreneurs raise money to finance their ventures? And what is the impact of entrepreneurship on the broader economy? Entrepreneurship as a field of study is often traced back to Schumpeter’s work on innovation and his theory of “creative destruction.” However, this field remained fairly inactive until recently, with an explosion of interest over the past decade. This tutorial will provide an overview of this growing academic literature on entrepreneurship and will help students learn to identify areas to contribute to this active field. First, we will tackle broad questions on the entrepreneurial phenomenon as a whole, including the role of information and contracting problems, the supply of entrepreneurs, the expected returns to entrepreneurship, and the impact of geography. We will then turn to the individual journey of the entrepreneur, studying the extant literature on opportunity recognition, resource mobilization, scaling and growth, and acquisitions and IPOs. We will primarily study these topics through an economic lens, however, given the multi-disciplinary nature of entrepreneurship research, we will also explore some work drawing on other disciplines such as sociology and psychology with the goal of contrasting perspectives and highlighting some opportunities for interdisciplinary research.
Aticus Peterson is a PhD candidate in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. He conducts research on how entrepreneurs and investors can overcome cognitive constraints to better manage unknowns and achieve competitive advantage.
Prior to pursuing his PhD, Aticus worked as a venture capital investor at Rose Park Advisors, a specialized investment firm that applies the research of co-founder Clayton Christensen, where he led the firm's diligence for investments in SaaS companies. He also worked with energy and non-profit clients at the Boston Consulting Group. He graduated from Harvard College in 2016 with an A.B. cum laude in Applied Mathematics.
- Journal Articles
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- Peterson, Aticus, and Andy Wu. "Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight." Art. 1. Strategic Management Journal 42, no. 13 (December 2021): 2357–2388. (Lead article.) View Details
- Working Papers
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- Peterson, Aticus, and Andy Wu. "Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-123, January 2021. (Revised May 2021.) View Details
- Cases and Teaching Materials
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- Wu, Andy, and Aticus Peterson. "Intellectual Property Strategy." Harvard Business School Module Note 721-436, February 2021. View Details
- Other Publications and Materials
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- Wu, Andy, Aticus Peterson, and Amy Meeker. "More-Experienced Entrepreneurs Have Bigger Deadline Problems." Harvard Business Review 100, no. 2 (March–April 2022): 28–29. (IdeaWatch.) View Details
- Teaching
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- Awards & Honors
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Awarded the 2021 PhD Paper Prize from the Strategic Management Society Annual Conference with Andy Wu for “Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight” (Strategic Management Journal, 2021).Nominated for the 2021 Strategic Management Society Best Research Methods Paper Award.
- Additional Information
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Social Media
- Area of Study
- Areas of Interest