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Entrepreneurial Management

Entrepreneurial Management

  • Faculty
  • Curriculum
  • Seminars & Conferences
  • Awards & Honors
Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors

MBA Required Curriculum

(FIRST YEAR)

The Entrepreneurial Manager

In order to “educate leaders who make a difference in the world,” the Harvard Business School has always had general management as its core educational organizing framework. The Required Curriculum has historically had a core course in general management and The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM) provides a powerful context in which to learn about general management. TEM seeks to build the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to succeed as an entrepreneurial manager. The knowledge, skills, tools, and frameworks that TEM develops are built upon the foundation of your other RC courses including TOM, LEAD, LCA, FRC, Marketing, Strategy, and Finance, integrate those lessons into a overall framework, and help general managers at all types of organizations (e.g., small companies, large companies, non-profits, and public servants) become more effective at enhancing the value of those organizations.

HBS professor Ken Andrews described three roles for the general manager:[1]

  • Setting strategic direction by taking into account external opportunities and threats, the availability of internal resources relative to requirements, the aspirations and values of senior management, and obligations to stakeholders and society. In the context of TEM, this concept permeates our first module: Defining and Developing the Business Model.
  • Designing organizational structures and processes that allocate responsibilities, promote cross-functional integration, recruit/develop/promote employees, acquire critical resources and financing, and budget/monitor financial performance. Andrews’ second core concept sets the stage for our second module: Resourcing the Business Model.
  • Leading the firm by: 1) making tough tradeoffs when setting strategy, resolving cross-functional conflict, and making hiring/firing decisions; and 2) communicating a vision that motivates employees and secures commitment from other stakeholders. Properly considered, this final role of general management leads to our third module: Operating the Business Model.

For many of you, your careers will evolve in the setting of small, entrepreneurial firms. More than half of HBS graduates become entrepreneurs at some point in their careers. Recent surveys spanning HBS MBA indicate that 30% of alumni currently work in a firm that they founded, 46% have launched at least one company in their careers, and 31% intend to start a firm in the future. Among the founders, 36% launched their companies at the school or within four years of graduation, 34% became founders 5-14 years after leaving HBS, and the balance started companies 15+ years after graduation.

But studying startups and small firms conveys powerful lessons about general management for those pursuing careers in other contexts as well. We will see that entrepreneurial managers in large companies as well as the public sector benefit just as much as a small firm’s founder from the lessons we will explore. Examining small companies allows us to more fully understand decision-making and incentives at a much deeper level. Unlike executives in large, established corporations, founders do not inherit a strategy; they must formulate one. Likewise, a startup has no organizational structure or processes; its founder must design them. Finally, startups confront a demanding environment. Uncertainty is high; resources are constrained. We will find that in TEM, the attitudinal orientation, decision-frameworks, and actions can help managers at all firms improve the exploitation of value increasing opportunities.

Entrepreneurial managers typically face an environment in which the importance of general management is paramount. In the face of such challenges, entrepreneurial managers must have a bias for action. TEM teaches you how to decompose such complex situations, identify critical choices confronting the enterprise, and make high-risk/high reward decisions with limited data.

  1. Andrews, Kenneth. The Concept of Corporate Strategy. Irwin, 1971.

MBA Elective Curriculum

(SECOND YEAR)
Course Title Faculty Name Term Quarter Credits
The Coming of Managerial Capitalism: The United States Tom Nicholas Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Contemporary Developing Countries: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Problems (University-wide Course) (also listed under Strategy) Tarun Khanna Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
The Entrepreneur's Playbook: A How-To Guide for Start-Up Strategy Abhishek Nagaraj Spring
2021
Q3 1.5
Entrepreneurial Failure Thomas Eisenmann Spring
2021
Q3 1.5
Entrepreneurial Finance (also listed under Finance) Shai Bernstein, Jim Matheson Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Paul Gompers Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Entrepreneurial Management in a Turnaround Environment (also listed under Organizational Behavior) Ranjay Gulati Spring
2021
Q4 1.5
Entrepreneurial Sales Mark Roberge, Lou Shipley Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Entrepreneurial Solutions to the World's Problems William Sahlman Fall
2020
Q2 1.5
Entrepreneurship and Global Capitalism (also listed under Business, Government & the International Economy) Geoffrey Jones Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Field Course: Decoding "Growth" in Silicon Valley Mark Roberge Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Field Course: Entrepreneurial Marketing (also listed under Marketing) Frank Cespedes, Christina Wallace Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Field Course: Entrepreneurship through Acquisition Application Only (also listed under Finance) Richard Ruback, Royce Yudkoff Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Field Course: Field X (also listed under Finance) Randolph Cohen Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Field Course: Field Y: Projects in Business Management (also listed under Finance) Randolph Cohen Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Field Course: Product Management 101 Application Only Melissa Perri Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Field Course: Product Management 102 Application Only Melissa Perri Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Field Course: Scaling Minority Businesses (also listed under General Management) Archie L. Jones, Jeffrey Bussgang, Henry McGee Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Financial Management of Smaller Firms (also listed under Finance) Richard Ruback, Royce Yudkoff Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Founders' Journey (also listed under Organizational Behavior) Shikhar Ghosh Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Laura Huang Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Grand Challenges for Entrepreneurs (also listed under Strategy) Tarun Khanna Fall
2020
Q2 1.5
Investing - Risk, Return, and Impact (also listed under Finance) Shawn Cole, Vikram Gandhi Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Launch Lab/Thesis 2 Thomas Eisenmann Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Launching Technology Ventures Jeffrey Bussgang, Sam Clemens, Donna Levin, Reza Satchu Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Law, Management and Entrepreneurship (also listed under General Management) John Batter Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
John Batter Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Making Markets Scott Duke Kominers Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Managing the Future of Work Christopher Stanton Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Public Entrepreneurship (also listed under General Management) Mitchell Weiss Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0
Road to the White House Robert F. White Fall
2020
Q1 1.5
Sales Management & Strategy (also listed under Marketing) Doug Chung Spring
2021
Q3 1.5
Scaling Technology Ventures Jeffrey Rayport Spring
2021
Q3Q4 3.0
Tough Tech Ventures Joshua Lev Krieger, Jim Matheson Spring
2021
Q3 1.5
Venture Capital and Private Equity Nori Gerardo Lietz, Jo Tango Fall
2020
Q1Q2 3.0

Doctoral Programs

Faculty from the Entrepreneurial Management unit work with students across several doctoral programs. Detailed curriculum information for each doctoral program associated with this unit can be found on the doctoral programs website:
PhD in Business Economics
PhD in Organizational Behavior
DBA in Strategy
DBA in Technology and Operations Management

Executive Education

Owner/President Management
01 MAR–01 APR 2021 (Unit 1 only)
Owner/President Management
12 SEP–01 OCT 2021 (Unit 1 only)
Families in Business
NOV 2021
Launching New Ventures
TBD
OPM Renew
TBD
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