Course Details
The Department of Entrepreneurship and Strategy delivers 3 sets of courses:
- The BSM series, helping non-business students learn how to launch, grow and run a business.
- BUS 800 - A capstone strategy course for all Business, Accounting and Finance Majors.
- The ENT series of courses explores all aspects of entrepreneurship.
Course Descriptions and Outlines
The New Business: From Idea to Reality (opens in new window)
This course is the first in a series of three tracing the evolution of an existing Canadian-based public company from inception to current state. This course focuses on the steps necessary for the idea of a visionary to be transformed into a viable business. Topics include idea generation, understanding the market and customer needs, analyzing the competition, the transition from an informal to a formal organizational structure, financing the business, developing realistic budgets and operating within the political, economic, legal and socio-cultural constraints of the external environment. This course is not available to programs within the Ted Rogers School of Management.
The Growing Business: Breaking Even (opens in new window)
This course focuses on the firm as it progresses beyond its startup phase and embraces a more management-focused orientation. Topics covered include governance structures, leadership, human capital recruitment, development and retention, financial stewardship, essential financial tools for decision-making, operations management, industry analysis, strategy development and execution.
The Mature Business (opens in new window)
This course is a capstone for the Business Essentials Minor and part of the Creative Industries Business Module. It focuses on the company as it seeks to dominate its markets. Topics include global expansion, tapping into capital markets, initial public offerings, debt financing, financial control, reporting and accountability, encouraging and managing innovation and change, corporate ethics and social responsibility, reputation management, and strategies to thrive in the dynamic external environment.
Strategic Management (opens in new window)
Strategic Management is a challenging and exciting course. It serves the function of a capstone course, integrating much of the knowledge gained in other business courses. It is a truly different kind of course. Other courses are concerned with a narrower, more specialized body of knowledge, and as a result are highly structured. Some provide quantitative techniques while others relate to specific skills. The problems and issues of strategy management cover the whole spectrum of business. Weighing the pros and cons of strategy requires a total enterprise perspective and a talent for judging how all of the relevant facts add up. To keep the discussions down to earth, each week real companies will be examined. In addition, the course uses some experiential exercises which may include a simulation. This course is by far the most demanding course in the Business Management Degree and as such it is recommended that students have 10 or fewer courses left to graduate before enrolling in this course. (formerly BUS 700)
Applied Entrepreneurship (opens in new window)
Students work with their course instructor to identify, select and complete twelve entrepreneurship modules and assignments that support their specific entrepreneurial project. Potential modules include: customer identification, stakeholder analysis, market segmentation, lean startup, design thinking, agile methods, business-model design, business planning, or financial analysis. This highly flexible course is designed to support independent student projects, startups and Zone Education. This is an experiential applied course, and students must engage with the entrepreneurial ecosystem both within and outside Toronto Metropolitan. This course is not available to Entrepreneurship Majors.
Design Thinking Experience (opens in new window)
This course is a hands-on experiential learning opportunity for multi-disciplinary teams to implement agile rapid prototyping design thinking methods in a creative space. Student teams implement real-world projects in a variety of entrepreneurial contexts: new venture creation, innovation within an existing venture, social innovation and change making. The course provides a solid theoretical understanding of the major global Design Thinking methods and tools as well as experience in developing a Design Thinking Mindset. The course is offered in an intensive format on weekends or over one week, either on campus or at an offsite location. Admission is limited to students that apply and are accepted. Contact the department for application details.
New Venture Startup (opens in new window)
This introductory course is designed primarily for non-Entrepreneurship students who are interested in starting a business of their own. Topics include assessing entrepreneurial potential, opportunity identification, market assessment, organizing, promoting, and financing the business, intellectual property, buying an existing business or considering a franchise. Students will be expected to work on developing a business plan. This course is not available to Entrepreneurship Majors.
Family Business in Canada (opens in new window)
Planning, Succession and Control. The students study many of Canada's internationally known family-run businesses. They will learn about the challenges faced by the owners in planning and succession as well as the impact that family structure plays in determining the future of the firm. Key issues to be examined include the relationship between ownership and management, the strategic planning process, succession planning, technical and management skills, support structures, funding, leadership and the family structure.
Small-Business Managementī
This course takes an interdisciplinary perspective on the challenges of managing in a small-business environment. It is designed for students who plan to join a small or medium-sized enterprise company and want to have an improved understanding of the process by which things get done in small businesses that lack the resources and capabilities of large corporations. Topics include elements of managing high growth rates, family business, outsourcing, internships and leveraging external partnerships, guerilla marketing techniques, cash flow management, bootstrap financing, government programs, and corporate governance in a small business. This course is not available to programs within the Ted Rogers School of Management.
Funding New Ventures (opens in new window)
Entrepreneurial finance is concerned with financial decisions of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial firms, capital structure decision-making and governance issues in high risk environments, and the ways to exit venture investments. The rapid development of private equity and venture capital industries, and the general emphasis of entrepreneurship as a central driver of economic prosperity, has given rise to a set of questions that are different from the questions posed in the context of large firms with widely diversified investors. This course will address these questions using both explicit-knowledge lectures as well as tacit-knowledge experiential learning. This course is designed for students who are thinking about pursuing a career as an entrepreneur or who envision a career in the private equity, venture capital, or investment banking industries where they will be exposed to deals with small to mid-sized firms.
Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Strategy (opens in new window)
This foundation course is designed to stimulate the student's interest in entrepreneurship, thereby cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit. By means of case studies, articles, videos and presentations, students will have the opportunity to learn about many prominent entrepreneurs who have demonstrated commitment, passion, risk-taking, strategic thinking and implementation, and the ability to develop core competencies as they create and grow their successful enterprises. Various topics in entrepreneurship will be introduced as a result.
Studies in Entrepreneurship (opens in new window)
This course will expose the student to many of the topics currently dominating the study of entrepreneurship. These may include theoretical perspectives on the economic and social function of entrepreneurs, psychological and cognitive aspects of entrepreneurs, the intersection of opportunities and enterprising individuals, the decision to exploit, the new venture creation process, and the relationship between entrepreneurship and strategic management. Students will be expected to read and critically analyze current and classic research on entrepreneurship, to synthesize diverse perspectives, and to contribute their own original thoughts to significant debates in the field. The course features a combination of seminars, presentations, readings, and lectures to enhance the student's understanding of entrepreneurship as an academic discipline and develop an ability to apply this research to the practical managerial challenges of the entrepreneurial firm.
New Venture Development (opens in new window)
Students build on their entrepreneurial opportunities identified in ENT 601 and deepen their entrepreneurial skills to work on a New Venture Opportunity. This experiential course will help students identify potential customers, design value propositions and perform prototype testing in order to develop a potential new venture suitable for their Capstone ENT 78AB course. The new venture may be a new company, social innovation, or intrapreneurship within an existing venture.
(PDF file) Course Outline (opens in new window)
Managing Small and Medium Enterprises (opens in new window)
This course is designed to examine the requirements of establishing, owning and successfully operating a Small-to-Medium Enterprise (SME). Functional management skills needed for the effective operation of a SME will be explored in detail. Fundamental considerations such as operations management, information and information systems, value chain analysis, talent management, financial planning and control systems, organization and legal issues, network management and marketing strategies will also be explored in the specific context of SMEs.
Entrepreneurial Selling (opens in new window)
Students are introduced to the principles of sales and their application to multiple entrepreneurial contexts. Emphasis will be placed on the application of sales principles to real-world entrepreneurial situations and on building selling skills through class projects. Students will learn tactical selling skills, develop self-management skills, and study strategic selling techniques. Sales ethics will also be discussed.
Identifying Opportunities (opens in new window)
This course examines the process of opportunity identification for both start-up and existing business environments. It is designed to cultivate the mindset and skills required for students to engage in opportunity identification activities and make them part of their daily regimen in their personal and professional lives. The entrepreneurial process begins with the pursuit of a perceived opportunity. As such, the ability to identify a valid opportunity is paramount to the field of entrepreneurship.
Current Issues in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (opens in new window)
This course provides students with an opportunity to keep abreast of new topics of importance as they emerge in the field. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced. Method of instruction will vary depending upon the topics offered.
Management of Innovation (opens in new window)
This course is designed to illustrate how successful managers implement innovation and commercialize new technology in today's fast-paced business environment. The students will learn how entrepreneurship and innovation interrelate, the streams of innovation, innovation as a management process and leadership in managing creativity. Commercializing technology and introducing it into the marketplace will be examined in depth as an example of applying the innovation concepts learned in the course. The course will develop the student's creative instincts and improve their capacity as agents of change within their career as independent business owners or intrapreneurial managers in larger organizations. (Formerly MGT 725).
Applied Research in Entrepreneurship (opens in new window)
This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to conduct applied research in the area of entrepreneurship and enterprise development. Students must present a written proposal to an amenable faculty advisor prior to the commencement of the semester. Upon completion, an oral examination or presentation to a panel will normally be required. Departmental approval required.
Advanced Entrepreneurship (opens in new window)
ENT 78A/B is the two semester experiential-learning capstone course for the entrepreneurship major. Students will develop advanced skills in entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and personal growth. Students gain real-world experience in starting their own companies (entrepreneurship), creating value implementing innovative projects within an existing company (intrapreneurship), and completing a stream of skills-development assignments. Formerly ENT 730 plus ENT 830.
Entrepreneurial Career and Life Design (opens in new window)
The goal of this course is to help you practice and apply design thinking and entrepreneurship principles and tools to design your career and life. The weekly assignments include discovering your skills, attitudes, core beliefs, values, and interests; identifying potential career paths in harmony with your human and social capital; building personal unique sources of sustainable competitive advantage in an uncertain world; interviewing and testing alternative job, career and life choices; applying time management principles, SMART goals, positive habits and self-talk; and proactively taking steps to achieve your own personal happiness and well-being through a meaningful career and life. It will help you network, create multiple good offers, and help you re-frame your career not as a string of jobs, but as a portfolio of career building experiences including side-hustles designed to help you build your human and social capital outside your job. This course is normally taught in a virtual flipped-classroom format.
Updated: Fall 2024