Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and Economics

Obiettivi Formativi

Prerequisiti

Programma

Testi Adottati

Bibliografia

Modalità di svolgimento

Regolamento Esame

Obiettivi Formativi

Prerequisiti

Programma

Testi Adottati

Bibliografia

Modalità di svolgimento

Regolamento Esame

Updated A.Y. 2021-2022

Entrepreneurship and Business Model (ENT & BM)

(Prof. Massimiliano Pellegrini)

Responsible for the module and teaching assistants:

Prof. Massimiliano Pellegrini

Email: massimiliano.pellegrini@uniroma2.it  

Office Hours: Thursday 4pm- 6pm*

 *In relation to the Anti-Covid regulation the office hours will be done on the Microsoft TEAMS platform. Nevertheless, booking an appointment via email is always necessary and due to the flexibility of the platform, the professor may arrange also integrative sessions.

Room: 3C-4, 3^rd floor Building B

Please book an appointment via email also for other time

Pre-requisites for the Course:

None.

Course description

This course aims at offering a comprehensive view of the entrepreneurial process, so understanding how entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ideas can be stimulated, formulated, how can then be turned into structured business model and finally into businesses and start-ups. This aim is fulfilled through an experiential learning approach that allows the application of tools and analytical techniques for developing a new venture or new business idea, strategizing a business model, and acting entrepreneurially. The prominent role of entrepreneurship in any organizational or social unit has been well-documented and in the bulk-eye for years from business people and politicians and policy-maker. So, why does Europe, and thus Italy and other European countries still struggle in such matters? The comparison with U.S. or other global leader country shows that Europe as a top player in relation to inventions and scientific development but lags behind in concretize those in viable businesses and profitable initiative.

This calls for a renewed attention to students and the whole higher education system, that may form future generations of entrepreneurs. Having a brilliant idea can be a common thing but creating and growing a new venture around this or implement it in an organizational setting is a task that few individuals are able to accomplish. The entrepreneurship and innovation module has been designed in a way that students be stimulate to act more innovatively and being change agent of established realities or to pursue careers as owner/managers, foundation of new venture.

Learning Objectives

A complex conceptual domain of analysis emerges from a closer look at the entrepreneurial process, demonstrating inherent interdependences with other subject areas, with an undeniable practical orientation, opening up to exciting theoretical and empirical discoveries and debates.

This implies the necessity of a basic theoretical scaffolding to increase knowledge and understanding of students about relevant tools for entrepreneurship and business ideas creations. However, beyond this, a holistic and personal development is expected to take place directly in the personal students’ sphere and this is an even more important outcome. As a matter of fact, the module fundamentally wants to stimulate and develop students’ capacity to think innovatively and creatively about business ideas and act entrepreneurially to carry out these ideas. For these reasons, the course will be principally based on practical exercises and simulations, using an experiential learning approach. 

The course is divided into three logically consecutive sections that follow the structure of an entrepreneurial process:

• Section I. Creating business ideas: Entrepreneurial acting
• Section II. Structuring business ideas: The business model
• Section III. Concretizing business ideas: Attract resources

Upon successful completion of this module, assuming attendance, active participation, and completion of all formative assessments designed throughout the module, the students should be able to:

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING:

1. Acquire and demonstrate a good understanding of the general concepts related to entrepreneurship and business ideas creation specifically:

1.1 Basic concepts of entrepreneurial acting and approaches;

1.2 The entrepreneurial process, from spotting the opportunity to the growth of the venture;

1.3 The business model, its constituting elements and refinement;

1.4. Tools for attracting resources as the business plan and methods to accrue money (entrepreneurial finance).

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE:

2. Being able to develop innovative ideas
3. Showing the ability to interpret and elaborate a business model, with implied internal logics

MAKING JUDGEMENTS

3. Being able to elaborate autonomous strategies and plans to develop and implement entrepreneurial ideas.
4. Showing relational and entrepreneurial abilities to engage with concrete situations so to spot or create opportunities

COMMUNICATION SKILLS:

5. Presentation and pitching skills in reasons of the weekly assignments, final presentation, and oral exam.

Teaching methods

The whole module will blend formal lectures, indeed a few, cases, workshops and videos and group work. It will place emphasis on developing critical skills of analysis, strategic choices and implementation of innovative business ideas. Methods will include critical reading and thinking; engagement with new business ideas/opportunities from case studies and presentations/pitches; conceptual development of models and theories of entrepreneurial practice; peer-interaction; secondary data research and analysis. 

The frontal lecture will be used only to offer a panoramic view on the theoretical concepts necessary facilitate the understanding of the experience. However, this teaching method represents only a limited part of the module and the lectures will be not just characterized by the transfer of knowledge and concepts but rather a strong interaction between the professor and the students.

The substantial part of the module instead will be focused on student-centered and student-led activities, with a series of tools to support the experiential learning process. To offer to students a true possibility of personal development and a glimpse of what could be a real business situation, many opportunity of group working and critical reflection will be provided, e.g. exercises, simulations, business cases, and presentations will be organized. Students will be expected to demonstrate independent study skills and personal initiative in workshops and seminars, mostly of which are provided as a forum for discussion. As such, there is a strong emphasis on dialogue and interaction between the professor and the students also to share ideas and experiences. These seminars will draw heavily from the students’ own experience and knowledge. This is why the success of the seminars lies upon the students’ willingness to participate. In preparing for seminars, students should ensure:

• Using relevant conceptual analysis in addressing the core issues of tasks/questions/case studies;
• Demonstrating understanding of the relevant and essential reading materials and, where proper, also highlighting alternative perspectives on the issues involved in the discussion;
• Encouraging the overall involvement of the others member of the seminar group.

Attending students are strongly encouraged to actively participate to all lectures and constantly engage with group work assignments, since this will facilitate the creation of the final essay. 

In addition, attending students must execute ALL home assignment.

Main References

1. A) Textbooks:

• Osterwalder A., & Pigneur Y. (2010), Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers, Hoboken (NJ), Wiley & Sons Inc.
• Osterwalder A., Pigneur Y., Smith A., Bernarda G., & Papadakos (2014), Value Propositions Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want, Hoboken (NJ), Wiley & Sons Inc.

Attending students’ study program

• As for the book Business Model Generation (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010) the following parts need to be prepared for the exam:

1. Ch. 1: Canvas (pp. 12-51)
2. Ch. 4: Strategy (pp. 177-241)
3. As review material Other chapters

• As for the book Value Propositions Design (Osterwalder et al., 2014) the following parts need to be prepared for the exam:

1. 1: Canvas (pp. 1-63)
2. Review material Ch.2: Design (pp. 64-171)

Non Attending students’ study program

• As for the book Business Model Generation (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010), the whole book needs to be prepared for the exam.
• As for the book Value Propositions Design (Osterwalder et al., 2014) the following parts need to be prepared for the exam:

1. 1: Canvas (pp. 1-63)
2. 2: Design (pp. 64-171)

1. B) Mandatory readings for all students (will be provided on the web platform):

• Pellegrini M.M., Ciappei C., Marzi G., Dabić M., & Egri C.P. (2021), A Philosophical Approach to Entrepreneurship Education: A model based on Kantian and Aristotelian thought, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 42(1/2), 203-231.

• Shane S., Venkataraman S. (2000) The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research”. Academy of Management Review, 25(1): 217-226.
• Sarasvathy S.D., (2001), Causation and effectuation: toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency”. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 243-263.
• Alvarez, S. A., & Barney, J. B. (2007). Discovery and creation: Alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1‐2), 11-26.
• Bhave, M. P. (1994). A process model of entrepreneurial venture creation. Journal of business venturing, 9(3), 223-242.
• Dushnitsky, G., & Fitza, M. A. (2018). Are we missing the platforms for the crowd? Comparing investment drivers across multiple crowdfunding platforms. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 10, e00100.

1. C) Supplementary Materials of interest

• Kuratko, Donald F. & Hornsby, Jeffrey S. (2009). New Venture Management: The Entrepreneur’s Roadmap. Upper Saddle River (NJ), Pearson Prentice Hall.
• Kim C. W. and Mauborgne R. (2005) Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, Boston (MA), Harvard Business School Press.
• Blank, S. (2017). Why the lean start-up changes everything. Harvard business review.
• Lumpkin, G. T., & Dess, G. G. (1996). Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance. Academy of management Review, 21(1), 135-172.
• Sahlman W. (1996) “Some thoughts on business plans”, HBS, 14 Nov 1996
• Wiklund, J., & Shepherd, D. (2005). Entrepreneurial orientation and small business performance: a configurational approach. Journal of business venturing, 20(1), 71-91.

Slides and other material will be available on the module web site. The upload of the material will be done weekly.

The slides represent only a support to facilitate you in summarising concepts and topics and to guide you in studying the material. USING THE SLIDE ONLY WILL NOT grant you enough knowledge to an effective and successful preparation for the exam.

Attendance

Due to the module design and the learning approach, attendance is prominent. To be considered attending students and so to receive the opportunity to present, students need to complete all home assignments given during the module. Contrary, they will be not granted to access to the presentation and thus students will be not considered as attending.

Exam procedure (please consider this as provisional and may subject to revision according to Covid-19 regulations)

The purpose of the whole module an opportunity for students to apply what has been learned to a concrete business idea.

Attending Students

To be considered an attending student, the first step is the evaluation of the attendance, i.e. submitting ALL home assignments (group or individual assignments) during the module. To complete your student portfolio, each group will prepare a presentation about a business idea (formative assessment).

1. Formative assessment (no formal grade)

All regular attending students are kindly invited to create working groups (MINIMUM 3 PERSONS – MAXIMUM 4/5 PERSONS), directly from the second week. The same group should perform all the in-class activities and home assignments.

All these formative assignments aim at demonstrating knowledge and mastery of the theories, ability in apply them to real-life situations experienced during the course by the groups, making sound judgements and reflections, and not least stimulate relational capabilities to deal with the social environment and the others.

At the end of the module, groups will be asked to present to the class their final work. Usually the presentation will be an elaborated work to be presented in 45 minutes structured as follow:

1. Overture with a pitch video, plus one or more introductory slides to clearly express the business idea, i.e. pitching the idea.
2. First part: business CANVAS as a whole, i.e. the description and explanation of the CANVAS for the business idea
3. Second part: Value propositions and value map, i.e. the description and explanation of the value map created for the business idea.
4. Third part: refinement strategies, i.e. the description and explanation of the SWOT analysis and the possible adjustments in relation to a blue ocean strategy.
5. Few closing slides with final remarks, i.e. explanation of the implementation of the business model and why it will be successful.

Each student will be involved in the actual presentation and its preparation. The presentation should be designed to integrate concepts learnt during the module.

This presentation for attending students represents only a recapitulation/summary of several exercises and presentations, formative in nature, already done during the module.

Yet, the final presentation and the rest of the course work will help student to develop their communication skills both in terms of public-speaking and preparation of written materials, in a clear and logical way. However, also presentation will not be formally evaluated but it will serve as basis for the oral exam.

This formative assessment aims to verify a proper acquisition of knowledge, the ability to apply knowledge to concrete business cases, and the capacity of making students own critical judgments.

2. Written exam

The written exam is an essay, a group work to be submitted during the pre-exam period. The assessment consists in essay based on a collective reflection about the business idea did for the presentation. The essay should be at least 2500 words and should express and comment the same objects of the presentation:

1. An introductory paragraph about pitching the idea.
2. First part: the description and explanation of the CANVAS for the business idea.
3. Second part: the description and explanation of the value map for the business idea.
4. Third part: the description and explanation of the SWOT analysis and the possible adjustments in relation to a blue ocean strategy.
5. Fourth part: Explanation of the implementation of the business model and why it will be successful.

For these reasons, the written exam (the group essay) aims to verify a proper acquisition of knowledge, the ability to apply this knowledge to concrete business cases, and the capacity of making own critical judgments. Yet, the communication skills, in the form of clarity, logical flow, and structure of the essay elaborated will be also evaluated.

3. Oral exam

An individual oral exam where students will be asked to comment and integrate the concepts of the module into the real experience presented during the formative assessment. For attending students, at least one question will be directly based on the formative assessment (group presentation) done during the module. Possible specific questions will be directed to the several section of the presentation, or on motivation and evidences that led the group to make the final choices and solution suggested for the business model. Such questions have also a theoretical content but are based on the presentation of each group. A good grade will be granted to those able to critical analyse the decisions made by the group.

In addition to this, at least one question will be also structured as an open questions/hypothetical situations based on the material surveyed and studies during the module. Excellent answers are those with an appropriate mix between theories and theoretical elements, pertinent to the questions, and practice, i.e. business examples in which the theory can be applied. Yet, these are other appreciated aspects to be included in an excellent answer: theoretical connections among different topics/theories, the ability to criticize and reflect upon the validity of a theory, and the elaboration of strategies to offer a solution.

Thus, the oral exam verifies a proper acquisition of knowledge, the ability to apply this knowledge to concrete business cases, and personal judgment capacity. Yet, the communication skills, in the form of clarity and logic flow and structure of the answer will be also evaluated.

Non attending students

1. Individual written exam (3 hours)

The written exam will contain one case study/hypothetical situation related to an entrepreneurial idea or a real case and four open questions about topics covered in this module as indicated in the syllabus. For the case study/hypothetical situation, the students need to interpret the real context offered and elaborate personal strategies, according to the theory, to solve the problem. For the open questions, excellent answers are those with an appropriate mix between theory and practice, i.e. business examples in which the theory can be applied. Yet, theoretical connections among different topics/theories, the ability to criticize and reflect upon the validity of the theory, and elaboration of strategies to a better implementation are also evaluated. For these reasons, the case study part aims to develop abilities in making critical judgments mostly; in addition to that, the open questions verify a proper acquisition of knowledge, the ability to apply this knowledge to concrete business cases. Yet, the communication skills, in the form of clarity and logic flow and structure of the answer will be also evaluated.

Analytical Syllabus

Updated A.Y. 2020-2021

Entrepreneurship and Business Model (ENT & BM)

(Prof. Massimiliano Pellegrini)

Responsible for the module and teaching assistants:

Prof. Massimiliano Pellegrini

Email: massimiliano.pellegrini@uniroma2.it  

Office Hours: Thursday 4pm- 6pm*

 *In relation to the Anti-Covid regulation the office hours will be done on the Microsoft TEAMS platform. Nevertheless, booking an appointment via email is always necessary and due to the flexibility of the platform, the professor may arrange also integrative sessions.

Room: 3C-3, 3^rd floor Building B

Please book an appointment via email also for other time

Mohammad Fakhar-Manesh (teaching assistant)

E-mail: mohammad.fakhar.manesh@uniroma2.it (to be contacted only for inquiries regarding attendance and material)

Guglielmo Giuggioli (teaching assistant)

E-mail: guglielmo.giuggioli@uniroma2.it (to be contacted only for inquiries regarding attendance and material)

Pre-requisites for the Course:

None.

Course description

This course aims at offering a comprehensive view of the entrepreneurial process, so understanding how entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ideas can be stimulated, formulated, how can then be turned into structured business model and finally into businesses and start-ups. This aim is fulfilled through an experiential learning approach that allows the application of tools and analytical techniques for developing a new venture or new business idea, strategizing a business model, and acting entrepreneurially. The prominent role of entrepreneurship in any organizational or social unit has been well-documented and in the bulk-eye for years from business people and politicians and policy-maker. So, why does Europe, and thus Italy and other European countries still struggle in such matters? The comparison with U.S. or other global leader country shows that Europe as a top player in relation to inventions and scientific development but lags behind in concretize those in viable businesses and profitable initiative.

This calls for a renewed attention to students and the whole higher education system, that may form future generations of entrepreneurs. Having a brilliant idea can be a common thing but creating and growing a new venture around this or implement it in an organizational setting is a task that few individuals are able to accomplish. The entrepreneurship and innovation module has been designed in a way that students be stimulate to act more innovatively and being change agent of established realities or to pursue careers as owner/managers, foundation of new venture.

Learning Objectives

A complex conceptual domain of analysis emerges from a closer look at the entrepreneurial process, demonstrating inherent interdependences with other subject areas, with an undeniable practical orientation, opening up to exciting theoretical and empirical discoveries and debates.

This implies the necessity of a basic theoretical scaffolding to increase knowledge and understanding of students about relevant tools for entrepreneurship and business ideas creations. However, beyond this, a holistic and personal development is expected to take place directly in the personal students’ sphere and this is an even more important outcome. As a matter of fact, the module fundamentally wants to stimulate and develop students’ capacity to think innovatively and creatively about business ideas and act entrepreneurially to carry out these ideas. For these reasons, the course will be principally based on practical exercises and simulations, using an experiential learning approach. 

The course is divided into three logically consecutive sections that follow the structure of an entrepreneurial process:

• Section I. Creating business ideas: Entrepreneurial acting
• Section II. Structuring business ideas: The business model
• Section III. Concretizing business ideas: Attract resources

Upon successful completion of this module, assuming attendance, active participation, and completion of all formative assessments designed throughout the module, the students should be able to:

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING:

1. Acquire and demonstrate a good understanding of the general concepts related to entrepreneurship and business ideas creation specifically:

1.1 Basic concepts of entrepreneurial acting and approaches;

1.2 The entrepreneurial process, from spotting the opportunity to the growth of the venture;

1.3 The business model, its constituting elements and refinement;

1.4. Tools for attracting resources as the business plan and methods to accrue money (entrepreneurial finance).

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE:

2. Being able to develop innovative ideas
3. Showing the ability to interpret and elaborate a business model, with implied internal logics

MAKING JUDGEMENTS

3. Being able to elaborate autonomous strategies and plans to develop and implement entrepreneurial ideas.
4. Showing relational and entrepreneurial abilities to engage with concrete situations so to spot or create opportunities

COMMUNICATION SKILLS:

5. Presentation and pitching skills in reasons of the weekly assignments, final presentation, and oral exam.

Teaching methods

The whole module will blend formal lectures, indeed a few, cases, workshops and videos and group work. It will place emphasis on developing critical skills of analysis, strategic choices and implementation of innovative business ideas. Methods will include critical reading and thinking; engagement with new business ideas/opportunities from case studies and presentations/pitches; conceptual development of models and theories of entrepreneurial practice; peer-interaction; secondary data research and analysis. 

The frontal lecture will be used only to offer a panoramic view on the theoretical concepts necessary facilitate the understanding of the experience. However, this teaching method represents only a limited part of the module and the lectures will be not just characterized by the transfer of knowledge and concepts but rather a strong interaction between the professor and the students.

The substantial part of the module instead will be focused on student-centered and student-led activities, with a series of tools to support the experiential learning process. To offer to students a true possibility of personal development and a glimpse of what could be a real business situation, many opportunity of group working and critical reflection will be provided, e.g. exercises, simulations, business cases, and presentations will be organized. Students will be expected to demonstrate independent study skills and personal initiative in workshops and seminars, mostly of which are provided as a forum for discussion. As such, there is a strong emphasis on dialogue and interaction between the professor and the students also to share ideas and experiences. These seminars will draw heavily from the students’ own experience and knowledge. This is why the success of the seminars lies upon the students’ willingness to participate. In preparing for seminars, students should ensure:

• Using relevant conceptual analysis in addressing the core issues of tasks/questions/case studies;
• Demonstrating understanding of the relevant and essential reading materials and, where proper, also highlighting alternative perspectives on the issues involved in the discussion;
• Encouraging the overall involvement of the others member of the seminar group.

Attending students are strongly encouraged to actively participate to all lectures and constantly engage with group work assignments, since this will facilitate the creation of the final essay. 

In addition, attending students must execute ALL home assignment.

Main References

1. A) Textbooks:

• Osterwalder A., & Pigneur Y. (2010), Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers, Hoboken (NJ), Wiley & Sons Inc.
• Osterwalder A., Pigneur Y., Smith A., Bernarda G., & Papadakos (2014), Value Propositions Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want, Hoboken (NJ), Wiley & Sons Inc.

Attending students’ study program

• As for the book Business Model Generation (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010) the following parts need to be prepared for the exam:

1. Ch. 1: Canvas (pp. 12-51)
2. Ch. 4: Strategy (pp. 177-241)
3. As review material Other chapters

• As for the book Value Propositions Design (Osterwalder et al., 2014) the following parts need to be prepared for the exam:

1. 1: Canvas (pp. 1-63)
2. Review material Ch.2: Design (pp. 64-171)

Non Attending students’ study program

• As for the book Business Model Generation (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010), the whole book needs to be prepared for the exam.
• As for the book Value Propositions Design (Osterwalder et al., 2014) the following parts need to be prepared for the exam:

1. 1: Canvas (pp. 1-63)
2. 2: Design (pp. 64-171)

1. B) Mandatory readings for all students (will be provided on the web platform):

• Pellegrini M.M., Ciappei C., Marzi G., Dabić M., & Egri C.P. (2021), A Philosophical Approach to Entrepreneurship Education: A model based on Kantian and Aristotelian thought, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 42(1/2), 203-231.

• Shane S., Venkataraman S. (2000) The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research”. Academy of Management Review, 25(1): 217-226.
• Sarasvathy S.D., (2001), Causation and effectuation: toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency”. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 243-263.
• Alvarez, S. A., & Barney, J. B. (2007). Discovery and creation: Alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1‐2), 11-26.
• Bhave, M. P. (1994). A process model of entrepreneurial venture creation. Journal of business venturing, 9(3), 223-242.

1. C) Supplementary Materials of interest

• Kuratko, Donald F. & Hornsby, Jeffrey S. (2009). New Venture Management: The Entrepreneur’s Roadmap. Upper Saddle River (NJ), Pearson Prentice Hall.
• Kim C. W. and Mauborgne R. (2005) Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, Boston (MA), Harvard Business School Press.
• Blank, S. (2017). Why the lean start-up changes everything. Harvard business review.
• Lumpkin, G. T., & Dess, G. G. (1996). Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance. Academy of management Review, 21(1), 135-172.
• Sahlman W. (1996) “Some thoughts on business plans”, HBS, 14 Nov 1996
• Wiklund, J., & Shepherd, D. (2005). Entrepreneurial orientation and small business performance: a configurational approach. Journal of business venturing, 20(1), 71-91.

Slides and other material will be available on the module web site. The upload of the material will be done weekly.

The slides represent only a support to facilitate you in summarising concepts and topics and to guide you in studying the material. USING THE SLIDE ONLY WILL NOT grant you enough knowledge to an effective and successful preparation for the exam.

Attendance

Due to the module design and the learning approach, attendance is prominent. To be considered attending students and so to receive the opportunity to present the group business idea, each student should submit all home assignments.

Exam procedure

The purpose of the whole module an opportunity for students to apply what has been learned to a concrete business idea.

Attending Students

To be considered an attending student, the first step is the evaluation of the attendance, i.e. submitting ALL home assignments (group assignments) during the module. To complete your student portfolio, each group will prepare a presentation about a business idea (formative assessment).

1. Formative assessment (no formal grade)

All regular attending students are kindly invited to create working groups (MINIMUM 3 PERSONS – MAXIMUM 4/5 PERSONS), directly from the second week. The same group should perform all the in-class activities and home assignments.

All these formative assignments aim at demonstrating knowledge and mastery of the theories, ability in apply them to real-life situations experienced during the course by the groups, making sound judgements and reflections, and not least stimulate relational capabilities to deal with the social environment and the others.

At the end of the module, groups will be asked to present to the class their final work. Usually the presentation will be an elaborated work to be presented in 45 minutes structured as follow:

1. Overture with a pitch video, plus one or more introductory slides to clearly express the business idea, i.e. pitching the idea.
2. First part: business CANVAS as a whole, i.e. the description and explanation of the CANVAS for the business idea
3. Second part: Value propositions and value map, i.e. the description and explanation of the value map created for the business idea.
4. Third part: refinement strategies, i.e. the description and explanation of the SWOT analysis and the possible adjustments in relation to a blue ocean strategy.
5. Few closing slides with final remarks, i.e. explanation of the implementation of the business model and why it will be successful.

Each student will be involved in the actual presentation and its preparation. The presentation should be designed to integrate concepts learnt during the module.

This presentation for attending students represents only a recapitulation/summary of several exercises and presentations, formative in nature, already done during the module.

Yet, the final presentation and the rest of the course work will help student to develop their communication skills both in terms of public-speaking and preparation of written materials, in a clear and logical way. However, also presentation will not be formally evaluated but it will serve as basis for the oral exam.

This formative assessment aims to verify a proper acquisition of knowledge, the ability to apply knowledge to concrete business cases, and the capacity of making students own critical judgments.

2. Oral exam

An individual oral exam where students will be asked to comment and integrate the concepts of the module into the real experience presented during the formative assessment. For attending students, at least one question will be directly based on the formative assessment (group presentation) done during the module. Possible specific questions will be directed to the several section of the presentation, or on motivation and evidences that led the group to make the final choices and solution suggested for the business model. Such questions have also a theoretical content but are based on the presentation of each group. A good grade will be granted to those able to critical analyse the decisions made by the group.

In addition to this, at least one question will be also structured as an open questions/hypothetical situations based on the material surveyed and studies during the module. Excellent answers are those with an appropriate mix between theories and theoretical elements, pertinent to the questions, and practice, i.e. business examples in which the theory can be applied. Yet, these are other appreciated aspects to be included in an excellent answer: theoretical connections among different topics/theories, the ability to criticize and reflect upon the validity of a theory, and the elaboration of strategies to offer a solution.

Thus, the oral exam verifies a proper acquisition of knowledge, the ability to apply this knowledge to concrete business cases, and personal judgment capacity. Yet, the communication skills, in the form of clarity and logic flow and structure of the answer will be also evaluated.

Non attending students

1. Oral exam

All other students will be considered non attending students. The exam will consist in an individual oral exam where students will be asked to comment and integrate the concepts of the module applied to real cases. Thus a first set of questions will be questions and hypothetical situations similarly to what is requested to attending students. For this reason, excellent answers are those with an appropriate mix between theories and theoretical elements, pertinent to the questions, and practice, i.e. business examples in which the theory can be applied. Yet, these are other appreciated aspects to be included in an excellent answer: theoretical connections among different topics/theories, the ability to criticize and reflect upon the validity of a theory, and the elaboration of strategies to offer a solution.

In addition to that, however there will be also purely theoretical questions that aims to inquiring the level of understanding of the theoretical concepts surveyed during the module. Excellent answers to this type of questions are those that are able to presented a full-rounded theoretical panorama about the concept, thus the cover of all aspects presented in the material of the module.

Thus, the oral exam verifies a strong and proper acquisition of knowledge, the ability to apply this knowledge to concrete business cases, and partially personal judgment capacity. Yet, the communication skills, in the form of clarity and logic flow and structure of the answer will be also evaluated.

Analytical Syllabus