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.