C112 Entrepreneurship for the Agrifood Industry
- Course Code:
- C112
- Unit value:
Entrepreneurs, whether they are ‘born or made’, are responsible for the business energy that creates economic growth and development. This module explores the concept of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneur, and develops an approach to commercial organisational management focussing on the role of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. The context is mainly the agrifood industry and is applied to both developing and advanced economies.
The module explains what conventional management entails and differentiates this from what business managers do in the context of entrepreneurism. It draws on generic management theory to identify methods of strategic planning suitable for entrepreneurs, and addresses problems specific to the development of micro, small and medium sized enterprises in developing countries. Using an example from the agrifood industry, the module teaches how to construct a business plan as a step in order to obtain finance for an entrepreneurial venture.
Objectives and learning outcomes of the course
After completing this module, students will be able to:
- understand the place and importance of entrepreneurship in agrifood ventures
- explain the importance of entrepreneurial process to economic development
- apply entrepreneurial thinking to generic management situations
- apply and entrepreneurial management approach to the identification and selection of appropriate entrepreneurial strategies
- write an entrepreneurial business plan
Scope and syllabus
Unit 1. We look at entrepreneurship and what it entails. How an entrepreneurial firm differs from others. Why examples of entrepreneurial firms are rare in the agrifood sector. The idea of an entrepreneurial cycle which begins with the search for and identification of one opportunity and ends with the entrepreneur looking for the next one.
Unit 2. We look at the way an organisation develops and the different stakeholders who must be taken into account.
Unit 3. This unit is about the techniques and responsibilities of managers. We follow the traditional way of looking at managers, rather than something more vague and creative as has become the vogue recently. We also place management in the context of the structure of the organisation and see how and why structure can vary.
Unit 4. Similarly we take the traditional view of the processes that managers undertake. We look briefly at the main types of functional management found in a business. We also explain the SWOT framework and show how it is used to assess both environmental and internal factors.
Unit 5. We turn to microenterprises and small businesses in developing countries, focusing on rural areas. It is a topic much in the news in development circles and we ask – how much scope is there for entrepreneurship in these often tiny businesses? We also look at the position of women entrepreneurs.
Unit 6. Here we lay down the first of three main planks required to find a winning entrepreneurial strategy. We consider the business environment and the PEST framework for use in analysis.
Unit 7. This is about competition and how to position the firm and its products so that it competes successfully. We go through the traditional tools of competitive advantage analysis. We see how to choose a competitive strategy and how to use the ‘strategy clock’.
Unit 8. This is about the situation inside the firm. We look at the idea of a firm having competencies, giving it certain tangible and intangible skills that provide the capacity to undertake certain tasks.
Unit 9. This is a step-by-step guide to writing a business plan. In fact, there is no right or wrong way to do this; all we do is offer you one possible model.
Unit 10. This completes the module by offering a brief look at how the successful entrepreneurial firm grows and develops and how, first, the venture capitalist who financed the firm and then the entrepreneur may leave the now-flourishing business to start-up something new elsewhere.
