Managing High-Growth Entrepreneurial Ventures, Spring 2008
EGR 493 Managing High-Growth Entrepreneurial Ventures, Spring 2008
This course focuses on the opportunities and challenges involved in the management of growth in entrepreneurial settings, both in smaller growing companies and larger corporations. Growth is the ultimate resource constrainer, stretching all systems in a company to the limit and often beyond. Consequently, this course will emphasize management "at the limit" of what students may have already learned in other functional courses. It will provide students with a series of frameworks, analytical skills and techniques, and decision-making tools that can be used in growing entrepreneurial businesses.
The course relies on non-traditional, experiential (i.e, "learn by doing") methods in addition to the usual case-based method. A central part of the course is a sophisticated international simulation exercise known as "The Manufacturing and Service Challenge," which will take place throughout the semester. Students working in teams will be asked to manage the growth of a multi-product company from a single undifferentiated, imported product to a portfolio of differentiated products. Management decisions will involve strategy, marketing, finance, production, technology, R&D, and other functional areas. The course provides students with an opportunity to gain insight into building a growing company in an exciting, highly competitive, and rapidly changing environment.
The course will be particularly useful to students who have interests in one or more of the following areas:
- Growing their own entrepreneurial companies,
- Managing the growth of existing companies in an entrepreneurial fashion by emphasizing innovation and opportunity capture in a dynamic environment, and/or
- Helping companies manage their growth through consulting assignments
The course attempts to combine various innovative pedagogical techniques in developing the student's understanding of growth management in a dynamic environment. The most important of such techniques is the computer-based simulation of a growing business entity: the "Manufacturing and Service Challenge". Teams of students will be asked to manage companies in their growing phases, making appropriate decisions regarding all the functional aspects of the business. Additionally, exercises, presentations, and debriefing/learning sessions are built around the simulation.
Besides the simulation-based training program, readings and discussions will also be used to develop student skills. Finally, a term paper project will be used to provide students with the opportunity to fine-tune their understanding of certain aspects of growth management.
The course is organized around an intensive growth management simulation exercise using one of the most sophisticated business simulation programs available today. Developed and refined over the last 15 years, the simulation exercise is particularly well suited for the learning objectives of this course. Often reserved to the more exclusive executive education programs, it has great value in learning the intricacies and interdependencies of managing a growing concern.
This course is being taught by Dr. Julian Lange, a professor of entrepreneurship and public policy at Babson College. Dr. Lange is currently serving as the inaugural Dean's Professor in Entrepreneurship in the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education. Professor Lange earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Princeton in 1965 as well as an M.B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is the founder and president of the Chatham Associates management consulting firm. Previously, he served as president and chief executive officer of Software Arts Inc., which created VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet.