Description: Entrepreneurship and Innovation is important in all areas of business and plays a crucial role in the economy. An understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation is essential for identifying new opportunities, allocating resources efficiently and for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, it is imperative that decision makers understand the key concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation and be able to apply this knowledge effectively to create solutions to consumer, market, environmental and social problems.

This course features dynamic and engaging video with audio narration, infographics and short quizzes to test your knowledge

Background: Entrepreneurship and Innovation are important in all areas of business and play a crucial role in the economy. An understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation is essential for identifying new opportunities, allocating resources efficiently and for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, it is imperative that decision-makers understand the key concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation and be able to apply this knowledge effectively to create solutions to consumer, market, environmental and social problems.

This course aims to provide students the opportunity to develop and enhance their skills and knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation. The unit includes the following topics: Entrepreneurship, corporate intrapreneurs, innovation and creativity, entrepreneurial start-ups, IT systems for innovation, funding and financing decisions for start-ups, capital structure strategy and succession planning.

As mentioned above, upon completion of this course students will have the skills and knowledge to identify, plan, develop and launch their own entrepreneurial and innovative ventures.

Description: Entrepreneurship and Innovation is important in all areas of business and plays a crucial role in the economy. An

understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation is essential for identifying new opportunities,

allocating resources efficiently and for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, it is imperative that decision makers understand the key concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation and be able to apply this knowledge effectively to create solutions to consumer, market, environmental and social problems.

This course features dynamic and engaging video with audio narration, infographics and short quizzes to test your knowledge.

Background: Entrepreneurship and innovation are increasingly important in all areas of business and government. Established organisations innovate to respond to their competition or to have a competitive advantage. In the public-sector innovation is needed to develop effective policies to deal with the new economic, technological or social challenges. Innovation and entrepreneurship are recognised as key building blocks of competitive and dynamic economies. There are many different definitions of what innovation is, for example Rogers defines innovation as an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption, while Kline and Rosenberg defines innovation as an exercise in the management and reduction of uncertainty. The latter definition includes uncertainty as a key concept: in fact, innovation is defined as an “exercise in the management and reduction of uncertainty”. Uncertainty relates to two aspects: the technical performance of the innovation and the market response to its introduction. However, one can also define the process leading to the “discovery” of the invention as generating uncertainty, which decreases along the development, production and distribution phases.

Description: Entrepreneurship and Innovation is important in all areas of business and plays a crucial role in the economy. An understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation is essential for identifying new opportunities, allocating resources efficiently and for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, it is imperative that decision makers understand the key concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation and be able to apply this knowledge effectively to create solutions to consumer, market, environmental and social problems. 

This course features dynamic and engaging video with audio narration, infographics and short quizzes to test your knowledge.

Background: Entrepreneurship involves developing a new venture outside an existing organisation whilst intrapreneurs are known as corporate entrepreneurships which is a relatively new concept that focuses on employees of an organisation that have many of the attributes of entrepreneurs. An Intrapreneur can be defined as an employee that takes risks to solve a given problem, develops a new venture within an existing organisation, exploits new opportunities and creates economic value. There is evidence that intrapreneurship helps managers to renew and revitalise their business, to innovate, and to enhance the organisation’s overall performance (Antoncic and Hisrich 2001). Intrapreneurship is an important element in organisational, economic and social development.

Similarities and Differences Between Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship
Unlike the entrepreneur, the intrapreneur acts within an existing organization. The intrapreneur is the revolutionary inside the organization, who fights for change and renewal from within the system. This may give rise to conflicts within the organization, so respect is necessary to channel these conflicts and transform them into positive aspects for the organization. Even though intrapreneurs benefit from using the resources of the organization for the implementation of the emerging opportunities, there are several motives why innovation is more difficult to implement in an existing organization, such as:

• The size of organization
• Lack of communication
• Internal competition among staff or departments
• Feedback received in case of success/mistake
• Dullness—Many companies are slow and reluctant to change.
• Organisational hierarchies compel employees to ask permission for actions that fall outside their daily duties.

Description: Entrepreneurship and Innovation is important in all areas of business and plays a crucial role in the economy. An understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation is essential for identifying new opportunities, allocating resources efficiently and for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, it is imperative that decision makers understand the key concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation and be able to apply this knowledge effectively to create solutions to consumer, market, environmental and social problems.

This course features dynamic and engaging video with audio narration, infographics and short quizzes to test your knowledge.

Background: There are many types of financing options and routes available for entrepreneurs to start or grow their business, including personal savings or from family/friends, loans, angel investors, venture capital and loans. The entrepreneurship can use multiple sources to attract funds, but their abilities are the most important determinant to attract investors. The following sections will discuss some of the early-stage funding options.

Angel Investors
Angel investors are the type of investors who uses their money to fund young start-up private businesses run by entrepreneurs who are neither friends nor family. Angel investors might be professionals such as doctors or lawyers, former business associates -- or better yet, seasoned entrepreneurs interested in helping the next generation. They benefit the entrepreneur in many ways, share their knowledge and expertise and are willing to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in your business in return for a piece of the action.

Many businesses receiving angel investments already have some revenue, but they need some cash to kick the enterprise to the next level. Not only can an angel investor provide this, but he or she might become an important mentor. However, because their money is on the line, they will be highly motivated to see your business succeed. You could be giving away anywhere from 10 to more than 50 per cent of your business. On top of that, there's always the risk that your investors will decide that you are the business' greatest obstacle to success, and you could get fired from the company you created.

Angel investments can be perfect for businesses that are established enough that they are beyond the start-up phase but are still early enough in the game that they need capital to develop a product or fund a marketing strategy.

Description: Entrepreneurship and Innovation is important in all areas of business and plays a crucial role in the economy. An understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation is essential for identifying new opportunities, allocating resources efficiently and for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, it is imperative that decision makers understand the key concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation and be able to apply this knowledge effectively to create solutions to consumer, market, environmental and social problems.

This course features dynamic and engaging video with audio narration, infographics and short quizzes to test your knowledge.

Background: There are no hard and fast rules for optimizing a company’s capital structure, companies that are strategic use an efficient combination of senior debt, mezzanine debt, and equity capital to minimize their true cost of capital. It's also important for a business owner to analyse the difference in value between an ownership interest in a stagnant or underperforming business and ownership in a growing company. Listed below are some of the equity and debt available to raise funds:

• Senior Bank Debt
• Subordinated Debt
• Shareholder Equity
• Quasi Equity
• Mezzanine Debt

Senior Bank Debt
Senior bank debt is the borrowed money that a company must repay first if it goes out of business. The lender holds claim to the borrower’s assets above all other debt obligations. The loan is considered senior to all other claims against the borrower, meaning the collateral can be sold to repay the senior debt holders first, followed by junior debt holders, preferred stock holders and common stockholders. This makes the senior bank debt a lower risk to the borrower and therefore a lower interest rate.

Subordinated Debt
Subordinated debt is a debt that can only be claimed by an unsecure creditor, in the event of a liquidation, after claims of secured creditors have been met. Subordinated debt can be used for growth capital, acquisitions, recapitalizations, and management and leveraged buyouts. Subordinated debt holders need to ensure there is enough free cash flow to service the debt, since the debt is either unsecured or partially secured. Therefore, despite the high-interest rate on subordinated debt, if the business is flowing good, consistent free cash flow, it may be best to obtain subordinated debt rather than a pure equity injection.

Quasi Equity
Quasi-equity debt security (also known as revenue participation investment) is useful for enterprises that are legally structured non-profits and therefore cannot obtain equity capital. This type of security is a form of debt, but its returns are indexed to the organisation’s financial performance. If future expected financial performance is not achieved, a lower or possibly zero financial return is paid to the investor. Conversely, if performance is better than expected, then a higher financial return may be payable. Quasi-equity provides a more equal sharing of risk and reward between investor and investee.