Insegnamento a.a. 2026-2027

The course will cover the following topics:

• The returns to entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial judgment and action
• The nature of entrepreneurial opportunities
• Customers and business models
• Entrepreneurial strategies
• Founding teams
• Scaling and exit

• Explain who becomes a successful entrepreneur.
• Compare frameworks for entrepreneurial action under uncertainty.
• Define entrepreneurial opportunities and explain their drivers and the role of the individual-opportunity nexus.
• Explain the role of entrepreneurial hypotheses.
• Compare different types of entrepreneurial strategy.
• Describe the key elements of a business model and explain how entrepreneurial firms create and capture value.
• Analyze the dynamics of founding teams, including trade-offs in co-founder choice, role allocation, and equity decisions.
• Identify the main sources and stages of entrepreneurial finance and assess their implications for control and growth.
• Identify the drivers, paths, and challenges of venture growth, including failure and exit.

• Use relevant theoretical lenses from the course to analyze real-world founder decisions.

• Assess the quality of an entrepreneurial idea.

• Apply effectuation and causation logics to a venture decision taken under uncertainty.

• Critically assess a startup’s business model, identifying weaknesses in its value proposition or value-capture mechanisms.

• Discuss entrepreneurial successes and failures using research-grounded frameworks.

• Clearly and concisely communicate analytical reasoning regarding entrepreneurial situations.

• Lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Practical Exercises
• Collaborative Works / Assignments

• Guest speaker talks. Some sessions are built around invited speakers, such as founders and investors, who provide practitioner perspectives on specific course topics.

• Case study discussions. The course also uses case studies to complement and illustrate the conceptual lectures, helping students apply theoretical ideas to real entrepreneurial situations.

• Collaborative team assignments give students the chance to put the course's concepts into practice by analysing real entrepreneurial situations and decisions. 

Individual written exam: open and/or closed answers questions exam. ~60% of the final grade.

The written examination consists of open and/or closed questions regarding the theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence covered in the course. It is designed to test the intended learning outcomes in terms of knowledge and understanding (e.g. explaining who becomes an entrepreneur, comparing frameworks for action under uncertainty, describing business models and entrepreneurial strategies), and students’ ability to apply these concepts: questions may require students to use course frameworks to analyze concrete entrepreneurial situations and decisions.

Collaborative team assignments. ~40% of the final grade.

Teams of students evaluate real start-ups on the main dimensions covered in the course (e.g. opportunity, business model, strategy, founding team, financing, growth). The assignment tests students’ ability to apply the theoretical perspectives learnt in the course to the analysis of real-world ventures, to critically evaluate entrepreneurial ideas, business models and strategic choices, and to communicate structured analytical reasoning. It also develops students’ ability to work together to analyse entrepreneurial situations.

Individual written exam: open and/or closed answers questions exam.

The written examination consists of open and/or closed questions regarding the theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence covered in the course. It is designed to test the intended learning outcomes in terms of knowledge and understanding (e.g. explaining who becomes an entrepreneur, comparing frameworks for action under uncertainty, describing business models and entrepreneurial strategies), and students’ ability to apply these concepts: questions may require students to use course frameworks to analyze concrete entrepreneurial situations and decisions.

All teaching materials are equally accessible to not attending students. The list of readings, provided at the beginning of the course, is available to all students, and the corresponding readings can be accessed through the University library or the course platform. Slides and any additional materials used in class are made available to all students through the University's online learning platform (Blackboard).