Skip to main content

Module

NBS8617 : Theorising Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

  • Offered for Year: 2024/25
  • Module Leader(s): Dr Paul Richter
  • Owning School: Newcastle University Business School
  • Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Semester 1 Credit Value: 10
ECTS Credits: 5.0
European Credit Transfer System

Aims

This module is concerned to study enterprise and entrepreneurial behaviour in a holistic way; it is not directly about how to start up or run a business. It is, however, complementary to ‘how to’ modules focused on business start-up. The module is designed to provide students with a holistic view of enterprise/entrepreneurial behaviour and their role in society, encouraging students to engage critically with these concepts and to situate them in broader organizational and societal contexts.

More specifically, the module aims to:

• provide students with an understanding of enterprise and entrepreneurial behaviour and their role in contemporary society

• provide students with the skills to critically analyse notions of enterprise and entrepreneurship and to situate them within a broader historical, economic, social, political, and cultural context, emphasising themes of sustainability in the broadest sense

• develop creative and critical thinkers and leaders by nurturing students’ capacities to critically engage with the ways in which knowledge is generated, applied, contested and contextualised

Outline Of Syllabus

Lectures and class discussions will cover a wide range of historical and contemporary issues relating to the study of enterprise and entrepreneurship. These will include: the historical and political roots of enterprise; researching entrepreneurship from multiple levels of analysis; theoretical traditions in the study of entrepreneurship; economic, social, political and cultural contexts of enterprise and entrepreneurship with an emphasis on sustainability; entrepreneurial identity and leadership; and the dark side of entrepreneurship.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities
Category Activity Number Length Student Hours Comment
Scheduled Learning And Teaching ActivitiesLecture92:0018:00Planned as present-in-person interactive sessions
Guided Independent StudyAssessment preparation and completion130:0030:00Preparation/completion of module assessment
Guided Independent StudyDirected research and reading118:0018:00Individual research/reading tasks to supplement lecture material
Guided Independent StudyIndependent study134:0034:00Individual research/reading activities relevant to the module focus
Total100:00
Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The lectures, planned as present-in-person, combine the setting out of key ideas and concepts that underpin the module’s knowledge outcomes in lecture mode with a high level of interaction via practically-focused activities, giving students the opportunity to discuss in small and larger groups the module's themes, drawing on their own cultural experiences. Hence, these activities will support students in achieving the module’s skill (as well as knowledge) outcomes. Lectures also provide students with the opportunity to consider the relationship between the module material and the module assessment.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment
Description Semester When Set Percentage Comment
Essay1A1002000 word individual assignment
Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Description Semester When Set Comment
Oral Presentation1MIndividual and small group assessment development activity
Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The individual essay assignment will assess students’ ability to demonstrate an advanced, critical understanding of enterprise/entrepreneurship research and its relationship with wider cultural, economic, social, and political contexts.
The formative assessment involves class-based activities centring on how students might approach the formal module assessment with the use of, for example, dummy essay questions where students will share ideas with each other and the wider class.

Reading Lists

Timetable