Entrepreneurship Program

Entrepreneurship and Venture Management  Concentration
Technology Commercialization Concentration and Certificate Program

Entrepreneurship and Venture Management

Description of careers for which concentration prepares students:
This concentration provides students with a thorough grounding in the business skills needed to start or manage a rapidly growing business. The courses offered not only give students the skills to excel in established industry roles; they also give the students the ability to spot and take full advantage of opportunities in small firms. This is true for students who enter the corporate world, start or buy and subsequently run their own companies or enter into family business. We attempt to offer an alternative to a traditional career for students who want to learn to establish a successful freestanding enterprise. In addition to traditional entrepreneurial pursuits, this breadth includes corporate entrepreneurship, corporate venturing, franchising, not-for-profits, or new venture support.

Description of the academic content and requirements for concentration:
The courses in this concentration give students an entrepreneurial tool set. They can choose from a range of courses covering all aspects (financial, managerial, legal, operations) of organizing and managing independent and corporate new ventures. Skills such as idea creation, opportunity recognition, feasibility analysis, business planning, customer acquisition and retention, financial and business structuring and plan implementation and execution are the highlights of this toolbox. These skills are taught through the core series of courses: Introduction to New Ventures (BAEP-551), Cases in Feasibility Analysis (BAEP-552) and The New Venture Business Plan (BAEP-554). Additionally, there are elective courses that focus on managing the emergent firm, managing a rapidly growing firm, recognition, commercialization and protection of new ideas, dealing with specific business types, entrepreneurial consulting and owner/manager issues.

Required for Concentration (All of the following):
GSBA-586:  Current Trends in Business or BAEP-551 Introduction to New Ventures
BAEP-552:  Cases in Feasibility Analysis
BAEP-554:  The New Venture Business Plan 

Electives (Choose one of the following):
BAEP-553:  Cases in New Venture Management
BAEP-555:  Management of Rapidly Growing Ventures
BAEP-556:  Technology Feasibility
BAEP-557:  Technology Commercialization
BAEP-559:  Investing in New Venture

Advisor:  Steven Mednick, Bridge Hall (BRI) 1

Technology Commercialization

Description of careers for which concentration prepares students:
This concentration will prepare students to work in a variety of careers associated with technology commercialization: manage technology development projects; manage an intellectual property or project portfolio; consult to companies seeking to derive new revenue streams off archived IT; consult to companies in a the area of technology and market feasibility; and manage a commercialization effort.  In addition, the concentration prepares the entrepreneur to take a technology from idea to market with an in-depth and real-world knowledge of the technology commercialization process.

Graduate Certificate in Technology Commercialization
MBA candidates who wish to earn formal recognition of completion of the concentration may apply for admission to the Graduate Certificate in Technology Commercialization program.  (Admission is not automatic.)  Application procedures, admission requirements, and additional information about the program are available at http://www.marshall.usc.edu/TCCM.

Description of the academic content and requirements:
This concentration entails three required courses and one elective in business or engineering.  Through lectures, discussions, guests, and real-world experience on a technology team, students will acquire knowledge and skills in the following areas: creativity and invention, product development, technical and market feasibility analysis, intellectual property acquisition, business planning for high technology ventures, and technology venture valuation and funding.  Students will have the opportunity to become a stakeholder in a new technology venture.

Required (All of the following):
BAEP-556: Technology Feasibility
BAEP-557: Technology Commercialization
BAEP-559: Investing in New Ventures

Electives (Choose one of the following):
BAEP-553: Cases in New Venture Management
BAEP-555: Management of Rapidly Growing Ventures
ISE-585: Strategic Management of Technology
ISE-555: Invention and Technology Management
ISE-515: Engineering Project Management
MOR-561:  Strategies in High-Tech Businesses

Advisor:  Kathleen Allen, BRI 1, 740-0641

 

Nine-unit Limit:
Students earning the Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) degree are expected to complete their graduate electives within the Marshall School of Business by taking courses that begin with prefixes ACCT, BAEP, BUCO, FBE, GSBA, IOM, MKT, and MOR.  Unless the student is completing a dual degree program, up to nine units of graduate-level course work may be completed at USC outside the Marshall School of Business for elective credit providing the courses chosen are listed in the Marshall EKG.  A student may take courses published in the EKG without petitioning, but the total number of EKG-listed non-business units completed without prior permission may not exceed nine (9) units.  A student who wishes to have either (a) more than 9 non-Marshall units of (b) a non-Marshall course that is not listed in the EKG applied to the MBA must request permission and receive approval to do so prior to taking the course.  A request for an exception must be submitted via petition (Marshall General Petition Form) to the student's MBA program office.  Only courses beginning with the Marshall prefixes may be applied to the MBA portion of a dual degree program.

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