MANAGING THE EMERGING ENTERPRISE
BPS 6380.501 FALL 2005
Class Meeting Monday 1900-2145, SOM 2.801 Office Hours: Mon/Wed 3:00 – 4:30 PM Or by appointment
Dr. Joseph C. Picken
SOM 4.212
Email: jpicken@utdallas.edu
Phone (UTD office): (972) 883-4986
Phone (McKinney office): (972) 562-5401

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Management guru Peter Drucker once observed that: “Unless a new venture develops into a business and makes sure of being ‘managed’, it will not survive no matter how brilliant the entrepreneurial idea, no matter how much money it attracts, no matter how good its products, nor even how great the demand for them.”
Entrepreneurship involves a lot more than finding a new opportunity or coming up with a great idea. Not all entrepreneurs succeed – and few ever walk away rich. Thousands of new opportunities and great ideas are presented to venture capitalists every year – but less than 5% of these get a serious look, less than 1% are funded, and of those that are funded, only 15-20% ever generate any serious returns.
On the other hand, there are a lot of small businesses out there – more than 90% of the businesses in the US employ less than 20 people; only about 1% of the more than 6 million US companies have more than 500 employees; and only 4% of the 21 million US enterprises that filed tax returns in 1992 reported gross revenues greater than $1 million. Obviously, there is a lot more to entrepreneurship than just starting a company.
This course is about how to build an entrepreneurial company – the challenges and hurdles that must be overcome in order to make the transition from an entrepreneurial startup to an organization capable of sustained and profitable growth…on the way to $50 or $500 million…within a few years. The challenges for the entrepreneur are both organizational (defining strategy, products and marketing, building a management team, acquiring resources, building infrastructures, etc.) and personal (acknowledging personal strengths and limitations and defining an appropriate leadership role). The selection of cases is biased toward technology-based product companies, but the principles are applicable to non-technology-based and service companies as well.
This is not a subject that can easily be captured in a textbook – which may explain why there are none available. Rather, we will rely on readings, case studies, and guest lectures from current or former CEOs of entrepreneurial companies. Both group and individual assignments will be required, with individual assignments and class participation comprising 45% of the final grade, and group assignments accounting for the remainder.
REQUIRED COURSE MATERIALS:
E.G. Flamholtz and Y.Randle. 2000. Growing Pains: Transitioning From An Entrepreneurship To A Professionally Managed Firm, Revised Edition. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. ISBN 0-7879-4694-X. (List Price $40.00)
K.Caitlin and J. Matthews. 2001. Leading at the Speed of Growth. Hungry Minds, Inc. New York. ISBN 0-7645-5366-6 (List Price $24.99)
Coursepack: cases and readings
REQUIRED SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES:
It is expected that students will have a reasonable understanding of financial accounting and financial analysis, and a working knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
SELF INTRODUCTION
Each student should post a Self-Introduction in the Discussion area of WebCT prior to the first class. Guidelines are provided on the WebCT Discussion page. This information will be used to set up my gradebook and assist in the formation of groups for the course.
FORMATION OF GROUPS
Much of the work in this course will be performed in groups. Students should form small groups (3-4 members) during the first two weeks of the course. It is important that you select your groups to include a diverse set of skills and make sure that at least one member is proficient in accounting and spreadsheet analysis. A list of the members of