Entrepreneurship and Innovation Courses at Darden (for Second-Year MBA students): Fall Semester

Developing New Products and Services (OPS 813) Q1
(R. Chao)

• Use the basic tools of new product development in the context of a hands-on, team-based, product or service development project
• Generate new ideas and develop them into working prototypes through concept generation and selection, iterative design and prototyping, intellectual property management, and product economics
•  Incorporate feedback from potential users and investors via a design fair held at the end of the course

Emerging Medical Technologies (ENTRE 8435) Q2
(P. Sommer)

• Provide students with a working understanding of the impact of regulation on the Life Sciences business
• Provide students with a historic context to understand the origin of regulation
• Furnish students with working knowledge of the terminology, sequencing of product development, and commercialization in a Life Sciences company
• Give students the opportunity to confront the difficult tradeoffs of choosing a regulatory, development, and commercialization pathway
• Enable students to understand the financing alternatives and the impact those choices have on a company’s ability to grow
  

Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity (FIN 844) Q2
(S. Chaplinsky, E. Loutskina)

• Present the perspectives of investors and entrepreneurs from venture capital to buyout firms
• Explore estimation of the returns to investors and entrepreneurs
• Examine valuation of start-up and late-stage enterprises
• Provide explanation of the terminology of venture capital and buyout contracts
• Show deal structure and its connection to valuation and incentives
• Develop greater theoretical understanding of topics in advanced corporate finance

Entrepreneurial Thinking (SY-ELEC 758) Q1 (also First Year Q4 Elective)
(G. Fairchild)

• Enable students to develop an attitude, mind-set, and skills that are crucial for becoming a creative business person
• Applicable both in the context of starting a new firm and in starting new ventures in a large, established company

Innovation and Integration in Services: The New Economy (MKT 8404) Q1
(G. Barbee)

• Stimulate student innovative thinking and action with regard to both large complex companies and small entrepreneurial ventures across a variety of service and product industries
• Improve insights of cross-discipline and enterprise-wide integration opportunities across function, processes, business units, global boundaries, and complex customers
• Master the art of creative transfer to improve practical company revenue and identify unique ways of serving customers’ future strategic needs
• Open new career possibilities for students after Darden in service and new economy enterprises while stimulating self-awareness, confidence, and out-of-the-box thinking

Innovation and Product Development (OPS 8447) Q1
(S. Kavadias)

• To equip future managers with the mindset and practical methods that enable better management of innovation in any setting, includingbut not limited to product and service development

Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship (ENTRE 806) Q1
(A. Larson)

• Provide information, frameworks, and tools for identifying and pursuing sustainable business opportunities
• Inform students on the changing dynamics of nature-human interdependencies globally
• Examine examples of innovators implementing successful green strategies

Sustainability in Depth: Studies in Innovation (ENTRE 807) Q2
(A. Larson)

• Enable students to be conversant on fundamental literature
• Provide material that gives insight into environmental debates in the management education/business/policy arenas
• Enable students to gain a wider and more nuanced perspective on sustainable business topics and environment-business issues

Venture Capital (ENTRE 829) Q1
(Glynn)

• Examine the role of venture capitalist firms in funding early stage companies
• Show how venture capitalists work with entrepreneurs and limited partners
• Analyze the evolution and dynamics of the venture capital industry

Additional Courses Recommended by the Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Club Students (EVC Club):

Corporate Governance (GEN 809) Q1
(J. Colley, W. Stettinius, G. Logan)

• Provide the organizational context within which corporate governance functions in a free enterprise, capitalist economic system
• Help students understand the legal obligations and responsibilities of the members of the board of directors of a corporation
• Teach students about the most effective board and management relationships
• Illustrate potential pitfalls for directors and how these dangers can be avoided

General Management & Operations Consulting (SY-ELEC 757) Q1
(R. Landel)

• Foundations of lean practice and tools, including value stream mapping, takt time, process stability, Five S, waste elimination, standardized work, pull, and root-cause problem resolution
• Lean implementation management, including operating systems design, implementation strategies and tactics, lean attitude, and managerial-operator roles
• Six Sigma process-improvement methodology (DMAIC) and managing improvement projects
• Process analysis tools and Design of Experiments (DOE)
• Operating systems for continuous improvement

Operations Strategy (OPS 880) Q2
(T. Laseter)

• Introduce a conceptual framework for defining an operations strategy in any business organization
• Apply the conceptual framework in evaluating an operations strategy
• Use competitive cost analysis techniques in evaluating competitors’ operations
• Survey the role of technology management in operations strategy

Systems Design & Business Dynamics I (GEN 8430) Q2
(R. Landel)

• Use systems analysis techniques and simulations to isolate and describe the often intangible factors that affect the performance dynamics of a business
• Explore the competitive structure of an entity’s operating structures and information flows, in addition to those of its customers, competitors, and suppliers
• Assess and quantify the behavior of a complete system by identifying the critical variables, constraints, and policy decisions that reinforce business growth or performance decline
• Utilize archetypes to identify common business-mode failures and explore the applications of strategic mapping techniques across many industries and job functions
• Practice how to create desirable business dynamics by acting upon the system at specific points of leverage