Course Catalogue

Prerequisites

No formal prerequisites. However, students should show a general interest in corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial organizational architectures, organization design, innovation, and entrepreneurial leadership.

Learning objectives

Upon successful completion of the course, students:

• Understand the foundations of corporate entrepreneurship
  Students have knowledge of what corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is and how entrepreneurship within a corporation is similar to or different from start-up entrepreneurship.
• Evaluate entrepreneurial organizations
  Students are able to assess the degree to which, and understand the reasons why, an established corporation supports or constrains entrepreneurship.
• Design entrepreneurial organizations
  Students understand how strategy, structure, culture and leadership can serve as levers for developing entrepreneurial capabilities, and know how to design organizations that foster entrepreneurial activity.
• Understand entrepreneurial HRM and incentives
  Students understand the role of incentives and HRM systems in fostering creativity, opportunity recognition and exploitation, as well as entrepreneurial engagement by employees.
• Lead entrepreneurial initiatives
  Students know how to lead various innovative business initiatives within already established corporations.
• Address challenges of corporate entrepreneurship
  Students have an awareness of key challenges associated with corporate entrepreneurship and are able to find creative ways to overcome barriers to entrepreneurship in established corporations.
• Apply corporate entrepreneurship frameworks
  Students are able to apply the theoretical frameworks and models from the mandatory readings (e.g., Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review) to identify and systematically analyze the organizational architecture of an established firm and develop theory-grounded recommendations for fostering sustainable entrepreneurial action.
• Communicate analyses effectively
  Students effectively communicate, present and discuss their observations and findings in a team-based project setting.

Content

Established companies are under increasing pressure to discover new ways to sustain performance and grow. For many firms, efficiency improvement, mergers and acquisitions, and even incremental innovation have failed to meet strategic needs. In response, corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is increasingly appearing on the agenda of executives leading established organizations and of those joining or advising them.

The need for corporate entrepreneurship is clear. Corporate entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and organizational innovators create new businesses, products, services, and processes that enable firms to respond to increasing global competition. However, successfully engaging in and managing corporate entrepreneurship remains challenging, particularly because entrepreneurial initiatives frequently encounter organizational resistance. This course addresses both the challenges and opportunities of making established organizations entrepreneurial and prepares students to initiate and develop innovation within organizations.

Corporate entrepreneurship is a rapidly evolving field in which researchers, consultants, and practitioners often disagree on definitions and approaches. Rather than offering a recipe for success, the course provides students with a roadmap for understanding the field. It is structured around the process of understanding, implementing, and sustaining corporate entrepreneurship. While grounded in theory, conceptual frameworks, and empirical research, the course maintains a strong practical orientation. Particular emphasis is placed on how leaders and managers can create organizational structures, cultures, incentive systems, and leadership practices that enable employees to act entrepreneurially.

Core topics include the nature of corporate entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, entrepreneurial strategies, organizational structures and cultures, entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial behavior and incentives, as well as organizational change and ethics.

As an advanced course, particular emphasis is placed on the characteristics and behaviors required to promote and manage corporate entrepreneurship, including entrepreneurial leadership and motivation.

By the end of the course, successful participants will have deepened their scientific and practical understanding of corporate entrepreneurship and of the opportunities and challenges associated with creating organizations that continuously renew themselves through entrepreneurial behavior and opportunity recognition.

Please note that minor changes and adjustments to the structure of the course may occur before and during the semester.

Structure and indications of the learning and teaching design

This course is worth 4 ECTS credits. Accordingly, the total average workload for students is 120 hours. This includes self-study, campus time, and all examinations.

The course is structured around the following modules:

1. Understanding Corporate Entrepreneurship: Importance of CE, Nature and Elements of CE, Measuring CE, Innovation
2. Implementing Corporate Entrepreneurship: Strategy and Structure
3. Implementing Corporate Entrepreneurship: Culture and Leadership
4. Implementing Corporate Entrepreneurship: People (Entrepreneurial Traits and Behavior, Creativity, Motivation and Incentives), Industry Insights / Guest Lecture
5. Sustaining Corporate Entrepreneurship: Managing CE Challenges (Change and Ethics)
6. Integration and Evaluation: Examination, Presentations and Reflection

All modules are delivered during the first half of the semester through interactive online lectures via Zoom (live streaming). Recordings remain available for seven days after each session. The final examination takes the form of an open-book online examination.

Teaching combines theory inputs, interactive group work, case analyses, practical examples, and opportunities for students to reflect on organizational enablers and barriers to corporate entrepreneurship as well as entrepreneurial leadership. A guest speaker from practice complements the academic content.

The lectures include theory-based sessions, discussions, videos, short cases, practical examples, structured company analyses, group exercises, discussion of mandatory readings, guest lectures, and coaching for the group project.

An essential part of the course is the interactive discussion and reflection on the mandatory readings, which students are expected to prepare before each lecture.

Literature

The mandatory literature comprises practitioner-oriented and scholarly articles from Harvard Business Review (HBR) and MIT Sloan Management Review (MIT SMR), selected chapters from the core textbook on corporate innovation and entrepreneurship, lecture slides, and additional course materials.

Readings are assigned for each session and form the analytical basis for classroom discussions, case analyses, and the group project. All materials are made available via StudyNet/Canvas at least one week before the respective session.

Overview examination/s

Decentral - Written examination, Digital, Individual work individual grade (50%, 60 mins.)
Examination time: Term time

Decentral - Written work, Digital, Group work group grade (35%)
Examination time: Term time

Decentral - Active participation, Digital, Individual work individual grade (15%)
Examination time: Term time

Timetable

Mon, 14/09/2026, 12:15–16:00
Mon, 21/09/2026, 12:15–16:00
Mon, 28/09/2026, 12:15–16:00
Mon, 05/10/2026, 12:15–16:00
Mon, 12/10/2026, 12:15–16:00
Mon, 19/10/2026, 12:15–16:00

Additional information

Please take note of the following important information:

• Motivation statement: Interested incoming guest students and ENGAGE.EU students are kindly asked to submit a brief motivation statement to [email protected] by August 31, 2026. The format and length are entirely up to you.
• Compulsory deregistration: The course requires active engagement in and commitment to the group project from the beginning of the course. Therefore, students wishing to withdraw must deregister by the end of week 3 (deadline: October 2, 2026, 23:59) to enable efficient, effective and fair group work. Students withdrawing after this deadline will receive a grade of 1.0 for the examination components not completed.
• Course attendance: Attendance at all seminar sessions is expected and proactive participation forms part of the course grade.

Examination information

Examination sub part 1: Written online open-book examination (50%)

The written examination is a digital, synchronous, individual examination completed off campus. It lasts 60 minutes and takes place during the teaching term.

The examination is designed to assess students' ability to apply course frameworks to organizational scenarios and to critically reflect on key concepts rather than simply recall definitions. It covers all lecture content, mandatory readings, guest lectures, and case discussions.

Question language: English
Answer language: English
Examination time: Term time
Examination mode: Digital
Examination execution: Synchronous
Examination location: Off Campus
Grading type: Individual work individual grade
Weighting: 50%
Duration: 60 minutes

The examination is open book. Students are free to choose aids apart from the restrictions specified in the examination regulations.

AI tools (including ChatGPT, large language models and automated answer generators) are strictly prohibited. Only course materials that have been provided or explicitly approved may be consulted.

Examination sub part 2: Group project (35%)

The group project consists of a theory-grounded analysis of an established firm's corporate entrepreneurship activities. Working in small groups, students select a company for which sufficient publicly available information exists and apply the analytical frameworks developed throughout the course.

The analysis addresses the following dimensions:

• Organizational strategy
• Organizational structure
• Organizational culture
• Leadership
• People, incentives and HRM

For each dimension, students diagnose the current situation using publicly available information and course frameworks before developing theory-grounded recommendations to strengthen the firm's organization-wide entrepreneurial capabilities.

The final output consists of a slide deck and a structured group presentation delivered during the final session.

Question language: English
Answer language: English
Examination time: Term time
Examination execution: Asynchronous
Examination location: Off Campus
Grading type: Group work group grade
Weighting: 35%

Students are generally free to choose aids. Any restrictions are defined by the faculty members responsible for the examination under supplementary aids.

Examination sub part 3: Active participation (15%)

Active class participation is assessed individually throughout the online sessions. Attendance at all sessions is expected. Students are required to prepare all mandatory readings before each session and actively contribute to discussions and classroom activities.

Question language: English
Answer language: English
Examination time: Term time
Examination mode: Digital
Examination execution: Synchronous
Examination location: Off Campus
Grading type: Individual work individual grade
Weighting: 15%

Examination literature

The examination is based on the mandatory literature, including the selected textbook chapters, Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review articles, lecture slides (including the guest lecture), and all material covered during the course. All mandatory readings are made available on StudyNet/Canvas at least one week before the respective session. Lecture slides are uploaded before each session.