From the 9th of June to the 17th of June we, the students of the 2nd semester had a 5-day intensive course with Louis-Jacques Filion, a renown persona in entrepreneurship research and professor at HEC Montréal, Canada. The interactive course invited us to dig deep and refine our understanding of “Who is an entrepreneur?” as well as our own entrepreneurial model.
Course Preparation
Prior to the course we received an impressive folder, containing approximately 250 pages of scientific articles and case studies on entrepreneurship research. The objective of this pre-course assignment was to make us familiar with key entrepreneurship concepts including the founding fathers of entrepreneurship (Cantillon, Say and Schumpeter), the definition of entrepreneurship as such, the differentiation between entrepreneurs and self employed as well as various models that help define the various types of entrepreneurs. Besides, we investigated the process and importance of forming a vision as well as the relations systems of entrepreneurs.
5-Day Intensive Course
Discussion and Course Participation
During classes we had discussions based on the readings, but more importantly evolved our thinking through critical reflection and several case studies. The character of this class is truly interactive and stimulates a lively and passionate discourse. Therefore Mr. Filion mainly acted as a moderator who managed the diverse opinions and contributions in class and summarized key topics discussed with his expertise and wealth of knowledge in entrepreneurship.
Field Work
As part of the field work for the course we interviewed entrepreneurs in teams of 4 to 5 students and analyzed their entrepreneurial models based on the theory we discussed in class. As the grand finale of this course we presented the selected entrepreneurs to our colleagues and discussed which entrepreneurial type would suit them best. This exercise proved to be a key learning to us all. We realized that most so-called entrepreneurs can either be classified as self-employed or owner-managers, but only very few are true entrepreneurs. We concluded that a real entrepreneur differentiates himself through offering an innovation to the market that creates an added value.
Personal Entrepreneurial Model (PEM)
The Personal Entrepreneurial Model presents the final assignment of the course. Basically, we have to apply everything we learned in class to our own life. Most importantly, this allows us to evaluate ourselves, to figure out where we are headed, what type of entrepreneur we are most likely to become and to practice projective thinking by evolving a long-term vision for ourselves.
Assessment
The overall grade for this course is made up by class participation (10%), pre-course assignment (20%), field work project (20%) and the personal entrepreneurial model (50%).
Conclusion
For this course we really had to work hard, we were strictly graded but most importantly learned a lot about ourselves and evolved our entrepreneurial thinking model and self-perception.
It’s been such a pleasure to have lectures with LJ Filion, back in 2009.
I hope you guys exploited at maximum this opportunity of having him as professor ; ) I still have to thank him for his precious advise!
Cheers from SHA,
Fabiano
Hello
The course was indeed brilliant and I have heard from many students now that they really profited from this course, especially retrospectively – meaning the knowledge he is passing on to us and entrepreneurial thinking model he helps us to develop really has an impact on! Thanks for your comment and keep reading the posts! It is really nice to have comments, hints and inputs from our colleagues who are already a little further down the entrepreneurial path than we are at the moment. All the best to you!
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