Venture Dynamics: Buying Building Selling Enterprises: Moving Entrepreneurship Education Beyond Start-ups

Heywood, DC ORCID: 0000-0003-0427-7616 (2015) Venture Dynamics: Buying Building Selling Enterprises: Moving Entrepreneurship Education Beyond Start-ups. In: European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship ECIE2015, 2015-9-16 - 2015-9-18.

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Abstract

This paper describes and qualifies a module introduced to a selection of Management School students in 2014/15. ULMS549 Venture Dynamics: Buying, Building, Selling Enterprises is a new core module for MSc Entrepreneurship students but an elective module for MSc’s in Accounting and Finance, Operations and Supply Chain Management, Project Management, International Business and Management. It is a practical initiative which aims to move the entrepreneurship education remit and general management perceptions of entrepreneurship away from the traditional start-up focus, to the alternative objective of buying and growing an existing business. Students use ‘live cases’ of actual businesses that are advertised online For Sale in the UK. Students are required to research the business, apply for the available accounts, negotiate with vendors, assess multiple buying alternatives and identify opportunities to increase the chosen business’s value by working as management buy-in teams. The back story to the module’s significance is that the students have all been made redundant and have agreed to pool their redundancy packages together which is [an imaginary] £250,000. They know in advance that they have to increase the value of the business they choose in order to sell it on for profit but the percentage changes each year. In 2014/15 their target was a 25% increase in value and sale price. This module instils consideration that formulating an exit strategy is increasingly important whereas traditional approaches to entrepreneurship education all too often imply that starting up and maintaining a new business is the objective in itself (Pardo 2013). Increasingly new businesses get started in-order-to be bought out by a larger firm. Several authors have noted the limitations in entrepreneurship education imposed by traditional assessment tools such as examinations, report writing, presentation exercises and business plans (Edwards & Muir 2012; Gibb 2011; Jones & Penaluna 2013). This module requires firstly a group Investment Proposal [for 30% of overall grade] to validate why their chosen business is regarded as a sound investment. The second assessment [for 70% of overall grade] is an individual strategic proposal for how to go about adding value so all the group members can free up their capital, hopefully with some profit. Professional Business Transfer Agents also called Commercial Business Brokers are invited in to teach students the important formulas, procedures and technicalities for buying an existing business. They also cover the key areas to address when it comes to sell the business the groups chose to purchase. Serial and portfolio entrepreneurs are guest lecturers showing students that after a few start-up experiences, good and bad, business transfers become a normal way of life; a career choice. The learning is situated within a broader educational framework which includes a focus on family business succession problems, international M&As and the historical small business transfer environment. SME Transfer Agent sector is a rapidly growing market in itself.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Unspecified)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	entrepreneurial decision making; business transfer; exit strategy; live cases; experiential learning;
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	12 Apr 2016 14:33
Last Modified:	17 Dec 2022 02:28
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3000240