There is, nowadays, a whole “world of entrepreneurship” out there: entrepreneurship is widely promoted around the world, with entrepreneurial ventures, finance, policies, education, research, and discourses proliferating everywhere. Yet this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Where does this world of entrepreneurship come from? When and why did it come about? How does it affect the activities of entrepreneurs and what it means to be an entrepreneur? The course addresses these questions by introducing students, among other topics, to the birth of the word entrepreneur, to the rise of entrepreneurial finance, to the constitution of the Silicon Valley, to the debates around the dotcom bubble, and to the historically shifting forms and uses of business plans.
Martin GIRAUDEAU
Cours magistral seul
English
Autumn 2024-2025
There is both an individual and a collective grade for each student. The individual grade is based on the review of an academic book or set of articles, chosen in a list proposed by the professor. The collective grade is based on a research report prepared, in groups of 5 students, on one of the institutions of entrepreneurship.
Martin Kenney (ed.), Understanding Silicon Valley: Anatomy of an Entrepreneurial Region (Stanford Business Books, 2000) (selection)
David Kirsch, Brent Goldfarb and Azi Gera (2009), "Form or substance: the role of business plans in venture capital decision-making," Strategic Management Journal, 30: 487-515
Steven Shapin, "The Scientific Entrepreneur," in Steven Shapin, The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation (University of Chicago Press, 2009)