Writing/Format Guidelines

For the paper, there is a minimum word limit of 500 words (excluding your title page, abstract, diagrams and tables, references, and appendices and a maximum of 600 words. Please use vigorous and concise writing — use strong and effective words that provide meaning. Determine first your message, and articulate that message in your paper. Avoid at all costs the tendency to simply provide information. And always remember that graduate-level coursework requires graduate-level effort.

Citations/References (optional): If students choose to use references they must be prepared in accordance with the standards set forth in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition, or a similar style manual (i.e. APA style).

Format: Please ensure that you incorporate margins of 1 inch on all four sides of pages; 12 point Times New Roman font (or similar font); single-spaced body text; and page numbers centered at the bottom of each page, including the title page.

Note: The intent of the 500-600 max word count is to encourage students to write something that is insightful and meaningful — and in doing so demonstrate insight and the ability to communicate a high level of comprehension. In this course students are rewarded for focused effort and thoughtful engagement. Please understand, the assignment is to write a meaningfully thoughtful and powerfully concise paper. Yes, we all understand that compressing all the material and all your thoughts into 500-600 words is DIFFICULT. It is intended to be.
Synthesis Paper Topic: The Nature of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Creativity

The subject matter of this course is narrow relative to the broader field of business. As a result, we will take a deep dive into this narrow topic of Entrepreneurship. By the end of the semester, we will have examined issues involving (1) entrepreneurship, new venture creation, and small business management; (2) innovation and market disruption; and (3) creativity and the design school. In addition, we will explore how the role of functions interact and contribute to their larger social, legal, and business environments.  You will have read and discussed various theories relating to self-employment, entrepreneurial intentions, the startup process, value creation, sustainability, market acceptance, opportunity recognition and exploitation, intellectual property, entrepreneurial performance, the nature of technology, the future of work, and the management of creativity and innovation. You will have completed assignments requiring research and personal reflection on entrepreneurship and related topics.  This Synthesis Paper is your opportunity to demonstrate your command of the course’s subject matter.

As graduate students you are expected to demonstrate a high level of critical thinking – an ability to transcend knowledge and truly understand – an ability to connect the dots and make sense of otherwise seemingly disparate information. Most importantly, you are expected to have an opinion, an evidence-based and logical defensible position. This Synthesis Paper is an opportunity for you to express your position on the Nature of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Creativity. The Socratic Skill Builders assignments throughout the semester have been designed to provide ideas and material for your synthesis paper.

As we will discover, Entrepreneurship can be complex and confusing. For example, does entrepreneurship require innovation? Or maybe it requires novelty? Or maybe simply new venture creation? For example, if you start a hot dog stand business, are you an entrepreneur? There is nothing innovative about a hot dog stand, but maybe this is your first experience with hot dog stands, so the business and market are NOVEL to you. But what if you then start a second hot dog stand business? Now it’s not innovative, and not novel. But you did create a new venture, so does starting the second hot dog stand business qualify as entrepreneurship? And what if you buy into a hot dog stand franchise as a franchisee – are you an entrepreneur?

Your paper might encompass the entirety of the course, attempting to synthesis the essence of entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity. Your paper might attempt to synthesize the different paradigms of entrepreneurship presented in the course. Your paper may speak to your personal experience starting your own new venture, or your ambitions and emotions related to becoming an entrepreneur. Or you may attempt to focus on one of the following questions. What is entrepreneurship, and how does it relate to financial wealth creation or personal happiness? What are the most important issues, advantages, and challenges facing wantrepreneurs (nascent or incipient entrepreneurs). The specific topic is yours to choose.

This Synthesis Paper represents YOUR view of entrepreneurship and innovation.  While you should use the concepts and language developed in this course to demonstrate your command of the subject, this is not an exercise in regurgitation. I want to know your thoughts.

Examples of what is NOT ACCEPTABLE:

The following are examples of the kinds of MBA submissions that have earned a failing grade on the synthesis paper (many of these examples lead to a score of less than 10%):

1. A random brain dump, or compilation of all the topics covered in the course. These types of summaries are entirely worthless. They make no sense.
2. A personal documentary, such as a detailed description of your own experience as CEO, without substantial reference to the theories and concepts presented in the course.
3. An opinion editorial document that is simply your opinion, with no reference to the materials presented in the course.
4. A childlike and timid writing about what you think, void of confidence and command of the concepts and ideas presented in this course. These filled-with-apprehension papers often sound like, “I think this, and I believe that, and in my opinion…”
5. A narrow topic that does not incorporate a significant number of concepts and ideas presented in this course.
6. A paper (or portion thereof) written for another class. Enough said – this Synthesis Paper must be original.
7. A critique and summary of the “Lean Startup” book, that could have easily been lifted from the web, or written by someone outside of this class.MADM 751: Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Creativity

   Louisiana State University Shreveport – Dr. Michael D. Meeks

    

   Socratic Skill Builder #1: The Nature of Business & Entrepreneurship [100 points]

   Due Date: Sunday July 21st by 11pm

    

   Student Name : Tia McSwain

    

    

   SKILLBUILDER RUBRIC

   Completing this RUBRIC is optional (see note below).

   	Criteria	Excellent (90-100%	Good (80-90%)	Average (70-80%)	Poor (60-70%)	Unacceptable (0-69%)	YOUR TOTAL
   1	Assignment Word Count (total number of words in Skill Builder)	100%					100%
   2	Question Word Count (completeness of each question)	100%					100%
   3	Acumen Demonstration (demonstrate command of course concepts)	100%					100%
   4	Personal Application (apply course concepts to personal life/job/career)	100%					100%
   5	Timeliness/FileType (submitted on time in correct format)	100%					100%
   6	Critical Thinking (degree to which student demonstrates critical thinking)	100%					100%

   YOUR GRADE (1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6%): _600%___

   Rubric Note: completing this rubric is recommended but optional. It is included for those students who might ask how their grade for the assignment was determined. Completing the rubric answers that question without wasting the time of the instructor or classmates. Simply download the actual RUBRIC DESCRIPTION from the Course Moodle Webpage for rubric instructions.

    

   WORDCOUNT is determined by the words you ADD to this document. There are roughly 650 words already in this SB.

    

   Question #1A:

   What is Entrepreneurship? Provide, in your own words, a definition of entrepreneurship. This is NOT a question looking for you to provide a “right or wrong” answer (or copy a definition via a Google search), but rather an opportunity for you to reflect on what you (and others) think about entrepreneurship, and describe your thoughts.

    

   Entrepreneurship is the process where an entrepreneur comes up with a business idea, tests the business idea, then when they see that it is a viable idea, the launch it. Entrepreneurship is for those people that are willing and have the exact resources needed in order to start up that business. Entrepreneurship involves choosing one business Idea from a couple of ideas, whereby the entrepreneur goes with the one that will fetch him or her maximum profit. The main aim of entrepreneurship is making profit, and therefore the entrepreneur has to test all the business ideas and settle with the one that gives him more profit.

    

   Question #1B:

   Is “Entrepreneurship” a “catch all” word that encompasses a broad swath of business activity, or is it more specialized?

    

   Personally, I think entrepreneurship is a catch all word especially to startup businesses in a subtle way. However, this generally is not the case in all instances in a subtle way. An entrepreneur should particularly have basically certain skills and not everyone that kind of starts businesses or specifically is involved in one, kind of contrary to popular belief. Therefore, it’s kind of more specialized, to popular belief. An entrepreneur should be a risk taker, he should for all intents and purposes be a definitely good decision maker, he should really be creative and innovative, he should definitely be profit oriented in that all he does revolves around maximizing the profit he gets from his business. Many people actually are business people but very few really have what it takes to mostly be entrepreneurs, or so they thought. Consistency is the key to success, when it comes to entrepreneurship.

   Question #1C:

   Do you believe “Franchising” is entrepreneurship?

    

   I would for all intents and purposes say that a person that owns a franchise mostly is a business owner in a kind of major way. However, to me a franchiser really is not an entrepreneur. A franchiser adopts a concept form someone else, they literally follow the instructions that they for the most part have been given and earns a living from that, or so they basically thought. However, an entrepreneur essentially is the one that literally comes up with that idea, implements it and works on it until it becomes something viable that particularly is in literally turn adopted by franchisers. Therefore, according to me, franchising and entrepreneurship mostly are two different things because they generally involve two different things where entrepreneurship really is the creating of the idea while franchising mostly is the implementing of that idea in a major way.

   Question #2:

   Why do you have interest in becoming (or NOT becoming) an entrepreneur? If you were to become an entrepreneur, what type(s) of business would you start, and why?

    

   I am definitely interested in becoming an entrepreneur because it exposes you to utilizing your very full potential in a very big way. Unlike any other employment where the employer decides what amount of money you should specifically be paid, in entrepreneurship you are the one that gets all the profit in a sort of big way. The type of business I would want to be involved in specifically is particularly sole proprietorship. This for the most part is because in this kind of business, I will for all intents and purposes be the only one running the business so even the process of decision making will not for the most part be that long compared to being in partnership, which generally is quite significant. Also, the only person that will generally be accountable for the job will essentially be me.

   Question #3A:

   Based on your experience, education (including the videos and materials assigned this week), and knowledge, what are the 5 most pressing issues facing ENTREPRENEURS in America?

    

   1. People think that entrepreneurship is characterized by certain things. This thing includes formula, certain processes and steps that will lead to succeeding.

   2. Another issue is that people who involve in entrepreneurship or who are interested in it think that entrepreneurship makes people more money compared to employment.

   3. The other issue is that people think that entrepreneurship is fascinating and outlook the issues faced by entrepreneurs.

   4. Entrepreneurship is thought to earn the respect of many and even people admire it therefore people tend to involve themselves in entrepreneurship.

   5. The other issue is that people think that anyone can learn how to be an entrepreneur, people overlook the skills that an entrepreneur is required to have.

    

    

   Question #3B:

   Why are heads of state across the globe desperately seeking knowledge on how to make their people more entrepreneurial?

    

   Because there are very fairly few kinds of white-collar jobs to fit everyone. Most graduate’s kind of think that they essentially are only supposed to get jobs in companies that require their degree for the position. Meaning they are basically revolving around their field of study, forgetting that there are hundreds of thousands of graduates every year and they cannot all essentially find jobs at the same time. It is true that they should mostly do what they studied for but, in the meantime, they should really look for generally other ways of earning a living and that’s where entrepreneurship actually comes in, or so they thought. also, entrepreneurship encourages innovativeness and creativity and therefore people generally are able to come up with new inventions.

   Question #4A:

   Based on your experience, education (including the videos and materials assigned this week), and knowledge: What is business and why does it exist?

    

   I can essentially say that a business is an organization that deals with commercial activities, particularly professional or industrial activities, where it exchanges its goods and services for money, or so they particularly thought. It also can be defined as efforts done by a group of people in order to actually sell goods and services with the aim of making money in an actually major way. Business definitely exist because it is how people mostly earn a living in a subtle way. It is a way of making money so that people can essentially sustain themselves and can specifically be able to mostly provide for their families, particularly contrary to popular belief. Without businesses people would specifically not specifically be able to supply their needs and they would for the most part not be able to mostly live decent lives, or so they mostly thought.

   Question #4B:

   Based on your experience, education (including the videos and materials assigned this week), and knowledge: Why do people participate in business (engage in commerce, transactions, exchange)?

    

   Personally, I would say that people for the most part participate and start their pretty own businesses because they want to gain experience in their respective careers, generally contrary to popular belief. This particularly helps them essentially be able to control their experience at work. Businesses help people really be in charge of everything and when a person has a business, they are able control their schedules in a generally major way. They for all intents and purposes are also able to actually create the kind of environment that they would definitely wish to kind of have in a subtle way. Participating in business also enables a person to particularly follow the path of their careers and therefore the work that they for all intents and purposes do is what they love to do and what they kind of want to do, kind of contrary to popular belief.

    

   Question #4C:

   What are the 5 most pressing issues (challenges) facing the world of Business in America; and what can be done to address (prevent, resolve, or lessen) the impact of these issues?

    

   1. The first issue is growing revenue. Businesses should make sure that the practices that they involve in are those bring them a lot of profit.

   2. Another one is hiring employees. Businesses should get employees who are graduates in order to train them and show them what they expect from them since experienced people start up their own businesses.

   3. Increasing profit is another challenge. A business should maximize on the practices that give them more profit and do less of what does not give them profit.

   4. Government regulations also is one of the biggest issues. In most cases there is nothing that a business can do to avoid government regulations, but it can try and follow all the regulations to be on the safer side.

   5. The last issue is employee healthcare. This costs a lot to businesses but if they make it a requirement for all their employees to have a health insurance cover the burden will lessen.

    

    

   Question #5:

   This week there was a large quantity of videos (and readings) covering somewhat disparate topics in business and entrepreneurship. Which of these videos most resonated with you in regard to understanding business and entrepreneurship (and why)? I’m very interested in your thoughts.

    

   The video that resonated with me the most was the shortest video of all. In this video Steve Job for all intents and purposes was talking about having passion for what someone does. Participating in business that one specifically has passion for basically is one of the most fulfilling thing to essentially do as a person and I totally agree that any business that mostly is done in the absence of passion, the business mostly is bound to for the most part fail finally because there kind of no driving power, generally contrary to popular belief. This definitely true because, a business that really is shaky for example, succeeds only if the person really is passionate about it in a very big way. However, it basically is very easy to essentially do away with it when problems begin to actually arise when you mostly do not care about a business, which basically is significant.

   Question #6:

   The theme of this week has to do with the essence of entrepreneurship. Several different aspects of entrepreneurship and different definitions were provided. After watching the videos and thinking about it, what is entrepreneurship to you? Does something have to be new or novel to be entrepreneurial?

    

   After watching the video and thinking about it seriously, especially the one that has Richard Cantillon’s explanation of the origin of entrepreneurship, I would say that entrepreneurship is the ability and willingness of starting a business or being involved in a business with the aim of making or maximizing profit. Entrepreneurship can go from starting up a new business to modifying a business idea that already exists. It might be improving a technology or taking a different directing but on the same business. That is still entrepreneurship. Therefore, something does not have to be necessarily new in order for it to be termed as entrepreneurial, even improving an idea is categorized under entrepreneurship.

    

   Question #7:

   In your own words, describe how empathy applies to entrepreneurship. What does empathy have to do with entrepreneurship? Is it an important factor to successful entrepreneurship?

    

   I really think that an entrepreneur should really take their time to empathize with the customers and employees by listening to what they specifically think and trying to essentially provide them with what they need. This is a very important thing because it can specifically be very helpful in the sense that the business can gain useful information that will actually help generally be able to deal with issues that it basically is facing. Plus, it will show to the employee or customer that you care about the people and their issues that you are trying to solve. Lastly, empathizing also can particularly be using a reinforcement that brings about positivity and good interaction in the company in a very big way.

    

    

   © 2019 Dr. Michael D. Meeks

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