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The new world economy requires nations to harness, develop and preserve their capabilities to innovate and to be entrepreneurial. Mention is frequently made of the 'entrepreneurial revolution', signifying the fact that the ability to innovate and be entrepreneurial has become a powerful economic force across the globe. Entrepreneurial endeavour is a prerequisite for economic growth and entrepreneurs and small business leaders constitute a significant contributing force to economic activity in general and job creation in particular. However entrepreneurship is not only about new ventures or small business organisations. An increasingly volatile and global environment is forcing organisations from small to extremely large to be more responsive and innovative in order to maintain or improve competitiveness internationally. Leaders/manager of an organisation(s), have to deliberately work towards establishing organisational environments that are well aligned with this new environment. This calls for leadership and managerial competencies that can unleash the creative potential and individual and collective innovative thinking and capabilities of all organisational members and stakeholders. This course is aimed at developing participants’ entrepreneurial capabilities as a current, future leader or manager within a national and global context, with a particular emphasis also on their creative and innovative abilities. Through developing the knowledge and understanding of entrepreneurial endeavour and enhancing capabilities to be creative and innovative, this course serves to lay the foundation for enhancing participants’ chances of entrepreneurial success in the new world economy.

The course provides entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leaders with the opportunity to explore the nature and challenge of entrepreneurial work and specifically aims at putting into place the initial building blocks for coming to better grips with the exciting and increasingly prominent field of theory and practice related to creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. Participants develop their own capacity to be creative and show how creativity can be put to work in organisational contexts. The nexus between creativity and innovation is considered and what innovation means and entails and where it comes from. Finally, participants are exposed to a number of managerial leadership challenges including the different ways or options of going into business, how to do market research, analyse entrepreneurial opportunities, how to draft a business plan, how to finance new and growing entrepreneurial ventures and their legal considerations.

On successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. critically analyse the role, nature and value of entrepreneurship and the challenges related to entrepreneurial endeavour;
2. utilise creative and innovative ability to enhance the chances of being successful at leading entrepreneurial endeavours and organisational innovation;
3. apply critical thinking - evaluate, synthesise and critically review theoretical frameworks with other evidence to provide solutions to real-world problems;
4. communicate professionally and effectively in written communication to various audiences to achieve targeted outcomes;
5. examine the impact of interpersonal communication on specific management processes and outcomes using relevant theories and concepts;
6. examine complex sustainable dilemmas and the need for responsible leadership.