In this series, we share students’ unique perspectives on the evolving issues, trends and innovative practices in business and management.
By Julia Pacis
As a Management & Leadership major, students will be exposed to a variety of disciplines, as they learn the necessary skills to become future leaders in their organizations. While management skills are invaluable, students must also enter the workforce with the knowledge and understanding of other aspects of business.
Entrepreneurship Professors Alex Glosenberg and Jason D’Mello have implemented class activities that teach their students the relationship between Entrepreneurship and Management & Leadership. Through these activities, students can expect to develop an understanding of negotiation, teamwork and ethics.
“My favorite exercise in “Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship” is the $20 challenge, where I, as the professor, give $20 to groups of students in my class, who then go out and use that $20 to try to make as much money as they possibly can, usually within a 2-3 week timeframe. That process helps students learn how to work together toward entrepreneurial goals, and it is intimately involved in their understanding of what is good management and what is poor management. Oftentimes you can teach those concepts, but to a certain extent it also has to be lived. Student groups have made over $1000, and it depends on what you do. Not all of it is about making money, though. Part of the project is to think about innovative business practices that can give back to the world and the community.” – Professor Alex Glosenberg
“My colleague and I created and taught a class on buying small businesses. Students learn how to buy a business; they learn about the accounting, finance and legal side of it. They not only learn how to negotiate, but they actually have to do it in the class. They go out into the community and find a business where they can convince the owner to come into class for their final project and do a negotiation exercise. They’re not actually going to buy a business, but the business owner has to cooperate with them throughout the semester in order for them to pass the class. They find a business owner, get access to the company information, meet with the founder, do their due diligence on the company and the industry, come up with an evaluation, and bring the owner to campus. I sit in with my colleague, and we watch them make a deal and how they’re going to get the financing. They show them why they’re the right buyer, the value they’re going to add, and how they’ll carry on the legacy of the company name and the founder.” – Professor Jason D’Mello
