Prof John Thompson and other ‘Guest Speakers’ talk to 1,400 Students at SAVILES Hall in Leeds

Professor John Thompson is the founder of the BA honours degree in Enterprise Development and talks to 1,400 students about researching a business idea, testing the business model and then starting their own business whilst of course studying for this degree.

The BA (Hons) Enterprise Development degree from The University of Huddersfield provides an exciting opportunity for students who have a clear interest in business start-up and self employment and who want to develop their ability to practice and to ‘do’ as well as to learn about entrepreneurship.

Networking and the development of social capital are crucial aspects of this degree. Students are exposed to a ‘studio culture’ and the opportunity to develop business ideas and work on a number of real projects before they start their own business. The course aims to enable people to have a clear vision of why a particular business idea is different and will succeed in its target market.

Course members learn about relevant disciplines, practice their learning to develop their skills and then apply their knowledge and skills to real situations. Our intention is that successful graduates will leave the programme with both a degree and a viable business.

We focus on helping people to develop creative, analytical and practical skills. There is a mixture of conventional University teaching and the opportunity to learn by doing and learn from doing. Students are asked to reflect upon their practical experiences and they gain credits for this. The focus of the first year is to start transforming a would-be entrepreneur into a competent practitioner and then, in the second year, the attention turns to the business proposal. By the end of year one students will have evaluated several business ideas and honed them into one final opportunity they want to pursue – and developed pitching skills. During year two students will develop and start this business. In year three students will be running that business and growing it.

The University’s Enterprise team has an annual programme of Guest and Role Model Entrepreneurs, including Theo Paphitis, where students can be inspired by, and learn from, real-world practitioners.

John said; “Most people who start a business are good at the technical aspects of what they are doing. What they are typically less good at is running a business and this affects the growth potential. In large part this is because they never trained to run a business; they trained to be a technician and they became expert at that. This degree will change the way a would-be entrepreneur starts and runs the business from the outset.”

John is particularly concerned in helping the UK produce more entrepreneurs and more enterprising managers in organisations everywhere and in 2004 he was funded by Yorkshire Forward to direct a DVD – It’s Up To Me – which is directed at young people and which features successful entrepreneurs telling stories about their early ventures and explaining how they would advise young people about being enterprising. This has been a stimulus for the Enterprise Network to develop programmes for secondary schools.

John is recognised as one of the UK’s leading authors of texts on strategic management. His main textbook, Strategic Management, is now in its fifth edition and he has also written two strategy books which are popular with managers. These are Strategy in Action and Lead with Vision: Manage the Strategic Challenge. His book, Entrepreneurs: Talent, Temperament, Technique was co-authored with Bill Bolton and first published in 2000; the second edition was published in 2004. Their follow-up book on entrepreneurs – The Entrepreneur in Focus – Achieve Your Potential had a publication date of December 2002. His most recent book Enabling Entrepreneurs was published in 2006.

He is an active researcher and case writer, focusing on applied strategy and entrepreneurship, mostly in conjunction with organisations. He has published several articles, mainly on the topics of strategic competency, entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship. His personal research focus is on identifying people with the potential to be entrepreneurs and, again in conjunction with Bill Bolton, he has been working on an on-line Indicator. In addition he has a special interest in social entrepreneurship and is on the editorial board of the Social Enterprise Journal. John has worked with the Enterprise Network team to capture the learning from their entrepreneur enabling work – the publication of this work has led John to be asked to speak on the subject at various events in the UK and abroad.

John’s paper on Entrepreneur Enabling, written with Dr Ron Downing of the DTI, won the Best Practical Paper award at the ISBE (Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship) conference in 2006.

He has extensive experience of working with senior and middle managers, having run an MBA course for over 10 years and more recently launched the University’s MSc in Social Entrepreneurship, and through involvement in teaching company schemes, in-company programmes and consultancy. He raised the initial funding for the Huddersfield Business Generator for embryo creative businesses, and much of the work of the Enterprise Network grew out of this.