94264 - Business and Enterprise

Learning outcomes

Students will know how to manage innovation and sustainability in the chemical business. The student will learn the guidelines of entrepreneurship and will become familiar with the problems to be faced and solutions found when starting a new enterprise. They are expected to be able to: 1. Develop and analyze a Business plan, while understanding the role of sustainability in new venture creatin processes; 2. Develop and analyze entrepreneurial opportunities; 3. Understand and apply risk management modelling, risk reduction and remediation and risk communication.

Course contents

The CU is composed of three modules with the following contents.

Business Planning

This module will introduce students to basic concepts on management and entrepreneurship.
It describes and illustrates the process-oriented perspective in entrepreneurship and business planning. It introduces students to key issues for a successful entrepreneurial activity: opportunity exploitation, planning and managing new ventures, management skills and sustainability. It introduces the role of finance in new venture creation.
The topics covered include:
1. The environment and entrepreneurship
2. From opportunity exploitation to star-up planning
3. Business planning approaches and development
4. Rethinking business in a global competition

Entrepreneurship

The module will introduce students from science majors to basic concepts on entrepreneurship. It describes and illustrates the process-oriented perspective in entrepreneurship from idea generation to opportunity evaluation and organization. It provides students with a method to explore entrepreneurial opportunities. The topics covered include:
1. Entrepreneurship, starting with ideas
2. Opportunities emergence
3. Opportunities evaluation
4. Opportunities organization

Risk Management

The contents of this module cover:
1 - Risk management framework and risk management processes, including the ISO 3100 in the context of organizations, and environmental risk management, as set up by health and environmental agencies.
2 - Identification of chemicals of concern, the physic-chemical properties affecting their emission, environmental fate, exposure and effect in human health and ecosystems.
3 - Hazard identification, exposure assessment, risk characterization, risk communication, and risk minimization.
4 - Deterministic and probabilistic risk assessment (modelling with Oracle’s Crystal Ball), characterization of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis.

Readings/Bibliography

Lecturer notes and slides

Teaching methods

The course unit is divided into three modules taught independently at different times in the academic year, each module is organized in theoretical classes where main concepts are introduced, as well as tutorial classes with discussion of case-study examples.

Assessment methods

Each module learning is evaluated independently, exploiting: i) written tests; ii) oral presentations or interviews; iii) written assignments or combinations of them. The Course Unit grade will be the arithmetic mean of grades from the three modules. ChIRS grades scale goes from 1 to 100, pass grade is
40, and will be translated into ECTS and different University scales. Criteria: knowledge on a very limited number of topics covered in the course and analytical ability that emerges only with the help of the instructor, using generally correct language → 40-45;
Knowledge on a limited number of topics covered in the course and independent analytical ability only on purely executive
issues, using correct language → 45-60;
Knowledge on a large number of topics covered in the course, ability to make independent critical analysis choices, mastery
of specific terminology → 60-80;
Essentially comprehensive knowledge on the topics covered in the course, ability to make independent critical analysis and
connection choices, full mastery of specific terminology, and ability for argumentation and self-reflection → 80-100.

Teaching tools

Lectures slides and notes will be available on the course moodle https://emmcchir-learning.ualg.pt

Office hours

See the website of Jaume Argerich Herreras

See the website of Luis Miguel De Amorim Ferreira Fernandes Nunes