MG4H1E      Half Unit
Foundations of Social Business I

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

     ​​​​​This course focuses on three critical aspects of social business: entrepreneurship; leadership; and strategy. It focuses on both existing organisations and start-ups as vehicles for social change, and aims to support ‘intrapreneurs’ as well as entrepreneurs.

Its purpose is to bring the worlds of opportunity and social ventures into clear organisational focus.  It begins to sensitise students to the challenges of starting and running mission-based organisations, explores established vehicles for combining social and commercial purpose, and examines strategy development where the imperative is not market-capture but the reversal of market failure.  Students will be introduced to the main elements of entrepreneurial planning including opportunity identification and evaluation, rapid prototyping and resource-gathering.  They will explore the business model canvas and ideas of lean start-up.  They will learn the people skills necessary to sell their ideas and manage organisations. They will consider the main techniques for planning and implementing activities to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities, including customer journeys, sources of advantage, competencies, and the resource-based view of the firm. Critiques of over-simplified, heroic or ‘solutionist’ models of social entrepreneurship will be explored.  

This course might use Cadmus for submitting assessments. This platform is currently being evaluated by LSE for AI-resilient assessment. For more information, visit Cadmus Assessment Edit Tracking - Guidance for Students.

There will be ten integrated lecture/seminars of three hours each, delivered across two modules.

A practice coursework assignment.

• Allman, Keith A. and Ximena Escobar De Nogales (2015). Impact Investment: A Practical Guide to Investment Process and Social Impact Analysis. Hoboken, New Jersey
• Bhide, Amar V. (1996).  "The Questions Every Entrepreneur Must Answer". Harvard Business Review November.
• Blank, Steve (2013). "Why Lean Start-Up Changes Everything". Harvard Business Review May
• Locke, C.C. (2021) Making Your Voice Heard: How to own your space, access your inner power, and become influential. London: Endeavour.
• Stevenson, Howard H. and David E. Gumpert (1985).  "The Heart of Entrepreneurship". Harvard Business Review March
• Robert M. Grant (2010).  Contemporary Strategy Analysis. Oxford: Wiley. Part 1 ‘The concept of strategy’
• A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin, (2013). Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works.   Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press

Essay (100%)

Assessment will be through an individual coursework assignment (100%) comprised of 2 essay questions.