Program and courses Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation BSc

In the first year, we introduce you to the theory and practice of entrepreneurship and business innovation. You will also take courses in marketing, accounting and economics. The course Business Models: Innovation and Experimentation will shape your entrepreneurial mind. The two Theory in Action courses will have you identify opportunities and learn how you can develop innovative product and service concepts.

Semester 1

• Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship
• Mathematics for E&BI 
• Fundamentals of Business Innovation
• Quantitative Methods to Understand Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation
• Entrepreneurship in Action 1: Finding an Unmet Need
• Skills Lab 1
• PASS-TiSEM for E&BI: Mentoring program focused on social cohesion, study success, and personal development

Semester 2

• Accounting for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation
• Entrepreneurial Marketing
• Microeconomics: Markets and Games
• Business Models: Innovation and Experimentation
• Entrepreneurship in Action 2: Developing a Solution
• Skills Lab 2
• PASS-TiSEM for E&BI: Mentoring program focused on social cohesion, study success, and personal development

In the second year, the emphasis shifts to alternative perspectives on and specific contexts for entrepreneurship.

This will allow you to gain an understanding of entrepreneurship in the context of the start-up, existing business, intrapreneurship and sustainable entrepreneurship.

Semester 1

• New Venture Creation and Growth
• Leadership and Ethics
• Creative Problem Solving
• Finance for E&BI
• Entrepreneurship in Action 3: Developing a Business Model
• Skills Lab 3

Semester 2

• Corporate Entrepreneurship
• Social and Environmental Entrepreneurship
• Law for Entrepreneurship & Business Innovation
• Quantitative Methods to Optimize Entrepreneurship & Business Innovation
• Entrepreneurship in Action 4: Developing a Business Plan
• Skills Lab 4

Semester 1

• 30 ECTS International Exchange, OR
• 18 ECTS Minor at TiSEM and two 6ECTS Electives, OR
• 30 ECTS Minor at other Dutch University
• Career Development for E&BI

Semester 2

• Philosophy: Perspectives for Business Innovators and Entrepreneurs
• Specialization course:
  • New Venture Creation and Growth (advanced), OR
  • Corporate Entrepreneurship (advanced), OR
  • Social and Environmental Entrepreneurship (advanced)
• Program Elective:
  • Making Deals: Negotiation for hiring, partnering, sales, and investments, OR
  • Joining the Family Business: Challenges of Stability and Growth, OR
  • Acquiring an Established Business: (leveraged) Buy-ins as opportunity, OR
  • International Entrepreneurship OR
  • Advanced Analytics: Math and Statistics to Research and Practice E&BI OR
• Entrepreneurship in Action 5: Graduation Project
• Career Development for E&BI

The differences between International Business Administration (IBA) and Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (E&BI) are substantial and you should carefully consider what suits you best.

First, the content is different:

• IBA is a general business program that prepares students to operate in (existing) international companies, in either Marketing, Finance, Strategic Management, Accounting or Information & Operations Management. The program covers all major business areas, focuses on international contexts, and contains a fair share of quantitative and research methods courses.
• E&BI has a more focused positioning and provides a solid preparation to start-up and scale-up new business operations. E&BI teaches students the business aspects that they need within innovative and entrepreneurial contexts. For example, the finance course focuses on the specific challenges of financing start- and scale-ups. The program trains skills critical for entrepreneurs and business innovators, such as embracing and driving newness & disruption, and coping with setbacks.

Second, we expect the students to differ:

E&BI students embrace uncertainty and ambiguity. What others would regard as chaotic or disorganized they see as dynamic and inviting. IBA students prefer to operate in a more structured environment where the expectations are clear and boundaries are firm. In general IBA students are more structured and analytical in nature, whereas E&BI students are analytical doers, creative and eager to think out-of-the-box. We expect that graduates of the two programs will later in life also end up working in different professional contexts and/or roles.

We expect that many of the Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation students will aim to start their first (or second?) business during their studies, if shortly upon graduating. The university has for many years provided active start-up support to its students and alumni. It is a key partner of Braventure, the incubation program of North-Brabant (the region in which Tilburg is located). 

We expect that many of our students will experience the program to incubate entrepreneurs and ventures. Some of these ventures may grow out of course assignments. You may experience how valuable the network with Dutch entrepreneurs, investors and specialist advisors that you develop during the program will be to your future entrepreneuring. In addition, Tilburg University's IQONIC program offers you a variety of opportunities to further develop your entrepreneurial mindset.

For those that will be already scaling-up their business during the program the university can assign you a talent-status to assist you having a dual-career during your studies. That will allow you to combine being an entrepreneur with being a successful student.

That depends: some will be able to do both at the same time. However, we expect that most will first focus on graduation before committing to doing their first serious start-up. If you would run a small enterprise as a side-kick (for example by providing private tutoring to high school students), then you might very well be able to combine that with your studies.

If you do very well in the first semester, then perhaps you may be more capable to combine your studies with a serious start-up project. However, you will then have to be willing to compromise how you will spend your time as both the Bachelor’s program and a start-up will indeed require substantial effort.

But we have seen many others successfully combining a degree program with starting up a business that they continued to grow after graduating. It can be done, but not by everyone. Obviously your first priority should be to obtain your Binding Study Advise (BSA) as you otherwise would not be able to continue with your studies.

No, we do not believe that the best way to prepare for a career in entrepreneurship and business innovation is to start your first business while being an undergraduate student. Many of our graduates will prefer to first gain some industry experience before venturing of themselves. Others would dram to join a large firm to drive future development as a business innovator or internal entrepreneur.

Throughout the program you will learn that one can be entrepreneurial in many different forms and flavors. Some will end up becoming an entrepreneur by acquiring a company in their thirties after having worked for an employer for several years. Obviously, we will not block you from graduating while (co-)owning a business but we do not expect all our students to aspire to do so.

Different routes

One of the beauties of the Bachelor's-Master's structure of higher education is that your initial degree does not block you from shifting perspectives. Some will start with a Bachelor's program in Business Administration and then realize that entrepreneurship is their passion and then decide to do a Master in Entrepreneurship. Others may start in Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (E&BI) and then decide that they want to become a marketing expert and therefore opt for a Master in Marketing.

Irrespective of how you choose your programs, you should also bear in mind that employers often are keen on hiring talents, not necessarily on hiring graduates that already believe to be a specialist. Hence, also in your future career you will be able to change course. You might even end up becoming and Human Resource Manager. 

Job prospects

Upon graduating from the E&BI program you could decide to already enter the labor market. Some large Dutch employers are hesitant to hire university graduates with only a Bachelor’s degree, they would expect you to first also complete a Master’s program. Others, especially the more entrepreneurial scale-ups will recognize your added value. They would expect you to be more proactive and self-driven than the usual recruit. You can help an entrepreneur or entrepreneurial company to scale. For example by working on product or service development, assisting in new market entry, being a product manager, or by driving B2B sales.

We guarantee that your will learn about such job prospects while interacting with entrepreneurs, business innovators and other business representatives during the program.

It is understandable that you want to know if your educators know enough about entrepreneurial and innovating practice to teach you valuable skills and knowledge. Yet, as a program taught at a research university we hope you will agree with us that although you probably will refuse to take flying lessons with someone who has never piloted a plane herself, you might as well be wary to be explained how a glider plane is able to fly by someone who has been able to not crash the plane during the few times that he has piloted a plane.

The first relates to learning by doing under the guidance of a master (as was common in the Medieval guilds in Europe), the second relates to learning before or while doing from someone who understands the relevant theories (which obviously are derived from carefully studying what business innovators and entrepreneurs do in practice).

As much as the aerodynamics required to explain why gliders planes can fly is applied physics, theoretical insights from sociology, psychology and economics can help you to explain (and therefore understand) what one can do to increase the odds of success (and minimize the costs of failing) when engaging in business innovation or entrepreneurship. That explains why all your instructors have been trained as academic researchers, and why some have experience in doing business innovation and entrepreneurship.

Luckily, we will draw on a large pool of alumni-entrepreneurs and alumni-innovators to ensure you will meet enough with actual flying hours . . .

No, under Dutch law, employers are entitled to claim ownership of inventions and other forms of intellectual capital created by employees. However, as a student you are not an employee. Tilburg University will also not force you to sign a legally binding contract in which you hand over the ownership of your intellectual property to the university. Imposing the signing of such a contract would probably thwart entrepreneurial and innovative endeavors.

However, if you would decide to start a business on an idea co-created with fellow students during (or outside) a course you would obviously have to agree on a proper settling of claims on intellectual property. Such could also be an issue when working with a company on possible growth options for that company. In such case we expect that the companies will have you agree that it would be fair and reasonable to hand over those ideas to that company. That is one of the reasons why we also include a course on the legal issues of business innovation and entrepreneurship in the Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation program.

Tilburg University prides itself to be one of the best research institutes in economics and management. We aim to ensure that what we teach is academically sound and practically relevant. We want you to become a critical consumer of tools, models and theories. You are able to debunk myths, recognize fads, and know that what may have worked for a few may not work for others. If someone tells you how something should be done, you want to know why that would be the best way to act. You want to do AND reflect.

Some may discover that they like this so much that they would actually like to (learn to ) develop to our collective academical understanding of business innovation and entrepreneurship. A famous saying amongst social scientists is that there is nothing as practical as good theory. That is why you will iterate between both worlds in basically each and every course of the Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation program. Also because one of the best ways to learn theory is to reflect on practice, for example through experiential learning and case learning.

You should expect to spend about 20 hours a week in class. You should expect to spend another 20 hours on class preparation, course assignments and other program related activities. The program was not designed to require a part-time commitment. To fully immerse in studying and preparing for business innovation and entrepreneurship  you need to commit about 40 hours a week to the program. Of course there will be quite some flexibility on where and when you want to do the out-of-class learning.

At Tilburg University, you will usually attend lectures with all other students, whereas tutorials are commonly with 60-100 other students. A lot of the learning will be project-based. Project teams are small: they consist of just a few people. Hence, irrespective how many others may enroll, the learning environment will remain to be (relatively) small-scale.

We are keenly aware that entrepreneurs and business can only thrive when they can do business across border. Not only within Europe (that would not surprise you knowing that the Netherlands has the population of a big city) but across the globe. Many of the Entrepreneuship and Business Innovation students come from abroad.

We provide the exchange window to get some (more) first-hand experience as a global citizen. We have partnerships with about 300 universities, each of them resembling Tilburg’s ambition to root its education in outstanding research. Selection for an exchange slot will be competitive and merit based. Some locations are in high demand (think of the US), others attract the more adventurous. We hope you will try to go where you can deepen or broaden your competences.