26830 Founder at Heart

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Business
Credit points: 3 cp

Subject level:

Postgraduate

Result type: Grade and marks

There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Description

This subject aims to help founders appreciate their entrepreneurial purpose, integrate their profile, build their resilience, and learn about alternative and lesser-known governance models. Founding a venture requires imagination, courage, and strength of character. Founders need to identify their own 'why' and 'how' to cradle their idea so that they build a business that suits their character, team, and market need. With the aim of understanding and developing their own motivation, inner workings and capabilities, candidates learn entrepreneurial and research practices, mindsets, and ethics that inspire creative endeavours in 21st Century complexities. This subject combines purpose, resilience training and systems thinking to help founders find a governance model and not run out of steam.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1.	explain personal resilience and systemic resilience
2.	appraise ethics, attitudes and behaviours underlying founder motivation and purpose
3.	justify decisions using systems thinking and reflective practices
4.	assess alternative business models

Contribution to the development of graduate attributes

The subject develops students’ personal resilience and their understanding of their motivation and purpose as they make decisions about their venture. It is also critical for building students’ ability to view the broader context in which they launch a venture by applying a systems perspective and consider alternative governance models. It prepares students to construct their perspective on value creation through entrepreneurship and sensitizes them to the ethical dimensions and responsibilities of being a founder.

This subject contributes to the development of the following graduate attributes:

Cultural Awareness and Social Responsibility

Teaching and learning strategies

The subject is offered in blended learning mode during the short teaching periods of six weeks duration. The teaching and learning approach is a mix of online learning and in-class seminars typically scheduled over three evenings or as weekend seminars. Classes are based on blended and flipped learning approaches: students engage with learning materials (including papers, book extracts, videos, etc.) before attending seminars. Seminars include guided critical discussion of learning materials, group work on contemporary case studies, scenarios, workshops, peer discussions and learning from students own professional experiences. Discussions and application of theory, case studies and best practices are supported by online learning and communication tools and the UTS learning management system.

Students are guided in understanding entrepreneurial resilience, reflective practice, and systems thinking and devising strategies towards desired outcomes as they relate to their startup.

A formative assessment provides students with feedback to direct their self-study. Ongoing general and individual feedback will be provided throughout the subject via consultation seminars. A summative assessment provides feedback on students' comprehension and application of learning. Students also receive formal feedback on assessment tasks.

Students engage with a broad range of material, including relevant chapters in recommended books, videos, slide decks, practitioner literature, news articles, academic journal articles and online content. Each learning module contains a list of readings and background material provided in advance on UTS Canvas. Students are expected to review and engage with materials before attending the relevant class to stimulate in-class discussion and to explore how the content affects their startup enterprise.

Content (topics)

Systemic Resilience
Values, Behaviour and Ethics (Purpose)
Relating
Conscious Entrepreneurship

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Presentation (Group)*

Objective(s):	This addresses subject learning objective(s): 1 and 2
Weight:	25%
Length:	The Presentation is no longer than 10 mins with a further 10 mins for questions.
Criteria:	Applies systems thinking in relation to entrepreneurial motivation, ethics and behaviour. Demonstrates critical thinking on how systemic resilience challenges entrepreneurial ethics. Offers a perspective on the possibilities of systemically resilient entrepreneurship. Is logically structured, presented well with clearly outlined insights and conclusions *Note: Late submission of the assessment task will not be marked and awarded a mark of zero.

Assessment task 2: Learning Journal (Individual)

Objective(s):	This addresses subject learning objective(s): 1, 2 and 3
Weight:	40%
Length:	Evidenced journal entries are 200 words each (800 words total).
Criteria:	Reflects on student’s personal purpose (‘why’) in relation to their venture Investigates values that underlie their venture and assesses these values in relation to systemic resilience

Assessment task 3: Reflective Essay (Individual)

Objective(s):	This addresses subject learning objective(s): 1, 2, 3 and 4
Weight:	35%
Length:	The reflective essay is maximum 2,000 words long.
Criteria:	Explains, applies and critically assesses an alternative business process (‘how’) for the student’s venture Reflects on student’s personal purpose (‘why’) in relation to their venture Investigates values that underlie their venture and assesses these values in relation to systemic resilience Is logically structured, correctly referenced, well written, and offers clearly outlined insights and conclusions

Minimum requirements

Students must achieve at least 50% of the subject’s total marks.

References

By, R.T., 2021. Leadership: In pursuit of purpose. Journal of Change Management, 21(1), pp.30-44.

Damon, W. and Malin, H., 2020. The Development of Purpose. The Oxford Handbook of Moral Development: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, p.110.

Eisenstein, C., 2013. The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible (Vol. 2). North atlantic books.

Greenberg, R. and Bertsch, B. eds., 2021. Cynefin: Weaving Sense-making Into the Fabric of Our World.

Laloux, F., 2014. Reinventing organizations: A guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage in human consciousness. Nelson Parker.

Raworth, K., 2017. Doughnut economics: seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist. Chelsea Green Publishing.

Snowden, Dave (2020). Cynefin - Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World, Cognitive Edge Pte Ltd.

Tate, G. Carolyn, 2017. The Purpose Project: A handbook for bringing meaning to life at work. Carolyn Tate & Co.

Ungar, M., 2018. Systemic resilience. Ecology and Society, 23(4).

Williams, A., Whiteman, G. and Kennedy, S., 2021. Cross-scale systemic resilience: Implications for organization studies. Business & Society, 60(1), pp.95-124.

Yunkaporta, T., 2019. Sand talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world. Text Publishing.