Master's Degree Programme in Entrepreneurship Programme description

The master’s degree programme in entrepreneurship is a two-year extension of a three-year bachelor's degree programme. The programme is an interdisciplinary full-time programme of study taught in English and Norwegian, where the student acquires the knowledge, skills and general competence required for entrepreneurial activities at both a practical and a theoretical level. After completing the programme, students are awarded a master’s degree in entrepreneurship and qualify for admission to relevant PhD programmes.

The master's programme is designed as a Value Creation Programme where students learn through creating new value for others. This value can be financial, cultural or social, and is anchored in a broad definition of entrepreneurship that includes intrapreneurship (creating value internally in companies or the public sector) and social entrepreneurship (focusing on creating social value in NGOs/non-profits, organisations and ventures) as well as traditional entrepreneurial activities (starting a commercial venture). Therefore the pedagogical approach of this programme differs from traditional master's level programmes in its strong emphasis on insight into entrepreneurial processes achieved through practical experience.

Students completing this programme will acquire entrepreneurial competence that will enable them to start their own ventures as well as finding employment as change agents within private and/or public enterprises or NGOs. Entrepreneurial competence enables students to act upon opportunities and ideas to create value for others. Entrepreneurial skills enable students to act and adapt when exposed to situations with a high degree of uncertainty. Entrepreneurial abilities such as creativity, leadership, communication, critical thinking and flexibility are often termed 21st century competencies, and these competencies have been identified as crucial to succeed in future work life.

The programme aims to attract highly motivated and capable students who seek a combination of practical and theoretical entrepreneurship education at master's level. The target group for the programme is students with a capacity to hard work and a desire to create something new and of value for others. Under the close supervision and guidance of faculty and other professionals, the students are challenged theoretically, practically, and personally.

Students should be eager to question the way challenges in society are currently solved. This may include how digitalisation can make the public and private sectors more efficient, how we can reach the UN sustainable development goals or how society should best tackle an aging population. It is important that enrolled students actively seek to challenge themselves and be willing to step outside their comfort zone, create new solutions, and be able to tackle a high degree of uncertainty. Students are not required to have an idea or entrepreneurial experience in advance. However, qualities such as initiative, solution orientation, eagerness to learn and motivation to work hard are emphasised.

Admission to this programme is regulated by Regulations Relating to Admissions to Studies at OsloMet.

Admission requires:

• general entrance requirements for Norwegian higher education, including proficiency in Norwegian (or any other Scandinavian language)
• a bachelor’s degree or equivalent degree
• an average grade of at least C (according to the ECTS grading scale) on your bachelor's degree
• an approved entrance test
• passed entrance interview

Along with the application it is required that candidates submit a completed entrance test where the candidate introduces themselves and answer questions and assignments designed to determine their suitability for the programme and for entrepreneurship. The entrance test will be available on the programme’s web page when the application portal opens.

The entrance test will be assessed by a faculty panel, which will evaluate the candidates’ background and suitability for the programme. Approximately 100 candidates will be invited to an entrance interview. Approximately 35 of these candidates will be selected for the programme. The selection of candidates is based on the entrance test and entrance interview only.

The master programme aims for a diverse group of students with different educational backgrounds. In the case where several qualified applicants have similar educational backgrounds, applicants with different backgrounds may be chosen for admission over those with similar backgrounds.

Single subjects: Entrance test and interview does not apply for admission to single subjects only.

After completing the programme, the candidate should have the following overall learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The candidate has

• thorough knowledge of perspectives and theory related to entrepreneurship
• advanced knowledge about how to identify, analyse and develop value creation ideas and opportunities
• a high level of understanding about how to identify one’s own resources and the resources of others with an aim to inspire entrepreneurial activity
• in-depth knowledge of, and the ability to apply, social science research methodology in an entrepreneurial setting

Skills

The candidate has

• specialised knowledge of how to utilise different entrepreneurial tools to assess and analyse value creation activities
• specialised skills to develop a vision for a value creating activity
• advanced skills related to estimating the cost of turning an idea into a value-creating activity
• in-depth skills in identifying and assessing their individual strengths and weaknesses, particularly in the context of high-pressure teamwork
• broad skills in setting long-, medium- and short-term goals, defining priorities, planning and carrying out tasks, and adapting to unforeseen changes, both individually and as part of a team
• a broad understanding of how to manage ambiguity and uncertainty through value creation and process learning
• advanced skills in communicating and learning together with others, including peers, mentors and external stakeholders
• specialised skills in reflecting on and learning from success and failure

General competence

The candidate is

• capable of analysing ethical challenges related to entrepreneurship, market research and use of data
• able to gather, utilise and assess the relevance of academic and popular sources of information
• able to present results and findings from independent and group work, both orally and in writing
• able to communicate and discuss theoretical concepts and problem statements with experts within different academic and industry domains
• able to confidently challenge truths and norms, and continue to question how society is structured

The master’s programme in entrepreneurship is a two-year programme worth 120 ECTS, consisting of four foundational entrepreneurship courses (40 ECTS), a methods course (10 ECTS), a marketing course (10 ECTS), three elective courses (30 ECTS) where the students can pursue domain knowledge related to the development of their idea, and a master´s thesis (30 ECTS).

During the two-year programme, students need to choose three elective courses (30 ECTS). The students are presented with an overview of several existing courses across the four faculties at OsloMet. One of the most common factors that lead entrepreneurs to fail in their venture creation ambitions is the lack of domain knowledge related to their idea/project. OsloMet offers a wide portfolio of courses in disciplines close to their practice fields. Students are strongly encouraged to utilize this opportunity to identify courses that can provide them with important domain knowledge.

All elective courses on the master's programme must be pre-approved by the head of department at Oslo Business School (OsloMet). A maximum of two out of three elective courses on the programme may be at a bachelor's level.

The master's thesis is an independent project that is conducted after the students have completed and passed the foundational and elective courses. The foundational entrepreneurship courses build on each other, meaning that the entrepreneurship courses in semester 3 build on the entrepreneurship courses in semesters 2 and 1. The programme may offer an optional summer exchange programme offering extra credits (30 ECTS).

The four semesters are structured as follows:

Semester 1:

The first semester offers an introduction to entrepreneurship theory and methods. The goal for semester 1 is that students acquire skills in and knowledge about creating and testing solutions for different ideas and societal challenges. The challenges can originate in the student's own idea, based on research or in a private business, public sector organization, NGO or non-profit partner organization. Up to 100 different ideas/challenges are tested in the first semester. The goal in the first semester is to form student teams (of two to five members) that can work on a solution that solves one of the tested ideas/challenges. These solutions can be commercial or non-commercial, within a company, a public sector organization, a NGO or non-profit organisation or can involve the creation of a new venture.

Semester 2

In the second semester students will learn strategic business development and marketing for entrepreneurs. Students can work in newly formed teams and attend courses that supports the development of selected solutions that solves one of the tested ideas/challenges from semester 1. In addition, students are required to take one elective course from the wide range of courses offered at OsloMet.

Summer term (extra credits)

During the summer term between semester 2 and semester 3, students are encouraged to apply and attend one of several international summer school exchange programmes in Boston, San Francisco or Toronto. The summer school is offered in collaboration with the Norwegian School of Entrepreneurship (Gründerskolen) run by the University of Oslo. Participation in the summer school is not compulsory.

Semester 3

In the third semester the students further specialise in the entrepreneurship field as well as have the opportunity to take a wide range of elective courses offered at OsloMet that can provide domain-specific knowledge to their teams for working, developing and implementing their solution in parallel with obtaining expertise in current frontiers of entrepreneurship theory. At the end of the semester the students are expected to launch a pilot and implement the chosen solution together with their team.

Semester 4

In the final semester the students write their master's thesis. The thesis topic can be related either to their solution or to companies, ventures, or projects with which OsloMet has a collaboration partnership, as well as addressing relevant entrepreneurship-theory challenges. The master’s thesis is usually written in groups of two or three students.

Courses consist of lectures, seminars and practical work. In addition, workshops and discussion groups are offered to facilitate and stimulate learning. Written work requirements are intended to develop reflective, argumentative and critical responses to the curriculum and lectures, as well as to acquire writing skills at post-graduate level. Oral presentations and discussions develop discursive skills, whilst specialisation in an area of research promotes scholarly and independent learning. The students will also be required to attend several hackathons or similar seminars or events with external stakeholders.

The teaching method relies on practical training, since there is a consensus among several scholars within entrepreneurship that entrepreneurship education should be based on experiential learning. Moreover, experiential learning enables students to experience what it is like to be an entrepreneur prior to reflecting on theory offered through the foundational entrepreneurship courses in the programme.

Learning process

• Faculty have a close professional relationship with the students and take on a facilitating role.
• Students take action, experiment and iterate through and with real ventures/projects in the value creation process. This gives students a high degree of responsibility for the process of learning by doing.
• Students learn to act first, then reflect, react, readjust and then act again.

Incubation

All students are offered access to incubator programmes. An important function of incubator programmes is to provide a space where students can sit and work on their ventures or projects.

Incubator programme will be in contact with startups to enhance the learning community and to share resources and spaces, and the choice of incubator programmes is based on the students' needs and the nature of their ventures or projects.

Mentorship

Internal and external mentors contribute to the delivery of the programme and serve as support mechanisms for the students and for the programme.

Mentors contribute to the programme in a variety of ways. First, they serve as role models for the students while bringing in up-do-date and relevant experience and second they help develop students’ ventures by providing support, advice and access to networks and mentoring them on pressing issues. Teaching methods

The master’s programme in entrepreneurship at OsloMet combines student-centred and teacher-centred teaching and working methods. There is also an overlap between them, where student-centred methods are also teacher-led.

Teaching methods include:

• Lectures
• Workshops (both faculty and industry)
• Game-based learning
• Inquiry-based learning (where teachers are available for questions)
• Expeditionary learning (out of the building and explore)
• Flipped classroom
• Group/individual mentoring (linked to business)
• Coaching (personalised learning)
• Cases with teacher-led discussions
• Group work and collaboration between students
• Experiments, iterations, prototyping and hypothesis testing
• Participation in real-life seminars and events with external stakeholders, e.g. hackathons
• Guest speakers

OsloMet uses Canvas, a cloud-based learning platform that facilitates student-active forms of work and teaching and serves as the university's channel of communication with its students.

This master's degree programme gives students an understanding of global entrepreneurship and innovation-driven ecosystems and markets. The programme seeks an international orientation along several dimensions. The programme uses international lecturers and guest speakers, and all compulsory reading consist of international articles and books.

Students can choose to write their master´s thesis abroad in conjunction with one of the exchange programmes offered to all master students at OsloMet, or be connected to one of OsloMet’s partnering universities around the world.

Students can also join current ongoing research projects (for example within the European Project Semester (EPS) or other within internationally financed research projects or in collboration with Centre for Welfare and Labour Research).

Students can also apply to the Norwegian School of Entrepreneurship (Gründerskolen) summer school managed by the University of Oslo. Students can travel to Boston, Toronto or San Francisco.

Students are expected to attend and participate in classes and learning activities. Practical experience from compulsory learning activities and classroom discussions are important for student learning. Coursework requirements are compulsory. Assignments that are not handed in on time or that are found unsatisfactory will disqualify students from sitting the final examination. All specific coursework requirements are outlined in the course descriptions. The coursework requirements help support the learning outcomes by training students in performing the tasks and ensuring that students acquire skills and knowledge that are not tested during the exam itself.

The students' rights and obligations are set out in Regulations relating to studies and examinations at OsloMet. The regulations describe conditions for resitting/rescheduling exams, the right to appeal, and definitions of cheating in exams, etc. Students are responsible for registering for any resits or rescheduled exams. Students are responsible for familiarising themselves with these rules and regulations.

The forms of assessment vary and are outlined in the course descriptions. They apply to term papers, portfolios, process papers, essays and presentation. The master's thesis is an independent piece of work related to a topic of the student’s choice.

Exam papers are assessed by one internal and one external examiner. The master's thesis is assessed by one internal and one external examiner. The assessment is outlined in the respective course descriptions. A grading scale from A to F will normally be used in assessments. Pass grades range from A to E, while F is a fail. Students have the right to appeal against a grade, whereupon examinations are re-evaluated by two new examiners (one internal and one external). Students are advised that an appeal may result in a grade lower than the grade originally awarded.