BHS0011 Business and the Entrepreneur

This is a two part written assignment where:
Part One has four compulsory short questions related to the case study:
MAST BROTHERS CHOCOLATE VENTURE IN SHOREDITCH, UK.
Word count for answer: 1000 maximum
All parts carry equal marks
Part Two asks you to write an essay on ONE topic chosen from the eleven
offered.
Word count 2000 words maximum.
Please do not use Mast Brothers in your answer
PART ONE: Please answer all four parts, each part carries equal marks.
Guide word length 1000 words.
CASE STUDY: MAST BROTHERS CHOCOLATE VENTURE IN SHOREDITCH, UK.
This case study is attached at the end.
Question 1
a) Draw up a strengths / weaknesses / opportunities / threats (SWOT) for the Mast
Brothers at the time they made the decision to locate in Shoreditch, London.
Please limit your response to the most important FOUR in each category and list
your responses in order of importance. Separately to the diagram add a short
sentence explaining why you chose each response.
b) How entrepreneurial are the Mast Brothers?
How entrepreneurial was their Shoreditch business?
Please support your response by reference to a simple framework and/or
appropriate theory.
c) You have been asked to talk to a group of young entrepreneurs about the
usefulness of a Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas.
Draw a strategy canvas using Mast Brothers chocolate as the example.
Offer some brief commentary on why you chose each of the ‘key competing
features’ on the horizontal axis. Does it show that there is a clear blue ocean for
them?
d) What were the advantages to the Mast Brothers of locating in this developing high
tech and ‘up and coming’ retail cluster?
Page 3 of 17
PART TWO: Please answer ONE Question as an essay
Guide word length 2000 words
Please do NOT USE material from the Mast Brothers Case Study in your answer from this
section.
Your essay should conform to the normal requirements for such work, should not exceed
2000 words and be properly referenced. References, data tables, diagrams, charts, and
reasonably short and appropriate quoted text in “ “ are excluded from this word limit.
Better essays would, of course, do much more than just repeat my lecture material.
Topic One
Are entrepreneurs born or made? Discuss and support your answer with appropriate
reference to theory and practice.
Topic Two
What is your understanding of the process of opportunity recognition? If you were asked to
talk to a class of students at a local University (who were not majoring in business) about
opportunity recognition, and, to then provide four pieces of advice to increase their ability to
recognise opportunity; what would these be, and, why?
Topic Three
What is a business model? Discuss the importance of business models to understanding
how entrepreneurs behave. Offer appropriate examples to illustrate your arguments.
Topic Four
You are asked to a local small business club to talk about the theory and practice of Blue
Ocean Strategy, and in particular how it can create lasting competitive advantage. You are
determined to balance out the necessary theory and tools with several real life examples.
What would you chose to say and what examples would you use to gain and keep their
interest?
Topic Five
What do you have to say about the advantages of personal contact networks and what
advice would you offer to entrepreneurs to help them enter into a personal contact
network and to exploit the benefits from personal contact networks.
Page 4 of 17
Topic Six
Hong Kong tourism has had a tough few months – firstly, the on-street protests and then
coronavirus. They realise that one of their tourist attractions is art and culture. They usually
host the international Art Basel show each year alongside another art show: Art Centralthat takes advantage of art minded visitors and locals. However both have been cancelled
due to the coronavirus. But they still have a strong local art and culture sector. Discuss how
they can develop appropriate clusters to strengthen their cultural attractiveness for the
future.
(Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged
annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach, Florida; and Hong Kong, selling the works
of established and emerging artists).
Topic Seven
Has the intrapreneurship literature anything constructive and useful to contribute to our
understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour by large organisations? Please support your
answer with practical examples.
Topic Eight
You are asked to address a group of final year undergraduate art and design students at a
local university who are considering setting up their own businesses. They are interested in
what you could say to them about appropriate competencies. Provide a concise brief
explaining the importance of competencies and how they can be developed. Also if you
were asked to nominate the ‘top three’ out of those appropriate competencies that you
have chosen to share, what would they be and why? [by ’brief’ I am simply inviting you
to structure this as a report rather than using a traditional essay format].
Topic Nine
From your practical and theoretical understanding of franchising what makes a good
entrepreneurial franchising relationship?
Topic Ten
Using appropriate theory and examples, evaluate whether the advantages of operating
within a family business structure outweigh the disadvantages. What advice would you
offer to a young entrepreneur trying to decide between joining the family business or
striking out on their own?
Topic Eleven
What do we understand about how small businesses grow and what general policy lessons
could be drawn from that understanding?

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