Admission to the program is highly competitive. It is based on an applicant's past graduate school record, scores on the graduate management admissions test (GMAT), a personal statement and letters of recommendations. Applicants are only admitted on even years in the Fall semester.

No specific graduate or undergraduate major is required. However, applicants are generally admitted provisionally until they have successfully completed coursework equivalent to the functional areas taught in UofL’s M.B.A. programs--either the Integrative MBA Program or the Professional MBA program. Questions about prerequisites should be directed to the program director. In addition, students without the required functional courses will be at a competitive disadvantage in the admission process. This is a full-time program, requiring year-round study and a 20 hour/week paid research assistantship. Typically, students can finish their course work in two years and the program in four years, subject to progress on a dissertation. Students generally take 19 courses consisting of seminars and directed readings and/or research. A student's curriculum choices are supervised and approved by an advisory committee.

All required courses are offered on a rotating basis in the Fall, Spring and Summer semesters, along with a variety of elective courses.

The following are the curriculum requirements for the Entrepreneurship Ph.D. Because the state of the knowledge in the field changes, both the content and sequencing of these course requirements may change in order to address topics of current interest. Applicants should contact the Program director, Dr. James O. Fiet, for the most current requirements.

Year 1 --Summer

Entrepreneurship 725: Linear Statistics

This is an accelerated bootcamp, taught to review linear statistical models, the distribution of quadratic forms, estimation and hypothesis testing in the general linear model, including special linear models and their applications. The prerequisites for this course are admission into the entrepreneurship PhD program. Students take this course as program prerequisite but do not receive specific credit for doing so.

Entrepreneurship 761: Research Design

This seminar is designed to teach students the fundamentals of research in the social sciences. It is intended for entrepreneurship doctoral students who will conduct empirical research publishable in scholarly journals. Topics include the philosophy of science, theory building, causality analysis, overviews of statistical methods, qualitative methods and psychometric theory.

Entrepreneurship 726: Advanced Multivariate Techniques

This seminar covers all multivariate techniques in common usage, including cluster analysis, factor analysis, discriminant analysis, and covariance structure modeling.

Entrepreneurship 720: Economic Foundations in Research in Entrepreneurship

This seminar includes the development of economic thought related to entrepreneurship, ranging from historical figures in economic theory such as Cantillon and Ricardo to contemporary schools of thought on entrepreneurship, including the Austrian perspective. In-depth analyses of pricing strategies, market structures, dynamic vs. static analysis, regulatory issues, and examples of applications of economics in research in entrepreneurship are presented. Other topics may include real options theory, rational expectations, the economics of information, econometrics, transfer pricing, transaction cost economics, and agency theory.

Entrepreneurship 733: Psychological Foundations of Entrepreneurship

This seminar provides students with discipline-based foundations of theory and research. Specifically, this seminar explores psychological perspectives on entrepreneurship with an emphasis on the latest research findings. Topics include the social context of individual behavior, motivation and job satisfaction.

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Entrepreneurship 730: Entrepreneurship from a Strategic Perspective

This seminar examines the entrepreneur in a industrial context, which provides insight into such issues, as performance, survival, competitive advantage, the role of a venture’s resources, and positioning of the business plan.

Entrepreneurship 700: Current Topics in Entrepreneurship Research

This seminar introduces students to the most influential, recent research findings that are guiding current thinking. It is more than a survey course; it is a critical review that can provide a foundation for future research by students.

Entrepreneurship 710: Sociological Foundations of Entrepreneurship

This seminar emphasizes group influences on the appearance, growth and diminution of entrepreneurial activities. In addition, it treats the organizational and social context of firm formations, as well societal, population, and industrial and organizational selection processes.

Entrepreneurship 727: Statistical Problems in Entrepreneurship Research

This seminar addresses problems such as endogeneity, survivor bias, self-selection, restricted degrees of freedom, truncated data sets, common method variance and non-continuous data. Students will implement solutions to these problems and review literature about how to address them.

A student's advisory committee must approve all electives required for the satisfaction of program requirements. Any electives that support a student's research objectives may be considered. To maintain maximum flexibility, no list of potential electives has been developed, and as a result, prior permissions to enroll in them have not been obtained. It is a student's responsibility in consultation with his or her committee to select the most appropriate electives.

Entrepreneurship 750: Issues and Developments in the Quantitative Approach to Entrepreneurship Research

Research using large data bases and panel studies. Includes survey design and cleaning data sets, as well as appropriate statistical analysis techniques.

Entrepreneurship 770: Directed Readings

This seminar provides students with an opportunity to focus on research topics of particular interest to them while at the same time requiring them to synthesize and extend what is known about a particular research topic.

Entrepreneurship 740: Entrepreneurship from an Organizational Behavior Perspective

This seminar deals with the behavioral challenges confronting new and growing businesses such as incentive alignment, motivation, recruiting, decision making and team structure.

Entrepreneurship 745: Measurement and Structural Equation Modeling

This seminar is an advanced treatment of test theory, measurement and structural equation modeling

Entrepreneurship 753: Venture Capital

This seminar addresses the functioning and operation of venture capital firms and venture capital markets, together with their relationships with the users of funding, typically the founders of high-growth potential new ventures. It also examines the market for business angles and their unique contribution to the founding of new ventures. The emphasis of this seminar is on the development of testing of theory to understand venture capital processes.

Entrepreneurship 771: Directed Readings

This individualized course may treat topics such as the following in detail: classical origins of entrepreneurial thought and analysis; informational economics or entrepreneurial competence. Topics are designed to reinforce a student’s research interests.

Entrepreneurship 785: Entrepreneurship Pedagogy and Practicum

The seminar treats topics such as course design, rubrics, evaluation, teaching technique and auditing and assisting in teaching assigned courses.

Entrepreneurship 786: Integrative Seminar of Entrepreneurship

This seminar assists students to develop and defend their own mental models about competing views in the field of entrepreneurship research. It also serves a vehicle for reviewing for the preliminary examinations prior to admission to candidacy.

An Elective

Second year paper prior to preliminary examination

Preliminary Examinations

Dissertation Proposal

Electives

A student's program will typically consist of at least 54 credit hours of seminar work and study beyond the master degree. A student's committee, based on a student's research objectives, will determine the exact total. Prerequisites required to enroll in designated seminars will likely increase this total to 64 credit hours.

Dissertation

Dissertation

Professor
Brown-Forman Chair in Entrepreneurship
Program Director

Associate Professor

Associate Professor

Professor
Chair, Ph.D. Program Committee

Associate Professor

Richard Germain

Professor

Professor
Dean Emeritus

Term Appointments:

Professor

Professor

Professor

Professor

Professor