Individual Essay (100% of the total mark)

You are expected to write an Essay of no more than 2,000 words on the following topic.
You can take necessary assumptions to answer the question.

All submissions must be presented in typescript (MS Word format), 12pt, 1.5 line
spacing.

Block chain technology, machine learning, and the emergence of quantum computing have
created many challenges towards traditional entrepreneurship. In addition, pandemic, Ukraine
war, geo-politics, and climate change have made sustainability and growth of a business ever
complex. Considering the above entrepreneurial environmental context, being a graduate
entrepreneur, whether you will follow traditional entrepreneurship or lean start-up process for
keeping business growth as the key objective of your business.

Your answer should focus following issues:
i. Provide a critical discussion on Traditional entrepreneurship and Lean Start-up
process based on the design thinking. You should clearly distinguish both start-up
processes and give your preference in the context mentioned above. (40% weight).
ii. Explain your Business Model development and link it with the start-up process you
follow (30% weight).
iii. Envisage the growth of your business based on the position you explained in
requirement ii. Critically explain the business growth following a growth model
(30% weight).

You can use real life data and take necessary assumptions to develop and support your
arguments. You should critically discuss your own ideas/opinion on the topic by reflecting on
the related module materials, discussion in the class room, and on the context provided here.

An Indicative Guide to Essay Writing
• The Purpose of the Essay
Essays allow us to judge your understanding of course material covered. The essay is designed
to evaluate your ability to understand, analyse, organise, and communicate. It constitutes,
therefore, a key element of the learning process.

• Writing an Essay
In writing essays it is important that you develop good habits. We do not want to unduly
influence your writing style but good habits are likely to be developed if your essay adheres to
the following broad guidelines.
1. Use the introductory paragraph(s) to indicate you have correctly identified the main
theme(s), and briefly outline how you intend to tackle the question.
2. Use later paragraphs to deal systematically with all the relevant points.
3. Use a new paragraph for each new aspect of the question and, to ensure continuity of the
argument, provide some meaningful link between each paragraph. Always make sure that
you explain and define any technical terms. Diagrams can be a useful way to get across
your points concisely and precisely. Make sure that diagrams are integrated into the essay
discussion. Also, ensure that they are properly labelled with each diagram having a title
and/or number and appropriately cited (i.e., refer to the relevant page numbers of the
textbook or the lecture notes from which they are taken, if relevant).
4. Tables can help summarise important factual information and should be integrated into the
essay discussion. In addition, ensure that they are properly labelled and/or numbered, and
appropriately cited.
5. Include a concluding paragraph that summarises your argument(s). You may also include
some comments as to the limitations of the principles, concepts or techniques utilised in
answering the question, and any practical problems facing potential policy
recommendations made.
6. The concluding paragraph also provides scope for you to check that everything included
in the main part of the essay is relevant to your conclusions. If it is not contributing, why
include it in the essay? Remember that essay questions will not be of the following kind:
“write all you know about ….”.
7. Get into the habit of reading your coursework essay thoroughly before submitting it.
Essays riddled with errors are not looked upon favourably by markers. Check and remove
all typos and redraft parts that do not read quite as well as intended.

8. Close the loop. Re-read your coursework when you get your written feedback from your
tutor. If you are disappointed with your mark, the comments should help you diagnose
where you went wrong and how you can improve. If you are surprised and delighted by
your mark (and we hope that this will be the case) there is still scope for learning and
improving so that you can be surprised and delighted next time too.

• Broad Structure
A standard way to think about the planning of the structure for an essay is based on four main
sections. This, of course, is a general description, but can be helpful in organising the context.
Hence, the inclusion of the following sections can be a good starting point:
1. An introduction, which should be clearly denoted by a sub-heading. The introduction has
two purposes. First, to tell the reader briefly about the topic and why it is important. Second,
to define up-front any key terms used and guiding the reader about your position in the
essay.
2. A background section detailing the background of the company context related to the
question, how others in the field (experts) have considered related issues and set the broad
context of how you tackle the question. If you think you are contributing something new in
the existing literature, this is where you describe in brief where your contributions lie.
3. A main section that shows how you have approached the question, what your findings are
and what inferences have you drawn, which can answer the question above. This is the most
detailed section of your essay and carries the most weight.
4. A conclusion which should briefly summarise your key findings and identify any of the
limitations of your essay (perhaps by reference back to how others have dealt with such
topics) and how these may be overcome in more advanced literature.
• Evidence and References
In general you should give necessary references to the sources for:
a) Assertions of fact that cannot be presumed to be common knowledge.
b) Direct quotations or paraphrases of other writers’ statements.
c) Opinions and generalisations derived from other writers.
d) Borrowed tables and diagrams (for which the source is usually given underneath the table
or diagram).
• Footnotes and Endnotes
You can use either footnotes or endnotes in your essay. Regardless of which you use, be
consistent throughout your essay. Remember that footnotes or endnotes are subject to the
overall word limit and, as a general rule, should be used sparingly.
• The Bibliography
It is essential that you include in your essay proper citations to all academic works or other
source materials used in support of your argument(s). Having an inappropriate bibliography
can result in the deduction of marks. As a general point, do not cite for the sake of citing, but
to give emphasis to, or provide evidence for, a particular point or argument. Each citation,

irrespective of source, nature, length or importance, must be fully acknowledged using an
accepted convention for doing so. The Harvard system is extensively used in economics for
this purpose. This method relies on a short citation in brackets in the text, which the reader can
then check against a bibliographic entry at the back of the essay. This method always requires
a bibliography, which should be listed alphabetically and consist of the author’s surname,
initials, the year of publication, and, where relevant, the publisher’s name. Any book title should
be in italics and any journal title should be underlined.
❖ For example, if you wish to refer to specific pages in the textbook, you would write in the
text “…..(Griffiths & Wall, 2011, p. 93-94)..” and in the accompanying bibliography, you
would write the following with author, year of publication, book title, edition other than
first, publisher and place of publication:
For example:
Griffiths, Alan and Stuart Wall, 2011. Economics for Business & Management. 3rd Edition.
Pearson Education Limited, UK.
❖ If you are referring to an article that has been published in a journal, reference like this:
Author, year of publication, title of article, title of journal, volume number, page numbers.
For example:
Cutler, Douglas and Ed Glaeser, 1997. “Are Ghettos Good or Bad?”. Quarterly Journal of
Economics. Vol. 112, No. 3, pp. 827-72.
❖ If you are referring to an article published only on a web site, you should reference like
this: Author, year of publication (if known), Title of article, Name of Web Site, URL of
the web site, date that you accessed this web site.
For example:
Redperson, Zoltan, 2001. “An introduction to Mousemats”. Society of Computing
Apparel. Available from: http://www.socomapl.com/ [Accessed on 23rd October 1999].
• The Quality of the Written English
A poorly written essay cannot be commented on in a worthwhile manner. It is important to
ensure that the quality of the written English used in your essay is to a high standard and
contains correct spelling and grammar usage. Essays that are deficient in this sense may be
graded down so always carefully re-read your essay before submission.
• Marking the Essay
In evaluating and grading the essay, your tutor will be looking to see if your essay contains a
number of important elements. These include:
– The essay’s overall structure and the logic of the argument(s) presented.
– The clarity and quality of the overall argument(s) presented.
– The manner in which written and data evidence are presented, used and evaluated (i.e., are
the cited sources understood, are they appropriate for the purpose at hand, are they treated
in a sufficiently critical manner, are the conclusions reached by the author consistent with
the evidence presented?).
The tutor will also ask the following questions:
– Is the essay sufficiently analytical?
– Is the essay focused or does it contain irrelevant material?
– Does the essay show a sound grasp and knowledge of the issue(s)?
– Does the essay show any evidence of originality?
– Is a general conclusion, that is justifiable, reached at the end?

Academic Offences
A note on plagiarism – Plagiarism is a serious matter. Please make sure that you are aware
of the University regulations on academic cheating and plagiarism. If you want to reproduce a
quotation from a text or article please make absolutely sure that you have clearly attributed the
work. All assignments on this course are checked using the Turnitin plagiarism software.
The definition of Plagiarism is “the use, without adequate acknowledgement, of the
intellectual work of another person in work submitted for assessment. A student cannot be
found to have committed plagiarism where it can be shown that the student has taken all
reasonable care to avoid representing the work of others as his own”.
One of the most serious of all academic offences is to make it seem that the work of others is
your own. This, and any other form of academic offence, is taken very seriously by the
University and the penalties are severe. For example, this can mean receiving a mark of zero
for a piece of work, or in certain circumstances being required to withdraw from the University.
In the case of many Masters degrees, the rules of assessment are such that a mark of zero on a
single assignment means that you will fail the degree. Therefore it is not in your interest to
cheat in any of your submitted work or in any test or in any examination.

Students are required to reference their sources properly, and failure to do so can lead to a
charge of an academic offence. When submitting any piece of work (e.g. essay, report,
dissertation, or thesis) you will be required to acknowledge any assistance received or any use
of the work of others.

What do we mean by an academic offence in examinations and coursework? An academic
offence in examinations includes copying the work of another student or communicating with
another student in an examination; and introducing any written, printed or electronically stored
information into an examination, other than material expressly permitted in the instructions for
that examination.

An academic offence in coursework includes using the work of others (whether written, printed
or some other form) without acknowledgement, whether this has been the result of serious
negligence or of intention to deceive. It is therefore very important that you learn how to
reference your work properly, and that you familiarise yourself with your departmental
guidelines on referencing. If, after having read the guidelines, you are still unclear about
referencing, you must talk to your tutor before you submit your assignment. Ignorance of the

regulations will not be accepted as a defence against a charge of an academic offence or serious
negligence in referencing.

You may also be accused of an academic offence if you repeat work previously submitted for
an assessed assignment without full acknowledgement of the extent to which that previous
work has been used; in other words, if you hand in the same or a very similar essay to one that
you have already submitted.

You should note that it is also an offence for a student knowingly to assist another student to
commit an academic offence, whether in an examination, or in any other piece of work.
Sometimes students who have been working together end up submitting almost identical work
and are accused of an academic offence. While we do not want to dissuade you from working
with or discussing your work with another student, you must be careful that you do not
collaborate too closely, and it would be wise to seek advice from your tutors on the limits of
collaboration before you submit your work.

You need to be aware that if you repeat a period of study (for example because you are given
permission to intermit before the relevant intermission deadline, or you are required by an exam
board to repeat the year), a penalty of zero for an academic offence will be carried forward
onto your marks grid for the repeat period of study. Students are not permitted to expunge
(wipe out) penalties when repeating a period of study.

Details of the University’s Regulations relating to these and other academic offences and the
procedure for dealing with allegations of academic offences are published in the University
Regulations, Policies and Procedures booklet and can be found on the University web site at
http://www.essex.ac.uk/academic/docs/regs/offpro.shtm. Further guidance on how you can
avoid plagiarism is also available online at www.essex.ac.uk/plagiarism and includes
definitions of plagiarism, an online test and some common mistakes.

Please refer to the postgraduate student handbook for additional information.
Please ensure that you work hard throughout this module, attend every session, undertake all
the required reading, and complete your coursework on time. I wish you the best of luck with
your work and hope you find the module interesting and rewarding!