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George Mason University offers a wide range of courses of interest to students studying social entrepreneurship. These courses are at the undergraduate and graduate levels and often attract students from diverse academic backgrounds, ranging from business to public policy to nonprofit studies to technology and science degrees. For more information, including when courses are offered, see the Mason course catalog.
CHSS 310 Introduction to Entrepreneurship
Credits: 1
Introduces students to the intellectual underpinnings of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial leadership, social innovation, intrapreneurship, and social enterprise development. Students shape a entrepreneurial learning plan for their own professional development in line with their career aspirations.
PUAD 658 - Social Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Enterprise
Credits: 3
Explores innovative approaches for addressing social problems. Organized around the steps in the entrepreneurial process: identifying social needs, formulating program strategies, mobilizing resources, managing growth tracking results, and maximizing impact.
PUBP 761 - Social Entrepreneurship and Public Policy
Credits: 3
This course is about people who start new ventures with the explicit objective of creating social as well as private value. As societies and the challenges they face become ever more complex, existing institutions and incentive structures may or may not be adequate to address new generations of problems. Social entrepreneurs innovate new organizational forms with the objective of finding solutions in the public interest. Students in this course will be challenged to integrate elements of business strategy and policy analysis towing the objective of crafting a practical plan for the launch of a novel and needed social venture.
MSOM 304 - Entrepreneurship: Starting and Managing a New Enterprise
Credits: 3
Explores behaviors required to successfully launch a new business, tools to identify and evaluate opportunities, and the issues critical to a new firm. Issues include organizational structure, effective marketing strategy, operational logistics, legal issues, financial projections, financing options, and available support structures.
ICP 769 - International Entrepreneurship
Credits: 3
Introduces practical planning approach for small and medium-size entrepreneurial firms seeking to enter international marketplace. Focuses on key business and financial documents related to doing business overseas; and assesses role of language, technology, and information systems in formulating successful business strategy. Role playing and simulated negotiations provide opportunities for students to sharpen business skills.
EVPP 480 - Sustainability in Action
Credits: 4
In the wake of global concerns about environmental change, the issue of attaining sustainability has become internationally important. To attain sustainability requires action at environmental, social, and economic levels. To provide students with valuable and tangible experience in practical aspects of realizing sustainability goals and to transfer theory into practice, this course allows students to engage in real-world, sustainability-related projects that provide benefits for a target community. Working in interdisciplinary teams, students will identify and attempt to solve a sustainability-related problem or address a sustainability-related need in a specific target community. Priority will be given to sustainability projects on the Mason campus or the local community. However, options for other relevant projects will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
EMBA 674 - The Contemporary Ethical and Social Environment of Business
Credits: 1 to 3
Designed to strengthen the ability to identify, critically analyze, appropriately respond to, and provide leadership regarding the issues of ethical and socially responsible behavior you may confront as an executive in charge of people, projects, and organizations.
GOVT 358 - Nonprofit Financial Planning
Credits: 4
Provides understanding of social mission and entrepreneurial cross pressures underlying financial planning and accounting in nonprofit sector. Topics include revenue sources and projections, entrepreneurial techniques, and cost analysis for nonprofit and nongovernmental entities. Lectures, student case studies.
MGMT 451 - New Venture Creation
Credits: 3
Explains process of conceptualizing and creating new venture. Using central concepts of innovation, strategic opportunities, and globalization, students learn to evaluate new venture opportunities and consider external environment’s impact. Students gain greater understanding of entrepreneurial concepts by developing business plans that address critical issues, including management composition and structure, effective business and functional strategies, operational logistics, legal issues, financial projections, and financing options.
MBA 711 - Entrepreneurship
Credits: 3
Considers fundamental aspects of entrepreneurship and process of new venture creation. Draws on broad range of business disciplines including management, marketing, finance, and accounting to develop evaluation and execution skills.
PUBP 835 - Entrepreneurship, Creativity, and Innovation
Credits: 1-4
Provides multidisciplinary foundation for the study of entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation, and their effects on regional and national economic growth. Draws from seminal thinkers and emphasizes creativity and innovation. Examines how organizational change, institutional structure, and geographic clustering drive the development of regional and national economies. Explores these issues through the lens of the three Ts of economic growth: technology, talent, and tolerance.
MBA 752 - Turning Ideas into Successful Companies
Credits: 3
An advanced course in entrepreneurship focused on discovery and development of an achievable business concept. The centerpiece of the course is development of the formal business plan and associated presentation materials. Students are assigned to teams and must hypothesize a new business, research and test their hypothesis, and develop a comprehensive written business plan. The plan must be for an actual business that the students intend to start upon the successful completion of the course. Technology-based projects are encouraged, but not required. Because the course is cross-listed with IT&E and SOM, most teams will include both engineering and business students. Weekly presentations of the team’s progress are required.
NCLC 330 - Enterprise Development
Credits: 6
Prepares students for enterprise development in diverse environments by examining the spectrum of sociocultural, organizational, behavioral, strategic, and management factors that impact enterprise creation. Instructional method is interactive, using case studies, scenarios, role playing, guest speakers, and student-driven semester projects to link theory to practice.
NCLC 331 - The Nonprofit Sector
Credits: 4
Readings, classroom discussions and activities, and practical experience reveal historical, legal, and socioeconomic forces that define and influence the American nonprofit sector. Explores structures, issues that affect nonprofit management, governing, and financial systems.
PUAD 505 - Introduction to Management of Nonprofits
Credits: 3
Examines nonprofit organizations and their role in contemporary society. Explores unique aspects of nonprofits including voluntary governance, tax-exempt status, nonprofit corporation law, accounting practices, fund raising, finance, and management of volunteers. Emphasizes board/executive relationship, and value of establishing and maintaining nonprofit organization’s reputation.