What will I learn on this module?
One of the most important stages in the development of an SME or indeed to ensure the continued growth of an SME is to understand the nature of entrepreneurship, the need for creativity and the ability to analyse your market and plan effectively.
This is the focus of this module. We will begin by developing your understanding of entrepreneurship and the distinctive characteristics of a SME. We will then develop your critical appreciation of creativity and innovation and your ability to apply such concepts. Finally, we will consider the importance of market analysis and marketing in order to advance toward the creation of a marketing plan.
In order to develop your critical knowledge and understanding of entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation and marketing, we will consider the following areas:
Entrepreneurship and marketing - the characteristics of entrepreneurs and the nature of SME marketing
Marketing and innovation and innovative marketing ideas including digital marketing
Product innovation and the Business concept
Developing creativity and design thinking
The design of marketing programmes - marketing strategy for smaller, entrepreneurial enterprises
Introduction to marketing planning
Small Business and Entrepreneurial Marketing Research
Environmental analysis
The nature of customers, segmentation, targeting, objectives and positioning
Building a Marketing Strategy as a basis for a marketing plan
Marketing and corporate communication
Pricing and value
Channels and distribution strategy - the Marketing/Logistics Interface
Creativity and branding - the changing role of brands and branding
Managing relationships and networking: interactive Customer Relationships
Corporate Social Responsibility - dilemmas and sustainability and the role of the entrepreneur
The overall aim of this module is to support the enhancement of your potential for marketing within an SME and wider employability through developing your critical and applied understanding of innovation, creativity and strategic marketing tools and processes.
How will I learn on this module?
You will learn through an approach in which your learning can be used to enhance your future potential as a strategic leader within an SME or wider organisational setting. As such a mixture of lecture, seminar and workshop sessions will be delivered in semester mode. Lectures will be used to introduce the key topics and using a research led approach. These lectures will be followed by seminar activities in which you will apply the theories, models and frameworks through a range of activities. Workshops will be used to enable you to interact with leaders of SMEs who will share with you their experiences of the challenges of developing marketing strategies for their own enterprises.
In order to develop your capacity and confidence as an effective learner, you will also engage in a substantial amount of independent learning. This will be supported by tutor-guided activities reflected in a learning plan, including prompted reading, activities to undertake and questions to address.
Independent study requirements also entail reading beyond the learning materials/reading list provided, reflecting on its potential relevance for your own development.
An initial workshop will introduce you to the module, assessment and core topics. Subsequent to this you will be guided through a range of subject specific topics delivered over the period of the module. Key messages from these sessions will be available by video/podcast to support your learning outside of the classroom.
The e-learning portal will be used to encourage individual and group contributions to critical debate on key topics and issues. Materials and discussion group work will be available on the e-learning portal to support and engage you. To support and embed the learning, provide the opportunity for reflection and encourage effective communication, you will engage in discussion forums via the University’s e-Learning platform. This will include posing and answering topic specific questions posed by the tutor and peer group and providing peer group formative feedback. You will also be encouraged to use email and discussion board tool to clarify issues.
Learning Sets (Self-Help Groups):
This is a way of gaining peer support. Early in the course, you will be established into learning sets with other students to enable shared learning. You will be able to communicate to discuss key learning points or work collectively on workshop, seminar and discussion board tasks.
How will I be supported academically on this module?
How will I be supported academically on this module? (SRS 0003) Please provide a brief overview of the academic support available to students, including any support that may be accessed outside formal scheduled teaching.
Prior to entering the programme you will be given a learner journey. This outlines the nature of each module, the learning objectives, indicative content and a summary of how the module is assessed and contributes to the development of the Northumbria Graduate.
Furthermore, for this module, you will receive a detailed teaching and learning plan (TLP) which sets out
• Learning outcomes and overall module aims
• Teaching, learning and assessment strategy
• Teaching schedule
• Directed reading references (text and journals) and core texts for the module
E-Reading Lists. The module will also have an e-reading list which directs learners to specific reading for each session. This includes direct access to e-books, journal articles and other academic sources.
You will also have opportunities to receive formative feedback from your tutor in response to opinions you express and issues you raise during seminar and workshop sessions. These formative feedback sessions are formally scheduled at key points throughout the module.
What will I be expected to read on this module?
All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.
What will I be expected to achieve?
Knowledge & Understanding:
MLO1 Your critical understanding of the dynamic nature of the marketing environment and how SMEs can position and market themselves within their global markets and competition.
MLO2 Your critical understanding of theories and models relating to business innovation and creativity
MLO3 Your appreciation of the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge related to innovation, creativity and marketing planning in a SME context.
Intellectual / Professional Skills & Abilities:
MLO4 Your ability to apply marketing planning tools and frameworks to a given SME context.
How will I be assessed?
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment of your knowledge and understanding is a key component of the assessment strategy. It forms an integral part of the formal scheduled teaching programme and will be an integral part of the asynchronous discussion board forums on the Blackboard course. Formative assessment feedback will enable you to undertake self-reflection and to feed-forward newly-acquired knowledge and understanding in order to refine your tutor-guided and self-directed independent learning and enhance your performance during final summative assessment.
Summative Assessment
There are three summative assessment mechanisms for this module:
• a 2000 word individual report relating to innovation and creativity in an entrepreneurial context (60%) (MLO1, ML02)
• a 20 minute group presentation relating to a marketing plan for a given product or service. (40%) (MLO3, MLO4)
Module abstract
The aim of this module is to develop your knowledge and competence to lead and manage in an SME-Entrepreneurial business context. This module is designed to provide you with a critical and applied knowledge of entrepreneurship and the need for a continued process of innovation, creativity, market analysis and subsequent marketing planning. Indeed, the ability to be continually creative, understand your market and be able to develop practical research informed marketing plans is critical to the launch and ongoing success of any enterprise.
In addition, the module aims to develop your methodological and synthesis skills in order to evaluate strategic choices in accordance with digital market intelligence and sust.
To aid this process you will learn from marketing practitioners to aid your understanding of the specific challenges faced in a competitive environment.
This will culminate in the development of a research informed team developed marketing plan presented to a panel of academic and practitioner specialists and an individual academic report.
