MGMT90227 Entrepreneurial Organisation

How MGMT90227 is assessed

The assessment table follows the University of Melbourne 2026 Handbook. The Handbook lists the group presentation and oral defence in Week 5, while the captured Canvas module material places it in Week 6, so students should use the live Canvas schedule for submission planning and pass-condition instructions.

What MGMT90227 covers

Nine connected chapters trace how entrepreneurial organisations assemble people, distribute authority, build systems, raise capital, scale and renew themselves.

It moves into leadership, shared purpose, team norms and psychological safety before comparing management-centric, employee-centric and crowd-centric ways of organising. The central idea is congruence: no structure or people practice is best in isolation.

It creates value when it fits the venture's strategy, tasks, people, culture and stage.

Later topics show how an entrepreneurial organisation becomes more deliberate without becoming inert. Human capital systems connect recruitment, onboarding, development, performance and rewards across the employee lifecycle.

Adaptive performance cycles use goals, evidence, coaching and feedback to improve both capability and execution. Funding choices are treated as organisational choices because capital, investor support, governance, talent and founder control move together. Scaling then raises the tension between adding specialists, management and planning while preserving customer focus, experimentation and initiative.

The final topic considers intrapreneurship, organisational ambidexterity and micro-enterprise networks as ways to explore future opportunities while existing operations continue to deliver.

The 2026 Handbook allocates thirty percent to the end-of-semester examination. The captured briefing describes a closed-book paper with fifteen minutes reading time and two hours writing.

Ten compulsory multiple-choice questions provide breadth, and three compulsory long answers require concepts, frameworks and theory to be applied to supplied organisational contexts. Each long answer is capped at four hundred words. This guide therefore combines concise concept maps with original application cases.

It does not reproduce proprietary teaching cases, and no past paper, sample final, official solution or formal marking rubric was captured.

Worked example · free

Choose an organisation design for a growing venture

Key terms

Critical activities

The work a venture must perform to deliver its strategy and achieve its goals.

Role profile

A description connecting a role's purpose, responsibilities, stakeholders, goals, behaviours, capabilities and authority.

Selection criteria

Job-relevant attributes, skills, knowledge and qualifications used to assess candidates consistently.

Psychological safety

Shared confidence that speaking up will not lead to embarrassment, rejection or punishment.

Team charter

An explicit agreement covering purpose, norms, operating rhythm, communication, decisions and accountability.

Organisation design

The alignment of roles, relationships and procedures with organisational objectives and context.

Boundary spanning

Work that connects teams, customers or outside partners across organisational boundaries.

Holacracy

An employee-centric system that distributes authority through explicit roles and governance.

Employee value proposition

The financial and non-financial benefits employees receive for their skills, capabilities and experience.

Key results

Observable measures used to track progress toward an aspirational objective.

BATNA

The best alternative available when a negotiation does not produce an agreement.

Organisational ambidexterity

The capacity to exploit existing operations while exploring future opportunities.

MGMT90227 FAQ

Questions students ask in each MGMT90227 chapter

Why start with critical activities?

They connect hiring to strategy. Without them, founders can define a role around whoever is available, rely on broad personality claims or overlook essential work. Identifying the work first makes the role profile, criteria and selection methods easier to justify. Chapter 01 · Building the Founding Team

Does psychological safety remove accountability?

No. It makes it safer to contribute questions, concerns and errors so the team can respond earlier. Leaders still set expectations, discuss evidence and require action. Safety supports honest performance conversations; it does not protect people from every consequence. Chapter 02 · Leading for Psychological Safety

Which organisation form is best?

There is no universal winner. A design should fit the venture's strategy, critical work, people, culture, technology and stage. The right exam move is to compare relevant forms and explain the coordination benefits, autonomy and costs each creates in the case. Chapter 03 · Organisation Design Choices

Is holacracy a structureless design?

No. It replaces conventional managerial hierarchy with an explicit system of roles and governance. Its meetings and processes can themselves feel rigid, which is why the design should be evaluated for fit rather than treated as the absence of structure. Chapter 04 · Adaptive Structures and Holacracy

When should a venture formalise people practices?

Formalisation is justified when repeated decisions, legal obligations, capability gaps or coordination risk make informal judgement unreliable. The practice should solve a defined problem, retain useful discretion and be reviewed against strategy, culture and the employee experience. Chapter 05 · Human Capital Systems

Why use shorter performance cycles?

Changing venture work makes annual feedback too slow. Short cycles surface blockers, test assumptions and support development while action is still possible. They add value only when evidence informs decisions, rather than becoming constant status reporting or surveillance. Chapter 06 · Performance Management and Coaching

Is venture capital always the best growth finance?

No. It may provide substantial capital, governance and networks, but introduces dilution, return expectations and oversight. Fit depends on growth strategy, capital intensity, investor horizon, founder objectives and whether the venture can use the additional resources effectively. Chapter 07 · Venture Funding and Negotiation

Does scaling mean copying the original model?

No. New products, markets and innovation create complexity and variation. Leaders must decide what to standardise for reliability and what to keep adaptable, then build interfaces and feedback that let local learning improve the broader system. Chapter 08 · Scaling Culture and Capability

Why not keep every innovation in the core?

Core units can provide customers, technology and expertise, but their metrics, routines and decision speed may be unsuitable for uncertain work. The design should preserve needed access while protecting a project from controls that assume a stable business model. Chapter 09 · Intrapreneurship and Ambidexterity

How to study for the exam

Revise this subject as an organisational system. First, learn one visual relationship for each chapter and explain it from memory: the hiring pipeline, team safety network, design matrix, structure dials, human capital staircase, performance cycle, funding exchange, scaling balance and innovation quadrant. Second, take a fresh venture and move it through the sequence.

Identify critical work, define roles, design team norms, allocate authority, build lifecycle practices, set a performance cadence, choose a funding bundle, diagnose scaling pressure and protect exploration. Third, write original case responses under the 400-word cap. Use the same reasoning loop each time: context, concept, mechanism, trade-off, action and evidence.

Finally, rehearse breadth with ten-question sets because the multiple-choice section is described as roughly one question per topic. The source bundle contains no past paper or official solution, so do not memorise model wording. Judge your practice by whether every concept explains a fact and every recommendation names conditions, consequences and a way to review the decision.

Confirm live dates, submission rules and permitted tools in Canvas before each assessment.

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