Entrepreneurship
June 24, 2023 2026-09-17 5:25Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship Programs
Entrepreneurship is the study and practice of identifying opportunities, developing new ventures, creating sustainable business models, and leading innovation. It combines strategy, finance, marketing, operations, leadership, and research to help entrepreneurs understand how businesses are created, developed, and scaled.
Entrepreneurship Programs at Master’s and Doctoral Level
The two programs serve different stages of entrepreneurial development.
Develop the knowledge and skills needed to identify opportunities, evaluate markets, develop business models, and build new ventures. The Master of Entrepreneurship combines core business education with specialized entrepreneurship courses and culminates in a capstone project in which you develop a complete business plan for your own venture.
Twelve six-week courses that finish where a founder needs them to: a capstone in which you write a complete business plan for your own venture. Written both for people changing career into founding a business and for founders already trading who need the knowledge to scale. Graduates start and grow their own ventures, or move into innovation roles inside established firms.
Entry: a completed bachelor degree. A 3.0 GPA must be maintained.
Develop advanced expertise in entrepreneurship through doctoral-level study of entrepreneurial strategy, innovation, venture development, and applied business research. The DBA allows experienced professionals to investigate significant entrepreneurial and organizational challenges through doctoral research, with the opportunity to connect research with their professional or business context.
A doctorate in which the research subject can be your own venture. Fifteen courses and a four-term dissertation across twenty terms, examining how new businesses actually grow rather than how they are supposed to. Graduates build and lead ventures, teach entrepreneurship, and research venture growth.
Entry: a completed MBA. A 3.0 GPA must be maintained through to graduation.
Compare Entrepreneurship Programs
See Entrepreneurship programs side by side and find the option that best matches your goals.
| Program | Level | Duration | Credits | Entry requirement | Tuition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DBA in Entrepreneurship | Doctoral | About 3 years | 60 credit hours | A completed MBA; a 3.0 GPA maintained to graduate | $37,465 |
| Master of Entrepreneurship | Master’s | From 18 months | 36 units | A 3.0 GPA maintained to graduate | $18,435 |
Master’s or doctorate: which one fits where you are?
Both are entrepreneurship qualifications and they are not alternatives to each other so much as consecutive. The question is whether you are building the venture or researching how ventures are built.
| DBA in Entrepreneurship | Master of Entrepreneurship | |
|---|---|---|
| Level | Terminal doctorate | Master’s degree |
| Who it is for | Experienced managers and founders who already hold an MBA | Career changers founding a business, and founders who already trade and need to scale |
| What you produce | A dissertation researching how new businesses grow | A complete business plan for your own venture |
| Credits | 60 credit hours beyond an MBA | 36 units |
| Length | About three years, up to five from matriculation | From 18 months, up to three years from matriculation |
| Entry | A completed MBA | a completed bachelor degree |
| Live classes | Two 90-minute seminars per course | Two 90-minute seminars per course |
| Taught through | The Carland Entrepreneurship Institute | The Carland Entrepreneurship Institute |
What entrepreneurship study is actually for
The reasonable scepticism about studying entrepreneurship is that founding a business is learned by founding one. That is largely true, and it is why neither program is built around lectures on how to have ideas.
What can be taught is the part that sinks most ventures: reading a market before you commit to it, modelling how the business makes money, financing growth without losing control of it, understanding why comparable companies failed, and building an organisation that survives its founder’s attention moving elsewhere. The master’s makes that concrete by ending in a full business plan for a venture of your own rather than a case study of someone else’s. The doctorate turns the same questions into original research.
Graduates start and grow their own ventures, move into innovation and new product roles inside established firms, or teach and research entrepreneurship themselves.
How International Business Study Works Online
Six-Week Course Blocks
Focus on one course at a time within a structured six-week term.
Live Faculty Seminars
Participate in live online seminars where faculty introduce concepts, discuss business issues, and interact with students.
Learn With Other Entrepreneurs
Exchange ideas with classmates who may be building businesses, developing new ventures, or working in established organizations.
Apply Learning to a Real Venture
Use concepts from your coursework to examine opportunities, develop strategies, and work through practical entrepreneurial challenges.
The Carland Entrepreneurship Institute
The Master of Entrepreneurship and DBA in Entrepreneurship programs are taught through the Carland Entrepreneurship Institute, founded by Drs JoAnn and Jim Carland, who built the first Master of Entrepreneurship program in the United States.
Courses run one at a time in six-week blocks with two live seminars in each, which is what makes the programs carryable while you are actually running something.
Who Teaches the Entrepreneurship Programs
The Carland Entrepreneurship Institute faculty all hold doctorates, and have run businesses as well as studied them. Seminars are live.
Robert Robertson, Ph.D.
Dean of the Akio Morita School of Business. Ph.D. in Management and Organization, Stirling University; MIT Sloan. A Fulbright Specialist.
Carlos Aquino, Ph.D.
Vince Carter, Ph.D.
Barbara Son, Ph.D.
Ph.D. in Urban Business Economics, Portland State University, with a master’s concentration in technology, business and economics.
Frequently asked questions
Can entrepreneurship really be taught?
Not the appetite for risk, and not the idea itself. What is teachable is the part that most often decides whether a venture survives: market analysis, business modelling, financing growth, and building an organisation that outlasts its founder’s direct involvement. The master’s ends with a full business plan for your own venture precisely so that the learning is applied rather than theoretical.
Do I need a business idea before I start?
It helps, because the capstone asks you to write a complete business plan for a venture, and that is far easier with a real one in mind. But the program is explicitly written for career changers as well as for founders already trading, so an idea that develops during the program is a normal starting point.
Do I already need to be running a business?
No. The Master of Entrepreneurship is written both for people moving into founding a business and for founders who already trade and need the knowledge to scale. The DBA assumes more experience and requires a completed MBA.
What is the capstone business plan?
The Master of Entrepreneurship ends with a capstone in which you produce a complete business plan for your own venture, drawing on the market, finance, operations and strategy work from the earlier courses. You finish the degree with a document you can actually use.
How is the Master of Entrepreneurship different from an MBA?
An MBA prepares you to manage an organisation that already exists, across its core functions. The Master of Entrepreneurship is aimed at bringing one into existence and growing it, and it ends in a business plan rather than general management coursework. If your goal is a management career inside an established company, the MBA is the better fit; if it is founding or scaling your own, this is.
Do I need an MBA to take the DBA?
Yes. The Doctor of Business Administration in Entrepreneurship is 60 credit hours beyond a completed MBA, and a 3.0 GPA must be maintained through to graduation. If you hold a different master’s degree, ask admissions how it is assessed.
Can I research my own company in the doctorate?
That is the intended shape of it. A DBA is an applied doctorate, so the dissertation normally addresses a problem drawn from the researcher’s own industry or organisation. Your topic is agreed with faculty supervision.
How long does each program take?
The Master of Entrepreneurship takes from 18 months, with a maximum of three years from matriculation. The DBA takes about three years, with a maximum of five.
Are the classes live, or recorded?
Live. Every six-week course includes two live 90-minute seminars led by faculty, in both programs.
Do I have to travel to the United States?
No. Both programs are delivered entirely online, with no residency requirement and no need to relocate.
Are the programs accredited?
Anaheim University is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC). The DEAC is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a recognized accrediting agency. Accreditation is institutional, covering the university and the programs it offers.
What do the programs cost, and is financial aid available?
Tuition is charged course by course rather than as a single fee, so the cost is spread across your studies, and current figures are published in each catalog. Anaheim University does not participate in federal or state financial aid programs, so US federal loans and grants are not available.
When can I start, and can I study while running a business?
A new term begins every six weeks, so there are several entry points across the year. Courses are taken one at a time rather than concurrently, which is what makes the workload predictable enough to carry alongside a business you are actually running.
