Mastering Entrepreneurship: The Complete MBA Companion in Entrepreneurship

Rating:
Summary: Useful single source for course on entrepreneurship
Review: I think the other reviewer does a slight disservice to this collection of writings on entrepreneurship. For someone wanting to learn more about the process of becoming an entrepreneur, there are lots of small insights and useful suggestions strewn throughout this collection.

Different readers will bring different backgrounds to the startup process; thus, some of these readings will be more helpful than others, depending who reads them.

This book does make a nice alternative to a standard text on the subject such as Robert Hisrich and Michael Peters at about 1/5 the cost.

Like the other reviewer, I can also recommend the Drucker and the McGrath and Macmillan books, as well as Rhonda Abrams the Successful Business Plan. But when I need a single book of readings on entrepreneurship for an introductory undergrad or MBA class (as opposed to a text, for example), this is a very handy source.

Rating:
Summary: Banal - but some useful info.
Review: This is a collection of 83 short papers and case studies written mostly by professors at European business schools. They discuss aspects of entrepreneurial opportunities, finance and management, but the chapters read more like articles for an airline magazine than useful business instruction. I found most of the material to be academic, superficial or focused on basic issues. Many of the papers appear to be a rehash of prior works such as The Entrepreneurial Venture by Sahlman, et al. The good news is that the short chapters are an easy scan to glean what valuable information there may be.

There was a good section on e-commerce opportunities, and a few interesting case studies with Amazon.com and Harley Davidson among them.

I would recommend Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker for a good study of the sources of innovation and capitalizing on opportunities, and The Entrepreneurial Mindset by McGrath and MacMillan for a more refreshing book on building new ventures within an existing organization.