Business History
A.Y. 2018/2019
Learning objectives
The course intends to offer a historical contextualization that allows translating the vague theoretical representations - that have often been made of entrepreneur and enterprise - in real and concrete protagonists of the economic and social life of the modern development. The objective is, therefore, to grasp, thanks to an inductive approach, the complexity of the evolution of business and entrepreneurship from the first pre-industrial organizational forms until the twentieth century. The ideas and elaborations of business theories are gradually reviewed and adapted through a reciprocal process of correction and proposition, conducted both on the basis of the dialectical relationship with contemporary social, institutional and technological factors, and on the basis of the reconstruction of the links between micro and macro dynamics, related to the wealth of the nation.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the course, students are expected to be able:
- to have a good commando of the concepts and main interpretations of business history;
- to understand and evaluate, through a comparative approach, the role of national and international contexts in conditioning and determining, over the last two centuries, the main characteristics and types of enterprises (and entrepreneurial choices), as well as their evolutionary dynamics;
- to reflect on the role of different national contexts in providing opportunities and/or placing constraints on the action of businesses and entrepreneurs;
- to carry on a critical analysis of entrepreneurial choices and decision-making processes in relation to inertia and traditions, technological factors (or limits), and short or long term crises;
- to identify and evaluate the critical hairpin bends in the paths of development of a company, the multiple positions of the State towards it, and the strengths or critical points represented by the workforce;
- to argument along the space-time axis the importance of business and entrepreneurship for economic growth and as institutions able to overcome the constraints imposed by technology and the market;
- to reflect on the role of different national contexts in providing opportunities and/or placing constraints on the action of businesses and entrepreneurs;
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the course, students are expected to be able:
- to have a good commando of the concepts and main interpretations of business history;
- to understand and evaluate, through a comparative approach, the role of national and international contexts in conditioning and determining, over the last two centuries, the main characteristics and types of enterprises (and entrepreneurial choices), as well as their evolutionary dynamics;
- to reflect on the role of different national contexts in providing opportunities and/or placing constraints on the action of businesses and entrepreneurs;
- to carry on a critical analysis of entrepreneurial choices and decision-making processes in relation to inertia and traditions, technological factors (or limits), and short or long term crises;
- to identify and evaluate the critical hairpin bends in the paths of development of a company, the multiple positions of the State towards it, and the strengths or critical points represented by the workforce;
- to argument along the space-time axis the importance of business and entrepreneurship for economic growth and as institutions able to overcome the constraints imposed by technology and the market;
- to reflect on the role of different national contexts in providing opportunities and/or placing constraints on the action of businesses and entrepreneurs;
Expected learning outcomes
Undefined
Lesson period: First trimester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
First trimester
ATTENDING STUDENTS
Course syllabus
NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS
Business history and business theories: mapping the history of entrepreneurship within the economics literature. Entrepreneurs and enterprises during the ancient regime between agriculture, manufacturing, commerce and finance. The idea of invention and accounting and the profile of modern business. Innovations, entrepreneurs and enterprises against the backdrop of the first Industrial Revolution. Origin and consolidation of large enterprises during the Second Industrial Revolution. National cases between technological changes and scientific organization of work during the Second Industrial Revolution. The affirmation of the large enterprise between state intervention and market in the infra-war period. Golden age and start of the third industrial revolution after the Second World War: from the decline of American hegemony to the Japanese challenge, from Soviet antagonism to European diversification. A "polyphony" of organizational forms in the age of globalization. The genealogy of the new protagonists (China and India) between processes of convergence and divergence. Long-term reflections on the Italian case.
Course syllabus
Business history and business theories: mapping the history of entrepreneurship within the economics literature. Entrepreneurs and enterprises during the ancient regime between agriculture, manufacturing, commerce and finance. The idea of invention and accounting and the profile of modern business. Innovations, entrepreneurs and enterprises against the backdrop of the first Industrial Revolution. Origin and consolidation of large enterprises during the Second Industrial Revolution. National cases between technological changes and scientific organization of work during the Second Industrial Revolution. The affirmation of the large enterprise between state intervention and market in the infra-war period. Golden age and start of the third industrial revolution after the Second World War: from the decline of American hegemony to the Japanese challenge, from Soviet antagonism to European diversification. A "polyphony" of organizational forms in the age of globalization. The genealogy of the new protagonists (China and India) between processes of convergence and divergence. Long-term reflections on the Italian case.
Professor(s)