Business History and Archives
A.Y. 2021/2022
Learning objectives
The course aims to offer intellectual elements of buisness history, its theoretical orientations and discipline-specific terminology. The course also aims to provide the basic tools to know and operate within a corporate archive.
Expected learning outcomes
The course intends to introduce participants to the historical reflection of buisness from a global perspective, through a plurality of written, oral and visual sources and the beginning of the use and discourse of business and labour archives, as well as through digital tools available online. Through the analysis of historical cases, students will be able to apply the theoretical instrumentation necessary to undertake historical investigation and analysis of archival documentation. At the end of the course, the attending students will be able to critically read primary sources and scientific texts relating to the early-modern and modern historical periods, and to develop independent reflections and research on the main aspects of modern enterprise in its various forms. Students will also exercise their research abilities and individual assemssments skills to set up and carrying out work of document inventory, as well as its communication and usable availability on digital platforms, including talks with professional historians and archivists.
These skills will be acquired through a direct and continuous meeting with the instructor in the classroom. Educational tools will be made available on Ariel.
Students opting not to attend the lessons will be able to make use of the educational tools provided by the instructor on Ariel, deepen their knowledge of main topics through special readings indicated in the exam program for non-attending and if desired (after reading the exam program) contact the instructor both by email and during office hours.
These skills will be acquired through a direct and continuous meeting with the instructor in the classroom. Educational tools will be made available on Ariel.
Students opting not to attend the lessons will be able to make use of the educational tools provided by the instructor on Ariel, deepen their knowledge of main topics through special readings indicated in the exam program for non-attending and if desired (after reading the exam program) contact the instructor both by email and during office hours.
Lesson period: First semester
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 semester
More specific information on the delivery modes of training activities for academic year 2021/22 will be provided over the coming months, based on the evolution of the public health situation.
Oral exams will take place remotely in case of impossibility to meet face to face. Modalities will be communicated in the ARIEL course page in due course.
Oral exams will take place remotely in case of impossibility to meet face to face. Modalities will be communicated in the ARIEL course page in due course.
Course syllabus
Course title: "Archives: what a business! Business history and archive experiences in collaboration with the Historical Archives of Intesa San Paolo and ISEC Foundation"
Part 1: Firms, entrepreneurs, and the banks: between history and archive experiences
Part 2: Firms, entrepreneurs, and the banks: between history and archive experiences
Part 3: Firms, entrepreneurs, and the banks: between history and archive experiences
The advent of the web has radically changed access to archives: at first through the on-line publication of inventories, then through the new online availability of digital reproductions of documents. The future challenge will be to create real networks of data and information, based on open and interoperable data (and not only on the interlinking between web pages that had characterized the first phase of the internet).
The Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive intends to build an information network of archival sources on the history of the Italian firms, and, specifically, on their financing in the first seventy years of the twentieth century. The goal of the project is the creation of a historical register of Italian firms, starting from those registered in the archives of banks and other financial institutions.
Students will become part of a working group which, working on primary sources that are largely still unpublished - the papers of the Executive Board of the Mediocredito Italiano - will prepare a set of data that will constitute a substantial core of reliable and consistent information, which will be published according to Linked Open Data principles.
In order to allow easier organization of the course, the papers on which students will work have been digitized by the Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive. This will allow students to remotely carry out a part of the work from home, also by connecting to the Archive website.
A second archive experience will take place thanks to the courtesy of the Foundation - Institute for the History of the Contemporary Age (ISEC). Archivists will involve the students in a project for the first entry of business papers in an archive: what materially happens to the papers? how are they accepted, approached, cataloged? what professional and historical skills are useful for this purpose?
Part 1: Firms, entrepreneurs, and the banks: between history and archive experiences
Part 2: Firms, entrepreneurs, and the banks: between history and archive experiences
Part 3: Firms, entrepreneurs, and the banks: between history and archive experiences
The advent of the web has radically changed access to archives: at first through the on-line publication of inventories, then through the new online availability of digital reproductions of documents. The future challenge will be to create real networks of data and information, based on open and interoperable data (and not only on the interlinking between web pages that had characterized the first phase of the internet).
The Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive intends to build an information network of archival sources on the history of the Italian firms, and, specifically, on their financing in the first seventy years of the twentieth century. The goal of the project is the creation of a historical register of Italian firms, starting from those registered in the archives of banks and other financial institutions.
Students will become part of a working group which, working on primary sources that are largely still unpublished - the papers of the Executive Board of the Mediocredito Italiano - will prepare a set of data that will constitute a substantial core of reliable and consistent information, which will be published according to Linked Open Data principles.
In order to allow easier organization of the course, the papers on which students will work have been digitized by the Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive. This will allow students to remotely carry out a part of the work from home, also by connecting to the Archive website.
A second archive experience will take place thanks to the courtesy of the Foundation - Institute for the History of the Contemporary Age (ISEC). Archivists will involve the students in a project for the first entry of business papers in an archive: what materially happens to the papers? how are they accepted, approached, cataloged? what professional and historical skills are useful for this purpose?
Prerequisites for admission
There are no specific requirements different from those requested for the admission to the MA degree in Historical Science
Teaching methods
Attendance of the on-line classes is compulsory for acquiring the status of attending student. The teaching is delivered through frontal lectures and archive experiences (aimed primarily at the acquisition of knowledge, competence and specific language of the subject), and through work experience in a business archive. Discussion with the teacher and other students in the classroom is integrant part of the didactic method and aims at promoting a critical attitude and the capacity to apply the acquired competence and knowledge.
The teaching is also based on didactic and multimedia materials provided on ARIEL.
The teaching is also based on didactic and multimedia materials provided on ARIEL.
Teaching Resources
Attending students - 6 CFU:
Knowledge of the topics taught in lectures (modules 1 and 2) and of the documentation made available on ARIEL; writing of a paper on the archival experience;
Attending students - 9 CFU:
Knowledge of the topics taught in lectures (modules 1,2,3) and of the documentation made available on ARIEL; writing of a paper on the archival experience;
Non attending students - 6 CFU:
Readings:
Vera Zamagni, Forme d'impresa. Una prospettiva storico-economica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2020;
Germano Maifreda, L'organizzazione del lavoro. Dalla rivoluzione industriale allo smart working, Milano, Pearson, 2022.
Non attending students - 9 CFU:
Readings:
Vera Zamagni, Forme d'impresa. Una prospettiva storico-economica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2020;
Germano Maifreda, L'organizzazione del lavoro. Dalla rivoluzione industriale allo smart working, Milano, Pearson, 2022;
Renato Giannetti, Michelangelo Vasta, Storia dell'impresa italiana, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012.
Knowledge of the topics taught in lectures (modules 1 and 2) and of the documentation made available on ARIEL; writing of a paper on the archival experience;
Attending students - 9 CFU:
Knowledge of the topics taught in lectures (modules 1,2,3) and of the documentation made available on ARIEL; writing of a paper on the archival experience;
Non attending students - 6 CFU:
Readings:
Vera Zamagni, Forme d'impresa. Una prospettiva storico-economica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2020;
Germano Maifreda, L'organizzazione del lavoro. Dalla rivoluzione industriale allo smart working, Milano, Pearson, 2022.
Non attending students - 9 CFU:
Readings:
Vera Zamagni, Forme d'impresa. Una prospettiva storico-economica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2020;
Germano Maifreda, L'organizzazione del lavoro. Dalla rivoluzione industriale allo smart working, Milano, Pearson, 2022;
Renato Giannetti, Michelangelo Vasta, Storia dell'impresa italiana, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012.
Assessment methods and Criteria
- Method: oral exam
- Type of examination: oral interrogation
- Evaluation criteria: capacity to demonstrate and elaborate knowledge; capacity for critical reflection on the completed work; quality of exposition, competence in the use of scientific lexicon, efficacy, clarity; quality of the work carried out in the Archives.
- Type of evaluation method: mark in 30s
The format of the exam for students with disabilities or SLD should be arranged in advance with the teacher, in agreement with the Disability/SLD Students Service Office.
- Type of examination: oral interrogation
- Evaluation criteria: capacity to demonstrate and elaborate knowledge; capacity for critical reflection on the completed work; quality of exposition, competence in the use of scientific lexicon, efficacy, clarity; quality of the work carried out in the Archives.
- Type of evaluation method: mark in 30s
The format of the exam for students with disabilities or SLD should be arranged in advance with the teacher, in agreement with the Disability/SLD Students Service Office.
Unita' didattica A
SECS-P/12 - ECONOMIC HISTORY - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica B
SECS-P/12 - ECONOMIC HISTORY - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica C
SECS-P/12 - ECONOMIC HISTORY - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Professor(s)