Business History and Archives
A.Y. 2023/2024
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 can be attended as a single course.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
First semester
Course syllabus
Course title: Business history and archive experiences, in collaboration with the Historical Archives of Intesa San Paolo and the ISEC Foundation
Part 1: Business history: between industry, labour and banking systems.
Part 2: Cataloguing and researching in the Historical Archives of Banca Intesa San Paolo
Part 3: Cataloguing and researching at the ISEC Foundation.
The advent of the web has radically changed the access to archives, both with the online publication of inventories and through the online availability of digital reproductions of documents. Our challenge, in the next few years, will be to create real networks of data and information by involving different archival institutions and creating open and interoperable data.
Our experience at the Historical Archives of Intesa San Paolo will focus on the EGELI archival fund, which preserves documentation regarding a precise aspect of the fascist regime's racial persecution, that of the spoliation of Jewish-owned movable and immovable property. As part of a project that aims to publish in Linked Open Data mode the information regarding the requisitions of Jewish property preserved in the EGELI fund, the activity will allow students to explore the potential and benefits of processing archival data for historical research, thanks to the use of information modeling and representation technologies. In particular, students will be asked to work directly with the sources to identify and survey a set of salient data within the named files of the persecuted; the analysis will cover documents related to the phase of the restitution of property subject to confiscation or seizure, which began in the immediate postwar period.
A second archive experience will take place at ISEC Foundation (Institute for the History of Contemporary Age). It will concern the cataloging and study of Umberto Colombo's personal archive. A company executive in Montedison and ENI, a chemist and expert in energy, environment and scientific and technological policy, Colombo (1927-2006) was also president of the National Center for Nuclear Energy and of ENEA, as well as minister of the University and scientific and technological research.
Part 1: Business history: between industry, labour and banking systems.
Part 2: Cataloguing and researching in the Historical Archives of Banca Intesa San Paolo
Part 3: Cataloguing and researching at the ISEC Foundation.
The advent of the web has radically changed the access to archives, both with the online publication of inventories and through the online availability of digital reproductions of documents. Our challenge, in the next few years, will be to create real networks of data and information by involving different archival institutions and creating open and interoperable data.
Our experience at the Historical Archives of Intesa San Paolo will focus on the EGELI archival fund, which preserves documentation regarding a precise aspect of the fascist regime's racial persecution, that of the spoliation of Jewish-owned movable and immovable property. As part of a project that aims to publish in Linked Open Data mode the information regarding the requisitions of Jewish property preserved in the EGELI fund, the activity will allow students to explore the potential and benefits of processing archival data for historical research, thanks to the use of information modeling and representation technologies. In particular, students will be asked to work directly with the sources to identify and survey a set of salient data within the named files of the persecuted; the analysis will cover documents related to the phase of the restitution of property subject to confiscation or seizure, which began in the immediate postwar period.
A second archive experience will take place at ISEC Foundation (Institute for the History of Contemporary Age). It will concern the cataloging and study of Umberto Colombo's personal archive. A company executive in Montedison and ENI, a chemist and expert in energy, environment and scientific and technological policy, Colombo (1927-2006) was also president of the National Center for Nuclear Energy and of ENEA, as well as minister of the University and scientific and technological research.
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 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, the archivists and the 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 skills and innovative 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
Educational website(s)
Professor(s)