OVERVIEW

The course aims to expand the conceptual tools of the future Management Engineer, proposing a series of reflections following an evolutionary historical approach on the forms of business organization and technological change, placing them in the different institutional contexts that have characterized the various declinations of the market economy.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The focus is on the relationship between companies and technological and organizational change in order to show the different ways through which companies have achieved success and contributed to economic growth, either by multiplying the quantity and variety of goods by improving the quality of goods themselves.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students have to know the various theories of technological change and understand its relevance in generating growth and economic development processes.

Students have to know the different organizational methods that distinguish the small from the large company.

Students have to understand  how patterns of technological change have evolved in history and in different economic regions.

Students have to know how to distinguish the different modes of interaction between institutions, the State and the entrepreneurial initiative that have given rise to capitalisms of different types (eg capitalism of the shareholders vs capitalism of the stakeholders).

PREREQUISITES

The basic economic knowledge accumulated in the three-year courses is sufficient.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures will aim to an effective involvement of attending students who are expected to read the texts indicated in the syllabus distributed at the beginning of the course. The lecture will be both traditional as interactive, based on open discussion of the proposed texts.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course is organized in five distinct themes:

1. Entrepreneurship, technological change and economic development; we show how over the last decades has emerged ever more clearly the importance of technological change in explaining the performance of the developed economies and the importance of the role of the entrepreneur in this process;

2. The firm organization and technological change in the early stages of the industrialization process; we highlight the historical forms of company protagonists of the first western industrial transformation;

3. The birth of big business and the emergence of the ability to learn to invent; we focus on the genesis of big business and its close ties with the typical technological innovations of the "second industrial revolution";

4. Toward the plurality: big business in Europe and Japan; we illustrate the different business models, established in some countries (Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan);

5. Recent developments; we emphasize new issues related to the challenge of globalization of trade and the Information Technology revolution and their impact on business organization and technological change.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Obligatory texts

Amatori F. - Colli A., Storia d'impresa. Complessità e comparazioni, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 201

Rosenberg N., Mowery, D., Il secolo dell’innovazione. Breve storia della tecnologia americana nel XX secolo, Milano, Egea, 2001

Other useful texts

• T. Ohno, Lo spirito Toyota, Torino, Einaudi, 2004
• Chandler, A.D., La rivoluzione elettronica, Milano, Egea, 2003 (parti che saranno indicate durante il corso)
• Scranton, Philip, Tecnologia, scienza e innovazione nella storia degli Stati Uniti, Annali di storia dell’impresa, 17, 2006, 299-326 (aulaweb)
• Langlois, R., The Vanishing hand: the changing dynamics of industrial capitalism liberamente disponibile all'indirizzo http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~langlois/Vanishing.doc

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

ROBERTO TOLAINI (President)

SILVIA MASSA

LINDA MADDALENA PONTA

MARCO RABERTO

STEFANIA TESTA

GIAN CARLO CAINARCA (President Substitute)

SILVANO CINCOTTI (President Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

https://corsi.unige.it/8734/p/studenti-orario

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam consists of a preliminary report of no more than 5 pages (no more than 10,000 characters, including spaces) on a topic agreed with the teacher, and an oral examination which can be accessed only after submitting to teacher that report, at least 10 days before.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The examination starts from the discussion of the report, which must be original and must highlight the argumentative abilities of the student. After that the professor will make questions about various topics of the course, to check the level of learning. In the evaluation, as well as the completeness and accuracy of the answers about the content, it will take into account the level of detail and articulation of the proposed themes and the ability to problematize the different approaches.

Exam schedule