OVERVIEW

The teaching aims to broaden the conceptual tools of the future Management Engineer by proposing a series of reflections and pointings in an evolutionary-historical key on forms of business organization and technological change, setting them in the different institutional contexts that have characterized the different 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

Knowing the various theories of technological change and understanding its relevance in generating processes of growth and economic development.

Knowing the different organizational patterns that distinguish small from large enterprises.

Understanding how patterns of technological change have evolved throughout history and in different economic regions.

Knowing how to distinguish the different modes of interaction between institutions, the state and entrepreneurial initiative that have resulted in capitalisms of different types (e.g., shareholder capitalism vs. stakeholder capitalism).

PREREQUISITES

There are no specific requirements.

TEACHING METHODS

The lectures are geared toward the effective involvement of the attendees, who are required to read the texts indicated in the syllabus distributed at the beginning of the course.

Thus, the lecture is both frontal and interactive, based on open discussion of the texts under review.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The teaching is organized around five distinct thematic cores:

• Entrepreneurship, Technological Change and Economic Development; the importance of technological change in explaining the performance of developed economies and the role of the entrepreneur in this process is shown to be increasingly clear over the past decades;
• business organization and technological change in the early stages of the industrialization process; the historical forms of enterprise that were protagonists in the early industrial transformation of the West are highlighted;
• the birth of the large enterprise and the emergence of the ability to learn how to invent; we focus on the genesis of the managerial large enterprise and its close links with the technological innovations typical of the “second industrial revolution”;
• toward plurality: the large enterprise in Europe and Japan; different models of enterprise, established in some countries (Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan), are illustrated;
• recent developments; new issues related to the challenge of the globalization of trade and the Information technology revolution and their impacts on business organization and technological change are highlighted.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Langlois, R., The Vanishing hand: the changing dynamics of industrial capitalism (open access http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~langlois/Vanishing.doc).

LESSONS

LESSONS START

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

Class schedule

TECHNOLOGY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

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

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The exam begins with a discussion of the paper, which should be original and should highlight the student's argumentative skills. After this, the lecturer will ask questions on the various topics of the course to check the level of learning. In the evaluation, in addition to the completeness and accuracy of the answers regarding the content, the level of depth and articulation of the proposed topics and the ability to problematize the various possible approaches will be taken into account.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Ask the professor for other information not included in the teaching schedule.