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History of Entrepreneurship

A.Y. 2024/2025
9
Max ECTS
60
Overall hours
SSD
M-STO/08
Language
Italian
Learning objectives
The course aims to offer knowledge and tools of critical analysis to understand the entrepreneur as a concrete protagonist of socio-economic life from the Middle Ages to today. By means of historical contextualization, the course intends to exemplify the businessman and the businesswoman over the long term and in various economic sectors with a particular focus on the forms of entrepreneurship in the field of printing and communication.
Expected learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, students are expected to be able to:
- Understand and evaluate, through a comparative approach, the role of national and international contexts in laying down conditions and in determining the types of businesses and entrepreneurial choices, as well as their evolutionary dynamics;
- Understand the role of different national contexts in providing opportunities and/or in placing constraints on the actions of entrepreneurs;
- Analyse entrepreneurial choices and decision-making processes critically in relation to inertia and traditions, factors (or limits) of a technological nature, and short or long-term crises.

Lesson period: Third trimester

Lessons timetable

Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi

Exams calendar

Single course

This course can be attended as a single course.

Take a single course
Course syllabus and organization

Single session

Responsible
Nuovo Angela Maria
Lesson period
Third trimester
Course syllabus
With reference to Mark Casson's work, the course will focus on the theory and history of entrepreneurship according to : it will include the evolution of the entrepreneur in history, his economic role and all the functions associated with it, his culture, and his role in society. We will then outline the essential elements of the history of women entrepreneurship in Italy after 1861. We will also focus on forms of entrepreneurship in the pre-industrial age, characterized by very high elements of risk and uncertainty, in a long-term perspective. We will analyze the figure of the entrepreneur-merchant-banker, the protagonist of urban economic and cultural life. We will explore the constitutive factors of merchants-entrepreneurs' culture and knowledge, and investigate the system of their education and training, starting with the teaching of accounting practice and systems of measurement. We will examine some case studies from a specific manufacturing sector, that of printed books, with particular attention to the mercantile side of entrepreneurial activity. We will examine the available tools to develop control over the enterprise and knowledge of the markets, with particular attention to correspondence, which was the main tool for governing and developing commercial and social networks. We will analyze the concept of invention, the development of the legal protection of the invention, and the impact of innovation on society.
Prerequisites for admission
None
Teaching methods
In-class lessons. The students are invited to develop several themes independently and to report and discuss them with participants during the class hours.
Teaching Resources
Per i frequentanti, il materiale di riferimento per la preparazione dell'esame è costituito dalle slides rese disponibili nella piattaforma Ariel e dallo studio dei seguenti testi:
- Mark Casson-Catherine Casson, L'imprenditore nella storia. Dal mercante medievale al moderno uomo d'affari, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2024 (fino a p. 115)
- Adriana Castagnoli, L'imprenditoria femminile nell'Italia unita, in Il contributo italiano alla storia del pensiero - Tecnica, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani, 2013, pp. 401-416 https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/l-imprenditoria-femminile-nell-italia-unita_%28Il-Contributo-italiano-alla-storia-del-Pensiero:-Tecnica%29/
- Pier Luigi Porta, Milano e la borghesia degli imprenditori, in Il contributo italiano alla storia del pensiero - Tecnica, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani, 2013, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/milano-e-la-borghesia-degli-imprenditori_%28Il-Contributo-italiano-alla-storia-del-Pensiero:-Tecnica%29/

Per i non frequentanti: alla bibliografia per i frequentanti, i non frequentanti dovranno aggiungere i seguenti 5 articoli:

1. Giorgio Roverato, La storia della industrializzazione della pianura padana, in Obiettivo sulla Pianura Padana : visioni interdisciplinari di una regione geo-culturale italiana, a cura di Gerhild Fuchs, Barbara Tasser, Innsbruck, Innsbruck University Press, 2009, pp. 67-79
2. Giuseppe De Luca, Nobili e imprenditori: l'inconsueto caso dei Visconti di Modrone (XVI-XX), in Imprenditorialità e sviluppo economico. Il caso italiano (secc. XIII-XX), a cura di Franco Amatori e Andrea Colli, Milano, Egea, 2009, pp. 442-458
3. Silvio De Majo, Un caso di capitalismo familiare nell'industria italiana della pasta: l'azienda Antonio Amato di Salerno nella seconda metà del Novecento, Ibidem, pp. 461-499
4. Giovanni Favero, Marzotto dopo la rivoluzione: la ristrutturazione di una grande impresa tessile a controllo famigliare, Ibidem, pp. 525-546
5. Ivan Paris, La moda come sistema. Integrazione di processo e differenziazione di prodotto (1951-1969), Ibidem, pp. 1425-1460
Tutti questi articoli saranno forniti in formato digitale dalla docente a richiesta degli interessati.
Assessment methods and Criteria
The evaluation takes place by means of an oral exam: test questions to verify not only knowledge and comprehension but also communications skills about the themes in the course. The subject of the evaluation will possibly be the oral report presented by the student to the class.
M-STO/08 - ARCHIVAL SCIENCE, BIBLIOGRAPHY AND LIBRARIANSHIP - University credits: 9
Lessons: 60 hours
Professor: Nuovo Angela Maria
Professor(s)