B0033 - ECOSISTEMI IMPRENDITORIALI, SOSTENIBILITA' E INNOVAZIONE

Learning outcomes

The course focuses on the main features of entrepreneurial ecosystems, with special emphasis on the interaction between institutions and economic agents. It introduces to the use of quantitative methods for the analysis of innovative entrepreneurship and the evaluation of its environmental, social, and economic sustainability. At the end of the course students will have achieved the knowledge necessary to support the choice of investment strategies and the implementation of public policies aimed at fostering the emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Course contents

An entrepreneurial ecosystem consists of various elements, such as leadership, culture, financial resources, public agencies, and customers willing to adopt innovative products and services. These elements interact in complex ways. While each of them can individually contribute to the development of innovative entrepreneurship, it is their combined presence that creates a super-additive effect, significantly boosting entrepreneurial dynamism and the economic growth of a region.

The course provides the fundamentals for the study of entrepreneurial ecosystems, from the perspective of both firms and policy makers.

Readings/Bibliography

Isenberg, D. J. (2010). How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution. Harvard Business Review, 88(6): 2-11.

Stam, E. (2015). Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Regional Policy: A Sympathetic Critique. European Planning Studies, 23(9): 1759-1769.

Spigel, B. (2017). The Relational Organization of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 41(1): 49-72.

Baumol, W. J. (1996). Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive. Journal of Business Venturing, 11(1): 3-22.

Parker, S. C. (2018). The Economics of Entrepreneurship. Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition.

Carbonara, E., & Santarelli, E. (2023). The Impact of Constitutional Protection of Economic Rights on Entrepreneurship: A Taxonomic Survey. Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship. 19(2): 126-223.

Acs, Z. J., Estrin, S., Mickiewicz, T., & Szerb, L. (2018). Entrepreneurship, Institutional Economics, and Economic Growth: An Ecosystem Perspective. Small Business Economics, 51(2): 501–514.

Teaching methods

Lectures, class discussion, courseworks.

Assessment methods

Students who choose to actively participate in the course will take a two-part exam, and the grade obtained in each part will contribute 50% to the final grade.

Students who choose to participate actively in the course will take a two-part assessment, with each part contributing 50% to the final grade. The first part (coursework) consists of the preparation of a business plan for a new, sustainable entrepreneurial project that exploits the potential of, or explores possible developments in, one of the two domains of Artificial Intelligence: Learning and Symbolic Systems (LS-SYS) and Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RA-SYS). Each business plan will be prepared collaboratively by at least two students. For the coursework, limited, declared, and non-substantial use of AI is permitted for support activities (e.g. summarizing and rephrasing). The second part consists of a written final exam in which students will be required to answer 5 out of 8 questions (4 open-ended questions and 1 multiple-choice question).

For students who are unable to attend classes, the final exam will consist of 8 open-ended questions and 4 multiple-choice questions.

The second part consists of a written final exam in which students will have to answer 5 out of 8 (4 open-ended and 1 multiple-choice) questions.

For students unable to attend the classes, the final exam will consist of 8 open-ended questions and 4 multiple-choice questions that they will have to answer.

Grading criteria:

18-23: the student has sufficient preparation and analytical skills, spread however, over just few topics taught in the course, the overall jargon is correct

24-27: the student shows and adequate preparation at a technical level with some doubts over the topics. Good, yet not to articulate analytical skills with the use of a correct jargon

28-30: Great knowledge about most of the topics taught in the course, good critical and analytical skills, good usage of the specific jargon

30L: excellent and in depth knowledge of all the topics in the course, excellent critical and analytical skills, excellent usage of specific jargon.

Teaching tools

Other teaching material, including slides used during the lectures and papers will be made available to students on a weekly basis through the 'Virtuale' platform.

Office hours

See the website of Enrico Santarelli