45121 - Business History

Learning outcomes

The aim of this course is to provide student with an understanding of the evolution of the different forms of enterprises over the last two centuries, giving a particular emphasis to management and governance issues.

Course contents

The aim of this course is to provide student with an understanding of the evolution of the different forms of enterprises over the last two centuries. Particular emphasis will be given to the analysis of the Italian case study. Each issue will be developed with the support of specific case studies.

The course is organized into two parts.

The first part will be given by prof. Tito Menzani and will develop the following issues:

1. Introduction to the business history: the three Industrial Revolution
2. The origin of the managerial enterprises
3. The multinational enterprises nd the globalization
4. Network of enterprises
5.Cooperative enterprises
6. The regulatory state and the state owned enterprises
7. Innovation in historical perspective
8. Work organization (fordism and toyotism)
9 The origin of marketing
10. Accounting in historical perspective

The second part will be given by prof. Patrizia Battilani and will focus on the following issues

1. The Italian economic development between miracles and declines
2. From the first to the second world war: the emerging of state owned enterprise
3. The impact of the Marshall Plan on the Italian enterprises
4. The Italian golden age: fashion, engeneering and tourism
5. The Italian industrial districts
6. From the oil crisis to the flourishing of the MAde in Italy
7 The slow de-industrialization
8. The starting of a complex transformation from 1990s to the new millenium
9. The women's business: origin and development
10. The 2008 crisis and its impact on the Italian enterprises
 

 

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

 

P. Toninelli, Storia d'impresa, 2012

P. Battilani e F. Fauri, L'economia italiana dal 1945 ad oggi, Il Mulino, 2014.

 

Patrizia Battilani, L'impresa cooperativa in Italia nella seconda metà del Novecento: istituzione marginale o fattore di modernizzazione economica?, in "Impresa e storia", n. 37, 2009, pp. 9-58.

Tito Menzani, La macchina nel tempo. La meccanica strumentale italiana dalle origini all'affermazione in campo internazionale, Bologna, Clueb, 2011 (solo cap. 2).

Some of the readings and the lectures' presentations will be uploaded at the beginning of the course.

Teaching methods

Traditional lectures

Assessment methods

The exam is composed of a written test (4 open questions and 6 brief questions), covering the topics of the theoretical lectures.

The mark for the written text is out of 30 points, and the minimum required to pass the exam is 18/30.

Students can choose between the full exam and midterm exams.

It is not possible to bring books, personal notes or electronic devices in the exam. Registration for the exam is compulsory, and students have to register through AlmaEsami [https://almaesami.unibo.it/almaesami/welcome.htm]according to the general rules of the School of Economics, Management and Statistics.

Teaching tools

Power point presentations and film clips of the past will be used

Office hours

See the website of Patrizia Battilani

See the website of Tito Menzani