COMPARATIVE BUSINESS HISTORY

In accordance with the learning objectives of the Degree in International Management, the course intends to familiarize students with critical approaches towards the historical evolution of the enterprise and its governance.
The course:
- Makes students acquainted with historical debates on the enterprise.
- Offers historical contextualization to major theoretical managerial problems.
- Helps students to recognize constraints to practical application of managerial theories.

Students will be acquainted with the major discontinuities in business history, from pre-industrial manufacturing to the third industrial revolution.
They will recognize major themes in business history’s historiography.
They will recognize the peculiarities of historical research vs research in social sciences.

Capacità di utilizzare conoscenze acquisite
Students will be able to provide an historically coherent definition of the enterprise in different historical times.
Students will be familiar with major debates on forms of the enterprise.
Students will be able to define constraints posed by the historical and institutional context to the application of managerial theories.

Capacità di giudizio:
Students will recognize forms of enterprises in different historical contexts

Capacità di comunicazione:
Students will be able to present in public and defend research outcome

Capacità di apprendimento:
Students will be able to critically read and discuss an historical text and historical sources

Basic knowledge of modern history; good knowledge of English.

Week 1. Business history and the uses of the past for modern management (Amatori-Colli, part I)

1 – Course Introduction: what is business history?
2 – Why past matters? International Business and Business History? (Jones, Khanna)
3 – Discussing the uses of the Past in Management and Organizational Studies (Perchard et al.)

Week 2. The historical evolution of the firm (Amatori Colli, parts II)

4 – Preindustrial manufacturing (Epstein).
5 – Case study (Favero, 2006).
6 – The enterprise and the First Industrial Revolution (Mokyr, 2008).

Week 3. The emergence of the large enterprise and managerial capitalism (Amatori Colli, part III- IV)
7- The Second Industrial Revolution and national patterns (McCloskey, Sandberg).
8 – From multiunit enterprises to multidivisionals (Williamson).
9 – Case Study: GM (Roland Marchand)

Week 4. The Cold War: the age of “shrinking spaces” (Amatori Colli V)

10 – The third industrial revolution (Jones)
11 – New forms of enterprise (Powell).
11 – Case study: Benetton (Favero, 2005); Case: computer industry (Baldwin)

Week 5. Multinationals and global capitalism (Amatori Colli VI)

13 – Why adopting a global perspective? (Jones)
14 – The Emerging markets (Austin, Davila, Jones)
15 – Case Study: Berezovky and the oligarchs (Jones)

Textbook

Amatori F. & Colli A., 2011, Business History: Complexities and Comparisons, London: Routledge 2011, 272 pp. ISBN: 978-0415423977.

Articles

Gareth Austin, Carlos Dávila, and Geoffrey Jones, "The alternative business history: business in emerging markets," Business History Review, 91, no. 3 (2017).

Baldwin, Carliss Y. "Explaining the Vertical-to-Horizontal Transition in the Computer Industry." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-084, March 2017.

Epstein Stephen R., 1998, Craft guilds, apprenticeship and technological change in preindustrial Europe, Journal of Economic History, 58(3): 684-713.

Favero Giovanni, 2006, Old and new ceramics: Manufacturers, products and markets in the Venetian State (17th-18th centuries), in P. Lanaro (ed.), At the center of the Old World: Trade and manufacturing in Venice and the Venetian Mainland, Toronto: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, pp. 271-315.

Favero Giovanni, 2006, Benetton: Identifying an Image, Imagining an Identity, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, 06/WP/2006, pp. 1-9.

Jones, Geoffrey, Khanna, T. Bringing history (back) into international business. J Int Bus Stud 37, 453–468 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400198

Jones, Geoffrey. Business History, the Great Divergence and the Great Convergence." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-004, July 2017.

Jones, Geoffrey, Rachael Comunale, and Kate Lazaroff-Puck. "Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Oligarchs." Harvard Business School Case 317-005, March 2017. (Revised December 2019.)

Marchand Roland. The Corporation nobody knew. Bruce Barton, Alfred Sloan, and the founding of the General Motors "family'. Business History Review 65(4), 1991: 825-75

McCloskey D.N. & Sandberg L.G., 1972, From damnation to redemption: Judgements on the late Victorian entrepreneur, Explorations in Economic History, 9: 89-108.

Mokyr, Joel, Entrepreneurship and the Industrial Revolution in Britain in William J. Baumol, David S. Landes, and Joel Mokyr, eds., Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship in Economic history, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Wadhwani, R. Daniel and Jones, Geoffrey Gareth, Historical Change and the Competitive Advantage of Firms: Explicating The 'Dynamics' in the Dynamic Capabilities Framework (December 9, 2016).
Williamson Oliver E., 1981, The Modern Corporation: Origins, Evolution, Attributes, Journal of Economic Literature, 19 (4): 1537-68.

The exam will be written, based on slides, textbook and compulsory readings. Both slides and readings will be available online. Exam will include one open question, three hours (on line with both mic and video on).
Sessions Q&A require that readings be done in advance.

Frontal lessons with power point presentation. Q&A sessions and case studies by students.

English

Teaching language: English

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Circular economy, innovation, work" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development