HISTORY OF CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

Consistent with the learning objectives of the Master’s Degree in Innovation and Management for Culture and Creativity, the course explores the history of innovation, creativity and creative industries from a business history perspective. It analyzes how entrepreneurs, firms, technologies, and institutions contributed to the construction of cultural and symbolic markets in sectors such as luxury, fashion, film, photography, advertising, design and craft.
The course treats innovation as a historically situated and systemic process, shaped by the interaction between creativity, organization, markets, institutions and managerial practices. Particular attention is devoted to the ways in which creativity is transformed into economic value through entrepreneurship, business organization, branding and storytelling.
Through theoretical contributions and historical case studies, the course provides students with tools to analyze cultural and creative firms both as economic actors and as producers of symbolic value, innovation and social transformation. By the end of the course, students will be able to understand how creative industries have constructed markets, managed uncertainty and organized creativity across different historical and sectoral contexts.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:
1. understand how creative industries have historically evolved in different geographical areas and in different institutional, technological and cultural contexts;
2. analyze key sectors such as film, fashion, luxury, design, media, photography, advertising and craft through the tools of business history;
3. understand creativity as an organized economic activity and innovation as a historically situated and systemic process;
4. interpret branding, marketing, storytelling and business organization as tools through which cultural and creative firms manage uncertainty and transform creativity into economic and symbolic value;
5. distinguish the role of institutions in promoting or inhibiting innovation and creativity, critically discussing historical and contemporary case studies;
6. reconstruct and formulate hypotheses on the different innovative strategies adopted by cultural and creative firms throughout their history;
7. relate past practices of innovation, cultural production and market construction to current managerial and political challenges in the creative industries;
8. comment on, discuss and present case studies, formulating interpretive hypotheses and arguing their own point of view in relation to the theories presented in class and their previous knowledge.

Basic knowledge of general history

Week 1: What are creative industries? Definitions, problems and frameworks
Week 2: Entrepreneurship and innovation in cultural industries
Week 3: Mass culture, branding, cinema, and photography (1900-1950)
Week 4: Fashion, luxury & cosmetic industries (1960-1990)
Week 5: Branding creativity in a global age (1990-)

References
Unit 1: Pierre Bourdieu, "The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed", Poetics 12, 4-5 (1983): 311–356 and Pierre Bourdieu, "The Market of Symbolic Goods", Poetics 14, 1-2 (1985): 13–44
Unit 2: Roberts, J. (2022). Luxury, craft, creativity and innovation. In P.-Y. Donzé, V. Pouillard, & J. Roberts (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Luxury Business (pp. 151–172). Oxford University Press
Unit 3: Daniel Wadhwani and Christina Lubinski, “Reinventing Entrepreneurial History” Business History Review, Vol 91, 4 (Winter 2017): 767–799
Unit 4: Valeria Giacomin and Christina Lubinski, "Entrepreneurship as Emancipation: Ruth Handler and the Entrepreneurial Process ‘in Time’ and ‘over Time’, 1930s–1980s", Business History, Vol 66, 7 (2023): 1888–1915
Unit 5: Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Chapter 1 Apostles of Modernity” (pp. 1–24) and 2 “The New Professionals” (pp. 25–51)
Unit 6: Nicoli, Marina, and Peter Miskell. “Entrepreneurs and the State in the Italian Film Industry, 1919–1935.” Business History Review 85, no. 4 (2011): 775–797
Unit 7: Bakker, Gerben. "Stars and Stories: How Films Became Branded Products." Enterprise & Society, vol. 2, no. 3 (2001): 461–502.
Unit 8: Tedlow, Richard S. "The Beginning of Mass Marketing in America: George Eastman and Photography as a Case Study." Journal of Macromarketing, vol. 17, no. 2, 1997, pp. 67–81.
Unit 9: Donzé, Pierre-Yves, and Ben Wubs. “LVMH: Storytelling and Organizing Creativity in Luxury and Fashion.” European Fashion: The Creation of a Global Industry, edited by Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Véronique Pouillard, Manchester University Press, 2018, pp. 63–85.
Unit 10: Donzé, P.-Y., & Fujioka, R. (2017). Luxury business. In Oxford research encyclopedia in business and management
Unit 11: Codignola, Federica. The Symbolic Power of Collectible Design: Mapping a Multifaceted Field. Ethics Press, 2025.
Unit 12: Mamidipudi, A., & Bijker, W. E. (2018). Innovation in Indian Handloom Weaving. Technology and Culture, 59(3), 509-545
Unit 13: Hashino, Tomoko. "The Survival Strategy of the Japanese Kimono Industry." Global Luxury: Organizational Change and Emerging Markets since the 1970s, edited by Pierre-Yves Donzé and Rika Fujioka, Routledge, 2018, pp. 257–274.

Two alternative exam modes are offered to all students:
1. Group work during the course (30%) and final test (True or False with explanation)- oral exam (70%)
2. Final test (True or False with explanation) and oral exam (100%)

Participation in group work must be communicated to the teacher by the second week of the course.

written and oral

The instructor is responsible for ensuring the authenticity and originality of all examinations and coursework. In cases of suspected academic misconduct, an additional on-site assessment may be required during the exams, which may differ from the standard format.

Regarding grade grading (mode by which grades will be assigned), regardless of attending or non-attending mode:
A. scores in the 18-22 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- sufficient knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the syllabus;
- limited ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- sufficient communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the history of economics and technology;
B. scores in the 23-26 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- fair knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the syllabus;
- discrete ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- fair communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the history of economics and technology;
C. scores in the 27-30 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- good or excellent knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the syllabus;
- good or excellent ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- fully appropriate communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the history of economics and technology.
D. honors will be awarded in the presence of knowledge and applied understanding with reference to the syllabus; excellent judgment and communication skills.

Lectures, quizzes, discussions of case studies; group work

Readings and references available on Moodle

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Cities, infrastructure and social capital" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development