2010-11 academic year

Business History (21850)

Degree/study: Degree in Business Sciences
Year: 2nd
Term: 1st
Number of ECTS credits: 5 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 125 hours
Teaching language or languages: Spanish
Teaching Staff: Veronica Binda

1. Presentation of the subject

The main purpose of the course is to investigate the influence of historical context on firms and entrepreneurial actions, to analyse the transformation of the internal structure of companies in the long run and to study the consequences of their strategies on economic growth.

Within the economics and business field, the subject applies concepts and theoretical models gained from this and from other courses to companies' behaviour and its transformation in the long run.

Combining lectures with practical seminars and case discussions, Historia de la Empresa particularly devotes lot of time to key topics such as:

- the dynamics of continuity and discontinuity that affect entrepreneurial choices from a comparative and dynamic perspective;
- the impact of variables like space, time, culture, and technology on companies' shapes;
- the role played by national systems in providing opportunities and putting constraints on entrepreneurs and enterprises';
- the identification and management of crucial phases in the growth and development path of companies in the long run.

2. Competences to be attained

General competencies

Specific competencies

Instrumental competencies

1. Ability to analyse and synthesize

2. Basic general knowledge

Structural competencies

3. Application of theoretical knowledge to real situations

4. Investigation capability

5. Ability to learn

6. Ability to work autonomously

7. Skill to flexibly and creatively apply knowledge and adapt it to new contexts and situations

8. Knowledge of other nations' cultures

Interpersonal competencies

9. Critical skills

10. Ability to work as part of a team

Other competencies

11. Skill in using an oral and written technical language

1. Knowledge and critical interpretation of the transformations of companies' shapes and entrepreneurial activities from a historical perspective

2. Ability to set the configuration and behaviour of companies in their proper context

3. Skill to identify the crucial elements of a problem

4. Ability to take a multidisciplinary view of problems management and resolution

5. Plan and effectively manage time and activities

3. Contents

Part 1. Rural firms, trade, finances and manufacturing in the preindustrial age

Part 2. The company during the First Industrial Revolution

Part 3. The company during the Second Industrial Revolution

Part 4. Heterogeneous experiences between World War I and World War II

Part 5. From the Golden Age to the crisis of the large industrial corporation

Part 6. From managerial capitalism to entrepreneurial capitalism

4. Assessment

Evaluation of the subject is embedded in a process of continuous testing of the contents and capabilities gained by students.

To this purpose, the subject's evaluation is based on the following four points:

- The student's active participation in both lectures and seminars. Every class will begin or end with an oral or written revision of the class, or of the previous class, through which the students will be quickly questioned on its contents. The results of these examinations will represent 15% of the final mark.
- A mini test based on the contents of parts 1, 2, and 3, which will take place in the middle of the course and will represent 10% of the final mark.
- A team work (with submission of a paper), which will represent 15% of the final mark.
- A final exam. It will last two hours, will include all the course contents and will represent 60% of the final mark.

This evaluation system will not change in the September session.

5. Bibliography and teaching resources

5.1. Basic bibliography

Jesús María Valdaliso and Santiago López, Historia Económica de la Empresa, Crítica, Barcelona, 2009.

5.2. Complementary bibliography

William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity, Yale University Press, New Heaven, 2007.

Francesca Carnevali, Europe's Advantage: Banks and Small Firms in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy since 1918, Oxford U.P., Oxford-New York, 2005.

Asli M. Colpan, Takashi Hikino, and James R. Lincoln (editors), The Oxford Handbook of Business Groups, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010.

Mansel G. Blackford, The Rise of Modern Business in Great Britain, the United States, and Japan, Chapel Hill, 1998.

Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Strategy and Structure. Chapter in the History of American Industrial Enterprise, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussets, 1962.

Alfred D. Chandler Jr., La mano visible, Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social (MTSS), Madrid, 1987.

Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Escala y diversificación, Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, 1996.

Alfred D. Chandler Jr., "The Competitive Performance of U.S.Industrial Enterprises since the Second World War", in "Business History Review", no. 68, Spring 1994, pp. 1-71, 1994.

Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Franco Amatori, and Takashi Hikino (editors), Big Business and the Wealth of Nations, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, Massachussets, 1997.

Barry Eichengreen, The European Economy since 1945. Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond, Princeton U.P., Princeton, 2007.

Carmen Erro (editor), Historia Empresarial. Pasado, presente y retos de futuro, Ariel, Barcelona, 2003.

Robert F. Freeman, The Struggle for Control of the Modern Corporation: Organizational Change, at General Motors, 1924-1970, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge (Massachussets), 2001.

Geoffrey Jones, Multinationals and Global Capitalism: From the Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005.

Geoffrey Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin (editors), The Oxford Handbook of Business History, Oxford U.P., New York, 2008.

David Landes, Progreso Tecnológico y Revolución Industrial, Tecnos, Madrid, 1979.

Tom McCraw (editor), Creating Modern Capitalism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachussets, 1997.

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company. A short history of a revolutionary idea, The Modern Library, New York, 2003.

Joel Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy. An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850, Yale U.P., London, 2010.

Michael J. Piore and Charles F. Sabel, La Segunda Ruptura Industrial, Alianza, Madrid, 1990.

Jan Luiten Van Zanden, The Long Road to the Industrial Revolution: the European Economy in a Global Perspective, 1000-1800, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, 2009.

5.3. Teaching resources

Veronica Binda, "Entre el Estado y las multinacionales: la empresa industrial española en los años de la integración a la CEE", in "Revista de Historia Industrial", vol. 28, 2005.

Albert Carreras and Xavier Tafunell, "La gran empresa en España (1917-1974): una primera aproximación", in "Revista de Historia Industrial", vol. 3, 1993.

Jordi Catalan, "Strategic Policy Revisited: The Origins of Mass Productions in the Motor Industry of Argentina, Korea and Spain, 1945-1987", in "Business History", vol. 52, 2010.

Avner Greif, "Teoría de juegos e historia de la empresa", in "Información Comercial Española", no. 812, 2004, pp. 9-26.

Núria Puig Raposo, "Una multinacional holandesa en España: la Seda de Barcelona, 1925-1991", in "Revista de Historia Industrial", vol. 21, 2002.

Núria Puig Raposo and Paloma Fernández Pérez, "La gran empresa familiar española en el siglo XX: claves de su profesionalización", in "Revista de la Historia de la Economía y de la Empresa", vol. 2, 2008.

Mercedes Tatjer, "La industria en Barcelona (1832-1992). Factores de localización y cambio en las áreas fabriles: del centro histórico a la región metropolitana", in "Scripta Nova. Revista Electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales", vol. X, no. 218, 2006.

Jesús M. Valdaliso and Santiago López, "¿Sirve para algo la historia empresarial?", in Carmen Erro (editor), Historia Empresarial. Pasado, Presente y Retos de Futuro, Ariel, Barcelona, 2003, pp. 37-56.

Movie "Wall Street" (1987).

Other supplementary material will be available on "Aula Global".

6. Methodology

Students are required to do the following activities every week:

- reading and thinking on the teaching resources before the class;
- attending all the lectures and seminars;
- asking questions of the professor during classes;
- answering the professor's questions during lectures and seminars;
- submitting abstracts, papers and/or team works as requested.

On her side, the professor will:

- present the key contents and concepts during the lectures;
- answer students' questions;
- evaluate the understanding and learning of the teaching resources, randomly asking students in every lecture;
- coordinate the discussion during seminars.

7. Planning of activities

Week

Class activity

Individual activity

Session 1. Lecture on part 1

Session 2. Lecture on part 1