University of Commerce Luigi Bocconi

The course focuses on the long-term economic development of Western societies, exploring the factors leading to the pre-eminence that they acquired over other world areas. Concepts and theories from the social sciences are used as a starting point for understanding the development of real economies in their complex social, political, and cultural contexts. Although the course focuses on the West (Europe and northern America), the developments which took place elsewhere are also considered. The introductory part of the course focuses on the preindustrial period, and introduces the theoretical framework of the "Great Divergence" (leading to the pre-eminence of the West over the East) and "Little Divergence" (leading to the pre-eminence of northern over southern Europe) to understand the emergence of key economic and political hierarchies between different world areas. The Industrial Revolution which took place in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries constitutes the core of the course. The paths to industrialization and modernization followed by other world areas are also explored. The final part of the course covers the period going from the so-called "first Globalization" (1870-1914) until today. The course discusses fundamental knowledge about the long-term economic and social developments that gave origin to the contemporary globalized and highly-interconnected (but also highly unequal) world.

This course explores the decisions that executives in the creative industries have to make in order to carve competitive positioning and ensure long-term sustainability for their companies. The schedule is organized into four modules with the goal to help students develop an analytic toolkit for understanding strategic issues and hone their ability to structure complex business problems and make decisions in lack of complete information. The modules are: 1) formulation of competitive strategy for a given business of a firm (how to play in relation to the external and internal environments and the changes both constantly undergo); 2) developing an understanding on how multi-business firms determine the scope of their activities (where to play in terms of product/customer segments, geographies and value chains); 3) operations management and its strategic centrality to cope with constant changes in customer preferences, networks of supply and demand, and developments in technology; and 4) analyzing strategic decisions that are specific of and key to current competitive landscapes in the creative fields. The ultimate objective of the course is to provide students with a coherent theoretical framework useful to the stimulation and development of their strategic decision-making in different situations. Prerequisite: students should be familiar with the fundamentals of management and microeconomics.

The course focuses on the new product development process as a complex inter-functional management topic, which requires strategic initiative, aligned organizational solutions and appropriate supporting methodologies. Collaborative innovation is presented in order to discuss the potentialities of the involvement of external players in the innovation process, also thanks to the opportunities offered by internet-based technologies. Despite the increasing relevance of innovation strategies and new product development, few companies seem to have mastered their ability to identify, create, and exploit opportunities for innovation on a systematic basis. Crafting and delivering a new product is not an easy and intuitive process, but the result of a set of structured and organized practices. This course explores these practices and exploits the tools and techniques that can be used to this purpose. The New Product Development and Open Innovation course is organized in two main parts. The first provides a set of integrated frameworks and tools to effectively design and manage the strategies, processes, and techniques for innovation. It provides the conceptual tools to understand the nature and characteristics of different types of innovation, as well as practical insights on how to design and manage a new product development process. The second part of the course is focused on how digital environments can help companies to open their boundaries and pursue processes of open and collaborative innovation, involving several external partners in their new product development activities. Special attention is paid to the role of users in enhancing innovation and to ad-hoc mechanisms supporting their active involvement, among which user communities, virtual knowledge brokers, and Open Source Systems.