2021/2022

2022/2023

DM270

SPS/09 (SOCIOLOGIA DEI PROCESSI ECONOMICI E DEL LAVORO)

DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE POLITICHE E SOCIALI

COMUNICAZIONE DIGITALE

PERCORSO COMUNE

2°

Secondo Semestre (27/02/2023 - 31/05/2023)

6

40 ore di attività frontale

Inglese

ORALE

ROSTAN MICHELE (titolare) - 6 CFU

Students with basic knowledge in modern and contemporary history, economics and sociology will be able to follow the course more productively. Recalling basic concepts such as GDP, per capita GDP, economic growth, capitalism, work, occupations, entrepreneurship, firm, science, technology and innovation would also help to attend lessons. Basic skills in oral and written reporting, and group work, as well as English proficiency will allow students to participate actively in the course.

The world economy has grown at an unprecedented pace in the last half-a-century pushed and sustained by the diffusion and strengthening of socio-economic forces such as entrepreneurship and innovation, human capital formation and mobility, science and technology. The course aims at offering a sociological view on these “engines of development” looking at relevant institutions, cultural elements and social relations associated with them, providing students with references to different theoretical approaches and empirical evidence.
At the end of the course students should have a general understanding of economic development in the long run and in recent times and gain a more specific knowledge of some constituent elements of the “engines of development” such as entrepreneurship & innovation, science & technology. They also should be able to search for empirical evidence describing these elements and to distinguish different theoretical approaches to the study of development. Finally, students should acquire theoretical and practical tools to study local development and be able to detect relevant aspects connected to economic development in their immediate social context (e.g. city, region).

The course is dived into two parts. The first is dedicated to theory and the second to practice. The first part begins describing economic growth over the very long run in order to identify different phases of economic development, their main features and possible causes. In this way, the distinctive traits of contemporary economic development are pointed out and the stage is set to address the topics of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship formation, the generation and application of new knowledge through science and technology, innovation, structures and agency fostering economic development. In this part concepts and theoretical approaches are presented. The second part is dedicated to the study of local development and local innovation systems using Pavia as a case study. Practicals consist of visits to local high-tech firms, interviews to entrepreneurs and other qualified informants, seminars and discussions. As far as possible, instruments of inquiry and data, examples and cases are presented in order to provide students with a small but useful set of tools to study economic development.

The course consists of lectures, seminars and practicals. Although lectures may include a two-way communication between lecturer and students (with questions, answers, etc.), they are mainly based on the lecturer giving a speech. Seminars imply both discussion in the class, active participation by students who may be asked to give a short speech or report, and possibly the intervention of an external guest. Practicals consist of group visits to relevant corporate entities (institutions, firms, university units, etc.) and meetings with qualified informants. At the end of the course students will be invited to assess the didactical activities they have attended. Some instructions for preparing the exam will also be provided.

A complete list of readings and other materials will be provided at the beginning of the course and will be uploaded on the KIRO e-learning platform page of the course. The general reference books for the course are:
Smelser, N.J. & Swedberg, R. (Eds.), The Handbook of Economic Sociology (1st and 2nd editions), Princeton, Princeton University Press – New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1994 and 2005.
Swedberg, R. (ed.), Entrepreneurship. The Social Science View, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000.
Fagerberg, J., David C. Mowery, D. C. and R. R. Nelson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Innovation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.
Ramella , F., Sociology of economic innovation, Milton Park, Routledge, 2016.

Student assessment is based on students’ participation in seminars and practicals, a mid-semester assignment and a final essay. The assignment consists of questions with very short answers; the short essay is based on practicals and/or readings. A defined number of points are associated to each part: assignment = 15 points; essay = 16 points; participation in seminars and practicals = 2 points. Overall, the maximum score that students can gain is 33 points, corresponding to a grade of 30/30 cum laude.

No further information

The teaching contents and teaching methods are linked to the following objectives of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development: a) Goal 4: quality education (helping to equip students with basic knowledge of entrepreneurship); c) Goal 8: decent work and economic growth (making students more sensitive to development-oriented policies capable of supporting entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation and the creation of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises); c) Goal 9: enterprises, innovation and infrastructures (providing students with basic knowledge on local systems of innovation and scientific research and increasing their sensitivity towards them)
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