Learning objectives
Knowledge and understanding. While the teaching procedures often involve a detachment from knowing the real world, the lab is able to allow the students to gather the productive features of the Italian economy. It should also cover with the changes generated by the current process of firm restructuring.
Applying knowledge and understanding. Thanks to the lab the students will be able to grasp the complex factors affecting the firm environment and to read more carefully into the data about the changes in the production process.
Making judgements. Within the lab the students will learn how to use information provided by data and newspapers in a more independent way.
Communication skills. In the lab the students are required to make presentations through power point slides. They will be rewarded according both to the quality of their presentations and their participation to the following discussion. Of course such a methodology strengthens the communication skills of the students, as they become used to show the results of their analysis but also to discuss them with other people.
Learning skills. In the lab the students learn to assimilate official information in a more critical way. That should push them towards higher learning courses, with more knowledge and more intellectual curiosity.
Prerequisites
Industrial Economics
Course unit content
he lab allows the attending students to know the structural features of the Italian industry, plus its recent changes in the organization and in the conduct of the firms. The detailed topics are the following.
• The structural features of the Italian economy
• Firm differences in the restructuring phase
• How firm size and ownership are important
• The role of the external environment: above all, the changes in the international organization of the enterprises
• Demand and supply of human capital and skill role
• New setting of workplaces, new practices and productivity
• Heterogeneity of enterprises and strategies
• The improvement in quality
• Industrial districts and firm networks
• The innovation gap
• Public policy towards the enterprises
Full programme
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Bibliography
Alessandro Arrighetti e Augusto Ninni ( a cura di), LA TRASFORMAZIONE ‘SILENZIOSA’. CAMBIAMENTO STRUTTURALE E STRATEGIE D’IMPRESA NELL’INDUSTRIA ITALIANA.,
Teaching methods
Frontal lessons, presentations, class discussion
Assessment methods and criteria
Students’ learning is checked by the evaluation both of the presentations made by the students and of the following class discussion. Each presentation is made by two up to four students. It should last an hour at the maximum, while its discussion occurs in the hour after. Providing the suitability certification depends on presentation plus discussion (of course the individual members of the group of the students can get differing marks). By means of the presentation we check the knowledge and understanding of the topics in the students who are author of the presentation, whereas we check how the same are able to apply knowledge and understanding even by means of the discussion. In both the actions the students are also required to judge the behaviour of the enterprises (or of the policy makers), so that it is possible to check their making judgements ability. Both the actions require also to develop communication skills. Finally it is worthwhile to underline the selection among the students to participate to the lab and their creative ability in choosing the arguments, discussing within the group, setting up the slides, showing them to the other students, discussing with them after. All these tasks are able to create or to strongly stimulate their learning skills.
Other information
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