DIGITAL ECONOMICS: SUSTAINABILITY AND SOCIAL IMPACT

The course is part of the common courses of the program Economia e Gestione delle Aziende. The aim of the course is to deepen the students’ understanding of the social impact and sustainability of the ongoing Digital Revolution. The course is thus connected directly to two fundamental themes of the Corso di Studi: the development of technology and innovation, on the one hand, and the evaluation of sustainability-based strategies, on the other hand. In particular, the course is aimed at providing students with the tools needed to evaluate decisions from a broader perspective, including Ethical judgments, Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability concerns.

The course is aimed at developing students’ critical attitude facing dilemmas of an ethical, social and environmental nature. Brought about by the ongoing Digital Transformation. In particular, students will be exposed to several instantiations of such dilemmas, in which the digital transformation is associated not only to social and economic benefits, but also to perils on the social, ethical or environmental side. Instead of offering a single solution to these dilemmas, students will be confronted critically with scientific evidence, cases and hosts bringing their real experience on the field. The resulting discussion will allow students to form their own points of view to read the phenomenon. Group work will allow students to match these concepts with reality, testing their validity. At the end of the course, students will be able to identify the main elements characterizing ethical, social and environmental dilemmas due to the digital transformation elaborating their own personal conclusions, leading to operational results that may be useful for their future work once graduated.

No specific pre-requisite is necessary for this course

The emergency due to the diffusion of the Covid-19 imposed a quantic leap in terms of pervasiveness of digital technologies, to the point that a redefinition of our understanding of their ethical, social, and environmental impact is needed. The course will thus start from the analysis of the trade-off between the necessity to widely adopt a digital tracking application, to limit contagion, and the need to guarantee people’s privacy and freedom from social control. The discussion of this example will allow to move into the discussion of other instantiations of the same dilemma: the Social Credit System, scoring algorithms, big data profiling, up to the responsibility of AI-based systems; all cases in which the Digital Transformation must be analyzed not only in economic terms, but also from the point of view of the resulting control, privacy and social justice. The discussion of these examples will allow the formation of a specific reference model, that each student will develop personally and originally. Along this journey, other linked dilemmas will be brought to students’ attention: cybersecurity, machine-man substitution, the blurring of private and work life. At the end, students will be aware of the main threats posed by the digital transformation, along with its main benefits, and will be able to develop her or his own point of view on those based on a model built together in class.

For each session, the reference material will be indicated, together with a series of scientific articles and readings that will be placed on Moodle

The final acquisition of competences by the students will be tested with reference to:
1) Groupwork developed and presented during the course. In this case the evaluation will be centered around the capability of the student to connect theories seen in class with the chosen case.
2) The written exam, lasting 1 hour and comprising open and multiple-choice questions. In this case the aim is to test students’ understanding of the course concepts and capability to connect them to cases seen during the course and to the real cases presented in class.
3) One or more exercise session to be developed in class or as homework. These will be explained in class, together with the related evaluation criteria.
4) Class participation, resulting in a possible bonus when students behave proactively.
Students not attending classes will be evaluated only on the basis of the written exam.
Due to Covid emergency, the exam procedure may be subject to modifications.

The course will be mainly based on case discussion with the students, and on the joint elaboration of a theoretical model of refence through a debate guided by the teacher. In this last case, some lectures will be given in the traditional way. Moreover, some guests will be called to share their experience with the students, engaging them in a debate. At the same time, students can participate in groupwork sessions aimed at matching the theoretical concepts seen in class to the real case chosen by their group. The groupwork has the central function of bridging theory and reality, and is thus key. Students’ groups will be able to choose the cases that are mostly interesting to them, of course within the limits of the course’s main themes.
Due to Covid emergency, the course delivery may be subject to modifications.

Italian

Support to students with disabilities is assured by Ca' Foscari. In case, please write an inquiry to disabilita@unive.it.

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