HISTORY OF CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

Consistent with the learning objectives of the master’s degree in Innovation and Management for Culture and Creativity, the course explores the history of the creative industries as a set of business practices rooted in the 19th and 20th centuries. From early cinema to global luxury, from national arts policy to the digital turn, students will analyze how creativity has been commodified across time and place. The course uses global case studies to explore how creative economies evolved long before the term "creative industries" emerged.

1. Students understand how 'creative industries' have evolved historically across different geographies
2. Students analyse key sectors (film, fashion, design, media) through the lens of business history
3. Students relate past practices of innovation and cultural production to current management and policy challenges
4. Students distinguish the role of institutions in promoting or inhibiting innovation and creativity, critically discussing historical and contemporary case studies.
5. Students are able to reconstruct and hypothesise about the different innovative strategies that companies and brands have adopted throughout their history, in terms of continuity and discontinuity, analogies and differences.
6. Students formulate hypotheses about continuity and discontinuity between current innovation strategies and those of the past.
7. Students comment on and present historical case studies, formulate hypotheses, and present their point of view concerning the theories presented in class and their previous knowledge.

Basic knowledge of general history

Cluster 1: What Are Creative Industries? Origins and Frameworks
Cluster 2: Mass Culture, Branding, and Media Empires (1900–1980s)
Cluster 3: Fashion, Luxury & Lifestyle Industries (1960s–1980s)
Cluster 4: Branding Creativity in a Global Age (1980s–Today)

Reading unit 1: Fagerberg, Jan. 2005. “Innovation. A Guide to the Literature”, in Fagerberg, Jan, David C. Mowery, and Richard R. Nelson, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Innovation. Oxford University Press, 1-26.
Reading unit 2: Lazonick, William. 2005. “The Innovative Firm”, in Fagerberg, Jan, David C. Mowery, and Richard R. Nelson. Op. cit., 29-55.
Reading unit 3: Nuvolari, Alessandro and Michelangelo Vasta. 2015. “The Ghost in the Attic? The Italian National Innovation System in Historical Perspective, 1861–2011.” Enterprise & Society, 16 (2), 270–90.
Reading unit 4: Pinch, Trevor J. and Wiebe E. Bijker. 1987. “The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts”, reprinted in Johnson, Deborah. J. and Jameson M. Wetmore. Editors. 2021. Technology and Society. Building Our Sociotechnical Future, MIT Press, p. 109-136
Reading unit 5: Bruland, Kristine and David C. Mowery. 2005, “Innovation through Time”, in Fagerberg, Jan, David C. Mowery, and Richard R. Nelson. Op. cit., 349-379.
Reading unit 6: De Vries, Jan. 1994. “The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution”, The Journal of Economic History, 54 (2), 249-270.
Reading unit 7:Koehn, Nancy F. 1997. “Josiah Wedgwood and the First Industrial Revolution”, in McCraw, Thomas, editor. Op. cit., 19-48.
Reading unit 8: Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. 1973. “Decision Making and Modern Institutional Change”, The Journal of Economic History, 33 (1), 1-15.
Reading unit 9: Colli, A. and Corrocher N. 2013. “The Role of the State in the Third Industrial Revolution: Continuity and Change”. In: Dosi, G., Galambos, L., Gambardella, A., and Orsanigo, L. (eds) 2013. The Third Industrial Revolution in Global Business. Cambridge University Press, 229-251.
Reading unit 10: McCraw, Thomas and Richard S. Tedlow. “Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, and the Three Phases of Marketing”, in McCraw, Thomas, editor. Op. cit., p. 266-300.
Reading unit 11: Koehn, N. F. 1999. “Henry Heinz and Brand Creation in the Late Nineteenth Century: Making Markets for Processed Food”, The Business History Review, 73 (3), 349-393 or U. Spiekermann. “Twentieth-Century Product Innovations in the German Food Industry.” The Business History Review 83, no. 2 (2009): 291–315.
Reading unit 12: P. Miskell (2004). Cavity Protection or Cosmetic Perfection? Innovation and Marketing of Toothpaste Brands in the United States and Western Europe, 1955–1985. Business History Review, 78(1), 29-60.
Reading unit 13: Mamidipudi, A., & Bijker, W. E. (2018). Innovation in Indian Handloom Weaving. Technology and Culture, 59(3), 509-545
Reading unit 14: M. Eisler. 2020. “Public Policy, Industrial Innovation, and the Zero-Emission Vehicle”, Business History Review, 2020, 94(4), 779-802.

1. Oral and written presentation: from lessons 7 to 14, group presentations (4 students maximum per team) of one of the texts (in bold characters in the references sections) containing case studies. These texts are available on Moodle. Students need to discuss the text in both oral and written form. They must prepare a presentation (maximum of 20 minutes, with accompanying slides), where they identify notably : a) what makes the interest and relevance of the case study; b) the main disciplinary/theoretical frame adopted by the author(s); c) the research hypothesis; c) the methodology or methodologies used; d) and the results. In the following week, the team must submit a short essay (1 000 words max.) recapitulating these points and mention what they have learned from the case study. Grade: 1, 2 or 3 extra points.

2. Final exam: for all students, written exam covering all readings (not references) and the slides prepared by the professor for each class. The exam will include a combination of open questions and fixed answers.

written and oral

Regarding grade grading (mode by which grades will be assigned), regardless of attending or non-attending mode:
A. scores in the 18-22 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- sufficient knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the syllabus;
- limited ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- sufficient communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the history of economics and technology;
B. scores in the 23-26 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- fair knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the syllabus;
- discrete ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- fair communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the history of economics and technology;
C. scores in the 27-30 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- good or excellent knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the syllabus;
- good or excellent ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- fully appropriate communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the history of economics and technology.
D. honors will be awarded in the presence of knowledge and applied understanding with reference to the syllabus; excellent judgment and communication skills.

Lectures, discussions and case studies