General provisions

This course may be included in the Bachelor's Programme in social sciences, the Bachelor's Programme in business and economics and the teacher programme 140/220 credits and the teacher programme 210/330 credits at Uppsala University. The entire B-course is also included as the economic history specialisation (mom 5-8) in History AB 60 credits. It can also be read as a single subject course. The course syllabus has been approved by the board of the Department of Economic History.

Entry requirements

20 credit points/30 credits in social science subjects or 20 credit points/30 credits in history or the history of science and ideas.

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• understand the general development of the industrialisation process, discuss the importance of social and economic factors for production and analyse the importance of policy versus market in the industrialisation process
• analyse the historical development of corporate entrepreneurship in a social context
• account for the roll of the household in economic development
• account for the reasoning in different arguments regarding the economic and political forces behind long-term global development processes
• account for how both small businesses and large enterprises have developed in different geographic regions
• independently formulate and discuss clearly defined scholarly problems
• compile a short essay, using existing research results, regarding how the concept of business systems can be applied in independent case studies
• evaluate and analyse different source materials that illustrate the development of the enterprise.

Content

This course is directed towards students within economic history, as well as students in the Bachelor programme in business and economics with an interest in analysing the development of business and entrepreneurship in a broader social and chronological perspective. The course is based on the concept of <em>business history </em> (the history of the enterprise) and how this has been developed as a research field.

The course consists of two parts. Part 1 focuses on the problems of economic growth and development. This part is coordinated with the course <em>Global economic development</em>.

During part 2 how companies function in a societal perspective is analysed. Based on the concept of <em>business systems</em>, how above all nordic companies have developed over time is discussed. The course mainly focuses on the emergence of national and international corporate enterprises, but also the development of small and medium-sized companies in different countries is discussed.

The course includes methodological exercises using various types of business-historical source material that are reviewed critically and evaluated in relation to one another.

Industrialisation, Entrepreneurship and Imperialism, 7.5 credits

The Growth of Big Business, 7.5 credits

Instruction

Instruction is in the form of lectures, seminars and the supervision of the writing of a short essay.

Assessment

The course is examined through written examination of parts of the reading list, but also through oral examinations in groups. During the course, the student will write a short essay analysing Swedish and foreign companies in light of the theories that are presented in the course.