HBS faculty members and students visited Lamborghini’s headquarters in Bologna during the immersion to learn how the company became experts in electric car technology. Photo courtesy Lamborghini

Before entering his second year at HBS in the fall of 2022, Paul Styslinger (MBA 2023) gave considerable thought to what he wanted to get out of his elective courses. “I asked myself, what are the things that HBS is the best in the world at teaching today?” he explains. “One of those is the role of capitalism—the interaction of industry and government and how those two things are balanced.” It was that interest that led Styslinger to enroll in an Immersive Field Course (IFC) that culminated during the January term in Italy, where students learned about the roots of capitalism and how the renowned House of Medici devised accounting standards still used today. “The original economic miracle—the model of globalization—was what the Medici family created,” he says.

Styslinger was one of 45 students to join Arthur Segel, the Baker Foundation Professor of Management Practice; Sophus Reinert, the T. J. Dermot Dunphy Professor of Business Administration; and Dante Roscini, the MBA Class of 1952 Professor of Management Practice of Business Administration on the 11-day immersion focused on the past, present, and future of capitalism and the iconic brands that have established the “Made in Italy” label as an international symbol of quality and luxury.

The School’s elective IFCs bring second-year students face-to-face with case protagonists and other business leaders outside the boundaries of the classroom. The idea stretches back to 2006, when, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a group of MBA students organized a service trip to New Orleans to study—and assist—businesses working to rebuild the city. Since 2011, when students began earning credit for their participation in faculty-led IFCs, nearly 2,000 have pursued research interests in countries around the world. In 2023, approximately 300 students traveled across several continents, exploring such topics and locales as crisis management in Ghana, the startup ecosystem of Israel, the digital revolution in Japan, and the growth model of Silicon Valley (see box).

Each IFC begins in the fall semester with a series of classes introducing economic, political, social, and other essential contexts for the immersions. For students enrolled in the Italy IFC, that included a trip to Baker Library/Bloomberg Center, which holds the largest collection of Medici business records outside of Italy. The Medici family came to power in the early 15th century and shaped life in Florence for centuries, influencing business, politics, religion, culture, art, and architecture. They were one of the first banking houses to use double-entry bookkeeping—the foundation of modern accounting—and, equally important, one of the first to create letters of credit and multiple branch banking, which enabled globalization and trade. For the course, the students completed research projects after the immersion. Styslinger, who studied art history and political science at Yale, delved into the history of capitalism as seen in the art of the Renaissance.

For Segel, the art and culture of Italy are inseparable from the business lessons he hoped to impart to the students. While attending business school in the 1970s, Segel spent part of his studies in Florence. “It had an enormous impact on my life,” he says now. Segel fell in love with architecture and design there, a passion which led him into the real estate business and then into teaching about the built environment.

Milan’s Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) residential towers have plantings designed to enhance the air quality.

Milan’s Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) residential towers have plantings designed to enhance the air quality.

During the immersion, students visited Florence’s Palazzo Tornabuoni, a 15th-century Medici palace in the heart of the city that has been transformed into private residences and a private residence club operated by the Four Seasons. Segel wrote a case about the undertaking, which was a brand-new type of real estate venture in the country when it started in 2004. The students toured the property with one of the project’s developers, who showed off the building’s artworks and a ballroom where the first opera was believed to be sung in 1594. Segel had arranged a surprise for the group: While the case protagonist answered questions about the business, an opera singer burst into an aria from Puccini’s La Bohème. “It sent chills down everyone’s spines,” he says.

In Milan, the students visited one of Europe’s largest redevelopment projects, the Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) residential towers that incorporate trees and perennial plants to enhance air quality. And at Lamborghini’s headquarters in Bologna, the group learned how a storied company known for its expertise with the mechanics of traditional automobiles shifted gears to address the need for more sustainable transportation and became experts in electric car technology.

Italy’s layers of history and business resonated with Basak Sunar (MBA 2023), who worked in private equity prior to enrolling at HBS and returned to the sector after graduation in May. Sunar chose a research project focused on Italy’s luxury brands: She wanted to understand why other countries have not been able to replicate the quality of goods made in Italy or the country’s reputation for excellence. At Casa Zegna, home to the historical archive of the Ermenegildo Zegna luxury fashion house, she saw how techniques of wool making had been passed down to apprentices over hundreds of years, and at the vineyard of Antinori nel Chianti Classico, she met the 26th generation of winemakers to steward the land.

That continuity is what makes Italy unique, Sunar concluded after the IFC. “You are selling a dream, not a commodity, and Italy has centuries and centuries of practice.”

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