Andrea Ordanini, a Scholar in the World of Services and Music

THE DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING STUDIES AN ECONOMY THAT IS DEMATERIALIZING AND THE CONSUMPTION OF CULTURAL GOODS

Andrea Ordanini’s favorite part of teaching is the thesis process. “A student can bring out his personality while breaking out of the study routine”, says the Director of the Department of Marketing. “It is also the time when a teacher can have a greater impact on a twenty-something’s frame of mind. Putting your experience at the service of young scholars and ensuring that they use it to develop innovative projects is priceless”.
 
That’s what happened to him. He developed a passion for the services economy at the end of the Bocconi Business Administration program, during the thesis process with Alessandro Frova. The services economy would eventually become one of the most important research areas for him. “It was my first love”, he says. “I realized that most of the models were referring to a world of products, while the developed economies were becoming more and more immaterial”.
 
In the mid-90s, Ordanini followed Frova to Pavia University for his doctorate. “After a few years, he became Undersecretary of State for Communications of the Dini government and I was left with no academic guidance. I sent my doctoral thesis to the Bocconi faculty. An enthusiastic Enrico Valdani answered me. Thus began the second part of my career, committed to marketing studies”.
 
The consumption of cultural goods is a more recent research area that Ordanini developed while cofounding the Undergraduate Degree in Economics and Management of Arts, Culture and Communication (CLEACC). “Much of the marketing models that have been developed in the past are not suitable to describe the consumption of a book or a movie”. Or music. Ordanini calls himself an omnivorous consumer and a non-nostalgic vinyl collector. “I do my best to keep up to date and do not cling to the music I grew up with”.
 

by Claudio Todesco