Entrepreneurs. Angels or demons?
The modern businessman is not what he once was. Although the roots are the same and the spirit of enterprise starts from the same foundations, it is clear that the challenges, the pace of change, the possible alternatives, and the decisions to be made can be quite different from what they were 20 or 50 years ago. The role of the entrepreneur has always been under the spotlight, but now it is also, often, the focus of harsh criticism. The entrepreneur seems to have descended through all of the figures found in Purgatory, from angels to daemons. So much so that one might wonder whether entrepreneurs are even needed anymore.
“Imprenditore: risorsa o problema? Impresa e bene comune” (Entrepreneur: resource or problem? Enterprise and common good), by Giorgio Fiorentini, Giulio Sapelli and Giorgio Vittadini, reflects on this and on how important it still is to appreciate the role of the entrepreneur and seeks to answer a number of related questions, such as how much the work of the entrepreneur has changed over the last decade in Italy, what the role of enterprise is in modern society, where do entrepreneurs fall along the spectrum of tradition and innovation, and what does “common good” mean to an entrepreneur.
One nice thing about the book is that it is not based purely on theory and observation, but also on the views of entrepreneurs themselves. The book is a collection of writings by some of Italy’s leading managers and entrepreneurs, including Oscar Farinetti, Pasquale Natuzzi, Roberto Snaidero, Pietro Modiano, Giorgio Squinzi, Bernhard Scholz, and 20 of their peers, all of whom may raise controversy, but who are certainly examples of business people who have something interesting to say.
In this way, the work reflects on the profound transformation being seen in Italian industry and points to a number of possible strategies for giving rise to an economic and cultural recovery, starting with the crisis, these eyewitness testimonies, and the new ways of doing business that are coming to the fore and arriving to one important conclusion: in order to start again and to construct a new economy, we need to focus on the good of the individual and the development of society.
Imprenditore: risorsa o problema? Impresa e bene comune
Giorgio Fiorentini, Giulio Sapelli, Giorgio Vittadini
Mondadori, 2014
The modern businessman is not what he once was. Although the roots are the same and the spirit of enterprise starts from the same foundations, it is clear that the challenges, the pace of change, the possible alternatives, and the decisions to be made can be quite different from what they were 20 or 50 years ago. The role of the entrepreneur has always been under the spotlight, but now it is also, often, the focus of harsh criticism. The entrepreneur seems to have descended through all of the figures found in Purgatory, from angels to daemons. So much so that one might wonder whether entrepreneurs are even needed anymore.
“Imprenditore: risorsa o problema? Impresa e bene comune” (Entrepreneur: resource or problem? Enterprise and common good), by Giorgio Fiorentini, Giulio Sapelli and Giorgio Vittadini, reflects on this and on how important it still is to appreciate the role of the entrepreneur and seeks to answer a number of related questions, such as how much the work of the entrepreneur has changed over the last decade in Italy, what the role of enterprise is in modern society, where do entrepreneurs fall along the spectrum of tradition and innovation, and what does “common good” mean to an entrepreneur.
One nice thing about the book is that it is not based purely on theory and observation, but also on the views of entrepreneurs themselves. The book is a collection of writings by some of Italy’s leading managers and entrepreneurs, including Oscar Farinetti, Pasquale Natuzzi, Roberto Snaidero, Pietro Modiano, Giorgio Squinzi, Bernhard Scholz, and 20 of their peers, all of whom may raise controversy, but who are certainly examples of business people who have something interesting to say.
In this way, the work reflects on the profound transformation being seen in Italian industry and points to a number of possible strategies for giving rise to an economic and cultural recovery, starting with the crisis, these eyewitness testimonies, and the new ways of doing business that are coming to the fore and arriving to one important conclusion: in order to start again and to construct a new economy, we need to focus on the good of the individual and the development of society.
Imprenditore: risorsa o problema? Impresa e bene comune
Giorgio Fiorentini, Giulio Sapelli, Giorgio Vittadini
Mondadori, 2014