An article published recently investigates the method of job crafting  as the path to reconcile production organisation and individual aptitudes

Working well. Not only from a productive perspective, but also from a social and human viewpoint. Being truly part of a production organisation and taking an active part in it, experiencing it consciously. The new human and industrial relations constitute one of the developing horizons for businesses. Corporate culture which is also about the culture of good work. Using all the tools that can be implemented. Reading “Il significato del job crafting nell’organizzazione del lavoro. Inquadramento teorico, tendenze evolutive  e prospettive manageriali” (The meaning of job crafting in work organisation. Theoretical framework, evolutionary trends and managerial perspectives) written by multiple authors by Davide De Gennaro, Filomena Buonocore and Maria Ferrara (all from the “Parthenope” University of Naples), may therefore be a good way to find out more about one of the most important methods of finding a job and also the right job.

This research is in fact an investigation into the method of job crafting, i.e. the assumption on the part of workers of proactive behaviours to improve the way they work and thus make it more satisfactory and consistent with their own inclinations. The reasoning of the authors in fact is based on the connections between the characteristics of people and work organisation: the greater the “compatibility” between these two elements, the greater the working welfare on one hand and the productivity on the other.

The article then looks more closely at aspects related to job crafting starting with the theoretical approach and then moving on to its evolution and especially to its prospective uses. What triggers job crafting – the authors explain -, are situations of dissatisfaction but especially personal characteristics and contexts that lead to positive reactions that improve the job placement, satisfaction and therefore productivity as well as the improvement of relations within working environments. Everything therefore relates to the organisational and managerial running of the business.

In fact the authors come to two conclusions about the application of the job crafting method in companies. The first is that the allocation of tasks cannot be “handed down from above”, the second is that the organisation of work can generate positive results but also negative ones and that the task of a good manager  is to create “positive environments” as much as possible.

The work by De Gennaro, Buonocore and Ferrara is a good summary of a theme that is only apparently simple and easy to apply. For this reason, it should be read carefully.

Il significato  del job crafting nell’organizzazione del lavoro. Inquadramento teorico, tendenze evolutive e prospettive manageriali (The meaning of job crafting in the organisation of work. Theoretical framework, evolutionary trends and managerial prospects)    

Davide de Gennaro, Filomena Buonocore, Maria Ferrara

Impresa Progetto, Electronic Journal of Management, 1, 2017.

Research by Assolombarda sorts out the variegated world of smart areas and provides new food for thought regarding corporate culture

Smart cities  that is to say the future territorial horizon for an increasingly substantial series of urban conglomerations. A perspective made up of new technologies, digitisation of production, acceleration and dissemination of communications and information, connectivity, gentrification of urban and manufacturing spaces, increasingly widespread sharing of experiences and projects. And much more. A new environment to live and work in. Where, obviously, companies also find themselves totally immersed.

“Smart cities between concept and practice”, the last study report by Assolombarda addresses in a clear and concise manner precisely this scope of action that involves several entities at multiple levels of large urban centres. And one that needs to be well understood.

The research starts with the observation of the variety of smart cities already present in the world, but also with the development differences that characterise them, as well as the varied opinions concerning them.Including the strong criticism by some referring to the prevalence of technology rather than to human relations.

The report is then clearly organised into five sections and a final conclusion. After illustrating the motivations and objectives that sustain the theoretical and practical development of smart cities, the paper examines some of the key definitions of smart cities at academic and institutional level and then identifies some key factors of the smart city. The fourth part, on the other hand, explores the dimensions and contents of smart cities, starting with what has been developed by some of the leading producers of technologies and consulting companies. Certain examples of smart practices are used to reach a brief conclusion that highlights how much still needs to be done, especially in our country, in terms of versatility, pervasiveness and concreteness of smart cities.

“Smart cities between concept and practice”, written by multiple authors as part of the Assolombarda Study Centre, has the great merit of being short and clearly written.It also reorganises a complex, continuously evolving issue, such as smart  areas and territories, which runs the risk of being more fashionable than substantial. It is a good contribution to the growth of an increasingly conscious corporate culture.

Smart cities tra concetto e pratica (Smart cities between concept and practice)

et.al.

Research no. 01/2018, Assolombarda Study Centre

2018

Milan, the capital, Milan, the locomotive, Milan which should fly so that “Italy can fly”, Milan, the smart city but also the start up town, the international Milan and Milan like Chicago, Milan which is more and more European, and on the other hand less and less Milan-Italy. In the golden age of Milan, definitions are wasted and in any case they resonate, frequent and satisfied, precisely in the wake of the outstanding success of Design Week linked to the Salone del Mobile, with 434 thousand visitors, 26% more than the previous year, record sales for exhibitors, with peaks of order increases in the range of 30%. So Milan, the great?

The usual concreteness of culture and of “Milanese politeness” prevents it from boasting this success with a triumphant air of pride. And in the days following the great international event that once again enhances the competitiveness of all things Made in Italy, the Milanese stand with their feet firmly on the ground and repeat the statement that Milan can be anything except a phenomenon, an exception, a place of lone records. Milan is not an island.

“No man is an island,” wrote John Donne, the 17th Century English poet (an exemplary verse, for its evocative beauty and moral force, borrowed precisely in these months with communicative intelligence by a chain of supermarkets called Conad). Imagine if one can reduce to an island a city which uses its name, Mediolanum – the earth in the middle – as a distinctive feature of a place open to trade and relations, market, a crossroads of conversations, a virtuous circle of trade and work. Milan, therefore, is inclusive, supportive, welcoming and friendly. From the era of Ambrose to the modern day, continuing to prefigure a future of European “centrality”, of a round metropolis, in other words one that is careful to avoid sharp edges that hurt and exclude.

The Design Week that is split between the Salone del Mobile international furniture exhibition and the “Fuorisalone” collateral events dotted across the entire city with over 1360 different events, bore evident testimony to this. Design that is represented, narrated, imagined, planned in millions of conversations goes beyond the traditional boundaries of furnishings and involves other industrial worlds, from the bicycle to the car, from services to light and sound systems that involve new living conditions, including sustainable mobility. The strong sign is innovation. The challenges are moving between Milan and the world.

This design, which is innovative, and to use a word that has become compulsory, i.e. “sustainable” (that is to say, sensitive to the human condition of a better life) is also packed with environmental and ethical values, for example posing itself the problem of what to do with plastic, an extraordinary industrial product (with solid Italian roots, if we think of Moplen resulting from the research by Giulio Natta, Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in 1963 and from experiences in the Pirelli and Montecatini laboratories) with which innovative design and pop art thrived from the Sixties until the present day.

Plastic has represented modernity and the convenience of consumption and habits (in many cases also with a certain attention to beauty) but today, with 300 million tonnes produced throughout the world which are very difficult to dispose of, it constitutes an environmental problem that is near dramatic (“Robinson”, the weekly cultural magazine published with “La Repubblica”, dedicated almost the entire issue to this problem last Sunday and Antonio Gnoli outlined the essential issues in a great interview with Renato De Fusco, Theorist of design and planning).

Can design – which adored plastic – today suggest technologies, shapes, materials that will enable us to overcome the hurdle of all things “disposable”? Is there a responsible design, from a civil and circular economy? The issue is open. Indeed, in Milan, city of industrial culture and high chemical quality, the issue can be addressed. The Polytechnic university, with its own specialisation courses on design themes, could be an ideal place to start.

Because this is also what Milan is about. A hybrid place of knowledge and technical skills, of “polytechnical culture”, of constant dialogue between humanism and science, between technology and philosophy. History and the news offer constant testimony to this.

Milan, in the metropolitan dimension, is an industrial city, owing to its century and a half long experience and owing to its contemporary vocation. But it was never a company town like Turin, a mono-culture industrialist focusing on Ford. In the course of the Twentieth century, its entrepreneurs have instead always worked on several communicating projects, combining industry and finance, manufacturing and services, trade and university, without ever forgetting culture, publishing, communication (the very story of the “Corriere della Sera” newspapers and publishers, large and popular, but also small and ultra-sophisticated ones, confirm this). Today, the international attractiveness of Milan is based on these features. And they can also be used as leverage for a development that involves the rest of the country.

The entire Salone del Mobile affair demonstrates its validity. The projects by the designers, who look at Milan from all over the world. And the strength and quality of the factories, from the Brianza to the Veneto, in an absolutely original mix, a cultural and production paradigm that continues to have strong competitiveness and that also drives another sector of Italian excellence, plant mechanics and mechatronics of to produce furnishing systems. A virtuous circle. Design culture and product culture. Exemplary Milan.

Design, from this perspective too, is outlined as knowledge, skills. Not ephemeral improvisation or banter. But profound skills, both in details (because it is precisely there that the origin of perfection lies) as well as in the general systemic overview. In the current condition of the risk of the decline of cultural and media-privilege hierarchies of those who oppose belief and science, specifically the strength of reflections on “sustainable culture” that binds industry to the environment, work and technologies to the improvement  of social equilibria, design and urban planning and architecture (this is among the most challenging projects of the new Triennale guided by Stefano Boeri) can be cornerstones of a kind of new “industrial humanism” (a habitual definition for years now in the documents by the Pirelli Foundation) where Italy and Milan itself have much to say and do. It is the culture of factories, also digital and hi tech, supplemented by traditional manufacturing wisdom with craft-based roots, with strong functional but also social values. It is “the moral of the lathe”. Well-made beauty. As design teaches us.

Research by the University of Verona sheds light on a growing phenomenon, which should however be understood better in order to be applied to production organisations more

 Companies who volunteer. This is a new practice in the context of the broader activities that fall under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility: “volunteering” takes on different connotations from the rest. The expression of a manufacturing culture that is becoming more complex and complete, corporate volunteering should be analysed to add an important building block to the knowledge of the current shape of the industrial system.

This is exactly what Cristina Carbognin and Anna Maria Meneghini from the University of Verona (Department of Humanities) have done in their “From practice to theory: scenarios, challenges and frontiers of corporate

volunteering”.

The research starts with the consideration that Corporate Volunteering  constitutes for profit-making organisations a particular method, among others that are possible, for the application or growth of corporate social responsibility (CSR); and that this is a phenomenon in continuous growth both in Italy and in foreign countries, where it is more widespread and has been present for longer.

The research is divided into two parts: first a theoretical study of the situation and then a series of practical cases. Everything starts with reality. The two researchers then write that a comparison of data from 2014 and 2016 of Osservatorio Socialis and Istituto Ixè on the social commitment of Italian companies shows that in the period considered, the number of companies that engage in CSR has grown and that Corporate Volunteering is a growing phenomenon. Companies that declared they carry out volunteering days have grown from 15% to 24%, while those who declared they had put the professional skills of companies at the disposal of non profit organisations   have gone up from 20.5% to 24%. So, more and more businesses are deciding to invest in CSR and for many of these Corporate Volunteering represents an increasingly popular method of expressing their commitment to the Community. Then there are cases presented to reinforce theory and figures. Like those of Legambiente and Unipol, Leroy Merlin, Timberland. Based on these, the work then outlines a virtuous models linking non profit organisations   and companies capable of giving rise to forms of corporate volunteering  that are useful and effective for both parties.

The research by Cristina Carbognin and Anna Maria Meneghini has the great advantage of being essential in the text but of providing all the elements required to understand an important phenomenon, which is growing and must be disseminated even more.

From practice to theory: scenarios, challenges and frontiers of corporate volunteering 

Cristina Carbognin, Anna Maria Meneghini

Verona Volunteering Service Centre and University of Verona

The “beautiful factory” is one which is well-planned, bright, welcoming and inclusive, secure and sustainable from an environmental and social perspective. It must also be “intelligent”, according to the digital paradigms of the “Industry 4.0” concept. It is the factory where we can produce the best made in Italy goods from the mechanical and rubber sectors, from the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors, from furnishings, food and clothing, those “beautiful things which the world loves” identified, as an original characteristic of Italian industry, by that major historian of the economy, Carlo Maria Cipolla. The definition of the “beautiful factory” meets with the agreement of Aldo Sutter, backed by a solid history of family entrepreneurship, as a leading group in Europe specialised in sustainable and biodegradable household and cleaning products: “in the global markets, this is our identity and our future”.

Sutter is chairman of the IBC, the Association of the consumer goods industry, with 30,000 companies on its books, including all the big brands which mark our daily lives as consumers. Over the last few days he has organised the association’s annual assembly in Milan. And he placed a heavy emphasis on the criteria of sustainability and the responsibility of companies to improve the quality of economic growth, in order to help define new paradigms for development.

Sustainability is thus the key word. A major theme from the “civil economy” (we have discussed this many times in these blogs) which picks up on the political and technical thinking of the economists of the Neapolitan and Milanese Illuminism (Antonio Genovesi, whose “Lessons of civil economy” were re-published in 2013 by Vita e Pensiero, with a preface by Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zamagni, but also Ferdinando Galiani and the Verri brothers), of the Nineteenth Century “Il Politecnico” journal by Carlo Cattaneo and of the best experiences of the industrial 20th Century (Pirelli, Olivetti). Today it constitutes a core feature of the original contribution by Italian industry to an economic development founded on quality, social inclusion and the breaking-down of inequalities.

Industry as the driving force for a better balance between innovation, competitiveness and solidarity.

Industry, too, as a place where we can experiment and try to construct a new “machine civilisation” in a period in which the digital revolution, robots and manufacturing and sales processes guided by algorithms are overthrowing old habits of production and consumption, and are increasing competitive opportunities but also creating new inequalities from many perspectives: work (traditional specialisations and professions are disappearing yet we still do not know how they will be compensated by new jobs), profits, sundry knowledge, health, participation arrangements and perhaps the fundamental criteria of representative democracy themselves (to find out more on this subject it is useful to read “Homo premium – Come la tecnologia ci divide” (Homo premium – How technology is dividing us) by Massimo Gaggi, an editorialist at the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Laterza).

Sustainability and responsibility. These were recurring terms, in the past few days, also at another important rendezvous: the first “Sustainable Economic Forum” promoted last Thursday and Friday by the San Patrignano Foundation (to celebrate the 40-year anniversary of the Community) and by the Confindustria industrial federation. The recurring ideas: “Green” bonds (bonds linked to projects with a positive impact on the environment), and partnerships, in the sense of cooperation between public sector/private sector and profit-making/non-profit-making organisations for projects of social utility and welfare at company level or local area level. With several extremely clear basic ideas: sustainable development and company responsibility for regenerating a “sense of community”.

“We need to think about a different future, one which needs to be well-built based upon the concepts of sustainability and responsibility. For that we need a new model of economic and social development: following the crisis of 2007, the limits of our architecture for growth became clear and we need a system based upon subsidiarity, which rewards those who invest in social responsibility”, declared Letizia Moratti, the co-founder of San Patrignano, making their “Forum” into a “laboratory for ideas and proposals and a call to action” (“Corriere della Sera” and “IlSole24Ore”, 13th April). Meanwhile, Vincenzo Boccia, chairman of the Confindustria, stated: “Inclusivity forms part of our thinking. And it is our duty to regain the sense of community which has been lost. We need growth which is more inclusive, in order to reduce disparities”. Precisely those social, profit, geographical and inter-generational disparities that the OECD too recently highlighted for Italy, considering that the growing inequalities act as a brake on its economic development.

A change, then. This is where another heavyweight in the corporate world enters the ring – Federmeccanica, the association of engineering industries within the Confindustria. Already one of the protagonists, alongside the trades unions for the sector, CGIL, CSIL and UIL, for an innovative labour contract based on training, corporate welfare, and salary increases tied to productivity, Federmeccanica is now talking about a “new engineering humanism”, that is to say a new corporate culture which is actually at the heart of the “digital revolution” which is changing factories and working practices, and which places an emphasis on a true “set of ten commandments” of undertakings and responsibilities. The priority: people.

For a long time, we have been talking of “industrial humanism” and a “new industrial renaissance”, including in the best economic literature, as we seek cultural levers to escape from the Great Crisis and recreate the focus upon an industrial economy,and on the factory, in the battle against the excesses of financial speculation. Now, with the pronouncements of Federmeccanica, we have taken an important step forward.

These are the ideas from the “Manifesto for engineering humanism”: “Improve competitiveness; invest in people by using teaching and training; safeguard health and well-being; promote security and the protection of the environment; link salaries to company productivity; involve workers in the life of the company; motivate the young; recognise and assert the role of women; actively defend employment; be European”. Challenging headings, for ten commandments with a major strategic ambition. But also practical pointers, for how to do things and things which are worth doing.

Here is one example: “An intelligent factory is based on the contributions of men and women who, thanks to their work, can develop their own professionalism and their own personality, contributing through their own competencies, attitudes and values to the success of the company”. People and values. “Humanism” is an appropriate term.  

Company welfare is undergoing an extraordinary expansion. Particularly in the areas where innovation in industry and services is a pivotal force for economic and social development. In Lombardy, in Emilia and in the Veneto region.

Within many private companies, today, any discussion about welfare signifies, in fact, taking a look inside a new dimension for working practices, in which company labour contracts, thanks in part to the tax incentives granted by recent Government measures, allow workers to enjoy improved conditions for health support, contractual pension benefits, and assistance for the provision of their children’s education and to allow them to care for disabled relations. This is not a question of more money. But often of services. Or of free time. A valuable benefit.

In Milan, Monza and Brianza and Lodi, one of the areas with the highest levels of industrialisation in Italy, company welfare appears in 60% of labour contracts, compared to the national average of 30%, according to data presented recently by the Assolombarda association’s Welfare Observatory, relating to 25 thousand workers and their families (Corriere della Sera newspaper, 5th May). And this is a good example to disseminate. “Despite the fact that a number of European countries are ahead of us in matters of welfare, an ever-increasing number of companies in Italy, thanks to the advantages introduced by the Stability Law, are now including in their remuneration packages several non-monetary instruments”, notes Mauro Chiassarini, chair of Bayer Italia and vice-chair of the Assolombarda association, with responsibility for labour, security and, specifically, welfare.

There are some important historical examples worthy of note. Company welfare at Pirelli, for example, as long ago as the mid-1900’s, with its initiatives for healthcare, canteens, crèche facilities and activities for workers’ children, and sports. Or the programmes offered by other medium and large companies, from the AEM to the ASM, from the ENI to the IRI (a detailed study can be found in the reports from the convention on “Company Welfare in Post-Second World War Italy”, organised by the ISEC Foundation, 13th May 2016). And today, thanks in no small part to renewed sensitivities about welfare and the new labour contracts, significant steps forward are being taken.

Other topical stories bear testimony to this. Such as the experiment launched at the Siderforgerossi di Arsiero (a steelworks in the province of Vicenza) to monitor, on a voluntary basis, the health of its own employees, with a view to averting company or general illnesses (cholesterol and lifestyle under control) in order to improve the quality of life, but also to prevent accidents and absenteeism (“Here is the doctor-company: diet and analysis for the workers”, was the heading used by “la Repubblica” newspaper, 1st April, as it commented positively on this initiative). Or the possibility of choosing, in company labour contracts, between higher wages or greater free time, for oneself and one’s family: a choice made by the employees of Ducati, Marposs, Lamborghini and Coesia, in the top-quality medium-sized companies of the Emilia region. New forms of labour, of working time, of participation and of citizenship. Values. Critical, including for companies seeking to continue to produce value.

Italian capitalism, especially in its current dimensions, is growing based on two guiding themes which are not always closely linked, but which are nevertheless dynamic ones. Medium-and small-sized companies solidly rooted in their local areas and, at the same time, capable of being present in and proving their worth in high-added-value global niche markets. An “intermediate capitalism” is how Aldo Bonomi defines it (IlSole24Ore, 8th April). A high level of productivity, and a level of competitiveness which rises to the challenges. And it is precisely as a foundation for this competitiveness that the choices of company welfare should also be considered – those which stimulate security, a sense of belonging, an intelligent generosity in working relationships, and thus improved and increased productivity levels.

There is a further step to be taken, it is suggested by Bonomi, in the relationship between a company and its local area: “The promotion of a new model of community welfare, built from the combination between an extension of the practices of company welfare and the transformation of the systems of local area welfare and of the extensive world of private social care, which today is increasingly taking on a committed entrepreneurial mantle by defining its own specific modus vivendi alongside the influence of the financial sector, which is interested in developing forms of “patient” investment based on the ideas of social cohesion”.

These are innovative processes, which are on the move. And which are situated at the crossroads between productive companies, services, relational systems, care for communities and people, life sciences and health. They go beyond the traditional concept of the “third sector”. They find in “benefit societies” (finally introduced in Italy too by the law of 2016) a point of reference, from which to evaluate a “service to society” and not simply to generate a profit for the company’s own shareholders (fulfilling the warning of a major American economist, E.M. Dodd, in the “Harvard Law Review” in 1932). And they can occupy a fundamental role in the evolution of the market economy, by carrying out the task of “re-legitimising” a “good” type of corporate capitalism in its quest for a better future.

The processes which we are discussing here, in fact, demand original and creative reflections about the relationships between competitiveness and social inclusion: a subject which is particularly dear to the hearts of Milan, of the region around Brescia where there is a robust Catholic culture, of the Emilia region where company values and cooperative values became interwoven with experiences of sound regional and local government, and of the Veneto region where, to quote just one example, the Vicenza Confindustria industrial association has launched an important project for the social responsibility of companies whose name alone already represents a major programme: “Producing values”. Here is a world which is on the move, even if it is not yet visible to the eyes of the great general public opinion, as it deserves to be. A world of extraordinary quality, with strong economic, social and cultural significance, if “cultural” indeed means innovation in a social context, sensitivity, inclusivity, responsible citizenship, community values and civility.

These are processes which also need to be pursued at a political level. And which require a critical re-thinking of the conception and the attraction of welfare, with intelligent and responsible reforms which do not place a burden on the public purse but which nevertheless improve social services. How so? The combination of company welfare and local area welfare which we have discussed above is actually a useful guide.

For a better understanding, it would be helpful to have another look at the categories of the “civil economy”, perhaps by again studying their origins, in the lessons of Antonio Genovesi, considered to be the “maestro” by Adam Smith and the supporter of an economy seen as the source of wellbeing for people and societies (we discussed this in our blog of 20th March last) and those of the “circular economy”, by updating the lesson of hard-working and supportive communities which derives from the experience of Adriano Olivetti (in 1908, just 110 years ago, the Ivrea company was founded, a laboratory and true “factory” of economic and social innovation, a paradigm of culture, industrial relationships and avant-garde technologies which even today still have significant relevance). And reminding ourselves – why not? – of two historical indications which are relevant to the present day.

The first is that of Carlo Cattaneo, a notable Lombardy figure, and an original student of economics and politics, written in 1864: “There is no job, there is no capital that does not start with an act of intelligence. Before each job, before each capital, when things still lay untouched and ignored amidst nature, it is intelligence that begins the task, and that imprints within it the character of wealth for the first time”.

The second is by Ferdinando Galiani, an abbot, who enjoyed an audience at the court of Naples during the sadly ephemeral period of reformist Illuminism during the mid-18th Century and who was highly appreciated in the Paris salons frequented by Montesquieu and Diderot: “Good government is not where everyone is already happy, because no such government exists, but it is where everyone could be happy, when internal and particular causes do not prevent it. Tyranny is that government where only a handful becomes happy to the detriment and at the expense of all others, who become unhappy”.

Public and private happiness and well-being, intelligence and work, today we would call company culture and welfare in the contexts of companies and local areas. A challenge, indeed, which is political, cultural and entrepreneurial.

So when we talk of welfare, from a long-term perspective with an eye to economic and social transformations, it also means fully facing up to the question of sustainability, be it environmental or social, and considering it to be a fundamental key to the competitiveness of companies. As is confirmed by two authoritative researchers, Piergaetano Marchetti and Marco Ventoruzzo (“The Economy – Corriere della Sera” newspaper, 3rd April): “Companies which are more responsible for social well-being (and for profits)”: “An unprecedented thrust towards behaviours and applications which are widely shared, which do not focus solely on the P&L account but pay greater attention to human rights and to environmental topics”.

Through the analysis of how IBM has been studied over the years, an essay explains the complexity which must be taken into account when discussing production organisation

 Business culture as a key to understanding the success of production organisation. And also to understand which features may in some way also be transferred to other production concerns. All this not just and not so much from the theoretical point of view, but especially from a practical and operational perspective. Starting with the most important company cases.

This is exactly what James W. Cortada (Senior research fellow at the  Charles Babbage Institute of the University of Minnesota) has done in his research which sorts and organises the many different studies about IBM.

The starting principle for Cortada is simple: IBM has been the subject of in-depth studies by historians, economists, professors of corporate management and journalists, but it is only by looking globally at IBM’s own business culture that we can grasp its true essence.

The research, which was published in  Business History Review of the Harvard Business School, therefore examines the various essays on the company, including the contributions in an approximately chronological report of the history of the company, from its early days up to its dominant position in global computing markets. After a general outline of the very nature of IBM, the research starts by examining how the company came to be – when it was still called Computing-Tabulating-Recording Corporation (C-T-R), and then went on to become International Business Machines Corporation -, as described by the series of investigations into the same, moving subsequently on to an in-depth analysis of its business activities until 1950 and then focusing attention on the transformation of the company (between 1940 and 1960) into Computer Company which gradually came to be the leading company in the world in this industry, and then (in around 1980) experiencing a period of crisis which it overcame with a new business culture.

Cortada’s work is an enjoyable read, which tells not only the story of one of the symbolic companies of new technologies, but also of how it is necessary to consider in the culture of a business various elements that must also include its technological and managerial changes.

Change and Continuity at IBM: Key Themes in Histories of IBM

James W. Cortada

Business History Review, Harvard Business School, 2018, page 1 of 32

Research by the University of Illinois provides an up-to-date interpretation of a delicate issue of manufacturing organisation

Ethics also in calculations. And also in businesses. These goals are certainly difficult to achieve, but they are not impossible. And they are especially necessary at a time when faced with the digitisation of the economy and of production, the meaning of a company’s social responsibility becomes stronger, accompanied by a more aware production culture. And all this without forgetting the albeit important role of the organisation as a production engine.

These are the topics at the heart of the article by Amir Hedayati Mehdiabadi and Jessica Li (from the University of Illinois Urbana, Champaign) which was recently published in Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Management.The research entitled “Toward a framework for developing computing professional ethics: a review of literature” is a reconnaissance of the theory and literature on the role, ethics and functions within companies of professions dedicated to computing. And it is a good knowledge-base better to understand the importance of these issues but also the necessary “counterweight” in terms of management which should exist within companies.

The “engineers” – this is the basic idea of Amir Hedayati Mehdiabadi and Jessica Li -, play important roles in modern-day organisations which operate in the knowledge economy (and beyond). Having said this, the authors state that professionals in the computing industry may have a significant influence on modern societies due to the prevalent use of computer-based information and technologies. Hence the emphasis on the importance of their “ethical development”.

The article, through an analysis of existing scientific literature, reviews the history, the theories and the approaches to ethics in professional development, and then provides a critical evaluation of the current state of knowledge on ethics and ethical education in professional development within companies and, last but not least, it outlines a framework for what is defined as “ethical education in professional development”. As if to say: computing  certainly, but only to a certain extent.

The article by Amir Hedayati Mehdiabadi and Jessica Li does not add any particularly significant news on the topic of business ethics and computing, but it does clearly outline the state of the art of a complex topic, which must however be understood with certainty within the context of the modern way of doing business.

Toward a framework for developing computing professional ethics: a review of literature

Amir Hedayati Mehdiabadi, Jessica Li

Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Management ,2017 International Annual Conference E-H. Ng, B. Nepal, and E. Schott eds.

A “mechatronic Renaissance” is how Franco Mosconi, professor of Economics and Industrial Policy at Parma University, describes the “Top Performing 2018” classification of small and medium-sized companies (published in The Economy section of the “Corriere della Sera” newspaper, on 5th March). And with two words he captures one of the key features which are driving the slowly growing Italian economy: the as yet unfinished relationship between culture and economic growth, between training and productivity.

A Renaissance, then. The reference is to that golden age of Italian and European history, to the Fifteenth century of Humanism and to the Sixteenth Century of extraordinary artists (Leonardo and Michelangelo, primarily) in which philosophy and science, the creativity of the visual arts and writing, politics and economics witnessed an incredible ability to think about, plan, construct and tell of a world undergoing massive change, based on the guiding theme of a virtuous marriage of reason with fantasy, imagination and production. With everything founded upon man’s central role: a focus which was not an arrogant one, but one full of reflection, criticism, and a strength derived from the relationship between creativity and boundaries. A major undertaking.

And now we have mechatronics: the synthesis between mechanical and metal manufacturing, in which we Italians indeed continue to enjoy excellent international competitive positions, and the manufacturing processes linked to electronics, to IT, and to the digital world. A “mechatronic Renaissance” following the recent era of the “manufacturing Renaissance” defined by the Harvard researchers, in the midst of the Great Crisis which exploded in 2007, which re-launched the emphasis on the real economy, on industry, in a fight-back against the devastating greed of financial speculation. A cultural and economic turning-point. For a better understanding, it is worthwhile reading the pages penned by Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna, both economists at Oxford, in “Nuova età dell’oro. Guida ad un secondo Rinascimento economico e culturale (Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance), published by Il Saggiatore.

What sort of culture do we need, then, for Italy and its best companies to strengthen their own competitive abilities, in these times of increasing competition for Industry 4.0? “Technical colleges. We need radically to update our training system. And to invest in FTIs – Further Technical Institutes, based on the German model: every year Germany produces 740,000 graduates from its FTIs, compared to around 8,000 from Italian FTIs”, claims Alberto Bombassei, chair of the Brembo group (brakes and automotiveproducts par excellence), in launching the new training centre in Bergamo set up between the Confindustria industrial association, Manpower and Kilometro Rosso, one of the best Research and Development centres of the industrial North, in an attempt to overcome the burdensome lack of qualified personnel capable of developing the new production processes.

Bombassei, naturally, is quite correct. He is taking up the banner dear to the hearts of the Confindustria experts and of entrepreneurs (Attilio Oliva and especially Gianfelice Rocca) who for many years have in fact pinpointed the low level of dissemination of technical and scientific culture and training, as one of the key reasons for Italy’s sluggish rate of growth. And he is reiterating one of the most important gambles of the history of Italian schooling, as far back as the times of National Unity halfway through the Nineteenth Century: how to build popular training programmes which could facilitate not only the construction of a newly unified Italy, but also the Italian challenge in an era of mass industrialisation. What won through was the primacy of the “classical school” and of an élite with historic-idealistic characteristics, supported by Benedetto Croce and implemented by Giovanni Gentile. And the divergence between the so-called “two cultures” – humanistic and scientific – widened, to the entire detriment of the latter and with negative consequences for the positive dynamics of the Italian economy and society (this has also been documented by two high-quality researchers, Paolo Di Martino and Michelangelo Vasta, in the pages of their “Rich by chance”, about the “parable of Italian economic growth” through Il Mulino publications).

This is the point: the false dilemma between the “two cultures”. We need technicians. And intelligent minds capable of understanding and guiding us through change.

For some time, in fact, in an actual response to the questions raised by the incredible development of technologies, there has been a growing awareness of the need for critical thinking which can decipher hi tech complexity and direct and manage the processes linked to artificial intelligence, to the various biotechnologies, to the radical modifications dictated by robots, big data  and the digital production processes for the organisation of work. Dealing with the questions of cyber security (the recent events linked to fake news and to Facebook data are but a single example of this). And trying to understand and determine the economic and social consequences of the new cycles for industries, services and global trade.

To summarise the situation: we have a major requirement for technicians, who are well-trained to work with the new machines and to underpin strong Italian competitiveness. But also for philosophers, sociologists, economists and psychologists, who are in a position to understand and find a pathway through the new hi tech frontiers. And for artists capable of perceiving, representing and telling us about the change which is under way. Along the horizon of a new “machine civilisation”.

A turning point in training, then. Not based on a dichotomy of aut aut, either technicians or humanists. But through building syntheses based on et et, engineers and technicians who are also budding philosophers and, why not?, budding poets. The engineers of the Milan and Turin Polytechnical Universities, but also those of the Paris Ecole Centrale, seriously study philosophy and other humanistic subjects, precisely in order to be able to deal with ever new dimensions of technologies which are undergoing constant changes. And there is a reference case which we can examine: Leonardo Sinisgalli, an engineer with Pirelli, then later with Olivetti and with Finmeccanica, during the Fifties, and a poet of extraordinary effectiveness: “I go into a factory with my head uncovered, in the same way that one goes into a basilica, and I look at the movements of the people and their devices in the same way that one watches a church service…”, he wrote in 1949, describing the production processes at Pirelli Bicocca, which he had helped to introduce and enable to function.

Here is the second key point of this reasoning: if industry and research laboratories are to recapture “the spirit of the Renaissance” (hi tech and humanism), the men and women involved in the world of literature, of cinema, of theatre, and of art need to go back to the factory, in order to understand and tell us about, give voice to “industrial pride”, and transform their humanistic culture into a cornerstone of better economic growth.

It was precisely the Fifties and Sixties in Italy which served as the best illustration of this (this is documented in the pages of “Factory on paper”, an anthology put together by Giorgio Bigatti and Giuseppe Lupo about “the books which describe industrial Italy”, Laterza 2013). And in those times of recovery and commitment, in the run up to the “economic boom”, both technology and storytelling, industry and literature, went hand in hand. One example for everyone: the script by Dino Buzzati, the great journalist and writer, and leading “signature” for the “Corriere della Sera” newspaper, for “Il pianeta acciaio” (Planet steel), a 1962 film made for Italsider: an example of the capacity to pit oneself against work, building sites and factories and to define an exact language, neither rhetorical nor apocalyptic, in order to construct a fascinating story (the film was shown recently, on 19th March, to a gathering of students for the season “Fabbriche come cattedrali: il cinema industriale racconta l’estetica della produzione” (Factories like cathedrals: industrial cinema recounts the aesthetics of manufacturing), on the initiative of the Assolombarda association, the State University of Milan and the Cattaneo University of Castellanza).

The boundaries of training can thus be set out more comprehensively. Greater investment in Further Technical Institutes. And at the same time in high schools. With critical intelligence. As suggest Claudio Giunta, professor of Literature at the University of Trento (“E se non fosse la buona battaglia?” (And what if this were not the right battle?) Sul futuro dell’istruzione umanistica” (About the future of humanistic teaching), Il Mulino, leaving aside any rhetoric about the primacy of “classical” education) and Lucio Russo, scientific historian (“Perché la cultura classica.” (Why do we need classical culture?) “La risposta di un non classicista” (The answer from a non-classicist), Mondadori). Studies which are not “classical”, but “critical”. Precisely just what our so controversial current times require of us.

Research by the Aarhus University in Herning in Denmark thinks about relations between new ideas and the environment in which they are formed

Innovating is also a matter of human and physical environment. The companies in the front line in terms of innovation know this very well. Innovation comes from a set of conditions and moods, circumstances and moments that are not always predictable or fit precisely into set engineering schemes. Hence the need to observe the situations and conditions where innovation thrives properly.

This is exactly what Ioana-Cosmina Radu and Peter Lindgren (both researchers in Technology Based Business Development, at Aarhus University, Herning in Denmark) have done.

“Fostering optimal business model innovation environments ‘the foodtech challenge case study’”, which was published in February, investigates exactly the relations between innovation, business environment and the influence of the latter on the people who work in the company.Because the crux of the matter is always the same: innovation comes from people who are put in conditions that are favourable to its development and manifestation.

The research starts with an observation of the need for businesses to keep up with the rapid changes in competition and in markets. One of the main areas of leverage of this process lies in innovation. Yet, it is explained that “despite massive investment in terms of time and money in management, innovation remains a frustrating chore in many companies. Innovation initiatives often fail and innovators of success have difficulty in supporting their performance.” The question which the authors are attempting to answer is this: so what needs to be done?

By correlating the methods of organisation of work within truly innovative companies with the actual working conditions within them, the two researchers have come to the conclusion that “Many companies that have embraced innovation have a special space for the innovation process which is designed to adapt to their corporate culture and at the same time give space to creativity”.

But that is not enough, because the innovation-space combination also needs to take into account the people who work in those environments. “Companies – according to Radu and Lindgren – need to take into consideration the fact that these innovation environments affect the people who work within them. Understanding the connection between the environment and people facilitates the optimisation of that environment so that the attitude, behaviour, satisfaction and work performance of those who work within the innovation environment improve.”If you also take into account that the environment is also made up of physical and social conditions, the research also draws attention to some “environmental elements” such as temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide levels.

The research by Ioana-Cosmina Radu and Peter Lindgren indicates in summary form how the culture of a good company can and must continue to change, and how the importance of the consideration of the men and women who live and work in business organisations continues to be fundamental.

Fostering optimal business model innovation environments “the foodtech challenge case study”

Ioana-Cosmina Radu, Peter Lindgren

IEEE Xplore, 22 February 2018 , Wireless Summit (GWS), 2017 Global