An article that analyses and organises over one hundred studies on family-run businesses was published a few weeks ago

Family and company as an indivisible whole. Shared intents as well as a shared life. With particular rules and stories that must be thoroughly understood to be evaluated. The expression of a manufacturing culture with well-defined sections, family-run businesses nevertheless have common traits, that transcend dimensional features and which have been the subject of numerous studies and insights.

A collection of analyses and of real case studies of family-run businesses is contained in “Researching Entrepreneurship in Family Firms” written by many hands by

Cristina Bettinelli (from the University of Bergamo), Salvatore Sciascia (from the IULM of Milan), Kathleen Randerson (of the Audencia Business School-France) and Alain Fayolle (of the Emlyon Business School, France) and just published in the Journal of small business management. The article gathers a systematic review of the literature of 109 articles written on the subject of family entrepreneurship with particular attention to antecedents, the results and the processes of entrepreneurship in this kind of business. The authors also offer a brief summary of the contributions of each of the researches listed.

What emerges is a comprehensive portrait of the family-run business, described in their various facets and in particular analysed from the point of view of the original concepts as well as in the management dynamics characterised by family and organisational ties. With a special focus on the impact on the end results – of the balance sheet but also in terms of development and relations with the outside -, that the “family-run” aspect can have. The family as a resource for the company, therefore, but also as a constraint to manage.

The article written by Bettinelli, Sciascia, Randerson and Fayolle has the great merit of sorting out a subject – that of the study of family-run businesses – that is rather complicated and multi-faceted and of doing so with method and clarity.

Researching Entrepreneurship in Family Firms

Cristina Bettinelli, Salvatore Sciascia, Kathleen Randerson and Alain Fayolle

Journal of Small business management, Volume 55, Issue 4, October 2017

A book presenting the reasons for the evolution of the relationship between the individual and society in an increasingly interconnected world that is however populated by individuals

Companies like communities. Entrepreneurs and managers like men and women immersed in complex social settings. The company not only like a mechanical organisation but as a set of human and technological relations. These are just some of the concepts of a corporate culture that looks at the totality of the working man, at the complex mechanisms of manufacturing, at the dense interconnection between product and manufacturer that characterises the modern company. These approaches also require a “placement” on a wider scale, which allows a more extensive awareness of the entrepreneurial and manufacturing activities.

It is precisely such a framework that is provided on reading “Vivere insieme. Comunità e relazioni nella società globale” (Living together. Communities and realtions in global society). The book – written by Piero Amerio, Emeritus Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Turin -, is a major journey around some of the most important ideas of modern life: the individual, globalisation, security, solidarity, the possible communities.

At the heart of all this lies a consideration. Today, thanks to the Internet, we can come into contact with people anywhere on the planet and entertain relations well beyond traditional spaces. A globalised world that involves social structures and mental processes and that should also be understood using different tools from the usual.

Amerio thus starts with a reasoning on the categories of the individual as a social being and as an individual being, and then moves on to an investigation into the apparent paradox of a globalised world and therefore increasingly connected in its parts, but in reality one that is increasingly disjointed and “private”. It is precisely within the framework of modern-day photograph that Amerio also mentions the situation, role and conduct of companies in relation to individuals and to the markets. And that’s not all. In fact, the book continues by emphasising the role of the pursuit of safety and the risks (in the third chapter), in addition to solidarity (in the fourth chapter), equally as elements of continuity and novelty in human activities. The goal of the “becoming people in possible communities”, and therefore the clarification of what these communities are, concludes the book.

Amerio manages to hold the reader’s hand as he leads him or her along a path which also touches upon difficult concepts; and he does so with a plain though always dense language, understandable even when he tackles passages that are objectively complex.

Vivere insieme. Comunità e relazioni nella società globale (Living together. Communities and realtions in global society)

Piero Amerio

Il Mulino, 2017

“In order to compete, a city must have wings and roots”. The synthesis is by Ulrich Beck, one of the major sociologists of our difficult times. And, in its apparent simplicity, it successfully sums up the sense of challenges on the improved development of a metropolis such as Milan, between the past and the future, strength of places and dynamics of fluxes. Milan has grown a lot over time. It expresses social vivacity and cultural and economic entrepreneurships as a “European Capital”, although it is not the political capital of the Country (it is similar, in this, to Frankfurt, in the dialectic with Berlin). And it continues to exert a strong attraction for people, ideas, capital that could be strengthened by the arrival of the Ema (the European Medicines Agency: a battle of skills and powers that is still open, with Milan in pole position) but that will nevertheless remain topical.

So how can we continue to expect it to grow? And which political choices to ponder, to define in detail, support? We can start with the realisation that the current economic competition is played between large metropolitan systems that are often transnational and integrated and no longer according to the traditional schemes of the nation-states. A path that is not however linear.

Indeed, the nation-states, in the current political climate marked by the crisis of globalisation, are regaining space in the popular imagination and in public debate. “Small countries” are even emerging, with a growing criticism against supranational institutions (including the EU, put to the test by the bureaucracy of the Brussels institutions and by nationalisms on the verge of meanness, especially in the areas of the former Central Europe on the border with Germany). There is therefore an open contradiction between the production flows and trade and the traditional state structures. And the political, economic and social problems of difficult governance are getting worse.

It is worth cherishing the lesson by Parag Khanna, a political scientist of Indian origin, and scholar of geo-politics: “The path towards global progress lies in the ability of cities to share the best practices among them”. Cities and large metropolitan areas, adds Khanna, “whose boundaries are established by connectivity,” material (large communication and transport infrastructure) and intangible (“digital” connections that however refer to a “physical” relationship between people and places, as we will cover in more detail shortly). So we are getting back, specifically in terms of “connectivity” for the democratic government and the economic and social development of a territory, to the dialectic (so dear to the analyses of Aldo Bonomi) but also the dialogue between the force of places (the roots, the national identities , the characteristics of “territories”) and the dynamics of the flows. Places-flows: a lacerating antinomy or a new hypothesis of civilization?

Milan offers interesting ideas to think about, if you look at it, for example, as an essential part of a large area that goes from Turin to Verona, from the North of Como and Varese (towards Switzerland) to the South of the “Great Emilia” and which has precisely the Lombardy metropolis as its centre of physical and cultural gravity, just along the manufacturing and cultural axis that welds continental Europe and the Mediterranean. One of the richest areas in Europe, pooling manufacturing activities (in accelerated transformation due to “Industry4.0”), hi tech services, knowledge and creativity. The redesigning of flows and places marked by rapid pace of High Speed Trains has started up this meta-geographical process.

Milan to be summed up with a unit of measurement of time and not of space: “Milano in an hour”. An hour by train (the return journey from Turin, Bologna, Verona and hopefully also Genoa soon). An hour or a little over an hour by plane (Paris, London, Munich, Zurich, Frankfurt, Barcelona).

Milan, in short, an attractive and dynamic metropolis. In the centre of large North/South flows (Mediterranean routes calling in at Genoa, the new Alpine passes) and West/East flows. With two major open political topics, between European challenges and a sadly short-term gaze of national policy (too tempted by provincialisms and clientèle): how to withstand the tension of international competitiveness? And how to drive the rest of the country?

This is why we must critically rethink the flows of metropolitan areas: physical flows and digital flows. And think about the characteristics of smart cities and smart citizens (Carlo Ratti does this with his usual acute intelligence in new book entitled “La città di domani: come le reti stanno cambiando il futuro urbano” [The city of tomorrow: how networks are changing the urban future], written with Matthew Claudel and just published in Italy by Einaudi). You address the radical transformations of work (indeed: of jobs), of territorial belonging, of social relations. But also of commercial spaces (just to make an example: how do Amazon and small specialists shops coexist with large shopping centres and local shops? and therefore how to diversify demand and quality of different responses, out of the shoals of corporate protectionism and the greed of the bigger traders?).

The redefinition of competitiveness and quality of life (and their interdependencies) lies at the unprecedented cross-roads of the pace of life, the pace of work, and social times. How enjoy free time (free from what?). And how to tie “smart working” with creativity and productivity strictly dependent on dialogue, on direct interaction, on joint research in the shared physical spaces of a company, a creative laboratory, a university lecture hall, a research centre.

There is still another topic to think about: the radical mutation of traditional urban classifications: centre-suburbs; offices-factories/homes; neighbourhood; square; near/far relations (near where? far from where?). A strong need, in short, to redesign metropolitan cities by innovating the relationship between the functions. And suburbs “to be patched up”, according to the indication of Renzo Piano and to reconsider as opportunities for a “new centrality”, according to the suggestion by Vittorio Gregotti (“Archipelago Milano”, on the Internet, is providing an opportunity for an interesting debate, with fine interviews by Chiara Ponzini).

In Milan the debate is under way, richer and more lively that anywhere else (thanks also to the positive experience of “new” areas such as Porta Nuova and City Life, with their skyscrapers). The open debates on the Human Technopole and on the gentrification of the seven large railway yards offer the opportunity for an extraordinary redesigning of the city, while areas in the urban centre are coming back to life, as are former industrial areas which were reborn in the nineties with new functions (Bicocca) discuss “cultural district” and relationships between training (university), services, new dimensions and functions of the vast territory of “North Milan”.

Against the background of these and many considerations, there is the “wiky city: relationships built according to “digital”, “internet of things”, “ubiquitous computing”, with the multiplication of “big data” and a virtuality that marks modern life. Yet returning, even along this path, from intangible relations to the positive materiality of relations. The prophecy of Manuel Castells, one of the greatest experts in communication of the second half of the Twentieth Century, is coming true: “Contacts born on the Internet need a place off-line to meet up”. The need for physicality is concurrently growing: physical meeting places are increasing, we are returning to the materialness of manufactured articles (the native digital generation is studying paper books). And we are dealing with unprecedented sizes of urban traffic in the frequency of daytime and night-time hours. A revolution that naturally also involves transport, beyond old habits and contradictions: no longer just public and private sectors, but “sharing economy”: “shared” cars, motorcycles and bicycles, with a strong “public” value of an “individual” use of transport within a “community”. Milan is the metropolis at the cutting edge, also from this point of view. Places and flows, functions and relations criss-crossing once again.

The set of research conducted by CERIIS takes a snapshot of Italian companies from the point of view of social innovation

Businesses that care about what is happening around them. And not just from a financial viewpoint. It is the vast field of activities that only apparently have little to do with the business results, but which, in actual fact, are closely linked to the “figures” with which you measure the management of production organisation.

A good picture of what is happening in Italy from this perspective has been taken by  “L’innovazione delle imprese leader per creare valore sociale” (Innovation by leading enterprises to create social value), the third CERIIS report on social innovation in Italy edited by Matteo G. Caroli (Business management professor at Luiss Guido Carli University). This is a series of researches and analyses that share a common goal: to focus attention on the different dimensions and nuances that social innovation has taken in Italy, retracing, albeit in an indirect manner, the peculiarities of development of different areas of the country and of the respective ‘ecosystems of innovation”.

The collection of research is organised in three parts. The first part presents the results of an empirical research conducted on a sample of large Italian companies to understand their involvement in social innovation; the second shows the results of the set of  social innovation projects and activities in the country. Lastly, the third part contains some of the written contributions by business managers who illustrate the policies and the main experiences of their own businesses amid sustainability and social innovation policies.

Important, beyond the theory, are the different company stories that are narrated: AXA Italia, BNP Paribas, ENEL, Salvatore Ferragamo, Wind; but also the illustration of the characteristics of social innovation in Italy, which emerge from the analysis of the database built by CERIIS since 2014, refined and extended during 2016. A collection of 578 observations relating to projects and activities that fall within the scope of social innovation.

Two basic directions emerge from the collection of the investigations carried out. First of all the liveliness of social innovation activities by companies in Italy, and second the ability of large companies, when well run, to play an important role in this context.

The collection of research coordinated by Caroli is not always easy and straightforward to read, but it constitutes a good package of information better to understand the relationships between companies (large) and social commitment.

L’innovazione delle imprese leader per creare valore sociale. (Innovation by leading enterprises to create social value) Terzo rapporto CERIIS sull’innovazione sociale (Third CERIIS report on social innovation)

edited by Matteo G. Caroli

Franco Angeli, 2016

An analysis which has just been published explains the history of the Italian economy over the last 150 years from a particular point of view

Institutions and enterprises. The links are there, and they are evident. We must analyse them and understand them to find out which paths are set out before companies and, meanwhile, what the institutions have to do always to provide a useful background for growth.  Analysis and assessment, therefore, not only of the present day but also (perhaps in some cases especially) of the past. An analysis that must be accomplished with a focus also by those who take care of the company.

“Ricchi per caso. La parabola dello sviluppo economico italiano” (Rich by chance. The parable of Italian economic development) is one of those books which might help accomplish what we just mentioned. Between the historical and the economic and social analyses, the volume was written by several hands but edited by Paolo Di Martino (senior lecturer of International Business History at the University of Birmingham) and Michelangelo Vasta (Professor of Economic History at the University of Siena) and it covers a path that is clearly marked from the onset. In the last century and a half since Italian unification, according to the authors, Italy reached levels of wealth similar to those of the major industrialised countries. Then everything suddenly stopped.  The wave of globalisation in recent decades has however revealed the weakness of our manufacturing system. According to those who composed the book, there is one condition at the heart of what has happened: Italian capitalism has been negatively affected by inefficient institutions, which have had a strong impact on the size and  governance of companies, as well as on the education of human capital and on innovative capacity. And it is precisely from there (human capital, innovation, businesses) that it is necessary to start again.

The book has a simple structure. The first chapter explains the historical evolution of the Italian economy, the second and the third analyse the institutions from a the point of view of education and research activities.  The subsequent chapters look at the rest of the institutions to pinpoint where we should start, to give the country a future.

What the group of researchers coordinated by Di Martino and Vasta has written provides a certainly pessimistic view of Italy’s past and present. “Rich by accident”, precisely. It is clear that this is an interpretation which you may not agree with (in whole or in part), and it is also clear how some elements of the picture taken of Italy are left in the shade or blurred. But certainly what Di Martino and Vasta have coordinated boasts two great advantages: it is clear to read and it presents the reasoning that should be considered with great attention and seriousness. There are some beautiful and useful quotes placed at the beginning of each chapter from Gramsci to Wilde, as well as Eliot, Tocqueville, Mastronardi, Lewis and even from “La grande bellezza” (The great beauty).

Ricchi per caso. La parabola dello sviluppo economico italiano (Rich by chance. The parable of Italian economic development)

Paolo Di Martino, Michelangelo Vasta (edited by)

Il Mulino, 2017

There are too few graduates in Italy. Who are maltreated, poorly paid, forced to take inadequate jobs. This is the summary, on the Italian media, of the recent OECD report on “Strategia per le competenze” (Strategy for skills) (6 October). With a disheartening conclusion: in times when competitiveness relies mainly on “human capital”, the country continues to lose valuable development opportunities. And many of our best youths choose to leave, seeking better living and working conditions elsewhere. They are the “brain drain”, hundreds of thousands of “talents” over the last few years, a genuine haemorrhage that makes up one point of GDP in a year: 14 billion, among state and family expenditure to train young people who then flee abroad and almost always never come back (survey by the Confindustria Study Centre, we talked about this in the blog of 19th September).

OECD data state that only 20% of Italians aged between 25 and 34 complete their university studies, compared to an OECD average of 30%. And Italy is the only country in the G7 where the share of graduates in routine jobs is higher than that of graduates employed in complex processes and with decision-making powers. In general, 30% of workers have “excessive skills” or are “overqualified” for the duties they have to carry out. Here it is, inadequacy.

The OECD confirms a “mismatch” between training and employment. And in preceding analyses, it also noticed an excess of degrees in humanities (including legal subjects) and a serious lack of “stem” graduates (the initials for science, technology, engineering and mathematics). In short, it is a disaster. A serious malfunctioning of our educational system, where we spend far too little, just 4 % of GDP against the OECD average 5.2 %. Too little. And poorly.

This is the second point: the quality of the university. Recent media news were packed with the new scandal referred to as “concorsopoli” (examination-fiddling): a distorted system in many universities, to facilitate the assignment of professorships and postings to family members, thanks to “friends in high places”, people faithful to academic schools and consortia of powers and interests. It is not the first scandal, and it will probably not be the last. The judiciary is investigating. But while we wait for justice to be done, the judgement that many young people can form by themselves is terrible: Italy, once again, confirms that it is a country that rewards the clientele and not the merit. So it is better, much better, to leave.

Few graduates, who are maltreated and humiliated, in the heart of Academia, the place of the highest levels of research and education, by the children and by those who are protected by the “barons”.

There is an open debate on what to do. Investments and reforms on education (recent governments have begun to change something). A prize for universities who, by applying as much as possible the margins permitted to the boards of directors and to the Academic Senates by the Gelmini Reform in terms of autonomy, call quality teachers and researchers, even from abroad, for their professorships. Along with stimuli for improved cooperation between universities and companies who invest in “talent” and innovation. From this point of view too, useful indications may come from Milan: in the universities of the metropolis, the number of students who come here to study from abroad is growing, and its universities most exposed to competition and to international comparisons (Bocconi University, Politecnico, Humanitas, etc.) grow while selecting the right kind of teachers and students. This has a positive effect on the attractiveness and competitiveness of the entire territory.

The challenge of development focuses on the use of intelligence. These are times of “humanifacturing”, writes Luca De Biase on “IlSole24Ore” (8 October), speaking about the projects of one of the best Italian multinationals, Comau, with an effective neologism of synthesis between “humanities”, humanistic skills starting with philosophy and the “sciences of the beautiful” and “manufacturing”, the extraordinary Italian vocation for quality manufacturing. We need “strong specialisations and extensively open minds,” they say at Comau. Anything but a contradiction. Maurizio Cremonini, marketing manager of Comau, explains: “Devising, constructing, and operating the architecture of the factory today is a complex job that requires strong technical skills. But technologies are evolving rapidly and the necessary specialisations are becoming obsolete: without extensive preparation it is difficult to keep up”. Extensive and therefore capable of understanding and reorganising the complexities, remodulating mechanisms, rewriting relationships and connections, giving a mobile shape to change, tailor-making machines and skills.

“Industry4.0”, big data, cloud computing, state-of-the-art robotics, digital systems are changing production, products, work. At the next future frontier, “mechatronics”, only those who innovate will grow. In other words those who know how to implement resources for a new “civilization of machines”, capable of being in line with the digital organisation of work and with the “connections” that already mark our metropolises, amid “smart city” dimensions and economic and cultural challenges of the “sharing economy” (to get an idea, it is worth reading La città di domani – Come le Reti stanno cambiando il futuro urbano” (The city of tomorrow – how networks are changing the urban future) by Carlo Ratti, Einaudi and Cambio di paradigma – Uscire dalla crisi pensando il futuro” (Paradigm shift – Emerging from the crisis while thinking about the future) by Mauro Magatti, Feltrinelli). Robotics on a human scale. And new choices from a “civil economy”.

“Engineer philosophers” and “engineer poets”, as we have written several times in this blog. “Polytechnic culture”. It is the challenge of the frontier for our universities and our companies: more, better and better-treated graduates. The true key to development.

A piece of research by the G. D’Annunzio University sheds light on the importance of ties between the factory environment, learning and the work identity

Factory and office climate. There is no doubt about it: people learn and produce more when they are happy in their workplace. Compatibly with the particular technological requirements, obviously. Yet in addition to the supply of capital and technology, corporate climate – made up of men and women and relational mechanisms – counts as much as, and in some cases more than, traditional “manufacturing factors”. However, understanding its various aspects is a difficult matter. Michela Cortini, Teresa Galanti and Stefania Fantinelli (from the G. d’Annunzio University in Chieti-Pescara) have attempted to do so in “Quando gli apprendisti apprendono? Una riflessione sull’importanza del clima di apprendimento” (When do apprentices learn? Thoughts on the importance of the learning climate), a piece of research that applies the reasoning on factory and business climate to an important part of manufacturing organisation: that of learning applied to apprentices.

The authors explain as follows in the introduction to their investigation: “There are multiple variables capable of influencing the learning process within an organisation. Some of these should be attributed to the worker’s skills, i.e. to those intrinsic individual characteristics, which are causally linked to an efficient and/or superior performance in a task or in a situation and which can therefore be measured based on pre-established criteria. Others instead depend on conditions that are extrinsic to the worker, and instead belong to the organisation in which he or she works. Among these, recent literature attributes a great deal of importance to the dimension of the learning climate, for the role it plays with respect to work satisfaction”.

Climate, learning and work satisfaction as closely related elements and in view of two goals: to improve production results and the enjoyability of production. In order to understand better the ties between corporate and learning climate and the growth of a manufacturing organisation, the research thus covers the main theoretical points, identifying three different dimensions to take into consideration: facilitation, appreciation and management of errors during the course of the learning process. But this is not enough, because Cortini, Galanti and Fantinelli also remember the importance of work satisfaction which leads to the definition of a specific identity in the workplace. Not just numbers and acronyms, therefore, but names and surnames, human features and not mechanical ones.

Cortini, Galanti and Fantinelli apply these concepts to the particular condition of apprenticeships, identifying in the specific training phase the weakness of this working relationship.

The research from the G. D’Annunzio University does not contribute profound innovations in the subject that connects learning with corporate climate, but it does have significant merit in providing a clear presentation and in getting straight to the point.

Quando gli apprendisti apprendono? Una riflessione sull’importanza del clima di apprendimento (When do apprentices learn? Thoughts on the importance of the learning climate)

Michela Cortini, Teresa Galanti, Stefania Fantinelli

Participants in the conference entitled “Work in progress” for a better quality of life

DOI code: 10.1285/9788883051289p41

A short but intense books succeeds in clearly explaining the links between the new digital technologies and human culture

Company culture builds up over time and through the incorporation of influences from inside and outside the company. Humanity and technology together in an ever-changing combination. Humanistic knowledge and technological expertise brought together to generate something unique for every manufacturing organisation. And it is precisely from this balance of the combination between technology (digital nowadays, mechanical previously) and humanism that every good manufacturing culture takes shape. One which is closely “knotted” into the general culture of the time. Understanding the knots tying cultures together is therefore fundamental. And to help us in this understanding we can read “L’impronta digitale. Cultura umanistica e tecnologia” (The digital footprint. Humanistic culture and technology) by Lorenzo Tomasin.

The book investigates the links between digital technology and humanistic culture. Encounters, rather than links, in fact. Ones which take shape as soon as new technologies for tools become objectives themselves which distort correct human reasoning. A theme which underpins the pages of Tomasin (who teaches Romance Philology and History of the Italian Language in Lausanne), is the observation that technology is profoundly influencing humanistic culture: from basic training to advanced research, it offers not only precious tools for services to science, and to human sciences in particular, but in many cases also has a tendency to rewrite scientific targets and languages, by putting forward for discussion their role in society and in the system of human knowledge.Rather than the profitable utilisation of every discipline, technology positions itself – as mentioned previously -, as the objective or focus of the cultural debate.

In order to demonstrate all this, the author compares in seven chapters an equal number of aspects of the encounter/clash between digital technologies and ordinary human experience. He reviews rapidly (but in no way superficially) subjects such as the role of the Internet and of the Web, the relationship between the digitalisation of information and books, the role and the power of acronyms, the extension of the use of English, the difficulties facing “literary studies” and the relationship between the past and the present.The author does not suggest recourse to technophobia as a solution, but an alternative route whereby technology is restored as a tool.

Tomasin writes well and with great insight, captures the attention of the reader, but requires a degree of concentration: his pages take things at a brisk pace but cannot be read too quickly.

It may seem short (little more than a hundred pages), but what Tomasin has written should be savoured at leisure and will certainly also help a company culture to develop in a better way.

L’impronta digitale. Cultura umanistica e tecnologia (The digital footprint. Humanistic culture and technology)

Lorenzo Tomasin

Carocci publications, 2017

From the factory creating objects to the factory creating ideas. In order to make Italian factories perform better, a key requirement for economic growth and social progress at this time of “Industry 4.0”. And to give a notable boost to “sustainable development”. This is a virtuous circle, between culture and manufacturing. One which over recent days has truly seen some significant initiatives, from Turin to Ivrea, and from Bologna to Milan.

Let us examine these more closely. In Turin, they are reopening the Ogr, the Officine Grandi Riparazioni (Major Repair Workshops): once upon a time, that is where they used to repair trains, but where today instead there are incubators for new technologies and new languages, while still retaining the guiding theme of the idea of a journey through the modern world: from locomotives to the “digital” structures which bring together machines and ideas. The big names from personalities and industries cited in the “Procession of Reparationists” by William Kentridge are a remarkably vibrant artistic symbol for these. “In order to master machinery and locomotives you need to understand them. Work was not and is not automatic”, maintains Kentridge. Manufacturing and culture, yet again. This is the modern echo of the “civility of machines”, an altogether Italian dimension of the great industrial and civil culture, from the state-owned Finmeccanica to Pirelli and Olivetti.

This is what the modern Olivetti is like. In Ivrea, in one of the ex-buildings of the group headed by Adriano Olivetti, along via Jervis (characterised by premises and offices designed by some of the principal architects of the 20th Century and particularly well-liked by Le Corbusier, who saw in them the extraordinary synthesis between architectural beauty and industrial functionality), we have just seen the start, at the end of last week, of the “Conversations about the civil economy”, sponsored by the “Il Quinto ampliamento” (Fifth Extension), an association which brings together entrepreneurs (the Confindustria industrial trade body from the Canavese area), economists, professionals and personalities from the worlds of culture and of universities (from the Olivetti Foundation to the Legambiente environmental league) in order to discuss the quality of growth, high tech industry, the environment, and sociability (we will deal with this at greater length soon).

In Bologna, at the Mast Foundation (an initiative promoted by the Seragnoli group, one of the key players in the best Italian mechatronics sector), the “Biennale di fotografia dell’industria e del lavoro” (Biennial of photography of industry and the workplace) is being launched, including photographs by, among others, Mimmo Jodice, Ruff, Koudelka, Friedlander, Rodchenko and Jodice: industrial work and how its representation has evolved.

And in Milan, while to wide critical and public acclaim, the activities continue in the Pirelli HangarBicocca, an erstwhile Ansaldo factory which has now become one of the major centres of international contemporary art (currently featuring exhibits by Lucio Fontana), there are plans to create, on other ex-industrial premises, centres of tertiary excellence (services, research, training, life sciences) in a metropolis which is designed to reinforce its own role at the heart of European innovation at the crossroads between mechatronics and the digital economy.

“Sustainable development” is a basic idea which resonates through all these locations, across so many activities. It is a way of approaching the economy which combines competitiveness and quality of life. As is confirmed by the second Report from ASVIS (the Alliance for Sustainable Development led by Enrico Giovannini, the internationally renowned statistician and ex-Minister for Work). The Report, presented in Rome last week, highlights the 17 targets for sustainability quoted in the UN Agenda for 2030, and notes that Italy has achieved an “improvement” in respect of 9 targets (food, health, education, gender equality, infrastructure, sustainable consumption models, reduction of greenhouse gases, management of the seas and justice), “a notable worsening” for  4 (poverty, management of water resources, inequalities and terrestrial ecosystems), “while the situation remains static” for the remaining 4 (energy, employment, sustainable cities and international cooperation). But even in the areas where improvements have been observed, the divergence from UN Agenda targets for 2020 and 2030 remains “very wide”. In summary: “Italy is not on a pathway towards sustainable development and the economic resurgence, on its own, will not solve the problems” which can be seen “amongst the European countries with the worst economic, social and environmental performances”. It is not enough, then, to grow GDP, gross domestic product, and be satisfied with the 1.5% expected this year; we need to get ourselves in line with the BES, the “equitable and sustainable well-being” index. (The Document for the Economy and Finance which the minister Padoan is preparing to present to Parliament in the coming weeks takes this into consideration).

We are reasoning in terms of the quality of the economy. In terms of new and better balances. There is an industrial and cultural world moving on, now that the years of crisis are over. And the word “factory” has now returned as part of the essential vocabulary for public speaking, a word which until a few years ago could be found only in the writings of a few passionate exponents of “industrial pride”.

Multi-technical culture, to quote once again an expression frequently used in this blog. This refrain was a clear feature in the discussions of the “Il Quinto ampliamento” (Fifth Extension – the name is taken from a plan by Adriano Olivetti to extend further the Ivrea premises, before he was taken ill in the train to Lausanne, on the 27th February 1960). The objective is “to find once again a corporate culture which combines competitiveness and social inclusion”, an idea which was dear to the hearts of the best captains of industry in Italy during the Fifties and Sixties (the Olivetti, the Pirelli and the Borghi families and others too, including small- and medium-sized companies, the foundation for Italian economic growth). And one overall theme which requires further investigation is that of the paradigm of the ”civil economy”. How so? This is explained by Stefano Zamagni, the economist and chairman of the Quinto ampliamento (Fifth Extension), when he quotes Adriano Olivetti’s ideal for wealth: “The idea is to have a civil enterprise: the enterprise as an agent for change, not only in the sphere of economics, but also in the social and civil arena of society. It would be too restrictive to think of an enterprise simply in terms of a ‘profit machine’ rather than also a ‘place where man’s character is built’, as the great Alfred Marshall had foreseen as far back as 1890”. This lesson remains true today.