By now, it should be commonplace in every business, but it’s not. In fact, it seems that, in certain segments, the internet is more of a hindrance, something extraneous to the organisation and that poses questions to which businesses have no answers. And yet it is already present in all business. The internet, Web 2.0, and now Web 3.0, are here and they are here to stay.

But what needs to be done? The Web does come with challenges, but also plenty of opportunity. The first challenge is for an organisation’s management. What changes is how leadership is viewed and how the business is actually organised. “Leadership Challenges in the Context of Web 2.0  Solutions”, by Rafał Kozłowski and Krzysztof Kania (at the University of Economics in Katowice, Poland), is a study that can help shed some light on these concepts and on ways to better deal with them.

According to the authors, “If companies are to stay efficient and competitive, leaders must adopt behaviours, new ICT tools and develop new strategies/ solutions to appeal to Z/Millennium Generation and incoming Web 3.0 challenges.”

The study points to seven changes in the culture of enterprise that should help leaders to understand a company’s needs. First of all, with the use of the Web in an organisation, leadership may be “viewed as an activity rather than a role”, as well as be “considered a collective phenomenon”. It follows, then that “individual leaders now need higher levels of personal development”. This challenge within a challenge brings us to the fourth condition, that the business goes from being organisation-centric towards an organisation in which this singular point of focus gives way to more “network-centric leadership”. But they don’t stop there. In the view of Kozłowski and Kania, organisations must now be seen as “organisms” (change no. 5), rather than as “machines”, and planning and controlling must give way to learning and adapting (change no. 6). The final condition that businesses need in order to properly face the challenges of the Web is then summarised in the seventh change: the individuals within an organisation should no longer see the Web as a tool for solving problems, but as an integral part of their lives (the shift to Generation Z or the Millennium Generation). Food for thought.

Leadership challenges in the context of web 2.0  solutions 

Kozłowski R., Kania K.

Polish Journal of Management Studies, vol. 8, 2013

“Elect Kant to the board” was a brilliant headline in La Stampa (10 January) for an interview by Claudio Gallo with the philosopher and novelist Alain De Botton, explaining how a businessman only thinks of making money and a philosopher seeks to create happiness, therefore the two activities should be combined. De Botton is an original thinker and deals with more or less everything, from architecture to mass communication, religion to sex, corporate philosophies to the basic values of economic and social systems. A renaissance intellectual according to his fans; in other words eclectic. A little too eclectic, hiss the critics, challenging him on account of genericness and even triteness, good for chat shows on entertainment TV. He is definitely a mark of contemporary cultural debate and in fact in early January wrote in the Financial Times that philosophers should be members of the board in companies.

This is no joke but instead the result of reasoning which, as confirmed to La Stampa, can be summed up by saying that our misfortune is not that we have too much capitalism, too much competition, to many profits, too much consumerism. Instead we suffer because we have a rough and underdeveloped version of an economic system which could give us much more. We admire the organisational power of corporations, their ability to guide enormously complex efforts … but we make poor and little use of all this: the pension funds of public employees in Ankara mean that a container carrier ship in the strait of Singapore transports manganese which will be used to make bottle caps opened in a bar in Dublin. Too much, in other words, for so little. He goes on to say that with bottles and caps we’re great, the rest still has to be built. The unfortunate truth is not the inefficiency of capitalism but the fact that its ambitions are so modest.

This is in fact the purpose of philosophers on company boards. To think big and look towards objectives in which the production power of the industry, the richness of the finance, the sophistication of the new technologies can have decisive roles, in order to build a new, different and improved quality of economic and social development, a more complete sustainability of growth.

Adam Smith, moreover, father of modern economics, was a moral philosopher. And as a philosopher he had investigated the relationships between individual interests and the “sympathy” in an etymological sense between the individuals able to weave the support structure of a community.

In the economic crisis, whose effects are still felt all over the world (change to commercial and power balances, new players on the markets of production and consumption, worsening of some social differences but also the emergence of hundreds of millions of people from poverty to the sphere of consumption and rights, drastic change in distribution and content of work, etc.), an in-depth search is underway for a meaning which impacts the basic reasons for producing, trading and consuming. Questions are asked about the ethics of the economy and the system of rights and duties linked to the environment. An in-depth discussion is launched on the intellectual categories and the rules for interpretation which have guided economic and social progress over the centuries (even disputing the actual idea of the positive value of progress and gambling on theories of “happy decrease”). Philosophy issues therefore which reach the actual heart of economics and business.

This is where the cultural challenge that faces us lies. As thinking and enterprising persons. As supporters of the importance of the “polytechnic culture”. In order to tackle it philosophers are needed who know how to handle the tools for analysis and interpretation of economics and science (the intersections between the two dimensions are increasingly frequent, as witnessed by the whole bio-tech world). As well as entrepreneurs and managers able to move beyond the essential yet in any case limited horizon of company accounts, profit and loss account and “value for shareholders”.

Not starting from scratch, not even in Italy. Philosophy is taught well at the politecnici of Milan and Turin, above all as part of the engineering management courses. The lesson by Adriano Olivetti on the good, complex corporate culture is re-read (together with the more sophisticated cultural experiences spread throughout other firms, like Pirelli). Space is also given over in the media to the fact that Sergio Marchionne, who spearheaded the Fiat renaissance, after graduating in law and with a master’s degree in business administration in Canada, completed his philosophy studies at the University of Toronto. Or that Franco Tatò, one of the more brilliant and international top managers, obtained his degree with a theoretical philosophy thesis on Max Weber. Or again that Brunello Cucinelli, a star of Italian-made quality clothing, organises for his employees training courses that start with Plato.

It is therefore possible to overturn, for the economic good, the old commonplace, attributed to Thomas Hobbes, of primum vivere, deinde philosophari: in other words in order to live better philosophising is now essential.

Nobody lives forever, not even companies. They can however at least attempt to live longer. They only need to know how to change, i.e. evolve, mutate, improve, innovate. Above all in “complex” times like the current ones for the economy. 

 

In times like these the capacity for change has to become stronger. These are not however preset and mechanical processes – every company has a different story which is why others’ experience is important. Equally important is reading the some ninety pages written by Paolo Lo Bascio for LUISS University Press which tell of stories of company changes.

 

Racconti del cambiamento. Come le aziende vivono e sopravvivono nei momenti di discontinuità [“Stories of change. How firms live and survive in times of discontinuity”] starts in fact with immortality. It is explained how firms have a natural tendency to believe themselves to be immortal. However success stories, unbeatable strategies and Guinness book of records results make way one day (although not all of a sudden) for the terrible recession disease. This condition leads to another life, if there is the ability to act at the right time.

 

According to Lo Bascio, however, strong treatment is needed, a so-called “turnaround”. A movement which leads to company decisions which require the ability to change customary behaviour and strategies, putting to the test the management and the entire organisation, right down to the last factory worker. 

 

The book shows that a constructive entry in the arena, the capacity for cooperation and that for overcoming predefined work barriers (between factory floor workers, managers and entrepreneurs) constitute the same number of tools which allow an attempt, often successful, to actually change the company where you work, including with major and unexpected changes in action and thought. The cover picture of the work by Lo Bascio is in this respect appealing and significant: a goldfish which leaps from a smaller tank to a larger one. And survives.

 

 

Racconti del cambiamento. Come le aziende vivono e sopravvivono nei momenti di discontinuità

Paolo Lo Bascio

LUISS University Press, 2013 

Entrepreneurial Culture. A greatly used, also misused, concept to be written with uppercase first letters to create greater emphasis. The idea of entrepreneurial and corporate culture that this creates has definitely become fashionable. With all the results that follow, including negative ones. In this case too it is increasingly necessary to structure the theory into a system and give practice meaning. Above all when in the name of entrepreneurial culture official action is taken, company decisions are made and financial policies take a certain direction. One example, to understand this better, is how the concept of entrepreneurial culture is used as a tool for promoting entrepreneurship for the lowering of unemployment through job creation.

The question to be asked therefore is what entrepreneurial culture really is, a question without a single answer. The research by Christabel D. Brownson from Akwa Ibom State University seeks to organise the material by analysing a huge quantity of literature, comparing it with reality and arriving at an interesting pattern.

Entrepreneurial culture, according to Brownson, is not a single whole but made up of various components: entrepreneurial attributes, entrepreneurial values, entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial conduct.

The result of all this is action by the company. However most of that which creates the conduct of the entrepreneur cannot be seen. Brownson explains that only the final conduct of those who conduct business can be seen, while all the rest is on two levels: one totally “invisible”, the other “semi-invisible”. Traits and features of every component are then studied in depth to seek to understand the formula on the basis of which, ultimately, an entrepreneur and enterprise are born.

According to Brownson, therefore, entrepreneurial attributes can derive both from the life environment of the actual individual (family, education) and from the social and political context in which he or she grew up. Entrepreneurial “values” are subsequently built on these. Independence, capacity for innovation, honesty and willingness to work are rooted, according to the researcher, in the entrepreneurial attributes and in turn form the basis for the creation of the real entrepreneurial mindset, i.e. the ability to give a positive response to the stimuli received: possibilities of production, new markets, different needs. Finally the visible conduct of the entrepreneur emerges from all this. Definite choices which, in turn, influence that which has created them in a constant exchange of information and signals.

That which emerges from the some ten pages of Fostering Entrepreneurial Culture: A Conceptualization is thus a varied and faceted vision of the figure of the entrepreneur. With confirmation of a basic condition: everything goes to make up all the components which lead to the creation of a business.

Fostering Entrepreneurial Culture: A Conceptualization

Christabel Divine Brownson

Faculty of Social and Management Sciences, Akwa Ibom State University, Nigeria

European Journal of Business and Management, Vol.5, No.31, 2013

Hi-tech humanism. Richard Florida (the theorist of the new “creative class”) maintains that when we talk of the “digital age” it is important to remember that interconnection is a sort of extension and amplification of activities which we have carried out with traditional means and methods. At the base of everything are human relations, physical contact, dialogue, aspects of life which digital technologies do not replace. The assumption on which interconnection is based is the ability and willingness to work together. Naturally, critical awareness, listening and respect for the freedom of others are also fundamental in every relationship which is not obedience, in every culture of competition, cooperation and dialogue which seeks out fusions that suit times of change and the search for new balances.

Florida’s hi-tech humanism is fully suited to seasons of uncertainty and changes and even actual metamorphoses. Methods and languages which were features of the long period stretching from the Eighties to the explosion of the economic crisis have come to the end of the line: the policies of power and the logic of the domination of force, the rapacious individualism of cut-throat finance, frenetic and infinite economic growth, the myths of limitless progress, of unregulated and uncontrolled globalism, of marketism as ideology (despite cultures of a well-regulated market). Goodbye to the “greed is good” of the speculators of the paper economy and financial fraud. Feet are now firmly on the ground of the real economy, of politics which has to rebuild its creditability on transparent responsibility and the idea of power as a service and not domination.

A new age. Ancient values to be restored. Innovative languages to be filled with contemporary meanings. Without the temptation towards nostalgia and looking back with the awareness that words such as sustainability, responsibility, community, participation and a willingness to take on general interests and duties have potential which is yet to be explored.

This is the framework in which we also find the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, consequent behaviour and values. Respect for people, in political, professional, working and private relations. An end to the frenzy of the cool and trendy and the worldly neurosis of the “new at all costs”, to make room for the “pleasant” and the Calvinist “light” substance of the quality of life and of relationships (detailed information on this is given by Maria Luisa Agnese in Corriere della Sera of 28 December 2013). A return into the spotlight of good manners, with a large crop of self-help books in stores, not as an affectation but with the awareness that there is in any case a link between etiquette and ethics, and the endorsement of kindness.

Kindness, as interpreted by Pope Francis in his speeches about the family, remembering the importance of simple words such as “thank you”. This is widely echoed in political science, economics and managerial literature: if we move from the dimension of the subject, the consumer who has been won over and the obedient voter to that of the citizen and of the person, the entire system of relationships (voting, purchasing, work and professional service, etc.) must inevitably meet criteria in which “trust” and “responsibility” are processes to be won over, motivated and rebuilt in the exchange between “individuality” and “otherness”, adding value to humanity.

This is the age of emotional intelligence and the predominance of “feminine” values, welcoming and listening (in place of conflict with the success of the bolder or the stronger), competitive collaboration and no longer the merciless selection of Darwin’s theories. This has a positive effect on the construction of corporate cultures. Rediscovering the all-Italian aptitude of those who for example used the words of Gandhi for extraordinary advertising in the world of telecoms or those who traditionally maintained that power is nothing without control, a demonstration of responsibility.

There are other words in the dictionary of the modern age on which to reflect. “Humility” for example, or “tenderness”. They were used by Pope Francis in fact and give a sense of intense humanity and respect. They mark the end of the cycle of “power”, “domination” and the display of muscle “strength” (behind which an impotent arrogance is often concealed). They inaugurate the new season of the new millennium in which reasoning is based on values and file away finally the time when we knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Just as we said: “humanism”, or not?

Doing business is, as we know, an adventure. Yet the businessman is not an unprepared adventurer, just as an explorer does not start out without having made proper plans of action. Yet both these figures, entrepreneur and explorer, share many features: spirit of enterprise, a drive towards discovery, the ability to be alone, strength in defeat and wisdom in deciding. Comparing different experiences of people in both these areas of action can also be important for company management. It definitely represents a different approach which adds to corporate culture.

 

L’avventura e l’impresa. Due uomini lucidi e visionari si incrociano e si confrontano [“Business and adventure. The meeting and dialogue of two rational and visionary men”] by Paolo Costa serves this purpose. In the book, with just under one hundred pages to be read from cover to cover, two men – Alex Bellini, sailor and explorer, and Riccardo Donadon, entrepreneur of the Ict – tell their own stories and find many factors in common. 

 

The book starts with a question: what happens when two modern dreamers, two men that are both rational and visionary, come together and swap experiences for two days around their respective life patterns? The dialogue between Bellini and Donadon therefore starts from some common themes such as the sense of challenge and enterprise, the capacity for taking risks, the value of sacrifice, the lessons learnt from failure, the immense pain and richness of solitude and the fear of the unknown. The first, Alex Bellini, refers to himself as an “adventurer”: he has rowed across two oceans and run across America, including Alaska, and is not tired yet. He is currently planning a new adventure which involves drifting on an iceberg along the coast of Greenland. The other man, Riccardo Donadon, is an entrepreneur who has made Ca’ Tron, in the province of Treviso, his own little Silicon Valley, with the aim of transferring to Italy the Californian culture of digital innovation. 

 

Both definitely agree on one point, a moment in time, when you find yourself alone and have to decide whether to give up or carry on. 

 

 

L’avventura e l’impresa. Due uomini lucidi e visionari si incrociano e si confrontano

Alex Bellini, Riccardo Donadon, Paolo Costa

Marsilio, November 2013

 

A large part of corporate culture involves above all relations between workers and owners. While it is true that a company is born from the possibly visionary idea of an entrepreneur, other hands and minds are needed in order to grow and develop these ideas. An understanding of the working of the relations between these two decisive parts of the company, owner and workers, is essential for an understanding of the future of every production system. Bearing in mind that these relations change according to the circumstances and the environment in which they are developed.

One interesting example to be explored is that of Japan, i.e. of one of the most important and advanced economies in the world. The study by Cole E. Short from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, takes this direction.

The research sets out to study how interpersonal relations work within Japanese companies. The goal is achieved by analysing specifically the employee-employer relations “within the modern Japanese workplace”. This produces a picture in which the culture and ideological aspects of the interactions in the workplace together with the principles on which Japanese society is founded create special working habits in companies and between these companies and other firms. Cole therefore also makes a comparison with the system of corporate relations in the USA. The study is also carried out with interviews with managers of Japanese companies.

The aim of the research, also useful for companies in other countries as well as the US, is also that of giving practical hints on business etiquette for better conducting commercial relations in Japan. An approach which also has to pay great attention to aspects that are apparently out of reach for “westerners” but which instead can represent the keystone for creating good commercial relations with companies in the land of the Rising Sun. The usefulness of the work by Cole E. Short is in fact this: a sort of working method for a better understanding of an economy which is also important for Italy.

Employee-Employer Relations in Japan:  An Analysis of Honor-Shame and Authority-Power Relations within the Modern Japanese Workplace 

Cole E. Short

Baylor University, December 2013

Milan, 7 January 2014. The Pirelli Foundation and HangarBicocca are welcoming in the new year with the launch of a new project, “IL TEMPO DELL’UOMO: LAVORO E NO”, dedicated to the residents of Zone 9 in Milan.

Taking advantage of the immense heritage of the Pirelli Foundation archives and the work of HangarBicocca, the project seeks to involve both children and the elderly in rediscovering the area through guided tours, learning laboratories and other events surrounding the world of contemporary art.

Who are we looking for? All residents of Milan’s Zone 9 who have experienced the great transformation of the industrial area into a revitalised neighbourhood of homes and services and who have witnessed the significant social, cultural and economic change that has taken place in the area are invited to participate. We would also ask that you take an active part in the cultural life of the area together with HangarBicocca.

In order to participate or to request additional information, please write to senior@fondazionepirelli.org  or phone +39 0264423971.

We look forward to seeing you.

“Far volare Milano” (literally: “Make Milan fly”) is the slogan that Assolombarda (the largest, most important regional arm of Confindustria) uses to convey the meaning behind the work being done by the association’s president, Gianfelice Rocca, and all of his team, that of reinforcing the region’s role as the leading driver of economic growth throughout Italy. It’s an ambitious goal, yet also very pragmatic given the 50 projects that focus on developing industry (manufacturing in the Lombardy region is valued at 27.7% of GDP, which is ten points above the national average and is already well above the 20% target that the EU wants to reach by 2020) as well as on enhancing services to make them more competitive, expanding credit for businesses beyond the traditional banking relationship, simplifying taxation, legislation and bureaucracy generally, making the justice system more efficient and effective, protecting against the infiltration of organised crime (which distorts markets and leads to a form of competition that erodes wealth and civil order), attracting international investors, reducing the cost of energy, increasing social responsibility and safety in the workplace, increasing the efficiency of digital networks, focusing education and training on real needs of business, and developing and disseminating new technologies. This is no list of vague promises, but a true plan of action from 2014 to 2016, one made of deadlines, milestones and mechanisms for measuring progress and performance. This enterprise is an actual social entity that has been given form.

The culture of enterprise is, by its very nature, at once both competitive and inclusive. It thrives on innovation in the broadest sense of the term (i.e. products and production systems, new materials, new forms of labour relations, new languages and tools of governance), and it grows through dialog and interaction with industry, services, research centres, schools and government. It is expressed through projects that bring a range of actors together. The strategy of Assolombarda is an excellent example of this. Presented just last week (after extensive analysis and the preparation of proposals), the strategy was immediately well received by both government (i.e. the City of Milan) and business (through the Chamber of Commerce) and opened the door to broader based, more constructive dialog. Not the typical list of good intentions, but a real commitment to developing Milan with a view towards Expo 2015 and beyond.

What city are we talking about exactly? About a “polytechnic” Milan, a city backed by tradition and that incorporates both knowledge and production, pure research and applied research, education, communication and creativity. And also about a metropolitan Milan, much like the vast – even “boundless”, as sociologists such as Martinotti and Bonomi sometimes say – city that looks from the northwest of Italy out to the rest of the Lombardy region, to the northeast, to Emilia and to the rest of the nation. And of a Milan that is regaining and redeveloping its international vocation. Competition is not limited to business; it also happens between regional systems, and Milan has much to learn from Munich and Bavaria, from Barcelona and the creative, industrious Catalonia (the dynamism of which is getting the area out of the crisis better and faster than the rest of Spain), and from Lyon and the area of France that creates networks of high-tech excellence.

It is a competition that the city can win, because this metropolitan Milan of which we speak boasts a system of both public and private universities (with both Politecnico and Bocconi taking top spots in international rankings), excellent research facilities, a level of human capital that, based on the parameters of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), places Lombardy on a par with or better than Switzerland (and well above the OECD average) in terms of students’ scientific skills, and a series of firsts in scientific research in the area of life sciences. This blend of manufacturing, finance, high-tech, creativity, culture (from publishing to music, theatre to contemporary art), and organisations that promote social cohesion already make Milan a driver of growth, but this energy needs to be unleashed by placing businesses at the centre of programmes of environmentally and socially sustainable development and by laying claim to a system of tangible and intangible infrastructures that will enable the economic machine to express its full potential. Milan as a “hub of knowledge”, once again an attractor of international business and committed to being a “start-up town”, a physical and cultural home for new and innovative businesses.

From all of these points of view, Milan is an “open society”, to borrow a fascinating concept from Karl Popper, one that remains vibrant despite all the “traps and snares” preventing the full expression of its strength and dynamism. It can move forward and drive Italy forward, too, with its feet firmly planted in Europe.

Nowadays, businesses exist not only because they do good work, but also because the Internet says they do. But that’s not all. The future and very existence of a business increasingly depends on an intelligent use of social networking and the constant sharing of knowledge and information. But that’s easier said than done in the day-to-day management of a business, and the quantity, quality and level of information that continues to flow into and out of a business is an issue that is particularly difficult to condense down into truly useful operating models.

But a map of the interconnections between a business and its system of information has been constructed by Maristella Abarno, who studied Communication Systems & Planning at the University of Pisa. Recently published by Edizioni Accademiche Italiane, her work “L’impatto delle tecnologie digitali nelle imprese. Come la tecnologia ‘social’ genera valore per le aziende” (The impact of digital technologies on business. How social technology creates value for businesses) is based on the assumption that the level of information that is now overwhelming our economy is constantly on the rise, and not just in information-intensive industries (e.g. entertainment, communication, education, etc.), but even in those where earnings are not based solely on the management of information. In other words, the web is changing the culture of enterprise in all businesses.  

The problem is that web technologies are so pervasive that they are becoming increasingly important in running a business and making business decisions for all enterprises. In most cases, however, businesses are still working out just how to make best use of these tools and what real benefits each tool can provide. At just over 200 pages in length, the book seeks to plumb the depths of this issue, going beyond mere theory to actually study how digital technologies can help businesses to improve their communications both internally and with the outside world. This included an analysis of thousands of interviews with the management and employees of over 2,500 businesses around the world and resulted in both a map of the current landscape and a sort of roadmap to help businesses navigate through the infrastructure of online communication.

L’impatto delle tecnologie digitali nelle imprese. Come la tecnologia “social” genera valore per le aziende

Maristella Abarno

Edizioni Accademiche Italiane, December 2013