“A photograph of a work of art—be it architecture, sculpture, or even painting—is itself a critical presentation of the work. It is always an interpretation,” wrote the art critic Guido Ballo, echoing his brother Aldo’s view that the purpose of photography is to “interpret the object and convey its essence,” as we read in a 1950 issue of Pirelli magazine. Through contributions from scholars like Giulio Carlo Argan and Gillo Dorfles, the journal gave great prominence to the theme of the figurative arts and their complex relationship with photography. The illustrations focused above all on the artistic legacy of Italy. In 1963, Pirelli published a calendar celebrating the most stunning rose windows of churches across the Belpaese, including the facades of San Zeno in Verona and Santa Chiara in Assisi, as seen through Paolo Monti’s lens, creating a visual tribute to Italian architectural heritage in the magazine. Also Pepi Merisio explored the beauty of Italy, from the Renaissance villas in the Lombard countryside to the grand domes of Christendom, including views of the Vatican City. His pictures offer a glimpse into daily life within the papal quarters, as well as parades, state visits, and ceremonies held under the great vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and inside St Peter’s Basilica. The final issue in 1967 features a striking cover: an image of breath-taking dynamism showing a maintenance worker at St Peter’s, precariously cleaning Bernini’s Gloria. From the treasures of the past to today’s contemporary trends: in 1970, Giuseppe Pino photographed the wrapping of the monument to King Victor Emmanuel II in Milan, capturing the moment when the polypropylene fabric, fastened by ropes, was draped over the statue. From the terraces of the Duomo, he then caught the final outcome of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s brief artistic intervention, which lasted only two days but nevertheless caused controversy and even vandalism.

Cameras captured not only artworks but also their creators. As early as 1950, Aligi Sassu appeared on his racing bike in a picture in the magazine. The Corrente artist’s passion for the world of cycling was of fundamental importance in inspiring forms and colours that he described as ripped from “the speed, the wind of the descents, and the acrid dust of provincial roads”—elements that he then used in ceramics and oils, turning his cycling experience into art. A whole generation of painters and sculptors came before the discerning lens of Ugo Mulas, the “artists’ photographer,” who did far more than simply take photos of artworks; he probed their context and creation, engaging with the scene to the extent that he become a part of it. Among his most iconic portraits is that of Lucio Fontana from 1964—first published in the magazine the following year, and again in 1968. However, a version of Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, which was used in an experimental RAI broadcast, had already appeared in the magazine in 1952, during one of his famous Attese performances. In actual fact, the sequence is staged; Fontana chose not to work directly in front of the camera, instead posing with his Stanley knife in hand in front of intact or already-cut canvases. “It is the moment when the cut has not yet begun, and the conceptual vision is already entirely clear”: Mulas’s words reveal an understanding of Fontana’s intellectual approach, the deliberateness of his artistic action, and the profound significance of the suspended moment just before the work begins. Mulas also made important portraits of Henry Moore, including his creation of the 1965 Archer, a sculpture of smooth, curved surfaces, rendered with a rich, rounded fullness in white marble. Mulas captured it all, from the plaster model to the choice of a single block of limestone in Querceta—a near-sacred ritual completed with the help of local artisans—through to shaping the block in his Forte dei Marmi studio. He conveyed the English artist’s creative intensity and physical exertion, as well the way be brought form out of formlessness. Mulas’s lens immortalised many artists: in 1968, he made an intimate photo shoot of Giovanni Pintori in Bocca di Magra; in 1970, he was with Alexander Calder, surrounded by gouaches, playful mobiles, and enormous stabiles; and the following year he captured the “music of lines, of relationships, of solids and voids” that resonated through the works of Fausto Melotti.

Between 1954 and 1972, Mulas also produced a series on the Venice Biennale, photographing a whole era of the international art scene. Notably, the 1962 edition, featuring Giò Pomodoro, Giuseppe Capogrossi, and Alberto Giacometti, appeared in the magazine, with Giacometti’s reaction to winning the Grand Prize for sculpture making the cover. Mulas’s pictures of the Biennales often appeared in a column called “Pretesti e appunti”, penned by the art historian and critic Franco Russoli, who also wrote about the hotly contested 1964 edition. The victory of Robert Rauschenberg—captured by Mulas standing in front of his Studio Painting—marked the decisive consecration of American Pop Art.

Mulas also photographed artists engaging with the innovations of the “Long P.” The sculptor Sante Monachesi, for instance, is seen at the Galleria Astrolabio in Rome, contemplating a piece he made using string and an expanded polyurethane resin known as Levior made by Pirelli-Sapsa. This light, ephemeral and yet monumental sculpture was an evolution of the Dadaist ready-made. Even tyres themselves became works of art. This can be seen in the case of the Cinturato Tractor Agricolo, which was shown at the 1966 Forma e Verità exhibition in Florence. Conceived by the architect Lorenzo Papi, the exhibition aimed to show, through a range of different objects, that art inherently starts out from everyday life. The displays included drawings by Alvar Aalto, the chassis of the Ferrari Dino, and a model of the Pirelli Tower. In 1969, during a series of meetings on art and technology at the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan, a tyre mould was shown in a highly original combination, together with Giacomo Balla’s Giardino Futurista. Here, the object formed part of a new dimension, revealing, as the catalogue points out, the hidden beauty “that can emerge from the formal constraints of a work tool, if only someone can help us see it.”

Also the activities of the Pirelli Cultural Centre are the focus of the photographer’s lens, and its initiatives in the world of the fine arts include conferences, solo exhibitions of works by the company’s employees, artistic tours across Italy’s main cultural centres, and exhibitions curated by the Centre, ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. Notably, a 1967 exhibition dedicated to Franco Grignani showed him telling visitors about his some of his works in the spaces of the Pirelli Tower—a journey that traced the development of his art from his debut in 1950 to the full maturity of his style. These exhibitions perfectly illustrate the close connection between Pirelli and artists, a bond that has remained unbroken to this day, with some of the world’s leading international artists continuing to work with the company.

A company’s goal is to produce goods and services, at economically advantageous conditions, attractive to the market – doing, in short, and doing good work. In the ongoing transition to an economy in which the stakeholders have primacy (employees, suppliers, consumers, the public in the company’s reference communities), there is a third dimension to insist on: doing good. That is, producing economic value (profits, stock market trends, shareholder remuneration) respecting and pursuing a series of moral and social values. Adriano Olivetti’s teaching about the company that cannot be reduced merely to the index of profits and Leopoldo Pirelli’s teaching about the social responsibilities of the good entrepreneur echo once more.

It is a capitalism that is renewed, ultimately, in the name of the circular or even “just” economy (taking into account the insistent teaching of Pope Francis) and environmental and social sustainability. It moves beyond the damage caused by the rapacious primacy of assault finance (in all the speculative manifestations of “greed is good”, of greed and avarice celebrated as positive behaviour by Gordon Gekko, the character who exemplified the principle in Wall Street, effectively portrayed by Michael Douglas). It also insists on a real “paradigm shift” according to which the growth of the market economy can only occur in the context of special attention to “common goods”, to the interests of the community, to respect for people, to a sound economic democracy.

It’s not about a mere benevolent impulse on the part of companies. It’s a real ethical and cultural turning point, also with the awareness that “being good is advantageous”, to use a brilliant summary by Ermete Realacci, president of Symbola. Because, as documented by the association’s research on the economy that’s green and rich in social engagement and consequence, “cohesive companies, i.e. those that are supportive and attentive to the balance of the communities in their territory, are more competitive and innovative, but also more capable of exporting” (https://symbola.net/approfondimento/imprese-coesive/ ).

Within this framework, company volunteering is also playing an increasingly important role, as is well explained in a book entitled Il volontariato aziendale – Profit e non profit insieme per il bene di comunità e territori (Company volunteering: profit and non-profit together for the good of communities and territories) written by Patrizia Giorgio, Laura Guardini and Renata Villa and just published by Egea, with a preface by Ferruccio de Bortoli and a contribution by Rossella Sobrero.

The three authors have put their experiences in very different but complementary contexts to good use, between companies, “third sector” activities and a “laboratory” that fosters dialogue between the two worlds. The primary objective is “making it clear that a company volunteering project is effective only if it is conceived, planned and promoted through a partnership in which business and non-profit organisation are on the same level, in an equal, symmetrical and reciprocal relationship”. It’s a picture of the situation, a genuine compass able to guide companies towards engagement, with concrete examples of activities and criteria for evaluating results.

It all began in 2015, with a meeting between two enterprising women, Lina Sotis, journalist with the Corriere della Sera and founder of the Quartieri Tranquilli (peaceful neighbourhoods) association and Patrizia Grieco, a manager with solid experience, then chairman of Enel. The common goal is to encourage company employees to take part, during working hours, in implementing support projects, collaborating with a non-profit organisation. Over time, the Sodalitas Foundation (founded in 1995 on the initiative of Assolombarda and a group of Milanese companies and now chaired by Alberto Pirelli) has been involved in the initiative, making its volunteer experience available. And today there is movement towards broadening the scope of activities, in a condition of growing interest in social engagement, from both companies and their employees.
The latest report by CECP (Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose) based on an international sample of companies reveals that the average percentage of employees who did at least one hour of corporate volunteering in 2022 was 19.8%, up about 3% compared to 2021. This is still a limited increase in the phenomenon, compared to the rate in the period before the Covid pandemic, which was 29% in 2019. And only in some sectors, like energy, finance and utilities is the growth of participation more substantial. But, despite everything, growth continues.
And what about Italy? Company volunteering, the book explains, “is still a practice in development, and the most active companies are mainly the Italian offices of foreign multinationals.” Research developed by the Terzjus Foundation in 2023, with the collaboration of the Unioncamere research office, “found that nationally only 5% of companies with at least 50 employees develop company volunteering initiatives and, of these, 39.4% are oriented towards skill-based volunteering”, providing people whose business skills mean they can collaborate to make “third sector” initiatives more functional and effective. More generally, however, the research shows that “volunteering does not seem to be a marginal phenomenon in the economic fabric of the country, since it directly involves about a third of medium-large companies (31%), which already allow workers and managers to get involved in social issues (or plan to do so soon)”.

As Ferruccio de Bortoli tells us: “Volunteering organisations suffer more from the lack of figures with the required skills than from a lack of resources. It is not uncommon for companies, as retirement approaches, to release valuable energy that can be lent to part-time activities in social enterprises to the complete satisfaction of individuals.” And the company? “Support activity offers a mutual good. It can do the same for a company, to make it more sustainable and acceptable; for its employees, who will feel like active and socially conscious citizens; and above all for the ultimate beneficiaries, the people who need it, who are never the object or even the instrument, even in the most noble of initiatives. This is the difference between the narcissism of charity and the singular beauty of good done well.”

Enrico Giovannini, scientific director of Asvis, the alliance for sustainable development, is also convinced of this: “There are many ways to build sustainable development, and company volunteering too can contribute to increasing the well-being of society.”

It is summarised by Patrizia Grieco, now chairman of Anima Holding: “Promoting volunteering in companies contributes to building a lively and active civil society and answers to that search for meaning and purpose that more and more people are asking for at work.”

(Photo Getty Images)

The speech by the Governor of the Bank of Italy on World Savings Day outlines the links between saving and good business culture

Savings as an investment tool. Saving as an act that succeeds in transferring resources from the present to the future, and an act of foresight and non-selfish attention. Savings also as an element of stability and a resource at the service of business investment as well as household wealth. Savings are important, at any rate, and appropriate when – of course – there are the means to accumulate them.

Fabio Panetta – Governor of the Bank of Italy – reasoned with lucidity and clarity on these matters in his speech a few days ago for World Savings Day 2024, the 100th since it was established.

Panetta analyses 100 years of “savings culture” intertwined with the life of the country, the changes in society, the economic challenges, and the elements that link savings to the rest of the economic and social system. “Savings and economic and social progress are closely linked,” says Panetta, who, after covering 100 years of Italian savings, emphasises how the solidity of the real economy is the “first safeguard of savings” and how this effectively contributes to the good health of the economy itself.  The Governor of the Bank of Italy then recalls that the stability of the economy is not the only fundamental element for a good level of savings, but also that of institutions, currency and the financial system. On top of everything, Panetta also recalls the need for integrity and respect “for the highest ethical and professional values” of those entrusted with the savings of the public and businesses.

Savings are therefore a fundamental element for the future, indeed, a prerequisite for a culture of the future that is pivotal to a country’s social and economic progress. This culture, on closer inspection, goes hand in hand with the good business culture that is essential today more than ever and has many points of contact with the first.

Fabio Panetta’s speech indicates how savings are, after 100 years, still not only useful but important to develop, make known and appreciate.

Giornata Mondiale del Risparmio del 2024. 1924-2024 cento anni di cultura del risparmio

(World Savings Day 2024: 1924–2024, 100 years of savings culture)

Fabio Panetta

ACRI, Associazione di Fondazione e di Casse di Risparmio Spa

A manual on reputational engineering has been published, a tool to first understand and then apply a particular quality of production organisations (and others)

Corporate reputation, as well as the reputation of the managers and people doing the business, is a complex, delicate issue, difficult to handle and important to address. It’s also a topic that has now assumed quantitative as well as qualitative aspects, to the extent of giving rise to a “reputational engineering” that merits exploration. Reading Ingegneria reputazionale. Comprendere, misurare e costruire la Reputazione (Reputational Engineering: understanding, measuring and building reputation) by Andrea Barchiesi serves precisely this purpose: delving into a business topic that lies between the culture of production, communication, marketing, human resources management and social responsibility more generally.

Reputation, then, is a subject that up to now has been complex but abstract, but today is instead measurable and malleable. This is what reputational engineering is for, which Barchiesi explains in great detail, starting with “15 principles on which to build a new communication”, because, it seems, reputation involves communication (and it couldn’t be otherwise). To better understand what needs to be done, Barchiesi immediately addresses the definition of reputation and then moves on to communication. The next step of the book concerns “reputational mass” and thus the form of reputation itself to arrive at the central theme of reputational engineering: reputation measurement and reputation building. Andrea Barchiesi’s work, however, does not end here: equally important is the issue of reputational crises and so-called reputation warfare.

Andrea Barchiesi’s book is based on an idea: reputation is a primary asset that concerns everyone and everything; it can make and break fortunes. Put another way, this also means that reputation is a kind of license to operate without which civil society simply shuts down organisations that lack this quality. This risk is also amplified by the net and the new rules it has imposed but also by the acceleration of events and the possibility of obtaining huge amounts of data.

The author’s message is that reputational engineering creates the tools to understand this mass of data and order it according to strategic and value-based criteria; but that’s not all, because reputational engineering always transforms reputation into a positive trajectory for business and organisations in general. Andrea Barchiesi’s book ought to be read, and applied.

Ingegneria reputazionale. Comprendere, misurare e costruire la Reputazione

Andrea Barchiesi

Franco Angeli, 2024

Digital Innovation for a New Industrial Humanism

The 23rd Business Culture Week, a series of events promoted by Confindustria and Museimpresa, is set to run from 14 to 28 November 2024. This year’s theme is “Thinking Hands: Artificial Intelligence, Art, and Culture for the Revitalisation of Business”. One of the greatest changes taking place in the business world—and not only—is that of the digital economy and the development of Artificial Intelligence: new and complex challenges are appearing, and they have clear cultural connotations. For this 23rd edition, the Pirelli Foundation will again participate with events that both illustrate and explore the world of digital technologies. With the firm belief that digital innovation—and the pivotal role of AI within it—is not merely a functional or unreflective application of new technology, Pirelli promotes this as an opportunity to reimagine production and creative processes, ushering in a new phase of multi-disciplinary culture.

The 2024 Business Culture Week will be an opportunity to present to the public an exhibition entitled The Sports Workshop: Team Work, Research, Technology, Passion and Social Value. The exhibition begins with a Wunderkammer, or “cabinet of wonders”, where documents and iconic objects interact with a digital setting to showcase the innovation of “Long P” products in the world of sport. And indeed, sport has long been central to Pirelli’s corporate welfare, a key element of its corporate culture since the 1920s.
The iconographic section is in the Foundation’s Open Space, with illustrated plates by Lorenzo Mattotti for The Sports Workshop, alongside Pirelli’s legendary advertising campaigns starring sports icons like Alberto Ascari, Carl Lewis, Adriano Panatta, Marie-José Pérec, Ronaldo, and Serena Williams. There are photographs that capture the backstage of competitions, the role of the teams that propel champions to victory, the critical role of technological research, and the passion that drives athletes to do their best.
The rich heritage of the Foundation can also be explored through an interactive wall that invites visitors to trace over 150 years of corporate history and sporting triumphs across two thematic timelines. This immersive journey offers a deep dive into a world of emotions and innovations—a legacy of competitions that began with the company’s founding and continues today.
The event is scheduled for Friday, 29 November, with 3 guided tours at 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., and 7 p.m., each lasting about 60 minutes. The 5:30 p.m. tour is specially tailored for families with children and teens aged 6 to 14. After the tour, the young participants can take part in an exciting quiz challenge, exploring the connections between Pirelli and the world of sport.
Admission is free, subject to booking, while places last. Sign up for the visits here for the 4.30 p.m. and 7 p.m. slots, and here for the “family quiz” at 5.30 p.m.

A summary of the concepts and applications of the smart approach in a thesis

Smartness means a way of understanding urban and territorial development which expresses a complex balance between environmental and sustainability requirements, resilience, adaptability, affordability, productivity and liveability. It means the Smart City, therefore, but today also Smart Land and Smart Community, driven by an uninterrupted dialogue between different realties, which complement each other, bring out the best in each other, engage in discussion to bring something different and better to life each time. The concept and reality of smartness are certainly complex, requiring a good understanding before appropriate implementations can be achieved. Reading “Smart City e Smart Land: politiche locali per uno sviluppo sostenibile” (Smart City and Smart Land: local policies for sustainable development) – research by Matteo Paccagnella defended at the University of Padua – helps in understanding something more about all this.

Paccagnella starts from the consideration that three quarters of the public in Europe currently live in urban areas and it is estimated that by 2050 towns and cities will be home to 85% of the entire European population. The need to rethink locations in a ‘smart’, sustainable way arises from these figures. At the same time, this must take into account the need to reorganise territories, overcoming “the administrative architecture made up of borders now incapable of containing the consequences of phenomena which are global in scope.”

In Paccagnella’s view, this prospect must concern everyone – the public, local authorities, companies, associations and research centres – in their respective roles and also implies a change of pace in the culture of civil life as well as in business culture.

Matteo Paccagnella’s work attempts to lend order to the wealth of knowledge accumulated on the subject to date, starting from one concept: smartness is effectively a “new Renaissance” made up of social, economic and governance aspects that must be reimagined. After establishing the basic concepts, the research looks more deeply at the transition from Smart City to Smart Land and closes with the analysis of two case studies: Bologna and Turin.

Smart City e Smart Land: politiche locali per uno sviluppo sostenibile

Matteo Paccagnella

Thesis, University of Padua, Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies, Three-year degree course in Political Science, International Relations and Human Rights, 2024

A book that has just been published provides a good manual for guidance on a challenging path.

Sustainability that appears to be known about is the situation of many companies whose management only apparently knows the ins and outs of sustainability, and everything that follows from it. It’s not only a matter of accurate information and attention, but also of business culture which must, of necessity, change with increasing rapidity (albeit anchored to certain fundamental principles).

The introduction of sustainability criteria in companies has to do with organisation but also with strategy and, as mentioned, with the cultural substratum of those who work in companies. Niccolò Maria Todaro, Francesco Testa and Marco Frey wrote their “Integrare la sostenibilità in azienda. Un percorso strategico, organizzativo e culturale” (Integrating sustainability in companies: a strategic, organisational and cultural path) recently published in open access concerning these ideas.

“The integration of sustainability in today’s business situations requires (…) a profound change in how we do business, directed towards redefining objectives and priorities through the various areas of organisational action,” the authors state in the initial pages, immediately recalling the significant content of this change: the change in business strategies and model, in the methods of organising work, in the very ways in which people relate to work and in the workplace. Integrating sustainability into a company is therefore a complex question; on the one hand it’s a choice, but on the other, it becomes an obligation imposed by the situation which also represents a challenge “to the ability of today’s businesses to root the principles of sustainable development in their modus operandi, far beyond symbolic commitments and cosmetic initiatives”.

In their book, Todaro, Testa and Frey attempt to provide a map to guide those struggling to implement such an operation. It starts from delving into what sustainability truly is, then provides a forward-looking vision and, immediately afterwards, links sustainability to the need for a change in organisational and business culture indicated previously. The book then closes with two chapters dedicated to guiding the necessary change in the various components of business.
In their conclusion, the authors write that achieving corporate sustainability “does not constitute a static goal, but rather a continuous process of adaptation to, and integration of, diverging priorities and conflicting objectives. This does not end with the competitive structure of the company, but reverberates in the choices that determine the organisational structure, culture, and the role of people in the company.”

Integrare la sostenibilità in azienda. Un percorso strategico, organizzativo e culturale
Niccolò Maria Todaro, Francesco Testa, Marco Frey
Franco Angeli, 2024

Four women against the gender gap. Four university rectors from Milan, to be exact: Elena Beccalli of Cattolica, Marina Brambilla of Statale, Giovanna Iannantuoni of Bicocca (also president of Crui, the Conference of Rectors of all Italian universities) and Donatella Sciuto of Politecnico. An exemplary photo (la Repubblica, 26 October) shows them side by side with the mayor of the city, Beppe Sala, in the Palazzo Marino, discussing with a group of high school students how to increase women’s participation in the labour market and the benefits this can bring, not only for the economy, but also and above all for social cohesion, sustainable development and quality of life (la Repubblica, 26 October).

The image is a symbol of the path taken by women in Milan in terms of political and cultural responsibility. Its significance may even increase in the future, given the appointment of Valentina Garavaglia as the new rector of IULM in November. The new rector, Agaglia, will assume office, and Anna Gervasoni, the rector of Liuc (the University of Castellanza), which is located in the province of Varese but has strong ties to the productive territories in the north of Milan, could also be considered a Milanese figure. However, beyond the picture, the rectors also have a warning: what still needs to be done to reduce and then eliminate those gender differences that affect work, pay, rights and, indeed, power, as access to the tools that can determine economic and social balances and chart a better future.

One thing is evident: considering the role, weight and responsibility of women is not merely about acquiring knowledge and skills to enhance their status. It is, above all, about developing an intellectual and cultural framework, an “intelligence of the heart”, sensitivity and a pragmatic approach. The ability to solve problems that could be pivotal in effecting the much-discussed economic and social “paradigm shift”, which has implications for the productive economy, civil society, the intricate domain of rights and responsibilities, social welfare and our democracy as a whole.

And it is, of course, about the conditions for a better future. Including the evolution and governance of Artificial Intelligence. As Donatella Sciuto from Politecnico, explains, “When I think that the overwhelming majority of AI systems are developed by men, it raises concerns about the potential for technology to perpetuate gender bias”. And so? It now seems to be accepted that, to put it simply, the structure of algorithms, the construction of the relationship between questions and answers, requires a multidisciplinary commitment (computer science, physics, mathematics, statistics, engineering, but also sociology, philosophy, psychology, economics, law) to understand their meaning and values and to manage their dynamics and consequences. The important thing is that the presence of women is high, discipline by discipline. The commitment of the four rectors points the way forward.

Here is a point of agreement: there must be an insistence on merit, on the professional skills of women. “We did not become rectors because of pink quotas. We studied, researched and competed,” says Marina Brambilla, the head of the Statale. This way, “women manage to become leaders where they are able to study like their peers. I think Milan and Lombardy are a good example.”

There are three articles of the Constitution that can be used as a reference, articles 3, 31 and 37, which explicitly state that “a working woman shall have the same rights and, for equal work, the same remuneration as a male worker” (we blogged about this on 17 September). And it is a disparity that continues to affect both the personal lives of millions of women and the quality of the country’s economic development.

Let’s look at some data to get a better understanding. According to ISTAT, the female employment rate was 52.7% in the first half of 2024, an improvement from 51.9% in the same period last year. But still well below that of men, at 70.4% in 2024 and 69.4% in 2023, a gap of 18 points, much wider than the EU average of 10%. A gender gap that continues to place us at the bottom of the European league. And it has a negative impact on the overall performance of the Italian economy: “If our female employment rate reached the European average, GDP would grow by 7.4%,” argues Azzurra Rinaldi, an economist and director of the School of Gender Economics at Rome’s La Sapienza University. The same reasoning applies in the EU context: “Investing in gender equality, as documented by the European Institute for Gender Equality, could increase GDP per capita in Europe from 6.1% to 9.6% in 2050. Roughly speaking, this means a gain of between 1.95 and 3.15 trillion euros,” comments Linda Laura Sabbadini (la Repubblica, 25 September), asking rhetorically whether these prospects are enough for European governments to “finally change course” and invest in equality and women’s work. Sabbadini goes on, “Our country is still prisoner of a short-sighted vision, not only because it is unfair and punitive, but because it is the result of a culture that does not understand that investing in gender equality means driving economic growth.”

Other relevant data comes from INPS (National Institute for Social Security), which documents how “mothers are penalised in terms of salaries and careers” (la Repubblica, 25 September). This phenomenon is known in economic and social literature as the ‘child penalty‘, which refers to the impact of motherhood on work and careers. A gap is opening up with men, who are making progress in both areas, while mothers are experiencing part-time work and slow career progression. With a gap that is rarely made up (around thirty points, according to INPS). And, of course, this has an impact on pensions: the average male pension is 35% higher than the average female pension.

Another aspect highlighted by the INPS is the increasing tendency of women to stop working after the birth of a child.  If, prior to the birth, the probability of leaving the labour market is more or less the same (9% for men, 11% for women), immediately afterwards, in the year of the birth, the risk rises to 18% for the mother and begins to fall to 8% for the father. At the age of two, the risk is still high for the mother (14%), and it is only after the third year that the situation becomes more equal. Of course, if you can count on family and social support (starting with nursery schools).

The situation is even worse for part-time female workers.

A situation that needs to be radically changed. With political choices. Welfare investments. Equal opportunities. And changing cultural trends. A long and far-reaching commitment. Not exactly what the newspapers and statistics would lead us to believe.

It is not only a matter of justice and a better social balance, but also an advantage in terms of values and quality of development. Marina Beccalli, Catholic University, says, “There are many international studies that document that in organisations or companies where there is a greater presence of women, there is less fraud, more ethical behaviour, a greater orientation towards sustainability.”

(photo Getty Images)

Research published explaining the strong links between AI and business leadership

Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the service of business, as long as it is well understood and managed. This is the key message of most studies on the subject, such as the recently published “Design of AI in leadership” by Khushwant Singh and Mohit Yadav (University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Maharshi Dayanard University).

The research aims to clarify the relationships between AI-based technologies and the leadership role of specific functions within Industry 4.0. The study was based on two main categories: “Artificial Intelligence” on the one hand and the meaning of “leadership” on the other. The two researchers start from the observation that artificial intelligence (AI) is having a major impact on the working environment, both from a technical and social point of view, due to the increasing use of technologies developed by AI. However, the essay highlights the importance of leadership in ensuring the correct adoption and use of AI in business.

The research puts forward a simple argument. A review of the available literature demonstrates the need for AI-enabled leadership techniques in organisations, but also the fundamental role of leadership itself in the diffusion of AI. A role that the authors divide into at least four categories: leadership that touches on the strategic transformation process, leadership that touches on skills and culture, and finally, human-AI interaction.

While Khushwant Singh and Mohit Yadav’s research does not bring new insights to the analysis and evaluation of AI in business, it does have the merit of putting current knowledge into context and reiterating the fundamental role of the human element in even the most advanced technologies.

Design of AI in leadership

Khushwant Singh, Mohit Yadav

atIA. 2025; 3:118

A book has just been published that traces a clear history of one of the foundations of civic life

Work changes with society, and so do companies and the way they operate. A question of technology but also of human relationships. And of goals and priorities for action. Much about the evolution of the economy and social relations can be understood by understanding how work has evolved. This is why “Il lavoro in Italia. Un profilo storico dall’Unità a oggi” (Work in Italy. A historical profile from the Unification to today) is an essential read. Written by Manfredi Alberti – researcher in History of Economic Thought at the University of Palermo – this is a book dedicated to the subject, full of content but clear in its presentation.

Alberto’s starting point is that the world of work in Italy has undergone profound changes since the Unification, linked to the economic, social, political and cultural shifts that have affected the country in its transition from a rural economy to the current service society. This long path of development and transformation encompasses the role of politics and the state in building the welfare state and labour law, the impact of migration and the evolution of gender differences, trade union struggles and the history of rights, but also the economic theories that have helped both to outline the contours of the social question and to explain the determinants and trends of key variables such as wages and employment.

Alberti also traces the history and current affairs of each topic, making extensive use of statistical sources and legislation, as well as reconstructing the historical changes that have transformed the value of labour in the country.

The book is divided into ten broad chapters: from the situation of post-unification Italy to that of early globalisation, from the working conditions of the First World War to those of the Twenties, from the situation during the Second World War to the early years of the Republic and the boom. It then covers the period of conflicts and reforms, the period of Fordism and the market, and finally the period of the second globalisation, precariousness and new forms of employment.

Alberti Manfredi really allows us to understand one of the foundations of the civic and social life of the Italian Republic.

Il lavoro in Italia. Un profilo storico dall’Unità a oggi

Manfredi Alberti

Carocci editore, 2024