Understanding Organizational Culture: Innovation, Transparency, Leadership, Community (Contributions to Economics) 3031438590, 9783031438592

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Contributions to Economics

Antonio Cocozza

Understanding Organizational Culture Innovation, Transparency, Leadership, Community

Contributions to Economics

The series Contributions to Economics provides an outlet for innovative research in all areas of economics. Books published in the series are primarily monographs and multiple author works that present new research results on a clearly defined topic, but contributed volumes and conference proceedings are also considered. All books are published in print and ebook and disseminated and promoted globally. The series and the volumes published in it are indexed by Scopus and ISI (selected volumes).

Antonio Cocozza

Understanding Organizational Culture Innovation, Transparency, Leadership, Community

Antonio Cocozza Roma Tre University Roma, Italy

ISSN 1431-1933 ISSN 2197-7178 (electronic) Contributions to Economics ISBN 978-3-031-43859-2 ISBN 978-3-031-43860-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to thank my colleagues Gaetano Domenici and Roberto Cipriani at the Department of Education of Rome’s RomaTre University; Gian Candido De Martin; Franco Fontana, Sebastiano Maffettone and Roberto Pessi of Rome’s Luiss Guido Carli, University; Michele Colasanto of the Catholic University of Milan and Federico Butera of Milan’s Bicocca University. Likewise, thanks to all the managers and executives of the Organisation and Human Resources Departments and the Communications and External Relations Departments I have met in recent years who operate in innovative companies or virtuous public administrations, and who have permitted me to delve deeply into many of the issues dealt with in this book. Many thanks to all for the countless opportunities they have offered me for discussion during the numerous seminars, conferences, and research projects carried out, which have given me full-immersive views of myriad operational realities which have yielded true empirical confirmation of several hypotheses. Any inaccuracies this volume may contain are to be attributed to the author alone. It is also necessary to emphasise the fact that several of the accounts contained here have benefitted from suggestions and proposals emerging from various discussions and comparisons of notes between highly esteemed colleagues from the Department of Sciences of the RomaTre University like Aureliana Alberici, Giuditta Alessandrini, Giuseppe Bove, Carmelina Chiara Canta, Vittorio Cotesta, Federico D'Agostino, Luca Diotallevi, Roberto Maragliano, Massimo Margottini, Paolino Serreri, Francesco Susi, Bianca Spadolini, and Massimo Tomassini as well as Simona Andrini, Gianfranco D'Alessio, and Maria De Benedetto from the Department of Political Sciences, Sebastiano Fadda from the Faculty of Economics and Giampiero Proia from the Faculty of Law of the same university, Gian Candido De Martin, Dario Antiseri, Giuseppe Di Gaspare, Antonio La Spina, Nicola Lupo, and Alessandro Pajno from Rome’s Luiss Guido Carli University, and other prestigious colleagues such as Vincenzo Cesareo and Carlo Dell'Aringa of the Catholic University of Milan, Silvio Scanagatta of the University of Padua, Maurizio Ambrosini, Gian Primo Cella, and Marino Regini of the University of Milan, Serafino Negrelli and Emilio Reyneri of the University of Milan Bicocca, Michele La Rosa, v

vi

Acknowledgements

Costantino Cipolla, and Paolo Zurla of the University of Bologna, Giovanni Bachelet, Andrea Bixio, Luciano Benadusi, Luigi Frudà, Francesco Liso, Arturo Maresca, and Gloria Pirzio of Rome’s "La Sapienza" University, Lorenzo Caselli, Mauro Palumbo, and Luisa Ribolzi of the University of Genoa; Caterina Federici of the University of Perugia, Guido Gili from the University of Molise, Michele Cascavilla from the University “G. d'Annunzio" of Chieti-Pescara, Everardo Minardi of the University of Teramo, Gianfranco Bottazzi and Gianni Loy of the University of Cagliari. To these I need to add my heartfelt thanks to several collaborators who dedicated themselves to the various research activities carried out in recent years and in the reworking of the contents of the book: Chiara Cilona fundamental as editorial coordinator, Stefania Capogna, Fabrizio Dafano, Paola Fanelli, Mario Iannaccone, Luigi Mazza, Concetta Mercurio, Sabrina Nulli, Alessandro Peluso, Antonio Ragusa, Giuseppe Rolli, Chiara Santarelli, Valeria Buccilli, and Laura Cribari. A very special thank you goes to Francesca Greco from the University of Udine, for editing the text in English. Finally, I wish to thank my mother Elena and my family, my wife Mariella and my children Alessandro and Davide, for the support and patience shown during the writing of yet another volume.

About This Book

The book is divided into three parts, which take into consideration in the first part the theories and concepts of the world of organizations, the second part the policies and tools and at last, in the third part two paradigmatic case studies, in which we examine, on the one hand, the role of public policies tested in Italy and in various OECD and European Union countries, according to the various attempts to reform and modernize public administrations. On the other hand, in the era of globalization and flexible capitalism, a strategic reflection on the evolution of entrepreneurial culture and the transformation of corporate organizational models is proposed. A challenge connected with the recognition by management of a growing corporate responsibility not only towards shareholders but towards all stakeholders correlated with a significant diffusion of a particular type of company, called Integral Company.

vii

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part I

1 5

Theories and Concepts

The Concept of Organisation and New Interdisciplinary Interpretative Paradigms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Development of the Concept of Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Polysemic Character of the Concept of Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Classification of the Different Types of Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Governance of Organisations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9 10 14 16 22 27

Economic and Social Changes and the Development of Organisational Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Taylor and Scientific Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The School of Human Relations, Complexity and Cooperation in Organisations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socio-technical Models and Theories of “Contingency” . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some New Explanatory Paradigms: “Transaction Costs”, “Organisational Networks”, and the “Cognitive” Approach . . . . . . . . . . Organisational Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Cognitive Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43 46 51 56

The Development of Corporate Organisational Models: Innovation, Quality, and the Focus on Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisation as an Object of Interdisciplinary Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisational Complexity and the Social Systems Theory . . . . . . . . . From the Mechanical to the Organic Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Total Quality Challenge and Learning Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . Lean Organisation and Enterprise Community in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . .

59 59 60 62 64 68

. . . . . .

31 31 36 41

ix

x

Contents

The Challenge of Total Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part II

70 75

Tools and Techniques

Tools for Analysis, Planning, and Organisational Development . . . . . . . The Structural Dimension of Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Cultural Dimension of Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analysing Organisational Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of Mechanisms of Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Main Organisational Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79 79 81 82 86 87 90

Leadership and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Leadership and New Management Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 New Management Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Leadership, Collaboration, Competition, and Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Competition and Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Forms of Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Intra-Organisational Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 New Managerial Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 New Relational Situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Skills of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relational Areas of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Processes of Negotiation and Industrial Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Explanatory Models of Processes of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Theories of Arrow and Olson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Development of Negotiations within the Industrial-Relations System . . The Structure and Classification of Processes of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . The Language of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Areas of Action in the Negotiation Model: From Conflictual and Consociative Models to the Participatory One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Negotiation Strategies: Possible Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conducting the Process of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Phases of the Process of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Pre-Negotiation Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Negotiation Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Post-Negotiation Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leadership in the Governance of Processes of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . Experiences of Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

103 104 104 105 106 108 110 112 115 115 118 120 121 122 123 125 129 132 133

Leadership and Organisational Cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Specific Causes of Diversity in Organisations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisational Culture and Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From Head to Successful Leader Capable of Governing Growing Organisational Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Five Reflexes of the Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Leader as Conductor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Application Models of Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Participatory and Autonomous Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Tools for Participatory Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methods of Social Interaction in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part III

137 139 140 142 142 144 144 146 148 149 151

Case Studies

Reforms of the Public Administration and New Person-Oriented Organisational Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Characteristics of Bureaucratic Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Main Policies of Reform of the Public Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Policies of Reform of the Public Administration Adopted in Italy . . The Reforms of the Italian University System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Challenge of the New Title V, Criticalities and Perspectives of the Brunetta Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Brunetta Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Corrections and Perspectives of the Brunetta Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Globalisation, the Complexity, and the Development of the Organisational Culture of the Public Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The New Role of Public Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Entrepreneurial Culture and the Evolution of Organisational Models: The Challenge of the Integral Enterprise Model . . . . . . . . . . . The Olivetti Model and Its Strategic Roles of Culture, Lifelong Learning, Research and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conflict and Hierarchy or Collaboration and Responsible Participation: What Leadership for Social Inclusive Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

155 155 157 158 162 164 165 175 177 185 202

. 205 . 212 . 215 . 223

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Economic, Social, and Cultural Change of Our Societies . . . . . . . . . . . The Era of Historical Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Strategic Role of Research, Innovation, and Culture in Favouring Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From Management to Leadership in Social Inclusive Governance . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

227 227 231 233 235 239

List of Figures

The Concept of Organisation and New Interdisciplinary Interpretative Paradigms Fig. 1

The relationship between company and stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

23

Tools for Analysis, Planning, and Organisational Development Fig. 1

The five fundamental parts of an organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

84

Negotiation Fig. 1

Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4

The negotiational model. Overlap area—problem/common objective. Actor A—Common area—Actor B. Area of actor A—area of negotiation and negotiators—area of actor B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The conflictual model. Actor A—Actor B. Area of actor A—Area of a possible agreement—Area of actor B . . .. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. The consociative model. Actor A—Actor B. Area of actor A—Area of an always possible agreement—Area of actor B . . . . . . . . Interaction between the evaluation of power and choices of negotiation strategy. Evaluations of the power of choice and strategies of negotiation. (1) Asymmetrical power: the party with less power chooses to negotiate, to increase her/his chances—the party with more power tends to choose the take-or-leave approach. (2) Balanced or uncertain power: the relationship between the parties is important—Negotiate. Time is limited—Take or leave it or bargain. Commitment is needed on the other side—Negotiate. (3) Equally balanced power: the relationship is important—Negotiate. Time is limited—Bargain. The other party needs to commit—Negotiate . . . . .

116 117 117

126

xiii

xiv

Fig. 5

List of Figures

Levels of confidence and strategic choices. Levels of confidence— strategy—tactics. Low: means dealing exclusively with the other party or dealing with multiple parties in a competitive manner. Take or leave it: involves using the power of relationships as the only or most convenient resource by means of which to deal with the other party’s needs. Bargain: means exerting a maximum of pressure by imposing or setting limits. Limiting information: involves hiding priority needs and conceding some degree of flexibility only regarding primary means of exchange. Medium—Negotiating with caution: means presenting the objectives as mandatory or obligatory. Negotiation occurs at the level of objectives. This involves the identification of the needs of the other in such a manner as to be able to propose alternative goals or other ways of meeting the needs of the other. Negotiating openly: requires an open declaration of the goals as a better way of meeting the needs of both parties. The disclosure of needs and priorities needs to be reciprocal. Alternative means of exchange need to be sought, that is, other ways by means that permit the parties to satisfy each other’s needs. Low—Negotiate: requires solving the problem by asking questions or making requests in terms of overriding needs, not goals. It also requires analyses of the means by which to foster collective exchange during the negotiation . . . . . . . 130

List of Tables

Economic and Social Changes and the Development of Organisational Theories Table 1 Table 2

Theory of needs and motivating factors—comparison between Maslow and Herzberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transaction control mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39 45

The Development of Corporate Organisational Models: Innovation, Quality, and the Focus on Customers Table 1 Table 2

From the mechanical to the organic model: the environmental and structural assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From the mechanical to the organic model: the organisational elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

62 63

Negotiation Table 1

The three phases of the process of negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Leadership and Organisational Cultures Table 1 Table 2

The management of diversity and organisational cultures . . . . . . . . . . 141 The processes of social interaction in work contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Reforms of the Public Administration and New Person-Oriented Organisational Models Table 1

The development of public administrations from the bureaucratic to the telocratic model . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . 161

xv

Introduction

Societies, organisations, actions, cultures, and personal behaviour are strongly interrelated and represent, to some extent, an indivisible though not necessarily linear correlation which this volume intends to examine. The activities and results of the various public and private organisations that permit our societies to function are increasingly interconnected and generate processes and outputs (of goods and services) characterised by increasing levels of complexity. For this reason, the “good” or “bad” functioning of the organisations with which we come into daily contact and which derive from actions and patterns of behaviour (individual, organisational, and institutional) oriented more or less strategically at local and global levels has an enormous effect upon our ability to achieve expected (work, personal, or family) goals, but also upon the overall quality of life of the community in which we live. In line with this theoretical perspective, as Giddens specifies with extreme clarity, the role of organisations in today’s world is much more important than it has ever been before. Every time we use the telephone, turn on the tap, watch TV, or get into the car, we come into contact with some organisation, and to some extent, we depend on it. As a rule, this also means that different organisations interact with each other. The water company, for example, depends on other organisations, such as those that manage water basins, which in turn depend on others, and so on, almost indefinitely (2001, p. 180). In this new scenario, the latest edition of the Cambridge Handbook of Culture Organisation and Work (Bhagat and Steers 2009) highlights the fact that not only the relationships between organisations within the same country are important, but also relations between countries around the world are becoming increasingly interdependent and that both public and private organisations are obliged to assume increasingly global organisational characteristics. In the same volume, Bhagat and Steers (2009) noted that it is not yet clear whether this global reality will cause different organisational cultures to converge, harmonise, and seek common ground or, vice versa, assume a role of closure, resistance, accentuating their differences.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_1

1

2

Introduction

In both cases, it is of fundamental importance for organisational scholars, managers, and operators to understand the reasons, dynamics, and transversal cultural currents that activate and underlie this unstoppable process of cultural and behavioural change in action. In line with this approach, Shein, after his fundamental Corporate Culture and Leadership (1990), in his essay The Corporate Culture Survival Guide (2009a, b), recalls that to understand corporate culture and group different professional groups present in the organisation (clustering professional groups), it is not necessary to analyse only the behaviour of actors who have a common purpose or an objective and a method by which to achieve it but to examine and enter deeply into the structure of the specific “system of social relations” enacted. The analysis of the structural variables alone (common purpose, objective, method, and resources) reveals only the tip of the iceberg, of the culture which, instead, represents the “essence” of organisations and their social relations: what people have learned together, in a shared way, the “tacit assumptions” on which they build their strategies, practice, and experience daily behaviour. Based on this approach, therefore, it is essential to know and keep “under control” all the functional aspects of an organisation, but the knowledge of the cultures that populate it is essential, to understand the vital importance of the nature and cause that constitutes the success or failure of a given strategy; in start-ups, as well as in welldeveloped companies, in both private companies and public bodies, in companies that provide services of public utility, or in non-profit organisations. In this process of profound transformation, political, legal, and economic factors no longer perform a central function, while the role of cultures and the possible building of “cultural barriers” emerges as one of the main challenges to the survival and structural success of new types of organisations. In this paradigmatic perspective, the supersession of similar “cultural barriers”, the analysis and proposals contained in the essay by Senge (2012), Schools that Learn. A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education acquires particular interest because it outlined the possible positive role that the education system might also play: from school to university to lifelong learning and life-wide learning-training systems. Organisations, therefore, need to pose the strategic question of how to overcome present-day and future intra-organisational and inter-organisational “cultural barriers”. For these reasons, this manual, which is the result of many years of study, research, teaching, and action in the fields of the corporate world and that of public administration and other organisational entities (associations and representational organisations), seeks to reflect on the plurality, specificity, and differentiation of various types of organisations and by using an appropriate series of conceptual tools analyse, understand, and design new organisational models. This reflection intends to reach beyond the traditional classical approach, that of a structural and functionalistic type. It will employ an interdisciplinary vision aimed at investigating the role played by cultures and ethical, symbolic, and value systems within the fundamental

Introduction

3

dynamics needed to redefine the strategic assets of innovative organisations, in the quest for new governance. As Hatch explains in his Theory of Organisation. Three perspectives: modern, symbolic, postmodern (2009), to conduct an effective study of organisations it is necessary to bring together different conceptual paradigms developed by sociology, economic sciences, and political sciences, but also by law and psychology, as well as by information technology, architecture, and occupational medicine (ergonomics). In line with this new paradigmatic approach, this manual examines the following topics: the concept of organisation and its new interdisciplinary interpretative paradigms; economic and social changes as well as the development of organisational theories; the development of corporate models of organisation of innovation, quality, and focus on the customer; the reform of public administration and new models of organisation designed for the person; tools for analysis, planning, and organisational development; and leadership, about the development of professional groups and intra-organisational, inter-organisational, and processes of trade-union negotiation. Informed by this approach, this volume is divided into three parts. The first takes into consideration theories and concepts regarding the world of organisations. The second deals with policies and tools, while the third discusses the paradigms of two case studies, examining, on the one hand, the role of public policies in Italy and in several OECD and EU countries, as a function of various attempts made to reform and modernise public administration. On the other hand, in the era of globalisation and flexible capitalism, a strategic reflection on the evolution of entrepreneurial culture and the transformation of corporate organisational models is proposed. These pose a challenge that requires management to acknowledge its growing corporate responsibility not only towards shareholders but also towards all other stakeholders, due to a significant spread of a particular type of enterprise, known as integral company. More specifically, in the first chapter, which focuses on the development of the concept of organisation and new interdisciplinary interpretative paradigms, the transition from the concept of organisation as a “machine” to new explanatory paradigms is analysed; then a reflection on the polysemic character of the concept of organisation is introduced and three fundamental concepts are appraised to understand the processes of change taking place in organisations: the role of complex organisations, the classification of the different types of organisations based on the specific rationality of government, and the governance of organisations. The second chapter provides a series of analytical and interpretative tools useful for an investigation of the main economic and social changes and the development of organisational theories, starting from the contribution made by Taylor (Taylor 1906, 1967; De Masi and Bonzanini 1988; De Masi 1992) regarding scientific management, to arrive at perspectives introduced by Mayo (2003) with the school of human relations. These farsighted perspectives, which, about the criticalities associated with the development of the organisation of work in the industrial system and services, led Mayo to clarify a concept fundamental then as now (2003, p. 4) whereby “The partial failure is not due to ignorance of the mechanics of production; it is due to ignorance of the human conditions of sustained production”.

4

Introduction

Furthermore, the concepts grounded in behaviourist and motivational theories and those relating to the growing complexity and the need for cooperation in organisations are analysed according to indications provided by Maslow (2004, 2010) and Herzberg (1959) and the theory of exigencies. They also regard the ideas introduced by the theorists of socio-technical models, those of “contingency” and new explanatory paradigms like the “costs of transaction”, “organisational networks”, and the “cognitive” approach (Shein 1990, 2009a, b; Weick 1988, 1997), as well as organisational learning (Argyris and Schon 1978, 1998; Schon 1999). The third chapter deals with issues concerning the development of corporate models of organisation of innovation, quality, and focus on customers. It introduces the need to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to research approach, aimed at analysing organisational complexity and the social systems theory and the transition from the mechanical model to the organic model. From this perspective of change, the potential and critical issues connected with the challenge of total quality, the affirmation of lean organisation and organisational learning, are examined. In the fourth chapter, the issues associated with the need that the main countries of the OECD change their mission, organisational structures, and the mindset of their bureaucratic structures are examined in depth. We also analyse a series of the tools used to reform public administration to introduce new models of organisation based on the person and inspired by principles of decentralisation, autonomy, and subsidiarity, but also on the need to guarantee quality and the participation of public collaborators and citizens, in the quest for a perspective of support for “virtuous” public administration. The fifth chapter presents a series of heuristic tools useful to the conduction of design/redesign and organisational development in the field, using structural and cultural analyses of the organisation of organisational roles and mechanisms of coordination, within a framework of a plurality of organisational configurations. Finally, the sixth chapter provides a multidimensional interpretation of the development of the role of leadership in the implementation of the new management policies of professional groups and processes of negotiation, aimed at clarifying the fundamental transition from head to effective leader, grounded in the acquisition of adequate relational skills that permit one to govern growing organisational complexity effectively. In other words, effective leadership should orient efforts towards a policy of true innovation, concerning which, like Drucker, a farsighted player in the US industrial system argued: Innovating means creating new needs and new satisfactions for customers. Therefore, organisations evaluate innovations not based on their scientific or technological importance, but according to the contribution they make to the market and consumers, and consider social innovation as important as technological innovation. In this century, the introduction of sales by instalment was, perhaps, more important for the economy and markets than most major technological developments (1987, p. 232).

In this new scenario, in the final part of the manual, various innovative roles and metaphorical figures are reviewed, to implement actions in support of innovation

References

5

processes, from that of the coach to the conductor, and outlining a new function of the “teacher”. This new function conceived a person who, being responsible for the conduction of good and effective interpersonal, inter-organisational, social, and community relations, starting from an ethical vision of responsibility, should implement a concerted type of action between different people aimed at achieving a higher level of effectiveness and overall efficiency. This analysis, as Butera held in the volume where he analysed another epochal transition of the economic system similar to that in the course. This was the passage from the economy of the “castle” to that of the “network”. He posited that it followed that one of the main critical factors of the success of the development of products at micro (corporate) level lay in the identification of “methods for planning, designing and experimenting together technologies, organisation, and development of people, in a new way” (1990, p. 223). This is a developmental prospect, analysed from another point of view by Granovetter (1998), who, at the meso and macro (territorial/national) level, considered social interaction as a central element in the study of human behaviour in the spheres of economics and organisational relationships. This was a heuristic conclusion that went beyond the ultra-socialised conception, typical of functionalist sociologists, and the under-socialised notion of economists. This is a complex process that tends to view organisations as integrated communities, embedded in society in a global dimension. Moreover, as shown by several research endeavours he (Granovetter 1985) carried out, the author claimed the effectiveness and efficiency of the result of a person’s organisational and productive efforts depended on this interaction, but also on the degree of adequacy of her/his aesthetics and correspondence with her/his expectations, as well as the realisation of her/his dreams. The ability to imagine, innovate, and outline new pathways and fields of action represents, therefore, the new horizon towards which scholars, actors, organisations, and institutions could move. Within the ambit of this stimulating challenge, the warning issued by Hugo in his novel Quatrevingt-treize (1873, p. 267) assumes precise value, “Les vastes horizons conduisent l’âme aux idées générales, les horizons circonscrits engendrent les idées partielles.” [Vast horizons lead the soul towards general ideas; circumscribed horizons engender partial ideas.]

References Argyris C, Shon DA (1998) Teoria e metodo dell’apprendimento organizzativo, (ed. or. 1978) Guerini e Associati, Milan Bhagat RS, Steers RM (2009) Cambridge handbook of culture, organisations, and work. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Butera F (1990) Il castello e la rete. Impresa, organizzazioni e professioni nell’Europa degli anni ’90. Franco Angeli, Milan De Masi D (a cura di) (1992) F. W. Taylor. Processo a Taylor, Olivares, Milan

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Introduction

De Masi D, Bonzanini A (a cura di) (1988) Trattato di sociologia del lavoro e dell’organizzazione. Franco Angeli, Milan Drucker P (1987) Frontiere del management. Etas Libri, Milan Giddens A (2001) Fondamenti di sociologia, Il Mulino, Bologna (ed) or. (1979) Sociology. Polity Press, Cambridge Granovetter M (1985) Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness. Am J Sociol 91(3):481–510 Granovetter M (1998) La forza dei legami deboli e altri saggi. Liguori, Napoli Hatch MJ (2009) Teoria dell’organizzazione. Tre prospettive: moderna, simbolica, postmoderna. Il Mulino, Bologna Herzberg F (1959) The motivation to work. Wiley, New York Hugo V (1873) Quatrevingt-treize, Édition Rencontre, Lausanne, https://www.ebooksgratuits.com/ newsendbook.php?id=385&format=pdf Maslow AH (2004) Il Management. Armando Editore, Rome Maslow AH (2010) Motivazione e personalità. Armando Editore, Rome Mayo E (2003) The human problems of an industrial civilization. Routledge, London Schon AD (1999) Il professionista riflessivo: per una nuova epistemologia della pratica. Dedalo, Bari Senge P (2012) Schools that learn. A fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London Shein EH (1990) Cultura d’azienda e leadership. Una prospettiva dinamica, Guerini e Associati, Milan Shein EH (2009a) The corporate culture survival guide. Jossey Bass Wiley Imprinting, Hoboken Shein EH (2009b) The corporate culture survival guide, Jossey Bass Wiley Imprinting Taylor FW (1906) On the art of cutting metal. ASME Trans 28 Taylor FW (1967) L’organizzazione scientifica del lavoro, Etas Kompass, Milan, ed. or. (1911), The principles of scientific management, NY Weick K (1988) Le organizzazioni scolastiche come sistemi a legame debole, in Zan S. (a cura di), Logiche di azione organizzative, Il Mulino, Bologna Weick K (1997) Senso e significato nell’organizzazione, Cortina, Milan, ed. or. (1995), Sensemaking in Organisations, Sage, Thousande Oaks

Part I

Theories and Concepts

The Concept of Organisation and New Interdisciplinary Interpretative Paradigms

With the term organisation, the Treccani Dictionary defines activities as phenomena that “systematically constitute a complex of organs or elements by coordinating them with each other in a relationship of mutual dependence given a specific purpose”. It also identifies different types of organisation, each according to its institutional purpose, such as the State, the armed forces, an administration body, a public service office; to these the polis, the community, the school, the Church, the company, the party, and the voluntary association might be added. It also provides another definition of the same term, “How an organism, an institute, an entity is organised, that is, its structural and functional order: the administration of a state, a province, a municipality; the aspiration of a new organisation of the company; the management of a factory, an industry, a company; the organisation of work; the organisation of quality service. However, it adds a further definition, of great importance to the present work of research, by explaining the meaning of organisation in biology as, “The set of processes through which organs, systems, and structures are formed, developed, differentiated and coordinated to form a living organism”, or “How a living being (animal or plant) is organised, its particular anatomical and functional structure, highlighting a particular plurality of models and shapes”. Among these natural varieties, it mentions the organisation adopted by echinoderms, which is different from that of molluscs; the presence of animals with a low or high degree of organisation; and the transition of plants (or animals) from one type of aquatic organisation to another suitable for live on earth and water (amphibians). The discovery of the presence of amphibians helps us understand that there are animal or plant organisms capable of living in two different environments and helps us grasp not only the importance assumed by the need to have a plurality of models of organisation but above all their differentiation and adaptability, in the world of natural sciences, as well as in that of the organisation society and work. These characteristics are fundamental for organisations that intend to live and develop in post-modern societies since they have to face new challenges arising from three

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_2

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The Concept of Organisation and New Interdisciplinary Interpretative Paradigms

macro phenomena that interact with each other: the growing complexity of the economic and social system, the spread of globalisation, and the extreme pervasiveness of processes of technological and organisational innovation. An important fact emerges from this first examination which permits us to argue that the concept of organisation is strongly interconnected with the development of the socio-historical context and has undergone a strong transformation over the millennia. As Gallino (1993) argued, throughout the history of humanity there have been various forms of organisation that have reached extremely high procedural levels, starting with that relating to the cadastral surveys and taxation services in the Egypt of the Pharaohs, which made it possible to acquire resources from the peasants of the Nile and transfer them to the coffers of the state. This was an organised activity that permitted the construction of the three famous pyramids of Egypt (Cheops, Khafre, and Menkaure), whose organisational model represents a clear example of ante-litteram slavery: an organisation that did not take the freedom of action of its members into consideration. Mutatis mutandis, having made the necessary socio-historical considerations and analysed the degree of development reached by current organisations, one of the most important objects of the sociological analysis of life and the management of organisations still concerns the degree of freedom and participation of members of the organisation in strategic and operational decision-making procedures or those relating to the redistribution of the resources produced, in the presence of elements of equity and social differentiation.

The Development of the Concept of Organisation As part of this development, the concept of organisation has been the subject of study by numerous disciplines, such as philosophy, law, economics, and managerial sciences, sociology, biology, psychology, engineering, but also by other disciplines, which do not seem to be directly related, such as computer science and communication sciences, cybernetics, architecture, and medicine. In this multidisciplinary approach, philosophy defines the “finalistic” value and social function of organisations, but also the ethical behaviour of its members; the law defines the boundaries of the action of economic and legal entities (public and private), and deals with the purposes of administration, its competences, the powers, obligations, and prohibitions of public and private entities; economics and managerial sciences probe deeply into the characteristics and methods of efficiency, decision-making processes, opportunism in the behaviour of corporate actors, cost control, and information; sociology analyses the rationality of organisational and administrative action, the social and normative functions of organisations, organisations as socio-technical systems, the formation and transmission of social values, various forms of power, industrial relations, and the role of education and training; biology examines the life of animals and plants and then makes a comparison (when possible) between theirs and that of human beings; psychology studies the

The Development of the Concept of Organisation

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interaction between individuals, the motivational structure, the incentive structure, leadership styles, learning processes; engineering analyses and designs ITC systems, logistics, research operations, total quality, network theory; computer science and communications, cybernetics, architecture, and medicine act upon elements that might be defined as soft, but which are increasingly of fundamental importance in the life and management of these complex and diversified universes. This subdivision is useful for typological classification of and the distinction between the “specifics” of various disciplines, and current heuristic developments increasingly see the use of interdisciplinary paradigms that lead economists to carry out a qualitative investigation, using sociological and psychological methodologies; scholars of the law use the efficacy and effectiveness of standards during phases of concrete implementation; going beyond the abstract and general approach, engineers investigate the issues associated with the relational climate in working groups; sociologists use economic data and statistics to support the quality of certain empirical findings. Within this conceptual framework, to better understand the scenario where actors and structures that give life to organisational policies interact daily, as already mentioned in the introduction, this chapter treats topics related to the development of theories of organisation and the development of the main models of organisation. For this purpose, as the first step towards a comprehension of a variegated and complex world, it is possible to state that, “the different types of work organisations and among these, the company (in the broadest sense), as a typical organisation oriented towards the achievement of mainly economic goals—consist of a set of human resources that interact with each other to achieve prescribed objectives, on the basis of a division of roles and tasks to achieve predefined results”. This definition refers to formally constructed organisations, whose main representation is provided by the structure of the organisation chart. According to this logic, the organisation chart is the schematic image of an organisation, divided into a series of hierarchical structures, where responsibilities and roles are related to objectives and functions. However, in addition to the formal universe, there is an informal one where rules and behaviour styles are not prescribed but are born from a series of interactions and exchanges, which stem from, or, at times, are independent of a strategically predefined formal structure. The daily reality of organisations is, therefore, represented by sets of intentionally oriented actions, and at the same time, by dense networks of formal and informal interactions and exchanges, which can only be partially understood by analysing the working of structures, prescribed roles, functions exercised, and tasks performed. For this reason, it is necessary to equip oneself with a multidimensional theoretical apparatus, capable of examining cultures and organisational strategies (objective) and individual ones (subjective), if one intends to understand the increasing complexity implied in the development of the various types of organisations adequately. This is a trend that is destined to extend, if, as Miles and Snow (1996) argued, in perspective, fourth-wave organisations in the twenty-first century will no longer be like a big machine, with an elephantine apparatus of control, but will be particularly

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The Concept of Organisation and New Interdisciplinary Interpretative Paradigms

lean (minimal), involving very few people who tend to interact according to a logic of self-management (self-employed entrepreneurs) and be able to carry out a variety of initiatives and perform diverse roles. This wave is the result of the three previous ones, which have shaped the development of the history of industry and the development of models of organisation in all production sectors but have also influenced the course of organisational thinking. This evolutionary process not only affects those involved in the study of the management of human resources but tends to have a strong influence over the policies and tools needed in the organisations of the future. However, as we are well aware, the future can be understood only insofar as we know about the past and the development of the theories that have influenced the behaviour adopted in favour of the governance of organisational policies implemented in the last century. For this reason, the topics that will be addressed in this chapter aim at contributing, albeit without any claim of being exhaustive, to the knowledge of the world (formal and informal), of organisations in general, and companies in particular. This increasingly complex reality to be understood needs to be simplified and examined using theoretical models and categories of explanatory analysis. To this end, in the opening sections, the various theories used to analyse the reality of business organisations will be addressed and, subsequently, the development of the interpretative models of this reality. Below, we shall illustrate briefly the fundamental components of an organisation and the typical elements of activities of planning and organisational development. According to this logic, the organisation chart is the schematic image of an organisation, divided into a series of hierarchical structures, where responsibilities and roles are related to objectives and functions. However, in addition to the formal universe, there is an informal one where rules and behaviour styles are not prescribed but are born from a series of interactions and exchanges, which stem from, or, at times, are independent of a strategically predefined formal structure. The daily reality of organisations is, therefore, represented by sets of intentionally oriented actions, and at the same time, by dense networks of formal and informal interactions and exchanges, which can only be partially understood by analysing the working of structures, prescribed roles, functions exercised, and tasks performed. For this reason, it is necessary to equip oneself with a multidimensional theoretical apparatus, capable of examining cultures and organisational strategies (objective) and individual ones (subjective), if one intends to understand the increasing complexity implied in the development of the various types of organisations adequately. This is a trend that is destined to extend, if, as Miles and Snow (1996) argued, in perspective, fourth-wave organisations in the twenty-first century will no longer be like a big machine, with an elephantine apparatus of control, but will be particularly lean (minimal), involving very few people who tend to interact according to a logic of self-management (self-employed entrepreneurs) and be able to carry out a variety of initiatives and perform diverse roles. This wave is the result of the three previous ones, which have shaped the development of the history of industry and the

The Development of the Concept of Organisation

13

development of models of organisation in all production sectors but have also influenced the course of organisational thinking. This evolutionary process not only affects those involved in the study of the management of human resources but tends to have a strong influence over the policies and tools needed in the organisations of the future. However, as we are well aware, the future can be understood only insofar as we know about the past and the development of the theories that have influenced the behaviour adopted in favour of the governance of organisational policies implemented in the last century. For this reason, the topics that will be addressed in this chapter aim at contributing, albeit without any claim of being exhaustive, to the knowledge of the world (formal and informal), of organisations in general, and companies in particular. This increasingly complex reality in order to to be understood needs to be simplified and examined using theoretical models and categories of explanatory analysis. To this end, in the opening sections, the various theories used to analyse the reality of business organisations will be addressed and, subsequently, the development of the interpretative models of this reality. Below, we shall illustrate briefly the fundamental components of an organisation and the typical elements of activities of planning and organisational development. Even the great Weber (1965, 1968) used this approach to construct ideal types, that is, theoretical (pure) reference models, which did not exist in reality but were fundamental to understanding it. This heuristic methodology which led him to develop ideal classical models of power and which we shall discuss later is vital for an understanding of the various forms of command regarding the development of these same organisational theories. In his fundamental essay Economics and Society (Weber, Italian translation 1968), published posthumously in 1922, he divided power into three different classes, based on their different sources of legitimation which he defined analytically as traditional, bureaucratic, and charismatic power. This theoretical construction allowed him to develop his theory of bureaucracy, and for many scholars today still represents one of the most refined theoretical developments in the field of the study of public organisations and forms of command operating within various types of organisation (Cocozza 2004a). During the course of the twentieth century, the use of dichotomous distinction has faded, but has not disappeared completely, as demonstrated by Popper’s (1973) use of the opposition between a closed society—that is, utopian, totalitarian, or otherwise resistant to change—and an open society, which, on the other hand, permits transformations of social and institutional political structures, especially following free and critical discussions (Cesareo 1998; Cocozza 2004b, 2005). In the wake of this approach, other interpretative hypotheses are beginning to develop which differ from the monological classification of organisation intended as a “machine” to the point of positing a plurality of explanatory theories regarding different types of organisation and different models of organisation that currently operate within our society. Within this process of paradigmatic development, the meaning itself of the concept of organisation has changed profoundly to the point of assuming a substantially polysemic character.

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The Concept of Organisation and New Interdisciplinary Interpretative Paradigms

The Polysemic Character of the Concept of Organisation As Gallino recalled, the term organisation acquired an increasingly polysemic content throughout the course of the history of organisational thinking, and the social sciences have attributed it to at least three different meanings (1993, pp. 469–470): • A direct activity used to establish, through the application of explicit rules, lasting relationships between a complex of people and things to render it suitable for the rational achievement of a goal. • A concrete entity, the whole of a social system resulting from a similar activity; in this sense, typical organisations are attributable, each to an explicit organisational model and, therefore, to a specific type of rationality of government: a company, a hospital, a school, a ministry, a trade union, an association in the defence of the environment or consumers, a political party, a church, an army. • A structure of the main relations formally envisaged and codified within a company, a party, etc., which are only a part of the relations that constitute them. In this context—as clarified elsewhere (Cocozza 2005)—where the development of rationality in the history of sociological thinking was analysed, when the concept of the rationality of government—which characterises and distinguishes a determined organisation (social system) from another—is used, it is intended to recall the important theoretical developments provided by the social sciences. This concept, which underwent various developments, has assumed different meanings over time regarding three specific areas: beliefs, actions, and scientific knowledge. In this essay, we refer, in particular, to the first and second meanings, which characterise most effectively a possible sociological understanding of human action and organisational behaviour, since they connect more directly and necessarily the sphere of beliefs and of actions with that of decision-making. As confirmation of the explanatory effectiveness of this classification, Gallino pointed out that throughout the history of humanity there have been various forms of organisation (in the three different meanings), which reached very high procedural levels (1993, p. 470), from that of organisation intended as activity, like the cadastral survey and taxation services of the Egypt of the Pharaohs, which made it possible to acquire resources from the farmers of the Nile and transfer them to state coffers; to that of the social system represented by the Roman army which gave rise to one of the most efficient military organisations of the ancient world; to that established by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; to that understood as structure, according to which, with the introduction of the Constitution of Cleisthenes in the sixth century BCE, the political organisation of the city of Athens became extremely efficient. The influence of the studies carried out by Northern-American social scientists over those of Europe meant that the second connotation, that referring to organisation as a social system, began to be used more widely, sometimes almost exclusively.

The Polysemic Character of the Concept of Organisation

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On the basis of this logic, over the last two decades, in analyses of the development of organisations, the concept of complexity and that of complex organisation has often been used to define that particular transformation of models of organisation (of their social systems) affected by a qualitative as well as a quantitative change. This paradigmatic development has affected and affects the lives of all those organisations that produce goods or/and services, as well as the numerous public organisational entities. What was meant by this “new definition” soon became evident, after it was noted that, in reality, it was not exactly new as a definition, since, for scholars of organisational sciences, the introduction of this concept dated back to the end of the 1930s and the work of Barnard, who studied the issue of organisation, but was also an executive of a large US public company (1938). Studies on the development of complex organisations were then the subject of in-depth studies by several leading scholars of organisational sciences like Etzioni in his Complex Organisations. A Sociological Reader (1961), or Perrow in Complex Organisations. A Critical Essay (1979) and scholars of theories of management such as Galbraith in the essay Designing complex organisations (1973). For Barnard who, as we have seen, first introduced this concept in The Functions of the Executive (1938), whereby by complex organisations we should mainly refer to large organisations (large industrial companies, state administrations, commercial and financial companies, armed forces). They did not differ from the minor ones so much because of a series of quantitative parameters, as on the basis of the type, variety, interweaving of socio-technical relationships that constituted them. The most visible result of this interpretation of structural complexity, which generally accentuates and multiplies the social phenomenology of all types of organisations, is that the most important structural relationships, those characterising the way the organisation operates, are not relationships between individuals, but between structural units and sub-units of various sizes and in various hierarchical positions. One of the most important factors that differentiate and characterise this type of organisation is the fact that within it structures and people perform different functions, both in terms of professional activity and tasks and in terms of (hierarchical) levels of responsibility with which they are charged within the governance of an organisation, or in the definition and management of decision-making, organisational and working processes (considering those typically present in both private company and public administration models). Some structures (organisational units) of these complex organisations carry out operational activities, those required to provide the organisation’s “products and/or services” and which bring operators into direct contact with the public which, according to a logic of total quality management, is constituted by the consumer/ citizen who avails her/himself of the service or by the customer external to the company. Other structures regard management, coordination and planning, and service activities favouring both. The latter two types of organisational structures involve

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The Concept of Organisation and New Interdisciplinary Interpretative Paradigms

direct contact with the staff, colleagues, collaborators, and managers (internal users) of organisations. Organisational complexity, if it fails to count on the availability of the human resources that cooperate to achieve common goals, might paralyse organisational action and prevent any action from achieving the expected results, even if prescribed. With his The function of the executive (1938), Barnard helped explain the reasons on the basis of which people (specifically managers, shareholders, employees, suppliers, and customers) decide to collaborate with internal organisations. This, he held, happened, not so much by virtue of an individual orientation of an essentially utilitarian nature (respectively share profits, advantages, and benefits derived from status, remuneration, discounts), or thanks to the internalisation of the prevailing value system by subjects (Parsons’s functionalistic approach), but on the basis of a third modality: the attempt to reconcile the needs of the organisation with those of individual subjects. According to this scholar, this attempt might be achieved by using a series of management tools, which bring into play fundamental variables like that outlined by a policy of incentives and persuasion, in order to reconcile, in a “structurally precarious” form, a collaboration between interests, which “naturally” tend to have a divergent trajectory. Barnard recalled that, from the point of view of the analysis of the rationality of the action of actors, “the net satisfactions that induce a man to contribute his efforts to an organisation derive from the comparison between the advantages and disadvantages that this entails” (1970, p. 17). The benefits, to which Barnard referred, are material, but could also be moral, that is, represented by social and professional recognition, the relational climate, and career opportunities. In this regard, he added that “material rewards beyond subsistence level are ineffective except for a limited percentage of men and women (...) even in strictly economic organisations where it is supposed to be true, money without distinction, prestige and position are so clearly ineffective that it is rare that greater gain can be temporarily used as a stimulus if accompanied by loss of prestige” (ibid., pp. 133–134). In other words, as Bonazzi noted, the legitimacy of the Barnardian theoretical scheme, based on cooperation between the expectations of individuals and those of the organisation, finds its raison d’etre in the logic of the fair relationship between contributions, rewards, and incentives (Bonazzi 2002, p. 69).

The Classification of the Different Types of Organisation Among the classical authors of the sociology of organisation who conducted investigations into the classification of organisations, one of the most important scholars was Etzioni (1961), who, when classifying the different kinds of organisations, based on compliance (disposal towards obedience) identified three types: coercive organisations (prison, asylum), utilitarian or remunerative organisations (businesses), and religious, cultural, and voluntary associations. Etzioni’s analytical

The Classification of the Different Types of Organisation

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model assumes particular theoretical relevance since it permits us to understand the fundamental differences existing between the organisational model operating in the company, that of organisations where total control is implemented over the individual, and that of voluntary religious associations or associations representing social and collective interests. Similarly, other significant authors, like Blau and Scott (1971), distinguish organisational types on the basis of the “major beneficiaries of the action” of the activity carried out by organisations and identify the following classification: profit-making organisations (businesses), mutual benefit organisations (trade unions, parties, and associations), service organisations (public services), and public welfare organisations (firefighters, police, ministerial bodies). At this point, it is necessary to clarify that the classification of the various types of organisations is, in reality, an extremely complex operation, and is aimed at identifying a specific and different characterisation of the various types based on a given explanatory variable privileged to favour a certain heuristic process. In other words, once the object of the research has been chosen with clarity along with the independent variable it intends to observe, it is possible to begin the process of classification. This effort to classify various kinds of organisation, on the basis of their specific and typical rationality of government, or better still of governance, underlined its relationship with the implementation of adequate and coherent human resources management policies; a useful contribution is provided by what has been developed from Bottomore et al. (1997, pp. 500–501). In line with this approach, taking into consideration the various theoretical indications examined so far, it is possible to outline a classification of eight distinct types of organisation: organisations with economic purposes (private companies), organisations that provide social services of public utility, public administration, trade union and organisations of professional representation, political parties and organisations, organisations for the defence of the environment, local areas, or consumers, religious organisations, and military organisations and total organisations. All these organisations refer to different and particular rationalities of governance, and have the following distinctive characteristics: • Organisations with economic purposes (private companies) in the agricultural, industrial, or tertiary sectors, whose action is essentially guided by market principles, with which our research on the development of the various business models of organisation is mainly concerned, starting from that of the hierarchically structured and vertically integrated company of the Taylor-Fordist type. This type of organisation has undergone profound transformations in recent years and is constantly affected by a development trend towards a plurality of organisational forms (flat company, lean company, network company). Within this category, a particular organisational variant is represented by those cooperative organisations that rose from a cultural matrix that refers to entrepreneurial logic based on a spirit of mutual support and cooperation. Sometimes a considerable number of their partners are employees and this modality is found in particular frequency in the agro-industrial and trade but also the credit sector.

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The Concept of Organisation and New Interdisciplinary Interpretative Paradigms

• Organisations that provide social services of public utility, which are also the object of our research. These are present in particular in strategic sectors of the welfare state systems of contemporary European societies—such as health, school, benefit and social assistance—involved recently in action programmes aimed at internalising and activating management policies guided by principles of effectiveness, efficiency, quality, and personalisation of services (Cocozza 1997b, 2004a; Gherardi and Lippi 2000; Gherardi and Nicolini 2004). In some sectors in Italy, such as schools, a process of administrative decentralisation and autonomy of school institutions has been activated, albeit with difficulty (Cocozza 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004c, 2012; Osservatorio sulla Scuola dell’autonomia 2002, 2003, 2004). In the field of Italian healthcare, on the other hand, cases of real corporatisation are registered. These tend to bestow a corporate configuration in the proper sense on hospitals and territorial health structures, with relative managerial and financial autonomy within the context of the National Health System, even if they remain public in character. Within this category, with their particular specificities, there are also non-profit organisations, a rather pervasive organisational variant in the spheres of social assistance and international cooperation. • Public administration performs an institutional function, guaranteeing the rights of citizens universally and those constitutionally ensured, and provide services directly to the community, or grant bureaucratic authorisations to other administrations, such as ministries, the judiciary, the police forces, public assistance, and civil protection bodies (fire brigade, civil defence, etc.). In these organisations, as we shall see later, the hierarchical and bureaucratic logic often tends to assume a prevalent role in the policies that determine the make-up of the structures, the distribution of tasks, and the allocation of resources, as well as the organisational culture and the professional behaviour of public employees and managers. There are, however, cases of public administration engaged in the implementation of innovative organisational projects (Cerase 1999, 2002a, b; Cocozza 1997b, 2004a). • Trade-union and professional-representational organisations, the best known of which are the workers’ unions, but there are also business associations which perform the function of representing and protecting collective interests, as well as promoting and developing policies regarding the collective interests represented. Within this first type of organisation, there are also the basic trade-union movements, which have arisen from (sometimes radical) challenges to the general policies implemented by the “comparatively more representative” organisations, in defence of particular corporate-type claims (often those of single professional categories, such as pilots, teachers, or station masters). The professional associations, on the other hand, play a different role, specialising in the representation and support of members in various fields: selection and accreditation, assessment of skills and training, assistance, and social security. The role of this last variant of this organisational type is quite different in terms of powers and spheres of influence if it is organised and recognised as a specific professional order (notaries, pharmacists, doctors, journalists and publicists, bookkeepers and

The Classification of the Different Types of Organisation

•

•

•

•

19

accountants, lawyers and solicitors, engineers and architects, social workers, etc.), in which case they acquire legal status as judicial personalities and assume the characteristics of a public body (Cocozza 1996a, b, c, 1997a; Della Rocca 1998; Lanzalaco 1998). Political parties and organisations, such as the main voluntary organisations/ associations of civil society, which, by means of free democratic elections, hold a more or less large share of power, and are required due to this to maintain a sort of moral commitment (mutual commitment) towards citizens and the development of society. To these organisations we need to add the political movement, an organisational variant of the same type, whose aim is to renew processes of political representation and witness this renovation and which is often led by particularly charismatic persons and claims roles alternative to political parties. The birth and spread of political movements signal the degree of dynamism of an entire national political system and its ability to produce possible changes (Easton 1965, 1984, 2001). Organisations for the defence of environmental, local, or consumer interests, connected with the protection of the eco-environmental balance, the conservation of the artistic heritage and cultural heritage, or the defence of consumers, which generally promote policies for the protection of the public good (indivisible) and the promotion of a collective heritage of certain communities. They are structured as collective private associations (WWF, Green Peace, Lega Ambiente, Consumers’ Association, Adiconsum, etc.), but they act according to policies and activities different from those of the trade unions and the political parties. They acquire a different status in terms of roles and powers, if accorded public recognition, which if they are transformed into public bodies (tourism promotion companies, regional law companies, etc.) fall into one of the previous categories, regarding organisations that provide social services of public utility. Religious organisations are divided into two particular types and organised partly within the official churches and partly outside of them (base communities and religious movements). They serve a dual purpose: the representation and testimony, respectively, of the institutionalisation of the faith and processes of the renewal of religious practices and institutions. The second type, which, even if it assumes a critical (sometimes extreme) position regarding the first, is of fundamental importance for its renewal (Acquaviva and Pace 1993; Cipriani 2000; Costa 2002). Military organisations and total organisations (prisons, for example), where subordinates are hierarchically subordinate to those in command. Recently, even in the first essentially autocratic type of organisations, the processes of organisational and technological innovation tend to combine the hierarchical line of command with a new structural set-up (task force), which emerges from the recognition of the specialisations and professional skills possessed by military personnel in effective permanent service (Battistelli 2003; Goffmann 1968).

About the first type of organisation examined, the company, it is necessary to point out that, as indicated in a useful classification in the Treccani Encyclopedia, in

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addition to businesses having economic purposes and the cooperative organisations mentioned above, there are two other types of companies, represented by the socially responsible company, the repeated object of intervention by the European Union, and social enterprises introduced in Italy by Legislative Decree 155/2006. With regard to the first type of enterprise, as specified in the Green Book of 2001 issued by the Commission of the European Community to promote a European framework for corporate social responsibility: “Being socially responsible means not only fully satisfying the applicable legal obligations but also to go beyond, investing “more” in human capital, in the environment and relations with other interested parties”. Subsequently, in the Resolution of the European Parliament of the 13th of March 2007, corporate social responsibility was defined as a “contribution to sustainable development, for responsible competitiveness”. Unice, the entrepreneurial association that brings together large companies from the countries of the European Union, in the document Unlocking Europe’s employment potential: European social policy ahead of 2000, argued that: “European companies consider themselves an integral part of society, they act in a socially responsible way and consider making profits the main objective of a company, but not its only reason for being and they opt for a long-term reflection on strategic decisions and investments”. As Zamagni (2003, p. 28) suggested, regarding the development of the specific characterisation of organisations with an economic purpose-oriented towards a logic of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): “A company may well engage in sponsorship or even corporate philanthropy and yet not be socially responsible. The fact is that, while the logic of corporate philanthropy is that of concession or compassion, CSR is based on the principle of the equal dignity of all those involved in the business to build and implement the business project. To put it another way, it can be observed that the business world has always known that ensuring that workers enjoy better living conditions means stimulating in them a sense of loyalty and attachment to the company’s destiny and therefore higher levels of productivity”. The same applies to the attention and involvement of other types of stakeholders (customers, suppliers, institutions, associations). Just think, by way of example, of the entrepreneurial story of W. Ratenau, the founder of AEG, and the even more exemplary one of Adriano Olivetti. Henry Ford in an interview in 1919 declared that “A business that makes nothing but money is a truly modest business”. The novelty constituted by CSR lies, therefore, not in its degree of altruism or in the mental openness of the company manager, but in the way the business is carried out—a way that rejects paternalism, albeit enlightened—and, above all, the circumstance whereby the company is called upon to provide an account of its work. Moreover, as explained effectively (Granovetter 2005), according to this new economic scenario, companies were not detached from the context in which they operate, but had a “socially embedded” character. Their economic activity was strongly embedded in the social fabric and activates processes of interaction (of a dynamic and dialectical type), with the cultural (human capital) and the institutional (social capital) dimensions of the territory of reference. Companies constantly

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interacted with a series of stakeholders (business ecosystem) and with the community as a whole and, through their involvement (direct and/or indirect, conscious and/or unconscious), they constantly defined and redefined their business strategies. A socially responsible company was, therefore, redefined and assigned a different role to play in the pursuit of profit to take on additional social and/or ecological purposes. The voluntary assumption of this new kind of responsibility was pursued mainly through so-called multi-stakeholder governance, characterised by the involvement of workers and other stakeholders—other than investors—in corporate decision-making processes. It also foresaw the introduction of codes of value and self-regulation and/or particular forms of social intervention, aimed at demonstrating the company’s real level of responsibility. The second type of enterprise, on the other hand, the social enterprise, represented a real novelty at a regulatory, managerial, sociological, and organisational level, which to date has not yet developed all the disruptive cultural potential it possesses. It was characterised by the absence of profit as a purpose of its institutional mission, article three provided expressly for the prohibition of distribution, even indirectly, of profits and operative surpluses, however, denominated, as well as funds and reserves in favour of directors, shareholders, participants, workers, or collaborators. It was stated that it was not possible to pay directors remuneration higher than those envisaged by companies operating in the same or similar sectors and conditions, unless there was a proven need to acquire specific skills and, in any case, with a maximum increase of 20%. It was forbidden to pay subordinate or selfemployed workers salaries or remunerations higher than those provided for by collective agreements or contracts for the same qualifications unless the need for the acquisition of specific professional skills was proven. A social enterprise could be public, private, or private/social in nature and needed to carry out economic activities on a stable basis aimed mainly at the production and exchange of goods or services of social utility. The business sectors of this type of company were governed by art. 2 of the aforementioned legislative decree 155/2006: social and healthcare assistance; education and instruction; university and postuniversity training; research and provision of cultural services; cultural services; and social tourism or activities aimed at the work placement of disadvantaged and/or disabled people. The particular regulation of the special statute of social enterprise modified the organisational rules of the traditional model adopted by companies having economic purposes, relating to some strategic variables: the company model; the structure of ownership; the appointment and functions of corporate offices and supervisory bodies; organisational and productional planning; and the redistribution of profits and acquired earnings. Ultimately, the social enterprise was defined not only based on the activity carried out but based on its purpose, its aim of pursuing the general interest, and its modus agendi. In the social enterprise, the organisational culture and the behaviour of the actors determined a real new relational process, rather than an organisational, resultoriented one, in full harmony with the expectations of the stakeholders and showing the utmost respect for the personalisation of the expectations and needs of the user/

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customer. This classification was certainly useful and permitted us to affirm that each of these eight types of organisation was characterised by its specificity, which in turn was correlated to the corresponding rationality of government, or, as we said before, of governance. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify that the concept of governance itself is evolving since, in a scenario strongly affected by continuous transformation, a logic of integration of a new mix of functions is emerging, redefined with mobile and evolutionary boundaries, between the different types of organisation examined, in which, while the company tends to become a socially responsible organisation, the school might be considered a social enterprise, which should respond to a logic of its social accountability towards students, families, and other institutional, economic, and social stakeholders present in the area. In this new heuristic perspective, schools too represent an open organisational system and as an institution (Selznick 1976) not only provide educational services but elaborate and transmit values and, consciously or unconsciously, with their behavioural and reference models of ethically responsible educating communities, which affect the education, civic sense, and behaviour of the workers and citizens of tomorrow, as well as the social cohesion, legality, and development of the society of the future. In fact, in the legality-development binomial, the education system plays a fundamental role, since it is actually true, as Hugo put it “Quand on ouvre une école, on ferme une prison”. [When one opens a school one closes a prison.]

The Governance of Organisations The concept of governance was introduced into the study of organisations, starting with the considerable importance that the stakeholders theory began to assume, where the role played by a series of subjects (individuals and groups) on which depended the ability of the firm (one of the particular types of organisations analysed) to operate, evolve, and perpetuate itself effectively in time and space (Evan and Freeman 1983; Freeman 1984; Bruono and Nichols 1990; Miles 2011, 2012). These are two main types of social groups that give life, respectively, to the ecosystem of the company which includes shareholders, workers, trade unions and business associations, suppliers, distributors, public administration, and the community et large represented by consumers, consumer associations, environmental associations, the mass media, and public opinion. The relationship that is thus created and the set of interactions that may occur between the company and its stakeholders might be represented as shown in Fig. 1. Considering the specificity of the other seven types of organisation, which have been analysed here, it is possible to hypothesise a similar dynamic between the social actors that determine the specific reference ecosystem and those found within the community more generally, with which these organisations interact necessarily.

The Classification of the Different Types of Organisation

23

Shareholders Trade Union E C O S I S T E M

Consumer

Workers Enterprise

Consumer association Environmental and cultural heritage associations

Suppliers

Mass media and public opinion

Distributors Pubblic Administration

C O M U N I T Y E T L A R G E

Fig. 1 The relationship between company and stakeholders. Source: Fabris adapted, 2003. * ECOSYSTEM—Enterprise—ET LARGE COMMUNITY. Unions, workers, suppliers, distributors, public administration, mass media and public opinion, environmental associations, and associations for the defence of cultural heritage, consumer associations, consumers, shareholders

The different types of organisations, therefore, can no longer be considered as “machines”, or mechanical mechanisms, or as closed self-referential, self-regulating systems. In order to live and develop adequately, they need to activate a constant exchange both with the actors that determine their reference ecosystem and with those who are the bearers of instances of expression of the social and cultural community to which they belong. For this reason, in the design and planning of policies conducted by human resources management, it is necessary to take into account these typological specificities and not run the risk of simplifying the complexity of reality, homologating all organisations into a single type, often that of the private company in the industrial sector. This theoretical risk, rather than practical and operational, if taken unconsciously, would lead to ineffective decisions and to the implementation of policies inconsistent with the specificity of that particular type.1

1

The theoretical risk is more serious than the practical one, because the cultural and structural foundation on which the belief (conviction) that originated the decision and the actions related to it rests is wrong. For this reason, it leads inevitably to committing not only a “punctual error” (once only), but a “serial error”, that is, repeated over time and space. This error is reiterated until the decision-maker does not modify her/his initial belief and adopts a new political and organisational conviction, which will lead her/him to take a decision and devise a policy different from the previous one.

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In other words, it was intended to argue that, depending on the type of organisation, certain policies, and tools needed to be commensurate with the cultural characteristics of the organisations in question. In this logic, human-resource management policies related to the first three organisational types (private companies in the industrial or service sector, organisations that provide social services of public utility, public administration) traceable back to a single category of work organisations seemed to have certain characteristics and points of contact in common, aimed at achieving an adequate level of homogeneity in the private management of employment relationships, as required by the current legislative and contractual regulations. But, if it were intended to effectively (and not only formally or legally) achieve the envisaged objectives, it was necessary to recognise the fact that the activation of these policies required a different graduality and the need to pay particular attention during the implementation and management phases, precisely because of the diversity of organisational reference cultures onto which these policies were grafted and with which they tended to interact. In practical terms, a mechanical transfer of certain policies from one organisational type to another, such as that relating to the implementation of policies particularly driven by a logic of “efficiency” or markedly “corporate”, could lead to an ex post empirical confirmation of different results, and/or, at times, opposite to those expected. A phenomenon of this type was analysed in the case of the development of the models of organisation of workers’ trade unions and business associations, driven mainly by a logic of representation and collective protection of members, and, at the same time, of organisational participation and sharing of common values, rather than economic and principles of market efficiency (Cocozza 1996a, c, 1997a). The process of reform of the Confindustria [Italian Association of Industrialists] launched in July 2013, following the approval of the association’s project of reorganisation, seems to tend in this direction, in favour of a streamlined organisation and a significant reduction of costs. The reform aimed at achieving a series of strategic objectives: to render the organisational model and governance more effective; strengthen its ethical and legal values; strengthen its international vocation; streamline its representative bodies while maintaining its capillarity nature and proximity to the territory; and accentuate the role of the association at European level by paying great attention to organisational support provided to the internationalisation of associated companies. The Confindustria reform represented an important organisational and cultural change, also as regards the role of regional representatives, simplified in governance and structure, in order to avoid overlapping and foster better allocation of resources. In fact, coherent with the “Europe-State-Regions” institutional structure, in order to consolidate the links between the associative leaders and the territories further, the Italian Committee of Regional Representations (composed of twenty Regional Presidents) was established with a mission aimed at integrating the various instances within the context of national economic and industrial policies; attributing value, in particular, to the cohesion and development policies; and representing the requests of the southern regions (eight out of twenty) in national policy choices, whose action

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is integrated into the country’s policies of cohesion. By means of this organisational reform, Confindustria created the conditions for acquisition of a greater vocation for national cohesion and a more effective capacity for action in the now essential European and international scenarios. Similarly, the major Italian trade-union confederations of workers (CGIL, CISL, and UIL), at different times and using diverse methods, but always according to a logic of the need to simplify their organisational system, during the first half of 2013, completed an organisational reform, aimed at superseding their anachronistic sectoral and territorial set-up, by carrying out a drastic reduction of their structures (horizontal and vertical) and instituting a new leaner organisational structure, less expensive and more directly involved in the bargaining processes of the macro sector and those at macro-regional level and/or in their metropolitan area branches. The research carried out in the field and the direct observation of the phenomena begun by the processes of organisational reform in representative organisations (Cocozza 1996a, b, 1997a, 2006a, b, 2010) had led, in recent years, to the hypothesis that there has been a development of organisational models, aimed at questioning two strategic variables: the degree of organisational effectiveness and the level of participation by members. In other words, as has been clarified elsewhere (Cocozza 2010), the organisation engaged in representation should implement a cultural project, rather than an organisational one, aimed at permitting a development from a political-bureaucratic to a participatory planning model. Ultimately, in a private company, in principle, one might hypothesise the achievement of certain objectives, if effectively placed within a coherent project of organisational change, oriented towards principles of efficiency, effectiveness, and quality (and under certain conditions, of excellence), with particular times of implementational (short-term, about two-three years). In the other organisational types, on the other hand, it is necessary to outline congruent objectives and have a clear picture of the particular cultural and structural set-up of the organisation, as well as the difficulties and possible “resistances” against the processes of innovation that may be encountered, to measure the real effectiveness of the actions and projects of change to be implemented. These projects of change might find an effective operational response, in line with the expected results, in the medium-long period (at least three-five years), if adequately backed by policies of support in the field of organisational communication, training, and the development of human resources, as well as by activating a system of adequate incentives and compensations, intended for the various professional groups belonging to the organisation. A more recent reflection on the development of the role of organisational communication was carried out by Strati (2013). In an essay of his he questioned how it had changed as a result of constant technological innovation and the creative contribution it made to communications, in an original way, and to the versatility of the world of organisations with their missions and products/services, but also their identity, values, and social lifestyles.

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Therefore, it was posited that the representative organisation should not be considered a mechanical device, a machine, or a structure aimed at producing profit, like a company. It is made up not only of structures, resources, objectives, and results (like other organisational types), but by people who have their own strategies and projects, which jointly give life to an increasingly complex, sophisticated, and valueoriented system. These organisations can effectively adapt their performance to external challenges and internal demands, not only because the “operational mechanisms” are changed (an extremely important point) but because coherent action is taken to improve the basic assumptions of the organisational culture and favour greater and better participation by members at all levels of the organisation, starting from the workplace. Ultimately, in these organisational types the best political and organisational results, in terms of effectiveness and efficiency of action, do not depend so much on the strategies of management engineering implemented, but, rather, on the role and enhancement of people and their reference-value systems, which assume a strategic role. The degree of involvement and motivation of the people who contribute daily to bestowing life to a truly sui generis organisation is also vital. This is an organisation based on the voluntary and convinced contribution of individuals, who jointly constitute a community sharing professional policies and practices, above all reference values that guide their strategic action. These considerations permit us to affirm that—as will be analysed in the next chapter—the theoretical basis of the justification of the representation of the organisation that recurred to a metaphor related to mechanics (a machine or a clock) can be considered, to a large extent, superseded by the explosion of the third industrial revolution, definable as the end of the one-best-way assumption in the organisational sciences with the advent of the post-Ford era. Indeed, this thesis had already been sustained by a great scholar like Stuart Mill, when he specified in a far-sighted way, in his well-known essay On Liberty, published in the second half of the nineteenth century, that: “Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing”. (On Liberty (1859 https:// www.utilitarianism.com/ol/three.html)

In fact, with regard to the freedom of growth of people, as well as of organisations, and of the rapidity of changes taking place in our societies, Toffler, the thirdwave theorist, recalls, quoting the writer C.P. Snow, “Up to this century, social change has been so slow that it has gone unnoticed in the course of an individual’s existence. This is no longer the case. The speed of change has increased to such an extent that our imaginations can no longer follow it”. (Toffler 1988a, b, p. 24)

More recently, theories resulting from scientific research on the development of organisational models have begun to show ever-greater capacity for elucidations which, changing Durkheim’s concept, tend to analyse organisations as social organisms (Burns and Stalker 1974), or network systems (Butera 1990). Others, on the other hand, introduce “cognitive” theoretical approaches, which tend to consider the

References

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role of the culture of subjects as fundamental to the management of processes of change (Weick 1988, 1993), or their ability to represent organisational actions in a metaphorical key, even replacing the concept of organisation with that of “imaginisation” (Morgan 2002). An excellent result, a response to Wright Mills’s invitation to dare to introduce greater sociological imagination (1995) into the interpretation of empirical phenomena. As part of this innovative course, Morgan (2002), in addition to the metaphor of the machine and the organism, identified a series of metaphors that might be used more effectively to understand the differentiation and development of organisational models: the metaphor of brain; the metaphor of culture; the political metaphor; the metaphor of the mental asylum; the metaphor of change and transformation; the metaphor of domination; the metaphor of challenge as a process of sociological “imagination” (Wright Mills, 1995). With the appearance of these new explanatory paradigms, therefore, for the scholar of sociological and organisational dynamics, the analysis of these new processes, always in continuous transformation, becomes increasingly stimulating, due to the in-depth sounding of the development of organisational (or administrative) rules and the configuration of professional roles and structures of production. As Bonazzi observed with regard to the current subject of study of the sociology of the organisation: The objects of analysis can be both organisational structures and organisational processes. Structures are given realities, with their persistence over time: for example, an office with a hierarchy, legislation, procedures, rituals, and a system of communications. The processes, on the other hand, are ongoing, changing realities that go through various phases. (2002, p. 19)

For this reason, the most stimulating studies of organisation in recent years are those which, availing themselves of a multidimensional approach, tend to analyse the development of processes and the changes that occur in organisational culture following the adoption of policies aimed at improving communication flows and training and activating effective leadership concerning the governance of productive, organisational, technological, and relational changes.

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Easton D (1965) A system analysis of political life. Wiley, New York Easton D (1984) L’analisi sistemica della politica. Marietti, Casal Monferrato (ed) or. (1965) A framework for political analysis, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs Easton D (2001) L’analisi della struttura politica. Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli (ed) or. 1990 editoriale/395-protocollo-tra-il-ministro-della-funzione-pubblica-autonomie-e-sindacatianalisi-dei-contenuti Etzioni A (1961) Complex organisations. A sociological reader. Free Press, New York Evan WE, Freeman RE (1983) A stakeholder theory of the modern corporation. Kantian capitalism. In: Beauchamp TL, Bowie NE (eds) Ethical theory and business. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs Freeman RE (1984) Strategic management: a stakeholder approach. Pitman, Boston Galbraith JK (1973) Designing complex organisations. Addison Wesley, Reading Gallino L (1993) Dizionario di Sociologia. TEA, Milan Gherardi S, Lippi A (a cura di) (2000) Tradurre le riforme in pratica. Le strategie della traslazione. Raffaello Cortina, Milan Gherardi S, Nicolini D (2004) Apprendimento e conoscenza nelle organizzazioni. Carocci, Rome Goffmann E (1968) Asylums. Le istituzioni totali. Einaudi, Turin (ed) or. 1961 Granovetter M (2005) The impact of social structure on economic outcomes. J Econ Perspect 19(1): 33–50 Lanzalaco L (1998) Le associazioni imprenditoriali. In: Cella GP, Treu T (a cura di), Le nuove relazioni industriali. L’esperienza italiana nella prospettiva europea, Il Mulino, Bologna Miles S (2011) “Stakeholder definitions: profusion and confusion”. EIASM 1st interdisciplinary conference on stakeholder, resources and value creation, IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Barcelona Miles S (2012) Stakeholders: essentially contested or just confused? J Bus Ethics 108(3):285–298 Miles R, Snow C (1996) Regional advantage: culture and competition in Silicon Valley and route 128. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Morgan G (2002) Images. Le metafore dell’organizzazione. Franco Angeli, Milan Osservatorio sulla scuola dell’autonomia (a cura di) (2002) Rapporto sulla scuola dell’autonomia 2002, Armando Editore, Luiss Edizioni, Rome Osservatorio sulla scuola dell’autonomia (a cura di) (2003) Rapporto sulla scuola dell’autonomia 2003, Armando Editore, Luiss University Press, Rome Osservatorio sulla scuola dell’autonomia (a cura di) (2004) Rapporto sulla scuola dell’autonomia 2004, Armando Editore, Luiss University Press, Rome Perrow C (1979) Le organizzazioni complesse. Un saggio critico, Franco Angeli, Milan, ed or. 1972 Popper KR (1973) La Società aperta e i suoi nemici, Antiseri D. (a cura di), Armando, Rome, vol 2, ed. or. 1945 Selznick P (1976) La leadership nelle organizzazioni, Franco Angeli, Milan, ed. or. (1957), Leadership in administration, Harper and Row, New York Strati A (2013) La comunicazione organizzativa. Carocci, Rome Toffler A (1988a) La Terza ondata. Sperling & Kupfer, Milan Toffler A (1988b) Lo choc del futuro. Sperling & Kupfer, Milan Weber M (1965) L’etica protestante e lo spirito del capitalismo, Sansoni, Florence, ed. or. 1904–05 Weber M (1968) Economia e società, Edizioni di Comunità, Milan, ed. or. 1922 Weick K (1988) Le organizzazioni scolastiche come sistemi a legame debole, in Zan S. (a cura di), Logiche di azione organizzative, Il Mulino, Bologna Zamagni S (2003) L’impresa socialmente responsabile nell’epoca della globalizzazione. notizie di POLITEIA, XIX, 72, 2003. ISSN 1128–2401 pp 28–42

Economic and Social Changes and the Development of Organisational Theories

In order to provide an overview of the main theories of organisation that have emerged during the last century, the theories that have most influenced corporate organisational models, starting from the explosion of the second industrial revolution, will be presented following a logic of their historical development that with the Taylor-Fordist organisational model gave rise to an extraordinary organisational change and imposed mass production on the whole world. In particular, the following theories and/or schools of organisational thinking will be analysed: scientific management, human relations, the behavioural and motivational school, socio-technical models, and theories of “contingency”, of “transaction costs”, of the “organisational networks”, and finally of the “cognitive approach”.

Taylor and Scientific Management If we exclude the pioneering works of some scholars of the second half of the nineteenth century, the first important and significant development regarding the study of organisations is that of the famous American scholar and engineer Taylor, who, with The principles of scientific management (1911)1 and the entrepreneurial action of Henry Ford I, conditioned the industrial and organisational history of roughly the whole of the twentieth century. In reality, the historical reason that explains the rise of a movement that led to the ascent and spread of the second revolution (due also to the contribution of theories of management and massive recourse to technology) lay in the perception of the intolerable contradiction between the productive potential provided by technological development and the managerial

1 Taylor had published a previous text on the same subject entitled Shop Management, and contained in his speech to the 1903 Congress of the powerful ASME (American Association of Mechanical Engineers), which was held in Saratoga Spring.

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skills characterising most of the companies. Until then, company management had been unscientific—oscillating between a substantially empirical logic, characterised by a complete absence of any kind of enhancement due to systematic reflection on management or the results obtained—and that based on pure willpower, or on an absolutely archaic and ruthless regime, known as the drive system,2 which we shall deal with in greater detail in the next chapter. In other words, it was what we might define, today, as family-type business management, in the sense of occasional management not strategically oriented by principles of productivity. Worse still it was often of a patriarchal type, based on fear of and reverence towards the boss, and sometimes on discrimination as an instrument of punishment for those who behaved differently from what was expected of them (unknown). As Bonazzi recalled, the success achieved by the organisational model proposed by Taylor was essentially due to the stubbornness and intransigence with which he set out to achieve three closely interconnected objectives (1993, p. 25): • Accentuate and rationalise the lines of authority within the company. • Increase the production and performance of people and plants not only through reorganisation but also through total transparency of costs, procedures, times, and working methods. • Use science not only as a criterion for action but also as a legitimising basis for new proposals. In reality, as can be inferred from this description, Taylor was an ante-litteram functionalist; he had an organic and integrated view of the functioning of a company and its organisational methods. He saw it as a “great machine”, by means of which it was possible to reach better and more productive goals. The real strategic heart of his thinking lay in its total and unconditional separation between the activity of those who had to “think, control, and direct” and those who only had to “perform” extremely fragmented elementary tasks. In other words, Taylor was first and foremost an engineer, an expert in the production of metal alloys, a subject regarding which he had also published a text (1906). For this reason, he was interested in issues such as methods and times, and in the yields of plants and people, considering workers as a sort of appendage of machines.3 Throughout the twentieth century, this approach led many scholars to discuss the concept. It may also have contributed to the birth and development of American sociology and industrial psychology, and, subsequently, to the other organisational and managerial sciences as well. In fact, the Second Industrial Revolution, born and raised under the domination of large bureaucratic organisations and large Taylor-Fordist vertically integrated oligopolistic enterprises, has now gone down in history, and its main offspring have had to surrender to less rigid companies and organisations, smaller, more integrated,

2 3

Translated also as a “push system, or if you prefer, “shove system” (Bonazzi 2002, p. 33). To spread the theories proposed by Taylor, an important promotional role was played by Asme.

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but, above all, more adaptable to the needs of a market that was increasingly unstable and difficult to predict. For over seventy years, the prevailing organisational paradigm with the countless variations that took place subsequently in recent decades was that set up by Taylor and his collaborators and then perfected as an entrepreneurial project by Henry Ford I. Taylor, therefore, never worked alone but always with a large group of collaborators, who gave birth to a real movement, which, to some extent, tended to revolutionise the theory and practice of business management in the industrial world. Among those who also played a fundamental role within this context were the Gilbreth couple, Lilian and Frank. They were the first to perfect the time and motion measurement (MTM) formula. This organisational and production method became so famous that it came to be the best-known management formula belonging to the organisational theory of scientific management in history, but also its most discussed. There were also some other important collaborators like Gantt, Thompson, Gillespie, Mullaney, and Barth, but also the mathematicians Griswold Knox and Welden, the inventor of the slide rule. In the same period, other experts of industriallabour analysis such as Bedaux, or of the administration and general management of a company, like the French Fayol and the American Sloan, Parker Follet, Mooney, and Riley, with their studies, contributed to the development of organisational and managerial culture. The main distinctive features of the organisational indications of scientific management, improperly translated and published in Italian as the scientific organisation of work, are the following: • The paradigmatic slogan of the One best way, with which this organisational scheme is usually summarised, meaning that there is only one organisational and management method through which it is possible to achieve expected production results in a given amount of time. • To improve the individual work performance of each worker, it is necessary to proceed with a significant rationalisation, fragmentation, and measurement of her/his work. • This fragmentation of the activity of the worker leads to a division of work into elementary tasks and the allocation of standard time, from which no one can escape. • These results can only be achieved if fundamental importance is attached to factors like “motion” and “time”. • The worker needs to concentrate only on the execution of her/his (elementary) task and must be trained to do so. With regard to the theoretical characteristics of scientific management, Gallino recalled that: It contains a strong forceful and manipulative connotation. It does not aim at explaining, as a theory does, the way an organisation operates (as a social system), the premises of this operation, its internal and external social effects. It advances a set of norms for increasing the

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Economic and Social Changes and the Development of Organisational Theories efficiency of the factors of production, in the first place, of the labour force and has undoubtedly been effective. (1993, p. 471)

As De Masi suggested in his Trial of Taylor, the American engineer might be considered a sort of progressive conservative, to some extent even revolutionary. He proved to be the opposite of the Prince of Salina, the protagonist of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampdedusa’s Leopard, whose motto was that “to keep everything as it was it was necessary to change everything”. The result was that the prince left his land in direr straits and more backward than he had found it. On the contrary, the engineer Taylor left Philadelphia and the whole of America much richer, more modern, and more powerful than he had found them (1992, p. 12). In support of this thesis, Taylor himself, in a report to the Special Commission of the US Chamber of Deputies, on the 25th of January 1912, argued that: The scientific organisation essentially requires a complete mental revolution on the part of the workers of any factory or industrial sector; they must fundamentally change the way they view their work, their colleagues, and employers. The same radical mental transformation also involves the managers—the factory manager, the superintendent, the owner of the company, the board of directors—and implies a new way of facing one's duties towards colleagues in charge and towards the daily problems of the workers. Without this mental revolution, there can be no scientific organisation. . .The great revolution of mental attitude that comes with scientific organisation causes the two antagonistic parties to divert their interest from the subdivision of the surplus—which is the main law-enforcement argument—and focus their efforts on increasing the entity in such a way as to avert the emergence of further unrest.4 Both sides come to recognise that cooperation and mutual aid, which have taken over from the struggle and conflicts, provide such an increase in the surplus as to allow large increases in workers’ wages and in the entrepreneurs’ profits. (De Masi, 1992, p. 67)

The principles of scientific management, as mentioned before, were applied fully at the Ford plant, which in 1913, by introducing the first industrial organisation of work based on the assembly-line model, started the manufacture of the legendary car called the Ford Model T Black. This was an event that gave rise to the famous joke symbolising the extreme rigidity of the Fordist organisational system, attributed to Henry Ford I, “Buy a car of any colour, but the important thing is that it is a Ford Model T Black”. This is exactly the opposite of current organisational models, strongly oriented towards gratification of the customised needs of the customer, which might be summed up in the following slogan, “We build the car around you!” The contribution of Taylor and Ford, even if they did not know each other directly, as De Masi (1992) pointed out, gave life to an organisational model that has borne up throughout the history of the Second Industrial Revolution in the capitalist world, and has been adopted even in the industrial companies of planned economies, beyond the ideological divisions that have separated the world for a long historical period. 4 Taylor was referring to the strikes being carried out in that period in favour of claims for improved pay and working conditions, in various establishments where his organisational model had been implemented, and for this reason the US Chamber of Deputies had set up an investigation and created a special commission.

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Following these epochal examples, the development of the industrial sector then gave rise to countless cases of factories and work organisations based on the “assembly-line” model, which paid scarce attention to the needs (professional, social and personal) of workers, as they were considered the “cogs” of a “great machine” of production. Therefore, these methods produced organisational and working contexts that were often extremely fragmented, with forms of accentuated alienation and high levels of depersonalisation on the part of the worker, made famous by Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times. As we know, there has been much criticism of scientific management, to which three different interpretations may be given (Bonazzi, 1993, pp. 47–50): • Taylorism as exploitation, a thesis supported by scholars with an anti-capitalist (or neo-Marxist) approach, like Braverman (1978), or of a humanist type such as Friedmann (1949), a key leading corporate management towards forms of possible collaboration and industrial democracy. • Taylorism as technocratic utopia, the thesis advanced by Crozier (1969), on the basis of his conviction that in any organisational context, subjects activated their own strategies, aimed at preserving margins of individual action, but also by Jacque in relation to the industrial (1951) and the bureaucratic system (1976). • Taylorism as a contingent formula, meaning that it represented one of the many organisational formulae that industrial development could assume. This explanatory hypothesis was developed by Touraine (1974) in relation to the effects of the formula on labour, a thesis supported, though in different tones, by Blauner (1971). In this critique, there was a second strand referred to as the “theory of contingency”, which, as analysed in the following sections, disputed the assumption of the One best way and argued that roles and tasks could not be rigidly prescribed, but varied depending on the greater or lesser level of turbulence of environmental factors, or on the basis of the intensity of processes of technological innovation. The role of industrial automation was significant as Bricco (2011) recounted in a report on “The long way from Fordism to robots. Inside the plant, the social and technological transformation of the production system”. In reality—as economic historian Giuseppe Berta pointed out—pure Taylorism was introduced by Vittorio Valletta in the mid-nineteen-fifties with the production of the Fiat Seicento when “the parts being processed were moved mechanically thanks to conveyors”. In this regard, Carlo Stroppiana, who entered Mirafiori in 1955 as a worker and left forty-one years later with the title of Deputy Director of Mechanics, testifies, “At that time the workers were positioned three meters from each other: each carried out his work on every single piece, at a slow pace”. Gradually machines take over the factory floor which for the mechanical employees meant the arrival of the big leap, “Less work and more responsibility”, as Stroppiana put it in a nutshell. The fact was that, if until the day before it was necessary to insert hundreds of pieces into a gear hobbing machine or a lathe, now, each worker had to look after the correct functioning of three-four automatic loading machines. “It was not an easy step,

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because to many employees it seemed preferable to perform a repetitive, even tiring task without thinking, however”. It is no coincidence that this was the first season of the workers’ and students’ protests, between 1968 and 1969. “The agreement of the 5th of August, 1971, the one still approved by Fiom [the Italian mechanical workers’ union] and based on breaks, canteen service and saturation levels—Maurizio Magnabosco, the “father” of the Melfi Fiat plant—was pure Fordism. Everything changed with ICT and automation”. During the second half of the 1970s, enormous technological-organisational changes took place as the result of a twofold push: the union impulse towards a human way of making cars and the new technological perimeters. This revolution, however, had its price. In one fell swoop, the trolleys and trucks that previously transferred parts from one warehouse to another disappeared from the departments. This meant that there was no longer any need for forklifts or drivers, figures which “in the context of a department might involve 30% of the staff”, according to Stroppiana. In fact, the first drop in the number of Fiat employees occurred at that time: from 46 thousand employees at the end of 1967, a historical record, the numbers dropped to 38 thousand at the beginning of the 1970s. This is why “most reorganisation was viewed with suspicion by the workers— Stroppiana said adding that—“The equation more machines less work has always aroused alarm. And not only among the most unionised employees”.

The School of Human Relations, Complexity and Cooperation in Organisations In the late 1920s (1927–1932) Mayo carried out a series of scientific experiments in Hawthorne at the plants of Western Electric, a major electricity company, to study their organisational elements (and the behaviour of the workers) concerning the growth of productivity. His research gave rise to a very important school of organisational thinking, that of human relations, destined to have enormous success later on. In reality, this research created problems for productivity studies, because it provided a series of useful information favouring an understanding of how to mitigate the organisational problems emphasised by the extreme fragmentation of the Taylor-Fordist system and respond to the social and professional difficulties of workers. The results of those experiments, consisting of observation of the behaviour of a group of workers, gave rise to a new organisational theory, based on the introduction into work of greater attention to behavioural, social, and relational aspects. It was discovered (and was to appear clearer to scholars of the following decades) that organisation was not just one huge machine (rigid, prescriptive, and unchangeable), but a living organism that reacted (to the stimuli of technology and the pressures of the hierarchy) as well as internally. The various styles of the behaviour of the subjects might favour or hinder the achievement of corporate objectives. For

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these reasons, it became clear that the creation of a serene and collaborative relational climate between bosses and collaborators favoured an increase in company productivity, while that based on an exclusively hierarchical logic, which did not allow for socialisation between people, jeopardised any possibility of improving it. The main theoretical features of the school of human relations [HR] were the following: • The worker’s action had to be seen as a whole; the culture of the origins needed to be analysed. • The standard time foreseen by the Taylorist scheme did not take into account individual differences; therefore, it was difficult to apply on a large scale. • There was a relationship between the relational climate and productivity trends, so the motivations and expectations of workers influenced the modes of execution and results of the tasks assigned to them. • Following the discovery of the social nature of work, it followed that individual work was no better (more productive) than work where several members of a group were involved. As La Rosa stated (2000, p. 75), the Mayo experiments of the 1920s had already highlighted the fact that the essential characteristics correlated with greater integration and collaboration of (and between) workers, existed in the new relationship being established between the formal and the informal, between the individual, the group, and the organisation, between the structural hierarchy and functional collaboration. This theoretical perspective influenced all subsequent organisational theories and personnel policies since it began to assign a more important role to human resources than to the “mechanical gear” that the Taylor-Fordist model had prospected. This new approach gave rise to numerous research endeavours in the USA and a series of positive exchanges between the academic and managerial worlds, creating the conditions for the future development of new organisational theories. As Gouldner (1962) observed, the HR school represented the main theory of the conception of organisation antithetical to Taylor’s, but also Weber’s, as far as bureaucratic organisation was concerned. This marked the beginning of the concept that organisation was no longer to be seen as a machine governed by an immutable hierarchy, but as a living organism, where the subjects within a system of collaborative relationships interacted positively with each other and with their reference environment according to a logic of mutual adaptation. This theoretical scheme was developed better in subsequent organisational theories and was to strongly influence the theory of organisational cooperation developed by Barnard (1938), and, to some extent, the conception of organisation itself proposed by Simon (1958). Barnard (a scholar and manager of a North American telephone company), to explain the need to activate cooperative behaviour in an organisation, to guarantee organisational integrity and acceptable production results, used the “parable of the boulder” (1938). In this parable Barnard, as Bonazzi recalled (2002, pp. 59–62), showed how different people, who met even by chance (without any prior selection), but who were linked, nonetheless, by the need to solve a common problem (five

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people interested in shifting a boulder obstructing the road), might create a cooperative system if there were (or better still if they created) a series of conditions: • Equip themselves with an organisation, by assigning specific tasks to each person (or group) involved in the company ( formal organisation), activate a system of communication, comparison, and exchange of opinions and proposals (informal organisation) in a non-hierarchical (top-down) and non-prescriptive way. • Distinguish between the goals of the organisation (formal) and those of the parties involved (personal motives), since they might be different; to have them coincide, a series of incentives and a process of involvement and participation needed to be activated. The participation of individuals would be obtained and be more effective, only if consensus were reached. For this reason, the manager’s aim should be to direct people with different purposes towards the achievement of a common goal, by using a system of incentives (selective and targeted) adequate to and consistent with the expectations of their particular professional roles and the spirit of that specific organisation.5 • In the activation of a system of organisational cooperation, the informal aspects (communication processes and interactive exchanges) played a fundamental role in supporting the formal system, to the point that the latter could not do without the former if it intended to survive and renew itself. For Barnard, therefore, it did not suffice to emphasise the social and informal aspects highlighted by the HR school, such as the activation and maintenance of a positive relational climate. It was necessary to create an adequate level of interaction and cooperation between the informal, structural, and formal levels of the organisation. To this end, managers performed a highly important function, since the outcome of company performance, according to this scholar, depended fundamentally on the contributions made by the management of organisations. For this reason, the manager needed to carry out the following three functions adequately (Barnard, 1938): ensure an efficient system of communication, ensure the regular and constant inflow of resources necessary for the good functioning of the organisation, establish the goals of the organisation (this did not mean what is known today as mission, but is a detailed vision of mission, which cannot but stem from a process of participation and cooperation involving all the members of an organisation). The Second World War interrupted the studies and experiments regarding the field of organisation, but in this context and in the wake of the HR school, the research carried out by the Institute for Social Research by Lewin and Likert was

5

These considerations help to explain why remuneration, as an incentive extrinsic to the work performed, produces effects, in particular, regarding operational professional roles, while very often it does impact highly on results of expected performance regarding those human resources occupying organisational positions decisive for the corporate mission (organisation) and roles of greater responsibility. In these cases, it is actually necessary to resort to incentives intrinsic to work, such as the modification of the contents of the service requested, the degree of autonomy granted as regards of decision-making processes, the level of responsibility (formal and informal) recognised, or professional and status awards.

Taylor and Scientific Management Table 1 Theory of needs and motivating factors—comparison between Maslow and Herzberg

Maslow scale Motivating factors Self-realisation needs

Needs of esteem Factors of well-being Needs of belonging Security needs Economic needs

39 Herzberg scale Success Recognition Work content Responsibility Advancement Recognition Relations with superiors Type of supervision Personnel policy Working conditions Salary

Source: Adaptation of Maslow’s and Herzberg’s schemes

located subsequently. This is an issue she shall discuss in the next chapter when dealing with repercussions in terms of personnel policies. During the first decades after the Second World War (from the 1950s to the 1970s), numerous studies were carried out on organisational problems and various theories and schools of thought arose; in particular, theories were developed with the aim of analysing the role of behaviour and motivation in the design and management of new organisational models. Among the various contributions made, it is necessary to recall that provided by the behaviourist and motivational school, whose major exponents were Maslow and Herzberg in the 1950s–1960s, Argyris and Drucker in the 1960s–1970s, and Mintzberg in the 1970s–1980s. The main theoretical indications of the behavioural and motivational school are based on the following assumptions: • Organisational management can be achieved more effectively, if we take into account the principles of the theory of needs in the evolutionary key developed by Maslow and perfected, to some extent, by Herzberg. • The organisation of production is more fruitful and the management of human resources more effective if the methods of job enrichment (enrichment of tasks), job enlargement (expansion of tasks), and job rotation (rotation of tasks) are introduced, for the purpose of improving the corporate climate and overall corporate performance. • The organisation of production is more effective and productive if the individual division of labour is surpassed and proceeds through the establishment of working groups. • Management, availing itself of human resources management policies, assumes a fundamental role in managing the growing complexity of a corporate system. In order to better clarify the explanatory capacity of the developments of this theoretical perspective, in Table 1 the analytical elements contained in Maslow’s theory of needs and those foreseen by Herzberg’s motivating factors have been

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compared. These were two important theoretical schemata which permitted a better understanding of expectations in terms of the organisational and relational needs of human resources within organisations, according to the organisational positions and the professional roles held. These needs became elements of motivation that foster the better execution of their professional roles. These are more effective if they the actors are sufficiently satisfied as indicated on the scale indicated by Maslow according to factors of well-being (those to be met as a priority, like economic needs, safety, and belonging), factors of esteem, and finally truly motivating factors. Herzberg, using a more analytical scheme, explained that there were five different types of motivating factors regarding human resources, in increasing order, that needed to be satisfied according to a scalar logic. He specified that the individual paid attention to a first set of factors considered fundamental and basic, which are represented by working conditions and remuneration; only afterward did s/he take an interest in more general issues, such as the personnel policy implemented in the company. Once these first two groups of factors had been satisfied and a role of greater importance assumed within the company organisation, was s/he ready (mature) to be motivated by policies aimed at promoting career advancement and professional recognition, as well as relationships with superiors and the policies of control and coordination (supervision) implemented by the company. Finally, the worker would be interested in elements such as success, recognition, job content, and responsibility, only when the four above sets of motivating factors had been satisfied. Ultimately, it was possible to assert that the responsibility and motivation of human resources were correlated positively to the professional role played within the company and that the improvement of one variable (responsibility) contributed to the improvement of the others (motivation and professional role). In other words, the more responsibility one acquired in the organisation, the greater the motivation deriving from both the intrinsic factors of the role (job content) and extrinsic factors (remuneration, professional recognition, and success in the business community). For these reasons, motivation in work and a sense of belonging to the organisation cannot develop naturally; they need to be stimulated by the company management, but, above all, because the professional, organisational, and relational conditions required to support this phenomenon needed to be created, using targeted policies. Ultimately, it is legitimate to argue that motivation and a sense of need to be planned, making use of everyday managerial policies and action as well as adequate management of human resources by each department manager, to create organisational conditions and a positive relational climate, because, as we have seen already, each human resource is driven by particular motivational needs. Within a company, the executive can help create the conditions for “self-motivation”, but executives have less room for manoeuvre, and executive collaborators need, instead, to be supported and stimulated to achieve the goal of adequate motivation to perform their professional roles better, including an increase in their spirit of belonging.

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Therefore, the activity of management, by means of human resources management policies, assumes a fundamental role in the management of the growing complexity of businesses.

Socio-technical Models and Theories of “Contingency” In the same historical period, a further important contribution to the development of theories of organisation and to the need to create a greater plurality of models of organisation was provided by the scholars who developed the analysis of organisations oriented towards socio-technical models and the theories of “contingency”. In this theoretical perspective, we recognise scholars from social sciences or economics such as Woodward, Emery, Trist, Burns, Stalker, Thompson, and Simon, who introduce a systemic vision in the analysis of organisations. The main theoretical indications and operational suggestions for the design of new models of organisation are: • The relationship between the structure of an organisation and cycles of production, in the sense that companies that adopt a continuous cycle of production tend to have organisational structures that are different from those that base their production activity on an intermittent cycle. • A company is an open system, not a closed one. Therefore, environmental factors and the interaction between systems and the environment affect the life and reproduction of organisational systems. • The concept of limited rationality is introduced into economic choices and a theoretical framework is provided for the analysis of the main decision-making processes. • Organisation is a coherent result of the relationship between some fundamental variables, such as those represented by the regulatory framework, the technological scenario, and the production process. • It is possible to hypothesise forms of participation of workers during the definition of the organisation and at its various organisational levels. Among the many important contributions made to the theoretical perspectives of organisational participation, for our research, it is necessary to recall those of Burns and Stalker as well as that of Simon. Burns and Stalker (1974) carried out significant studies as part of their research relating to the Glacier project, where they sought to identify a new participatory corporate-management paradigm. This paradigm was then taken up by Butera more recently (Butera, 1987, 1988, 1990), and was used in the analysis of various experiences of Italian companies. Simon, on the other hand, made a contribution of considerable worth to organisational studies, by introducing the concepts of organisational complexity and limited rationality regarding economic choices and the development of theoretical schemata for the analysis of the main decision-making processes.

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This important scholar (economist and sociologist), resuming the teaching of Barnard (1938), in The sciences of the artificial (1988), pointed out that firms were complex organisms due to their internal structure and the workings of the socioproductive system within which they operated. In this context, a company acted on the basis of decision-making behaviour that was not inspired by optimal rationality, as the classical school of the Rational choice model believed, but by limited rationality.6 Simon, in his fundamental work Administrative Behaviour (1958), had already highlighted how the decisions that characterised human rational action within organisations were attributable essentially to a logic of limited rationality. This important concept emphasised the fact that actors when taking public or private decisions were unable to resort to the scheme provided by formal and absolute rationality (oriented towards the purpose, based on the evaluation of all possible alternatives), but resorted, instead, to limited rationality, which necessarily involved a margin of risk, due to the acquisition and evaluation of alternatives (considering the costs associated with these operations), to a conjecture, or elements of subjectivity. The limits that condition the rational decision, to which Simon referred, were not physical, but mental and cultural, since the human being was not, as classical economic theory held, formally rational. This meant that people did not possess information regarding all possible alternatives and their consequences, but above all, they did not have access to a system of preferences that was certain and unchangeable over time. As Simon noted, “the choice of the optimal alternative requires processes much more complex than ordinary aimed at choosing of a satisfactory alternative. Think, for example, of the differentiation that passes between rummaging in a pile of hay to find the sharpest needle and rummaging in the same pile of hay to find a needle-sharp enough to be able to sew”(1958, p. 176). In other words, in addition to the limitations due to the fact of not being able to weigh up all the possible alternatives and, consequently, of not being able to evaluate according to them, people, as cognitive beings, express their preferences, also on the basis of their value systems, their ethical and cultural convictions, and their family traditions, elements that tend to reduce the number of actually available alternatives, considerably. Above all, human choices (decisions) are often the result of a compromise between the different outcomes expected, not always logically coherent with each other; in any case, they need to take into due account the conditions in which the actors act. For these reasons, to effectively study decision-making processes in organisations (and in daily life), it is necessary to start from the action of the subjects involved. As regards this perspective, Simon differed from Barnard, since he did not foresee the encounter between two entities, upon the same level, as if the organisation were a reified object, but insisted on the primary role of the subjects, seeing that human

6

A theoretical study of the rational choice model and attempts made to supersede it is contained in Cocozza (2005).

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action contributed to forming that of the organisation and determined its successes and failures. This way, he established the birth of a new theory of human action and the management of organisations, which criticised the classical one, based on the concepts of formal and absolute rationality. In other words, Simon affirmed that, to study rationality in (of) organisations, it was not necessary to study their roles, but rather their decision-making processes, which were determined by the information, constraints, and procedures that individual subjects have to face, but also by their subjective motivations (1958, p. 14). As Bonazzi pointed out, two fundamental conclusions could be drawn from Simon’s theoretical scheme. The first was that decisions were to be seen not as instantaneous and unitary acts, but as processes where ends and means were chosen and compared in progress. The second conclusion was that only in exceptional cases were decisions taken following the criterion of optimal efficiency; in most normal cases, people were content with satisfactory solutions, where the preferability of one solution over another was always relative and revisable, nothing more (1993, pp. 314–315). Ultimately, for Simon, organisation was a cooperative system that not only aimed at coordinating the diverse tasks assigned to the various professional roles but aimed at accumulating the experiences had, at selecting the mistakes made, at cataloguing the solutions adopted, and at classifying and enhancing the critical issues encountered. On the basis of this logic, the development of these organisational processes over time played a fundamental role in the development of learning organisation, a concept developed by Argyris (1978), which might lead to the production of useful procedures (codified and recognised organisational behaviour), aimed at mitigating the risks inherent in making decisions within turbulent and unpredictable contexts. These were the same contexts in which the various types of work organisations operated at the time.

Some New Explanatory Paradigms: “Transaction Costs”, “Organisational Networks”, and the “Cognitive” Approach More recently, starting from the 1980s and 1990s, various organisational studies of business and sectoral cases gave rise to theories of “transaction costs”, “organisational networks”, and of the “cognitive” approach. These contributions were fundamental because they were innovative in character at the theoretical level and because of the operational implications that contributed to the design of new organisational models, based on important concepts, like those of the organisational network or system of organisational networks or those relating to learning organisation (a type of organisation that learnt from the environment, but above all from its mistakes). These three different theoretical orientations, which refer to the theories of “transaction costs”, of “organisational networks”, of “quasi-organisations” up to

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now devoid of sure, rigid boundaries, and of the “cognitive approach”, permit us to mention scholars like Williamson, Ouchi, Nacamulli and Rugiadini, Butera and Becattini, and Weick and Schein. The theoretical assumptions on which these new perspectives of organisational analysis were based can be summed up follows: • Relations within the company and between companies could be analysed using the theoretical scheme called “transaction costs”, based on a strategic choice attributable to the principle of make or buy. • The different forms of organisations were governed by three different ordering principles, which referred, respectively. to the hierarchy (the bureaucratic structure), the market (the company), the clan (the new organisational typologies— non-profit organisation—which differed from the first two, because they did not favour exchanges based on immediate equity, but in the medium-long term, made use of principles of organisational solidarity). • The models of organisation of the enterprise evolved from —vertically integrated—hierarchical schemata to proceed towards reticular models and tended to configure new types: the network enterprise and the network of enterprises (integrated economic districts). • The organisation could be analysed as a “cultural construct”, an entity that lived and developed as a function of organisational learning (learning organisation), fuelled by the relationships of exchange and adaptation with the external environment and the activation of the internal environment by human resources, by means of the sensemaking process (attributing meaning to the reality surrounding us). The first theoretical perspective, known as “transaction costs”, belonged to the studies of new institutional economics, and aimed at explaining the behaviour of firms by resorting to different forms of organisation, understood as a “system of stable transactions (relationships) between individuals or between organisational entities and/or institutions”. Williamson (1987, 1991, 1998), referring to Coase’s studies on The nature of the firm (1937), explained that organisations might be considered as a set of transactions that manifest themselves through different forms and modalities, grouped into three large types. According to this perspective, they were represented by the following classification: the bureaucracy typical of public administrations; the market, which determined the functioning of firms, using price mechanisms; and hybrid or intermediate forms, such as cooperative enterprises or organisations providing services of public utility, or business networks. Within each type of organisation, there existed a particular mechanism of transaction governance, aimed at making the costs related to the various processes of transaction programmable and manageable. Table 2 provides an example of this theoretical scheme, with its peculiar characteristics of their means of exchange and control, applied in relation to the three different forms of governance.

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Table 2 Transaction control mechanisms Forms of governance Markets

A Characteristic of an exchange Reciprocity

Bureaucracy

Reciprocity Legitimate authority

Relational groups

Reciprocity Legitimate authority Sharing short-term sacrifices and long-term benefits

Means of control Prices Short-term contracts Rules Long-term contracts Tradition Solidarity

Source: Cafferata (1995)

According to these authors, costs of transaction developed, as a company needed to be able to cope with and govern three different critical variables (Williamson 1987): • The presence of a decision-making scheme based on a logic of limited rationality (Simon 1958, 1986), on the basis of which it was not possible to foresee all possible alternatives and solutions. • Information asymmetry that conditioned the choices of the actors since they were unable to access the same quantity/quality of information. • Opportunism, which occurred when one of the actors did not respect moral norms or behavioural practices, through which not only s/he acquired an advantage but caused damage to the other contracting actors. These costs of transaction might concern three elements, concerning costs in necessary terms of finance and time: the quest for information relating to the market and the players, useful to “obtain a general idea” regarding the transaction to be carried out, when choosing between a set of predefined alternatives based on the system of personal expectations and assuming a certain choice; the definition of the formal structure that the contract itself needed to assume; and the preparation and stipulation of an agreement between the contracting parties. On the basis of this logic, the analysis of costs of transaction replaced the usual interest of scholars and management in the primary role of technology and production (or distribution) costs, as fundamental variables for taking a strategic decision, in favour of a valorisation of the comparative costs determined by planning, accommodation, and control of performance within the framework of alternative structures of governance. In other words, costs of transaction consisted mainly in the contractual costs that the organisation was obliged to sustain, since, as Williamson (1987, p. 90) effectively argued, “any question that can be formulated as a bargaining problem can be analysed advantageously in terms of reduction of transaction costs”.

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The contribution of this theory is important because it permits us to understand numerous cases of internationalisation, delocalisation, and de-verticalisation of companies, as well as the processes of merger and the extension of business networks, used to respond to the challenges posed by the globalisation of markets and new criteria of international competition. Faced with these turbulent processes, the organisation as a system was induced to make a strategic choice aimed at deciding whether to make that particular product within its own organisation, or whether, on the contrary, to buy it externally, thus reducing the costs of the transaction. In reality, the alternative between internal and external was not always posed, but only that between producing and buying, because the development of new corporate models of organisation made it possible to supersede the rigid boundaries of the organisation, by means of outsourcing policies (resorting to external subjects), externalisation, downsizing (reducing the organisational size of companies), setting up networks and consortia, or even by dividing a large vertically integrated enterprise into several medium-small enterprises, resorting to delocalisation and teleworking. Some criticism has been raised against this theoretical position, which might be summed up as follows: • An excessive emphasis on rational logic, attribution to the actors (agents) of the ability to optimise problems difficult to “synthesise” within an increasingly complex scenario. • A logical scheme oriented towards a comparatively static model, which does not include costs and time required to bring about change. • The prevalence of a single decisive strategic function (production and transaction). • Its failure to consider the perspective of lifelong learning, capable of leading to contingent and suboptimal choices, above all to changes and modifications of the choices made. • It is not true that the decisive strategy is tantamount to cost reduction.

Organisational Networks In the process of development of organisational models, as Butera (1990) argued, it was appropriate to abandon the Castle described scientifically by Weber. This was a model which Maria Theresa of Austria and Henry Ford developed entrepreneurially, Taylor and Ford designed in detail, and into which Franz Kafka penetrated deeply as a prodigious narrator of the issue of organisation. During the last few decades, within the development of industry and services, the new business network, characterised by a series of innovative variables, has established itself: self-regulated organisational units with a high level of employment, total quality projects and socio-technical investments, the development of new

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professions, the pervasiveness of the ITC revolution, a business culture based on results, interaction and the management of complexity, and so on. These organisational choices, explicated by the theory of the cost of transaction, have witnessed the growth of the concept of network enterprise, with its different configurations: the network enterprise, a large enterprise that de-verticalises itself, and business networks, comprising various small and medium-sized enterprises that coordinate and enhance themselves, both from the point of view of strategic business choices and at a more strictly productive, organisational, and management level. The network enterprise created a system that tended to integrate horizontally along the same chain of production within a specific territorial economic district. This aspect of recent economic development in the so-called “third Italy” was introduced in analyses carried out by Bagnasco and studied later by Becattini (1998, 2000, 2009), Brusco (1989), and Butera (1990), as well as by American scholars like Piore and Sabel (1987). Furthermore, the concept of clan introduced from this theoretical perspective provided an analytical basis for an understanding of the systems of transaction and relationship existing within organisations—not comparable to typically private industrial enterprise—like cooperatives which provide services of public utility, but also federative and associative organisations (networks and consortia, representative organisations, professional associations, voluntary environmental or religious organisations, etc.). These types of networks are bearers of a new organisational culture. They no longer ground their relationships and transactions in the sole criterion of reciprocity based on results deriving from short-term contracts, as is the case of the market. They are not based, either, on respect for legitimate authority and hierarchy, as in the case of bureaucracy, but mainly on sharing short-term sacrifices and long-term benefits. These criteria are based on tradition and cooperation, but also on elements of solidarity, and on principles extraneous both to the culture of the “free market” and to the culture of “pure bureaucracy”. A possible classification of network companies or business networks might be the following six reference models (Butera 2007): • • • • •

“Non-manufacturing” industrial companies Business chains or constellations Business districts Areas with high levels of innovation Entrepreneurial systems of legally autonomous companies, linked, however, to each other by means of strong associative ties and service consortia • Quasi-enterprise systems, with agreements that go beyond the economic dimension and also involve the dimension of structure and management

In line with this heuristic approach, an effective explanation of the typological characteristics of these different organisational configurations was provided by Butera (2007, p. 4): A first case that is now studied carefully are the so-called “non-manufacturing” industrial companies, which avail themselves of industrial management, have not got factories of their own, and have a ratio of employees dedicated to production

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versus total staff of less than 1%. In Italy, Benetton and Arquati opted for this system in the late 1980s. In the USA, the pioneers were Esprit, Emerson Radio, and Schwinn (bicycles). Soon outsourcing became offshoring of which the cases are innumerable. The multinational Nike (world leader in sport’s shoes) and the Italian Lotto (world leader in football footwear), for example, sell products manufactured entirely by Asian companies, to which they provide specifications, quality standards, delivery times, management, and ethical rules (which generate international scandals when violated, as in the case of the child labour in the factories supplying Nike). [. . .] A different method of the sharing of process between distinct companies is the supply chain (Bellon) or constellations of companies (Lorenzoni), systems of companies that share the work necessary to carry out a whole cycle of production and enhancement. They may be subject to the direction of a large or medium-sized “pivotal” company, which maintains the relationship with the market and dictates the conditions of the plans of development, though in many cases, more than one pivotal company operates on the same production chain. This is the case in Italy with the furniture produced in Brianza, with agricultural and foodstuff activities in the Emilia region, etc. [. . .] A well-known class of situations refers to business systems (homogeneous or inhomogeneous) on a territorial basis, those which Becattini called “entrepreneurial districts”, renewing the more widespread term of “industrial districts”. These systems are characteristic of a specific settlement within the same territory of companies operating within the same production sector (in Italy for example Prato for textiles, Sassuolo for tiles, Lumezzane for cutlery, Montebelluna for sports shoes, etc.). They are characterised by processes of imitation, sharing of common resources among competitors, the intensity of productive and commercial knowledge, and a favourable “entrepreneurial atmosphere”. [. . .] Areas with a high level of innovation should be placed, perhaps, in a different class: we are talking about Silicon Valley, Boston Route 128, Lyon, Bangalore, territorial areas where integrated entrepreneurial and organisational processes involving large, medium, and small businesses, universities, public agencies, venture capital financial institutions, and more are developed. [. . .] Another type of division of labour between companies along similar lines is that of entrepreneurial systems of legally autonomous companies linked to each other by strong associative ties and service-provision consortia. Like the Confederation of Artisans, productive cooperatives, or other structures like consumer cooperatives, which control some phases of the value chain of the overall system, sometimes share brands, purchases, and sometimes warehouses. [. . .] A different case is that of agreements, such as those between electronics and chemistry. The relative studies show that these agreements have not only an economic content, but configure real quasi-enterprise systems not based on ties of proprietary or hierarchy, but on links that have as their object, in addition to the classic economic dimensions of exchange, on typical structural dimensions like that of the business portfolio, ways of carrying out research and development, production logistics, the structure of information systems and telecommunications, human resource development policies, etc.

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The network business model is, therefore, an extremely innovative and very composite one encompassing all previous organisational/relational types, since it enhances and transforms the boundaries that determine the traditional logic of the market, competition, and cooperation. In this regard, as Butera and Garavaglia point out (2007, p. 5): There are now many cases of Italian companies that have become world leaders within their particular niche. In these cases, stable alliances were established with suppliers (and sometimes even with competitors, giving rise to processes of co-opetition), have produced robust three-hundred-and-sixty-degree innovation processes (business models, products, services, processes, organisation, etc.), elements of non-core competitiveness (brand, image, design, after-sales services), but, above all, new models of organisation of the companies and their relationships with the territory where they have been set up. These companies are very different from companies that limit themselves to exporting and making use of subcontracting, that is, transactional companies. Instead, they tend to become network enterprises or governed enterprise networks (Butera 2001), of greater complex magnitude than previous ones. They are sometimes led by a medium or large enterprise; sometimes they are supply chains with no visible guide like the supply chains structured along elongated value chains (Gereffi and Bair 2001) operating on an extended and sometimes global scale. In all cases, they are composed of several autonomous companies that cooperate and compete, diffused in space, covering areas of the value chain of different supply chains and governed by unitary processes (governance, marketing, branding, technology, logistics, research, and development). These new business models are conceptualised in various ways. We like to call them governed and elongated business networks (Butera 2007). They require the components of the related industries or the components of the supply chain to be “vital nodes”, that is, self-sufficient and innovative, entrepreneurial entities of the network (Butera 1990; Castells 2000; Pichierri 2002). To understand the affirmation of this new type of business, a further explanation of the birth of the phenomenon, observing it from another point of view, is required as noted by Marzot (2010) The differentiation of investments and their relative delocalisation seeking the most profitable conditions for shareholders generated the phenomenon of the company network. This term is used to define both the decentralisation of large companies by creating semiautonomous units and the formation of cooperation networks that involve small and medium-sized companies with a high level of internal specialisation and recomposed according to configurations of various kinds regarding the latency and unpredictability of market dynamics. This phenomenon generates a demand for labour that is equally dispersed and flexible within. Individualisation of tasks and fragmentation of work processes thus feed the diversification of the offer: subcontracting, outworking, job sharing, part-time work, independent activity, and consultation services. These dynamics affect both high valueadded productions, and those requiring highly specialised operators with elevated levels of skill in terms of innovative technological know-how, as well as a supply of unskilled labour. This ‘dual’ logic characterises not only the segmentation of the market on a global scale but also a parallel segmentation at local level. So, business services, polarised by large urban centres and all gravitating around the international financial market, simultaneously feed a demand for a low-skill workforce.

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Regarding the development of the role played by more or less integrated business districts and local institutions, Butera (2007, p. 5–6) explained that: A new configuration of the socio-economic structure of the territories also emerges. From traditional districts, based territorially on homogeneous and interconnected economic activities favoured by an entrepreneurial atmosphere (Becattini 2000) the move is to clusters (Porter 1985), open networks (Corò and Micelli 2006), augmented districts (De Michelis 2001), technological districts (Bossi et al. 2006) and many other substantial or nominal configurations. We do not know their nature well as yet, but they are united by the presence of a territorially localised “core” and by resources and services not generated within the territory but by external networks (multinational companies, global supply chains), with beneficial effects of an exchange of learning between network companies of the territory open to internationalisation and multinational companies located in the territory. The "collective competition goods" with which the territory is equipped become crucial. (Crouch et al. 2004)

The business network, as well as the newly integrated production districts, when all comes to all, needs many networks and new infrastructure for the production, distribution, and management of both the intangible—knowledge—and the material flows, represented by modular production, semi-components, or finished products, prepared for marketing by another network company, which may even be a part of the same international network. From this perspective, an economy of flexibility and integration is created. It requires increasing investments in the sector of infrastructures (material and immaterial) and mobility (of goods, human resources, and capital). Within this new economic scenario of pervasive innovation and constant globalisation, the real challenge for these new networked organisational models—with their increasingly indefinable boundaries—is that addressed entirely at a cultural level, as it consists of the strategic ability to know how to choose the partners with whom to share one’s mission and the reasons for conducting business, by identifying the tools required to intervene and the areas of organisational and productive integration and, as a result, by planning the phases of operational action necessary to achieve the expected results. Above all, however, it is necessary to define systems of coordination and control, but also methods and tools for the evaluation of the actual results acquired. Concerning the essential theory that informed the innovative scope of these new types of reticular organisations, Butera explained (2007, p. 6): These types of companies with ephemeral borders and identities have been given different names: transactional enterprise (Coase), quasi-enterprise (Eccles), dynamic network structure (Miles, Snow), macro-enterprise (Dioguardi), enterprise solar system (Piore, Sabel), and others. All these definitions highlight the following:

(a) That in all cases these be “hybrid companies”, partly composed of organisational structures, partly of markets. (b) That there be no coincidence between the legal-organisational boundaries of the “business entity” and those of the entrepreneurial, managerial, and technical actions of the same party.

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(c) That the real container and regulator of economic and organisational processes be constituted by processes of enhancement and by systems of regulation between firms—and not by the structure of individual firms. All this calls for a new framework of theoretical knowledge that supersedes the present-day gap of incommunicability between scholars of business, economic processes, organisation, technology, and human resources.

The Cognitive Approach It is in the “cognitive” interpretative perspective that we find the theses of Weick (1988, 1993, 1997), which propose reading (and considering) organisation by applying the concept of sensemaking, intended as a continuous process by which meaning is conferred on individual and social (organisational) action, not as a reality external and pre-existing to human action, but as an entity emerging from a flow of actions. The specific connotation of the concept of sensemaking as used by Weick (1997, p. 13) means “construction of meaning”. This is a continuous process, by means of which it is possible to identify the ways people generate organisational behaviour, starting from their interpretation of the result itself and the meanings they assign to it. In describing this individual and collective process, Weick pointed out (1997, p. 15): “Speaking of sensemaking means speaking of reality as a continuous construction, which takes shape when people retrospectively give meaning to the situations in which they find themselves and which they have created”. This concept, in the behavioural analysis of new organisational models oriented towards a cognitive approach, acquired decisive importance, since it determined the context in which people, by individual and collective action, activated the organisational environments within which they acted. For Weick, therefore, people built, rearranged, identified, and demolished many aspects of the environment around them. They were not limited to perceiving or “undergoing” an organisational environment. From this point of view, it might be argued that the cognitive approach represented an organisational theory opposite to that of Taylor-Fordism, since it ignored prescriptive and predetermined conditioning and focused on involvement, motivation, and personal commitment when activating organisational relationships and, through these, an adequate achievement of common and shared objectives. Ultimately, the “cognitive” analytical approach emphasised a subjectivist choice and paid more attention to culture (that of people and organisations), rather than simply to the dynamics of organisational and professional roles or the configuration of structures. By this, as Schein, another important author belonging to this school, pointed out, we mean

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Economic and Social Changes and the Development of Organisational Theories A structured set of basic assumptions—invented, discovered or developed by a determined group when it learns how to deal with its problems of adaptation with the external world and those of integration within it—which proved to be so functional as to be considered valid and, therefore, indicated to those who enter the organisation as the correct way of perceiving, thinking and feeling regarding those problems. (1990, p. 35)

Schein identified three different levels of culture: the first, the most evident, was related to artefacts, symbols, and technologies; the second was related to values (declared and expected) that were already less visible mechanically; the third involved identification with the “basic assumptions”, the deep beliefs of subjects, difficult to identify without appropriate investigation. This level of analysis aimed at identifying and understanding fundamental assumptions, which go beyond symbols and lead to consideration of culture as the result, but also the limit, of organisational learning processes. Schein’s studies belong to this context, and are linked to those of Schon (1978), but also of Bateson (1976), Rhenman (1973), and Norman (1977). As regards the role of values Bennis (2009, p. 88) sustained that, “A value system, beliefs, are important so you know where you stand, but they must be your own values, not someone else’s”. From this paradigmatic perspective, even in the thinking of the fathers of classical economics, as Sen explained, cultures and values played a fundamental role, permitting us to go beyond narrow individualistic and utilitarian horizons and move towards a vision of greater effectiveness regarding the workings of the economic system (Sen 2000, p. 113). Adam Smith argued in The Wealth of Nations that the pursuit of one’s own interest constituted an adequate motivation for seeking exchange in order to want to buy and sell—but he also argued that motivation of this kind was not sufficient for the success of trade. In order for trading to be efficient, something more than the simple fact that it was possible to gain from trading needed to come into play. The importance of trust in commercial and economic relations, he held, was difficult to overlook. It was also necessary to consider the role of concern for—and that of the company towards—others. This was what Smith called “sympathy”, “generosity”, and a “sense of community”.7 The success of operations of trading and production, programmes for the reduction of poverty, public health measures, and the growth of general productivity depended on the regularity of behaviour of the people involved. Many empirical studies and analytical research projects have highlighted the importance to economic and social progress of values.8 In other words, the authors who acknowledged the cognitive approach proposed the construction of a new organisational culture, as a learning organisation (Argyris 1978), that is, an organisation that knows how to relate positively with its stakeholders and capable of learning from its own mistakes and improving thanks to the 7

Smith analysed these different motivations explicitly in his Theory of Moral Feelings, but referred to them also in his Wealth of Nations (Author’s note). 8 This question was addressed in greater detail in Economic Wealth and Moral Sentiments (Hoffmann 1994). See also the works cited there (author’s note).

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significance bestowed on their organisational action by the subjects belonging to it. Thanks to the interactions of these subjects (as well as of the direct users and other stakeholders), the culture and structure of the organisation, these scholars held, would be constantly changed and enhanced. Argyris introduced a fundamental concept to facilitate an understanding of the functioning and development of new organisational models, that of the double loop (a double circle of emission and reception of a given content), that is, the idea of learning to learn. He believed that in the new globalised economic and social scenario, learning as such was not enough; it needed to be part of the culture of the people and of that of the organisation, if we really wished to implement a real change. In this regard, recently a decisive role is being played by the heuristic pathway outlined by Senge (2012), The Fifth Discipline. The Art and Practice of Organisational Learning, which lay the foundations for the development of a model based on the ability to see the world in its complexity in order to understand the true foundations of change and the relationships existing between people and results obtained by a company. Senge made it clear that it was necessary to acquire tools capable of distinguishing between what is important and what is not and knowing which variables to focus on and which ones to pay less attention to. This meant, according to the scholar, that we needed ways that help groups of people to develop a shared understanding. This analytical and interpretational of organisational reality required activation of an organisational learning process intended as a way of learning more swiftly from oneself and from others. To do this it was necessary to seize all available opportunities, possess the ability to evaluate, feel free to experiment and make mistakes, make repeated attempts, discuss possible solutions with others in a stimulating environment, and exchange information at all levels while rapidly grasping signals from the external environment. The purpose was to accede to the market before others with new products and services. On this basis, it would be possible, he hypothesised, to build an organisation capable of responding to the challenges of technological innovation and globalisation and create the conditions for a fair and lasting kind of business development. In other words, a correct implementation of the concepts of the learning organisation, not only represented a new source of competitive advantage but also favoured an extraordinarily effective approach to work where people brought all their motivation and creativity into play to enhance the business. Although, in this regard, as Koestler (1975, p. 28) pointed out in his The act of creation, this would require creativity and consent—difficult compromise. He commented that when hiring the employer sought creative collaborators capable of thinking outside the conventions. Then, he held that daily management eroded good intentions and that, in the sluggishness of routine, it was the need for consent that prevailed. The introduction of these concepts broke the rigid boundaries of traditional organisation and definitively brought to an end the era of objectivist organisational theories, such as Taylor-Fordism which considered the organisation a machine. It gave rise to a new world, that of subjectivism in organisational action, sensemaking,

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and the fundamental role played by culture, as a strategic variable capable of triggering a process of change. This meant that positive interaction between the subjects (internal and external to the organisation) made it possible to forge a relational modality deemed effective and constitute a real network of experiences to be assumed as a behavioural reference by those seeking to bestow purpose and direction on their organisational action (intentional and endowed with meaning). Moreover, Bonazzi also recalled that for Schein, leadership and culture were simply two aspects of the same reality: that studying the leadership of an organisation meant studying its culture and vice versa (2002, p. 163). He also pointed out that the transmission of organisational culture was relatively simple when the new members were young people and not yet trained. It became complicated when new members, especially employed at the upper echelons of an organisation, introduced ideas and values acquired elsewhere. In this context, as Zan (1988, p. 48) observed, Schein, informed by the logic of Selznick (1957), an author who dealt with leadership, observed that the main task of the leader (manager) was to create and nurture the specific culture of the organisation. An analysis of organisation based on this theoretical paradigm was carried out in a rather recent research project regarding the development of models of organisation in public administration and the role played by management in governing cultural, organisational, technological, and relational changes (Cocozza, 2004, 2012a, b). With regard to the development of the various organisational theories, an interesting view of analysis was provided by Giddens (2001), in his Fundamentals of sociology. According to him the structure was conceived as a tool permitting recursive (constant over time) orientation and organisation of human conduct, while it was also the result of that kind of conduct. It was dualistic in character, as it permitted favours and interacted with human action, though it could not exist without this action, but determined its constant production and reproduction. The theoretical effort of Giddens, as already analysed elsewhere (Cocozza, 2005), was aimed at addressing the age-old question posed by the two different paradigmatic sociological approaches, referring to an objectivistic (holism) and subjectivistic (individualism) view regarding the explanation of the antinomic relationships between the role of structure and that of individual action. On the basis of this theoretical framework, Giddens identified two fundamental variables which he used to explain the phenomenon of social action within different organisational contexts. They were represented respectively by the knowledgeability of human beings and by the influence of social processes over the action of the actor, not always aware of them. This approach, as Cesareo also noted, obliged Giddens to underline the active role of the actor as a conscious agent and architect of her/his own destiny, without entering into the realm of subjectivism, since it recognised the existence of social phenomena that went beyond the capacity for the intentional determination of the human being. The actor was conceived, therefore, as socially competent because s/he possessed a lot of knowledge relating to the conditions of reproduction of the society to which s/he belonged (1993, p. 96).

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Ultimately, Giddens’s theoretical scheme proposed the supersession of the paradigmatic irreconcilability existing between holism and individualism (and between the primacy of structure and individual action) and placed due synthesis at the basis of the explanation of the phenomenon of rationality that guided the actor to carry out an exchange between three fundamental variables (1979, p. 56): the subjectivity of the actor, the unconscious, and unforeseen consequences. In Giddens’s theoretical scheme, the actor’s subjectivity was expressed through three different tools: • Reflexive control • Rationalisation • Motivation Two further variables that needed to be taken into consideration were the unconscious and unexpected consequences, which escaped the possibility of direct control by the actor her/himself. Reflexive control was connected with the intentional character of human action, which, in its concrete execution, became practical, routine action; rationalisation, on the other hand, acted as a support to reflective control and permitted the actor to “make public” her/his ability to explain the reasons for her/his actions; motivation intervened only exceptionally, when the action to be taken and the rationality to be activated emerged from the daily routine of social activity, even if a sort of motivation always existed (even in an unconscious manner) in social action. This theoretical scheme permitted social structures, intended as “an organised set of rules and resources”, to assume an important role, as they interacted positively with action, thus guaranteeing the possibility that the latter might express themselves in everyday action, at different space-time intervals, in a recognisable (and acceptable) form. In this case, we are dealing with semantic rules, which provided ordered sets of meaning and interpretative schemata, or moral rules, showing how to evaluate the conduct undertaken, and resources, understood as sets of capabilities or advantages that actors implement in order to influence an interaction process. In other words, according to Giddens, by availing itself of this interaction, the structuring process was set in motion. On the one hand, it had need of the social structures that conditioned the action of the actors through the introduction of regulatory, technical, and cultural constraints; on the other hand, it needed the actors who, through their action, interpreted and modified those same constraints and brought into play processes of production and reproduction of the social organisation. An effective explanatory metaphor of this concept might be found in spoken tongues, where the language represents both the structure and the set of rules and resources we use to speak which at the same time are the result of our actions. This means that language does not remain the same over time, but changes. Indeed, in this regard, Giddens stated that: Every act that contributes to the reproduction of a structure also constitutes an act of production, a new initiative, and as such can give rise to change by altering the structure while also reproducing it, just like the meaning of words changes during and through their use. (1979, p. 179)

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The Development of Corporate Organisational Models: Innovation, Quality, and the Focus on Customers

Organisation as an Object of Interdisciplinary Research Over the last century, given the growing intrinsic complexity of the various types of organisation, starting from the advent of the Second Industrial Revolution, the development of the various models of organisation has become an interdisciplinary field of investigation and an object of research for numerous disciplines, whose disciplinary matrices and basic topics of study might be summed up as follows (Biggiero 1995, p. 562): • The law, which outlines the boundaries of the action of economic and legal entities (public and private), and deals with the purposes of administration, their competencies, the powers of public and private entities, obligations, and prohibitions • Sociology, which analyses rationality in organisational and administrative action, the functions of organisations, organisations as socio-technical systems, the formation of social values, the various forms of power, industrial relations • Psychology, which studies interaction between individuals, the structure of motivation, the structure of incentive, styles of leadership, learning processes • Engineering, which analyses and designs information systems, logistics, operations research, total quality, network theories • Economics, which probes deeply into the characteristics and methods of efficiency, decision-making processes, opportunism in the behaviour of company actors, cost control, information costs • Also, other disciplines such as computer science, architecture, and medicine, which investigate aspects induced or connected with the activities they carry out During the same period, organisational studies underwent an important development and passed from a classical conception to the one known as systemic. This © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_4

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development introduced the “environment” as a variable determining development of organisations in general and the corporate organisational model in particular (Bonazzi 1993a, 2002). The classical perspective considered organisations in a mechanistic sense, while the systemic perspective considers them as organisms, real living systems, placed within the larger environment with which they interact. The metaphor of the organism identifies organisations as open systems, whose organisational and work processes adapt to the environment; it recognises organisations as life cycles, whose sets of relationships between individuals and the existence of different needs amplify their capacity for “biological” survival on the one hand and, on the other hand, awareness of a broader and more comprehensive view of organisation. Previously, the metaphor of the machine confined organisational theories within an engineering-type conception concerned exclusively with relationships between objectives, structures, and efficiency and compared organisation to a clock (Butera 1988). It was a perfect mechanism, in that it was not prone to improvability, was selfreferential, and solved issues or conflicts internally. For this reason, it was unable to adapt and survive in environments affected by noteworthy change. The new concept has led, instead, to a focusing of attention on matters of survival, on organisational-environmental relationships, and on organisational effectiveness. For example, bureaucratic (mechanical) organisations tend to reach the highest level of effectiveness in stable or sheltered environments. Conversely flexible (organic) organisations are more effective within turbulent and unpredictable contexts. In the current economic and social scenario, all organisations find themselves operating in a turbulent, highly unstable environment, which changes rapidly and with a frequency characterised by elements of discontinuity. A turbulent environment was one that traditionally self-referential structures (like Ministries) had to deal with. Forms of turbulence obliged them to revolutionise the way they had operated until then, in order to provide more effective and efficient public services to the community. This theoretical development took over a period of about fifty years, starting from the beginning of the twentieth century, when the social scientists used different categories of analysis to understand innovative organisational realities and contribute to the development of ways to study them.

Organisational Complexity and the Social Systems Theory This new heuristic perspective was introduced into the social and organisational sciences to obtain a better understanding of the development of societies and organisations, using theoretical notions such as complexity and the social systems theory advanced by Bertanlaffy (1971) and Parsons (1965, 1986), and developed, albeit with different nuances, by Luhmann (1990, 1991, 1996) and Habermas (1980, 1986).

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This perspective made a series of theoretical contributions to the analytical scheme of the sociology of organisations, which, as argued elsewhere (Cocozza 2005), stemmed from disciplines very remote from each other, like cybernetics and biology. From the latter discipline, Luhmann (1990) introduced “autopoiesis” into the social sciences. This concept had been introduced for the first time by Varela (1979) and Maturana (1982) to describe both the set of rules and modalities by means of which “systems” were able to guide their processes of self-reproduction and a series of processes characterised by self-activation-promotion of functions and actions. As Luhmann himself wrote, “autopoiesis does not necessarily presuppose that the type of operations with which a system reproduces itself is absent from the system’s environment. In the environment of living organisms, there were other living organisms, in the environment of consciousness there was a different kind of awareness. However, in both cases, the reproductive process typical of a system could only be used internally, and not to unite the system and the environment. One could not construct another life or a different kind of awareness to introduce it into the system (. . .) In the case of social systems, this reality was configured differently in two senses. On the one hand, there was no communication outside of the company as a system, since it was the only system to avail itself of this type of operation based on objective necessities only. On the other hand, this was not true for any of the other social systems, which needed, as a result, to define their specific way of operating, or, thanks to reflection, determine their own identity to identify the units of meaning which needed to be continuously reproduced internally to permit the system to selfreproduce” (Luhmann 1990, pp. 106–107). Luhmann’s theory was based essentially on a functional analysis of the relationship between the system and the environment, and on the analysis of the difference of complexity between these two elements. However, with the acquisition of the concept of autopoiesis, a new form of the system was introduced: a system capable of self-reproduction. In this theoretical framework, system that sought to counteract the growing complexity caused by the environment needed, in turn, to be able to tackle complexity and tend towards its stabilisation. The relationship between system and environment appeared, therefore, in Luhmann’s theory, as a dialectical process of an adaptive type, where the system was engaged in a twofold selective strategy: the reduction of internal complexity and, at the same time, of the incorporation of the complexity coming from the environment (Cocozza 2005). Similarly, in the sociological analysis conducted by Habermas (1980, 1986), of a systemic and cybernetic orientation, too, the actor who conducted the action was the system. The attention, focused, therefore, on the relationship between the system and the environment, based on a retroactive process, meaning that the system reacted to the pressures-solicitations of the environment by adapting itself, meaning that it gave rise to an adaptive reaction. Another particular characteristic of the autopoietic systemic approach was due to the fact that the process of adaptation between the system and the environment might be exemplified essentially by a cognitive process. This meant that it was based on the transfer of information, or rather, on the acquisition of new knowledge and on the

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creation of new experiences, necessary for action of an innovative communicative type permitting achievement (and maintenance) of the stability necessary to the system.

From the Mechanical to the Organic Model In the development of the theory of the transition from a classical organisational to a systemic culture, we find the analysis conducted by Butera, which highlighted the transition from a management philosophy strongly anchored to the postulates of Taylor-Fordism and/or bureaucracy to a more innovative kind of management also oriented towards a systemic logic. Indeed, it was on the basis of this work that Butera (1988) identified these economic, organisational, and cultural changes as ones denoting a transition from one organisational model to another, and described their succession from a mechanical to an organic model, whose environmental and structural conditions are indicated in Table 1. Table 2 illustrates the changes in the organisational elements determined by transition from a mechanical to an organic model. In the mechanical model, which evoked the metaphor of the clock or the machine, the functions, tasks, organisational structures and procedures, and finally the processes were specified to the maximum and rationally interconnected by a preordained plan, in order to ensure the greatest possible overall efficiency, predictability, and governability of the individual parts. It was a huge machine useful for the Table 1 From the mechanical to the organic model: the environmental and structural assumptions Environmental and structural assumptions Environment The reference environment Economic criteria The industrial structure The business structure Technology Component tasks Information complexity Structure differentiation

Culture and strategy Integration Strategy Managerial culture Source: Butera (1988)

The mechanical model Placid or disturbed or reactive The economy of scale The prevalence of industrial activities Mechanisation Defined, few exceptions, problem-solving Media, feed-back Few pushed and separated specialisations Mechanical/hierarchical Middle term centred on production Engineering and accountancy

The organic model Turbulence The economy of flexibility Internal and external outsourcing

The automation of industries and the office, telematics Defined very little, many exceptions, problem settings High, feed-forward Many interdependent specialisations Systemics/science-based Long term, market centred Entrepreneurial: multidisciplinary engineering systems

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Table 2 From the mechanical to the organic model: the organisational elements Organisational elements 1. Aggregate work 2. Coordination of the system of control 3. Component tasks Macro tasks Micro tasks Task structure 4. Formal organisation Intermediate structures Integrative structures

5. Organisation of work

6. Allocation of work 7. Social system

The mechanical model The work of transformation prevails For programmes and procedures Pieces Segments of process defined on the basis of total homogeneity Execution Independent or sequential Bureaucratic/paper hierarchy Hierarchical/functional hierarchical divisional Hierarchical Hierarchy Corporate culture

Duties and positions Poor mobility Individual work Rigid timetable Not distinct from people Extrinsic cooperation

The organic model The work of coordination, maintenance, and innovation prevails Control according to objectives and results Cells Processes with identifiable results Control and adjustment of processes Interdependent Holistic (formal + non-formal) By business, project, matrix, systems Self-maintaining units islands, groups, etc.) Leadership Task forces, teams Integrative roles and structures Corporate culture Roles Versatility, rotation Teamwork Flexible schedule People in part perform the role Self-regulated cooperation

Source: Butera (1988)

production of high volumes (economy of scale) with few possible variations in the characteristics of the product (Fordist rigidity) to be put on the market (growing) or parked in warehouses or in yards. The organic model, on the other hand, as Butera explained alludes to a different metaphor: a kind of organisation resembling an organism with a high degree of complexity where the individual parts (structures, roles) are open systems that perform specialised functions. Though they operate on the basis of “areas of autonomy” and not due to delegation, they interact with each other on the basis of rules of the game that they themselves influence. They change thanks to processes of adaptation to the external environment as well as to internal inputs. Human beings are components of the system and not only as resources to be used. The relationship between the actor and the system is defined by a continuous dialectic between cooperation and conflict, between participation and distance. (1988, p. 286)

This organisational model characterised the new economic-organisational-productive configurations that emerged in recent years like networked enterprises or networked organisations. There no longer existed any kind of organisational determinism obliging firms to assume one model rather than another, as the author himself suggested (Butera 1990, p. 103): “the transition from one model to another is a cultural choice, not a necessity”.

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However, as has already been seen, the basic assumptions of the mechanical model no longer found concrete confirmation in the productive and organisational reality of the industrial sector, except after its radical revision and a significant process of technological innovation. This phenomenon, on the other hand, affected the service sector more and more. In this case, we could speak of a neo-Taylorist evolutionary trend, driven by weighty technological interventions and based on hyper-specialistic knowledge of individual operators. In recent years, we are witnessing a singular phenomenon, due to the fact that while factories have experienced a widespread abandonment of extreme forms of Taylorism, this organisational model is experiencing a new season in services. After all, not only McDonalds symbolises a rigorous form of neo-Taylorism in the organisation of fast food (Leidner 1993; Ritzer 1996) but also productive organisations like Postalmarket. As Bonazzi pointed out: Work by telephone in call centres where dozens of employees (generally young women (often with atypical or non-standard employment contracts)1 contact possible customers following strictly predetermined communication codes (Frenkel et al. 1999). Today, some traditional professions are affected by a process of bureaucratisation and Taylorisation, as anyone who has the good fortune of attending modern medical, dental, or legal offices can see. In a sole sitting, a number of technicians follow one another, all aseptic, smiling and highly specialised for short, precise, localised intervention. The old studios run by a single professional helped by one assistant at most disappear. This means that young people at the beginning of their careers can only find work as bureaucratic employees with a fixed salary paid by the firm, not proportional to the fees paid by clients. (2002, p. 40)

The Total Quality Challenge and Learning Organisation In the current competitive context, variable quality has acquired more and more importance, in particular, if it assumes the characteristics of total quality. In fact, as indicated by the EOQC (European Organisation for Quality Control), total quality is represented by all the elements and characteristics of a product and/or service, in relation to the ability to satisfy a specific need expressed by the final or internal customer. It may be considered as the cultural, technical, organisational, and relational capacity permitting one to integrate the company’s different skills with those of the customers and their expectations. For this reason, over the last three decades, the need to ensure quality certification for the processes and products/services provided to customers has spread pervasively, as a guarantee of corporate reputation, in terms of reliability, dialogue with customers, safety, and after-sales assistance. It was a cultural revolution, which began in the mid-1980s; Japanese companies launched a challenge regarding quality against companies in the West. It led to the development of new organisational forms of production and management of human

1

Author’s note.

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resources mainly in the industrial sector, which then spread to other sectors too. It all stemmed from the crisis that hit the large Western Taylor-Fordist enterprises and their vertically integrated organisational models, which began to flounder in the early 1970s all over the world, due to the grave difficulties worsened by the oil shock. In this regard, it is important to underline the fact that precisely this phenomenon, which dates back to 1973, as noted by Ohno (the father of Toyotism), accelerated the efforts made by the Japanese to activate the process of improving their lean production system, already oriented towards the production of small batches and the personalisation of the automobile product at Toyota. Recalling the importance of his visits to the USA immediately after the Second World War, he summed the situation up in a few words: “it was the oil crisis that opened our eyes” (Ohno 1993, p. 3). It is important to remember that contacts between the US and Japanese governments began with the end of the Second World War, when the American government, to help rebuild the industries in the telecommunications sector in Japan, sent a very important scholar (Deming), who initiated the culture of total quality management there. Deming, from 1946 to 1948, organised a series of conferences on the usefulness of the scientific approach to solving problems regarding production, on the role of statistics, and on the importance of quality as a strategic choice. Furthermore, he introduced a fundamental concept for development in a quality production perspective, not as yet acquired in Japanese culture back then: the idea that it was necessary to control waste and costs in order to improve quality. The results of these meetings were received by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE), and as early as 1951, the Deming Prize awarded to Japanese people and business organisations for excellence in this field was instituted, while, in 1986, it was also extended to embrace other countries. The real revolution in industrial production introduced by Deming (1991) consisted in the adoption of a method and a procedure called the PlanDoCheckAct (PDCA) cycle. This method went beyond the traditional Taylor-Fordist organisational logic of mass production and aimed at constituting an innovative method, on the basis of which it is possible to organise and implement teamwork, in a perspective of continuous improvement, starting from a recursive logic of a quality process. This was a scientific-based procedure which included four consecutive steps, represented by the following activities: plan (decide what to do); do (put into practice); check; act (check the results, generalise the procedure). On the basis of this sequential logic, the PDCA cycle was divided into four different phases, which included (Deming 1991): • The first phase envisages planning when the reference context and the action to be taken are analysed to enable decisions concerning the specific type of improvement to be pursued and the plan to be drawn up. • The second phase, where the developed work plan needs to be operationally itemised, before moving on to the implementation stage, the concrete implementation of the actions planned.

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• The third phase, in which, after putting the operational plan into practice, the results are measured, in order to verify that it has been carried out as foreseen and to detect the presence of any deviations or the need to rework the plan. • The fourth phase, by means of which the fine-tuning of the intervention is carried out, so as to find the highest degree of correspondence with the expected results and verify the opportunity to generalising the procedure tested. Sometimes it may happen that the work plan needs to be revised, updated, or even abandoned. If properly designed, it should generally achieve the results expected. After that, the other phases are carried out in such a way as to assume the characteristics of a new operating procedure. A further theoretical and professional contribution to the culture of quality was provided by Juran (Defeo and Juran 2010), with the publication of different editions of Juran’s Quality Handbook: The Complete Guide to Performance Excellence. Here the attention was focused on quality management and the involvement of collaborators in the achievement of company objectives. This involved the addition of the “human dimension” to the theories of total quality. In his studies, Juran made it clear that the complex phenomenon of quality wight be based on two major grounds: • The first refers to the characteristics of the products: a high level of quality means a large number of characteristics that meet the needs of customers. • The second refers to the fact that higher quality means fewer defects. Within this evolutionary scenario, as we know, the crisis of large companies in the West is arising and spreading precisely because it does not adopt this new cultural, organisational, productive, and relational paradigm in time. This seriously critical situation is attributable to four main strategic and organisational dysfunctions (Butera 1990, p. 20): • • • •

Rigidity of response to the market (poor rebalancing—strategy/structure) Increase in the costs of structures and supervision Low propensity to invest High social costs induced

Within this developmental framework, one might say that the crisis of the great Fordist enterprise model was affected by two particular disorders: entropy, which burned resources and generated an excess of internal management costs, and policies of conservation of niche-market positions. An instinct for conservation, which hindered fundamental innovation and adaptation processes, has had a negative effect on adherence to the market and capacity for competition. Furthermore, this model suffered from a lack of industrial policy on the part of successive governments in the last twenty years and a collective desire to create a “system” capable of establishing the conditions for the relaunch of a new season of economic and social development. A situation of strategic difficulty that, forty years later, is recurring with almost the same characteristics and continues to affect many European countries and, among these, Italy in particular as regards structure.

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In this scenario, over the past three decades, Italy has seen a diffusion of small and medium-sized enterprises (in Italy over 65% of its employed population works for small and medium-sized enterprises). However, some phenomena have led large enterprises to de-verticalise and “become small”, while others involving flexible specialisation-integration in the famous economic districts located in the coastal regions of the so-called third Italy—of which we have spoken already—are examples of a reference model capable of activating local development effectively. This type of economic and organisational development experienced structural variables that had the greatest impact upon transformation in Italy. These were (Butera 1988, p. 91): • The change in the economic criteria of conduct of a company was linked to increased turbulence in the market. That meant a transition from an economy of scale to an economy of flexibility. • The process of outsourcing within industrial companies and the economic system. • The extreme pervasiveness of technological innovation, which has gradually spread to all sectors of the economy. In particular, the transition from an economy of scale to an economy of flexibility saw the criteria of company management change radically and the very concepts of economic effectiveness and efficiency assume meanings different from those of the past. Economic effectiveness needed to be understood as appropriateness of the response to the market. It had been observed, actually, that within this model it was not only important to lower the costs per unit of production, but it had become important to produce the appropriate products or services in the time, place, and way the market requires. Business management, previously focused on production, was now centred increasingly on the market and was accepting the variability of the market and the consequent variety of products that that entailed. The second criterion that changed was efficiency. It indicated the measure of the cost and the amount of time elapsing from the moment a need was highlighted in the market to the moment when the product or service was delivered physically to the customer. Maximum efficiency meant promptness of delivery at a low cost (Butera 1988, p. 92). These changes tended to modify, considerably, both the numerical composition of the workers (the number of employees and technicians was increasing while that of the traditional workers in the industrial sector was dropping) and their professional make-up (ordinary workers becoming process operators; a greater presence of technical professionals and professional entrepreneurs). These transformations forced a review of the very notion of “manual work” and “intellectual work”, the distinction between them, and the attribution of professional tasks (Accornero 1994, p. 145). In fact, recently we are witnessing a profound change, which tends to redefine the professional roles in the company, integrating the traditional functions and specialist skills of employees and technicians with those of skilled workers. At the same time, a large part of the “standardisable” activity and work tasks are absorbed by the plants and new systems that incorporate a high level of technological innovation both in processes of production (in the strict sense) and in the services in support of

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production (administration, management, and control). Furthermore, the figures who perform only a hierarchical function (the intermediate heads) are fewer, since we move from a pyramidal organisational model (based on the hierarchy) to a flat company (with fewer hierarchical levels and based more on cooperation), or on a network type of organisation. This latter model is the result of a multiform network of exchanges between different companies, which tend to adopt models of organisation based on a logic of autonomy and interchange, rather than on hierarchical subordination. In this organisational type, represented by the network, even by the networking of networks, there is no form of subordination to a central referent that takes all the decisions, but a real polycentric organisational system. In this new system, strategic decisions are the result of processes of negotiation and cooperation between the various organisations that give life to the network, instead of being the deposit of a top-down decision-making flow.

Lean Organisation and Enterprise Community in Japan In this new scenario, the studies conducted by Womack et al. (1991), based on an impressive investigation by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) of the Japanese model, introduced the concept of lean production, characterised as a type contrary to the traditional productive model of the American and European big company, of which the Taylor-Fordist mechanical model is a typical example. In fact, in the lean production system small batches not high volumes are produced (the logic of the economy of flexibility or appropriateness), variations on the models are numerous, the range wide (supersession of Fordist rigidity), and finally, the intermediate and the final warehouse, with just-in-time production, have been eliminated completely. On the basis of the zero-stock policy, also activated at Fiat (SATA) in Melfi, steps were taken to outsource production and create a network of suppliers who would respect certain production, quality, and safety standards. Furthermore, by the zero-defect policy, the pursuit of programmes aimed at promoting a culture of quality, while a continuous increase in the quality standards found in the production processes was also activated by Ferrari in Maranello. In reality, a further significant difference in the managerial philosophy between the Japanese and Western models (the mechanical model in particular) is the role that workers play in the life of the company and their degree of participation in the production of goods and services. Their contribution, represented by active involvement and direct participation, is in many cases more important than that provided by technology itself. In other words, the culture of community enterprise in Japan is based precisely on the active involvement of workers, by means of teamwork and quality circles. These last two represent the real organisational motor of the Japanese model, which, thanks to the result of the activity of workers, aims at the continuous improvement of production (the Kaizen) (Coriat 1991; Bonazzi, 1993a, b).

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This model of human resources management is based on cultural factors endogenous to Japanese society, which have their roots in Shinto religious culture, but also in some important institutions that regulate work relationships in Japan and which are difficult to export to other economic, social, and cultural contexts. They are represented by the following four characteristics: lifetime employment (shigoto) also known by the lifelong employment formula; the enhancement of workers during their working life, by means of a continuous training process associated with relative career advancements and responsibilities within the company’s organisation; a remuneration system linked mainly to seniority; and a collaborative industrialrelations system with a clear corporate vocation (collaborative business unionism). But is there really a Japanese model?2 If it actually existed, it might well represent an opportunity and a model of comparison and growth for Europe, in a logic of effective benchmarking. In reality, the Japanese social model has one highly “critical side”, highlighted by a practically non-existent and a welfare state system not socially oriented, far from Europe’s social inclusive model. In fact, in the Japanese welfare system, there is considerable disparity in the economic and regulatory treatment between the workers of large companies and those of small companies, as well as a very high level of competition between the different “corporate cultures” of large companies. There is no universalistic welfare system since the assistance and welfare activities and healthcare systems (but, in part, also higher educational ones) are carried out by exclusively private subjects (connected with large companies). The workplace for workers in small and mediumsized enterprises provides no kind of security or legal guarantee, and their pay is 30–40% lower than that of workers in large companies. As has been pointed out: It is the large companies that manage their affairs directly in a hegemonic way. The entire social life of the central sector of the workforce, that located on the first market—the so-called loyalty market—is the heart of an integrated factory, and to which the loyalty required is compensated for by a high degree of safety. They are guaranteed life-long employment (shigoto) and often the hiring of their offspring; a certain, predetermined career pathway; welfare benefits provided directly by the company: health, pension, social services (tax burdens are at the lowest in the world, less than 10% of wages). (Revelli 1993, p. 34)

“Guaranteed” workers represent 30% of the labour market; a further 30% of workers are “precarious” (especially female staff) and are employed in small businesses; in

The question is posed in the interrogative form, for two reasons: the first because the Japanese do not perceive themselves as a model; the second because if it were a real model, in recent years it would not have experienced the moments of crisis it did, given the difficulties that the Japanese economy has been going through since the beginning of the new millennium. The first sign was the difficulty in which the lifelong employment policy found itself in some large industrial groups. In reality, these difficulties were due to reasons the opposite to ours, namely an excessive export capacity and a corresponding inability to develop the domestic market further. This is a difficulty due to the ability to make optimum use of all the economic and social resources available to the country, in a logic characterised less by social segmentation.

2

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the event of a recession, they are obliged to give way to big-company workers. Finally, it refers that: A third level, the so-called mercenary market: another 30 % are forced into marginal work (profane-Aruban work), devoid of any guarantee or stability. There are mass manoeuvres towards employment (even in central-productive segments requiring low levels of qualification and loyalty) when the market is thriving only to be expelled when the demand falls. (Revelli 1993, p. 40) Strong competition between the different companies has cemented a strong esprit de corps and made exceptional cultural integration of workers possible (in particular in large companies) according to the culture of the Enterprise Community.

Ultimately, the fundamental difference between Western and Japanese companies, therefore, lies in the endogenous economic, social, and cultural conditions that have permitted Japan to develop over the last forty years. All this leads us to believe that the Japanese model cannot be transferred automatically to the West, even less to Italy. However, it is possible to learn many things from this experience, starting with those associated with the challenge of quality on global markets.

The Challenge of Total Quality In this new scenario, the Italian and Western economic systems and models of organisation need to make a true quality leap forward. Even if a significant revival of the world economy has not occurred definitively, following that of the USA and that of Europe and Italy, the choices of national production systems will have to be increasingly oriented towards policies that tend to industrialise quality. In other words, it is a matter of adopting policies that permit a consolidation of and increase in the competitive advantage of products and services at national and international levels, by improving the cost-quality-technology ratio, enhancing human resources, and improving the quality of the work. Large Italian companies have now accepted the challenge of total quality and are implementing action plans by means of which they intend to carry out an effective reorganisation of corporate structures and the involvement of staff in a logic of continuous improvement of results. The challenge of quality certainly represents the new frontier of the new millennium for the Italian production system, but it is, so for, the model of human resource management and industrial relations that will have to support and permit the achievement of these objectives. Moreover, it is now a widely shared opinion that the Japanese model cannot be imported and implemented mechanically and that an Italian and European way to quality needs to be created. Just as it is universally recognised that the deficit with regard to the results obtained by the Japanese is mainly a deficit of the corporate organisational model and of the country’s system. In this regard, some suggestions contained in an important essay by Dore3 on the much-discussed Japanese system seem very interesting (Dore 1990). In his analysis, 3

Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston and director of the Centre for Japanese and Comparative Industrial Research at London University.

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Dore, while running the calculated risk of making Japan appear as an ideal model to follow, provided a useful comparison with the various economic, financial, and industrial policies adopted by European companies. Subsequently he proposed evaluations of industrial and labour relations in companies that are difficult to ascribe to the Italian context, though they are of undoubted interest. In fact, various scholars and social actors, starting from these considerations, agree to underline the strategic nature assumed by the enterprise-quality-development and enhancement of human resources-involvement-consensus and participation paradigm. According to economist Thurow, the current training of personnel and the improvement of skills represent the main strategic factor affecting competition between companies and between nations. They have an even greater impact than the availability of natural resources, capital, and technologies (1991, p. 103). With regard to the training policies implemented in Japanese compared to Western companies, it has been argued that the strategy of hiring, firing, and appropriating someone else’s skilled workforce is no longer valid in the twentyfirst century. A different system needs to be found (Thurow 1991, p. 104). It is clear that Western businesses need to change. However, if training actually assumes a strategic significance and represents a competitive factor between companies and countries, then, we need to question ourselves about the role of training itself. Today, above all, as Crozier suggests: Training in a trade does not mean simply teaching techniques enabling the manufacture of a product or provision of a service the purpose of which is self-evident. It involves training in participation and a cooperative effort, the meaning of which is revealed only by the mediation of a broader human structure. The rapid change of these structures requires that the philosophy of education be called into question again. (1990, p. 50)

In this regard, the difficulties facing the public professional training system in Italy are well known, while it seems that private-company training initiatives (professional and managerial) promoted as part of strategic plans for total quality implemented in several enterprises have achieved greater results in this sense. However, if one intended to implement a total-quality plan in an effective way, it would be necessary to define an ad hoc programme and prepare a series of interventions aimed at seeking an effective balance between strategy, organisational structures, and culture (professional, relational, and organisational) regarding the personnel in that given organisational context (Cocozza 1996a, b, c, p. 109). In fact, total quality can be considered as a series of “strategies”, within a “system” of logic, capable of producing a structural change within the organisational model, but also in productive and professional behaviour. From this point of view, there are nine strategies regarding quality capable of developing a completely new in-depth approach within key areas of a company. As appropriately indicated by Galgano, they might be classified as follows (1994, p. 16):

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• A customer-satisfaction strategy aimed at centring company policies strategically on demand and not on supply. • A new strategy of human resources, which, if placed at the centre of production and organisational policies, should determine a competitive advantage over competitors, which is difficult to imitate. • The strategy of partnership with suppliers capable of ensuring the accomplishment of production according to a just-in-time logic. • A strategy that “focuses” on a process favouring greater fluidity of the production process and the neutralisation of the barriers set by the boundaries of mechanical and/or bureaucratic structures. • A strategy of quality control in management, which should help reduce production defects and the need to rework products, because this would “force” the need to pay greater attention to the activity carried out by colleagues and collaborators; it also helps to introduce an internal-customer logic. • The strategy of continuous improvement: Kaizen, which induces the need to pay adequate attention to both procedural and product innovation processes. • The strategy of the “new product factory” driven by Kaizen should foster effective innovation of products. • The strategy of the internal promotion of quality, which should determine new productive, professional, relational, and managerial behaviour aimed at “doing things well, the first time”. • The strategy of involving staff, without whom no real, effective change is possible. Literature regarding this type of approach, intended as a systemic approach to total quality, or a set of interventions aimed at specifying business areas and functions, was particularly copious in the late 1980s, during the whole of the 1990s and beyond.4 This was due to the fact that a goodly number of Italian companies had undertaken corporate action plans and “quality” initiatives. In the field of industry we find, for example, Fiat, Zanussi, Sme, Enichem, and Italtel as well as other sectors like the services area, various credit institutions, Alitalia, and in the Public Administration of Inps [The Italian National Institute of Social Security]. Due to the constant research and consultancy activities carried out in recent years, several cases were analysed and observed directly; particular trends regarding change companies’ human resources management systems and industrial relations emerged that may be defined as follows: • Cultural change. This took the form of a tendency to resist and/or a propensity of people and organisations to adapt to a greater frequency of change. 4

The phenomenon of total quality was analysed, among others, by Caielli 1990; Demattè 1990; Montefusco 1990; Dertouzos, Ardigò 1991, Lester and Solow 1991; Porrari 1991; Tommasi di Vignano 1991; AA.VV. 1991; Passerini and Tomatis 1992; Parker 1992; Jacond and Metsch 1992; Haynes 1992; Joyce and Michael 1996; Galimberti and Maiocchi 1998; Cervai and Semeraro 2000; Dellacasa and Moncini 2002; Chiarini 2004).

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• Organisational changes. These started from the end of technological determinism and the Taylor-Fordist assumption represented by the one best way in the design and planning of organisational models. The boss assumed a critical function, her/his authority became increasingly more professional and less hierarchical, her/his leadership was based on informing and motivating collaborators and the ability to spread a strategic vision of change to all levels of the company. Change management5 becomes very important as it tended to alter the corporate hierarchical structure as well. For these reasons, a new challenge awaited companies in the years that followed, that of a drastic reduction of hierarchical set-ups. To achieve this, it was and remains necessary to review the current structures, the incremental result of both traditional culture and sedimentation over time (Auteri 1988). • Technological changes: extremely pervasive technological innovation and the growing obsolescence of professional knowledge and know-how re-proposed the need for continuous updating of professional profiles and figures, the adoption of professional training programmes, organisational adjustments, and new operational mechanisms. The end of technological determinism caused technologicalorganisational configuration to return to being the result of a series of conscious culturally and socially oriented choices (Cortellazzi 2004). • Changes in work performance: these were due to a shift in emphasis from “how much to produce” (economist vision) to “how to produce quality” (qualitative vision) and to customer satisfaction (both internal and final). The high degree of uncertainty and variability of the work process, the growing pace of technological-organisational innovation, and the achievement of quality objectives required workers to adapt more and more to operational substitution to cope with the shortcomings of the formal organisation. The rigidly conceived job was a concept that was increasingly difficult to apply and was gradually replaced by that of “professional role”, though almost all national contracts provide for “professional classification systems” still based on the concept of a job (although the various professional profiles have been amply enhanced). This means referring again to organisational categories based on “mechanistic” models. • Changes in the relational climate: this was produced by the effective enhancement and development of human resources and by the affirmation of a system of contractual rules that enhanced the role of social actors in the governance of social, professional, and productive complexity of the contemporary business context. This means that within this context the problem of forms of consent and the role of participation in the governance of change has arisen. The changes described above paint a very different picture from that of the traditional Taylor-Fordist factory. The present one is much more complex and technologically sophisticated, but also much more fragile in its implementation, precisely because it looks less and less like a large bureaucratic machine or a 5 By change management we mean a kind of managerial activity aimed at favouring processes of organisational and managerial change.

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clock. In industrial companies as well as in the services sector and even more so in the public services, the role of the worker has become more and more strategic as the quality of the service or rather the effectiveness of the service itself depends increasingly not only on technology but also on the training of the human resources employed, their professionalism, their performance, and their degree of participation in decisions relating to the organisation of the work process. On this topic, the authoritative arguments of Ardigò can be endorsed fully; these were: The challenge of total quality also means no longer giving credit to machines and advanced technologies as a radical alternative to factories based on the active participation-motivation of workers (1991, p. 71). In this sense, and this direction, as will be discussed below, more and more companies and social actors are orienting themselves to cope adequately with international competition and the processes of globalisation of the economy. As Porter argued, only by raising the level of quality standards of the products and services offered can a competitive advantage over competitors in the international markets be acquired (1990). The strategies of international competition and total quality, therefore, required greater involvement of workers in production strategies and better use of the tools of participation, communication, and training, as a means by which to improve the relational climate and growth of corporate communities (Spaltro and De Vito Piscicelli 1990; Cocozza 1996b). In reality, when we move away from the “sacred principles” of total quality management, problems “at home” can arise for those who invented and introduced this new organisational model, as occurred recently at Toyota. We are referring to an event in 2009 when Toyota was forced to recall more than ten million vehicles worldwide and pay a huge fine of 32 million dollars (almost 25 million euros), due to a fault found in some of their best-selling models on the American market. The problem, which caused a long series of accidents, many of them fatal, concerned the accelerator pedal, which kept the car accelerating against the will of the driver. Although, in retrospect, a study by the committee of the US Academy of Sciences has pointed out how difficult it is to trace the causes of a failure, when it comes to electronic components. For this reason, American scholars have urged the competent authorities at the national and international level to establish a technical table of experts, specialised in the solution of electronic problems in the field of auto vehicles, to improve the safety of cars, which, in the future, will depend increasingly on electronics. After all, as Orlando (2012) narrated in a report on Thales-Alenia, an aerospace company of international importance, when tests on the two Galileo satellites that completed the first phase of the European satellite navigation project alternative toGPS were ending, even in Italy, the logic of total quality was becoming a necessity. In fact, in the management and control of the Galileo production process, each critical circuit needed to be “redundant”,6 that is, have a backup, be tested in conditions of vacuum and at extreme temperatures. Then it needed to be submitted to 6

In engineering, redundancy is a method of construction which uses multiple means to carry out a certain function, arranged in such a way that a failure of the system can occur only as a consequence of the simultaneous failure of all the means provided.

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acoustic shocks and vibrations reproducing the launch, and stresses of all kinds to simulate real-life orbit conditions. Errors cannot be admitted in that company. Total quality is not a slogan to convince customers but an operational necessity, as a single fault might lead to irreparable damage, also in terms of billions of euros.

References AA.VV (1991) La sfida della qualità totale, Il Progetto, nn. 63/64 Accornero A (1994) Il mondo della produzione, Il Mulino, Bologna Ardigò A (1991) Soggettività del lavoro e modello giapponese, Il Progetto pp 63–64 Auteri E (1988) Management delle risorse umane. Fondamenti professionali, Guerini e Associati, Milan Bertanlaffy L (1971) Teoria generale dei sistemi, Istituto librario internazionale, Milan, ed. or. 1969 Biggiero L (1995) IL contributo delle teorie organizzative alle teorie dell’impresa. In: Caselli L Le parole dell’impresa. Guida alla lettura del cambiamento, vol II, Franco Angeli, Milan Bonazzi G (1993a) Storia del pensiero organizzativo. Franco Angeli, Milan Bonazzi G (1993b) Il tubo di cristallo. Modello giapponese e fabbrica integrata alla Fiat Auto. Il Mulino, Bologna Bonazzi G (2002) Come studiare le organizzazioni. Il Mulino, Bologna Butera F (1988) L’orologio e l’organismo. Il cambiamento organizzativo nella grande impresa in Italia. Franco Angeli, Milan Butera F (1990) Il castello e la rete. Impresa, organizzazioni e professioni nell’Europa degli anni ’90. Franco Angeli, Milan Caielli L (1990) I successi della qualità, non esistono segreti. L’Impresa 3 Cervai S, Semeraro A (2000) Aspetti psicologici della qualità totale. Università degli studi di Trieste, Dipartimento di scienze politiche, Trieste Chiarini A (2004) Total quality management, modelli e strumenti di gestione totale della qualità: Six sigma, Efqm, Hoshin, Balanced scorecard, Lean manufacturing, Franco Angeli, Milan Cocozza A (1996a) Le organizzazioni di rappresentanza in Italia. Cultura organizzativa e politiche di gestione delle risorse umane. Industria e Sindacato 12 Cocozza A (1996b) La sfida della partecipazione. Relazioni industriali e gestione delle risorse umane nell’impresa. Franco Angeli, Milan Cocozza A (1996c) Cultura e qualità del servizio nell’Inas Cisl degli anni Novanta, Rapporto di ricerca. Inas Cisl Nazionale, Rome Cocozza A (2005) La razionalità nel pensiero sociologico tra olismo e individualismo. Franco Angeli, Milan Coriat B (1991) Ripensare l’organizzazione del lavoro. Concetti e prassi nel modello giapponese. Dedalo, Bari Cortellazzi S (2004) L’arte e la parte. La formazione professionale e i nuovi scenari formativi. Franco Angeli, Milan Crozier M (1990) L’impresa in ascolto, Il Sole 24 ore. In: Milan (ed) or. (1989) L’entreprise à l’ècoute. Apprendre le management post-industriel, InterEditions, Paris Defeo J, Juran JM (2010) Juran’s quality handbook: the complete guide to performance excellence. McGraw-Hill, Columbus Dellacasa G, Moncini S (2002) Oltre la qualità totale. Franco Angeli, Milan Demattè C (1990) Management partecipativo: opzione o strada obbligata. Econ Manag 16 Deming E (1991) L’Impresa di Qualità. Isedi-Petrini, Turin Dore RP (1990) Bisogna prendere il Giappone sul serio, Saggio sulla varietà dei capitalismi. Il Mulino, Bologna

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Galgano A (1994) I sette strumenti manageriali della qualità totale. L’approccio qualitativo ai problemi, Il Sole 24 ore, Collana l’impresa, Milan Galimberti R, Maiocchi M (1998) La gestione totale della qualità come strategia per il successo dell’impresa. Franco Angeli, Milan Habermas J (1980) Agire comunicativo e logica delle scienze sociali, Il Mulino, Bologna (ed) or. 1967 Habermas J (1986) Teoria dell’agire comunicativa, Il Mulino, Bologna (ed) or. 1981 Haynes ME (1992) Project management: dall’idea all’attuazione. Franco Angeli, Milan Joyce P, Michael E (1996) Oltre la qualità totale. Jackson Libri, Milan Leidner R (1993) Fast food, fast talk: service work and routinization of the everyday life. University of California Press, Berkley Luhmann N (1990) Sistemi sociali. Fondamenti di una teoria generale, Il Mulino, Bologna, ed or. (1984), Soziale Systeme. Grundisse einer allgemeinen Teorie, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main Luhmann N (1991) La differenziazione del diritto, Il Mulino, Bologna, ed. or. 1981 Luhmann N (1996) Sociologia del rischio, Bruno Mondadori, Milan, ed. or. 1991 Maturana H (1982) Erkennen: Die organisation und Verkörperung von Wirklichkeit. Ausgewählte Arbeiten zur biologischen Epistemologie, Braunschweig Montefusco R (1990) Total quality assurance. Isedi-Petrini, Turin Ohno T (1993) Lo spirito Toyota. Einaudi, Turin Orlando L (2012) “Thales-Alenia: maxi commesse grazie ai satelliti”, Il Sole 24 ore, 30 giugno Parsons T (1986) La struttura dell’azione sociale, Il Mulino, Bologna, ed. or. 1937 Passerini W, Tomatis A (1992) Management dell’ascolto. Franco Angeli, Milan Porrari F (1991) “Formazioni Inps: un investimento per il futuro”, For Rivista Aif per la formazione, pp 13–14 Porter ME (1990) Il vantaggio competitivo. Edizioni Comunità, Milan Revelli M (1993) Introduzione. In: Ohno T (ed) Lo spirito Toyota, Einaudi, Turin Ritzer G (1996) The McDonaldization of society: an investigation into the Changong character of contemporary social life. Sage, Thousand Oaks Spaltro E, De Vito Piscicelli P (1990) Psicologia per le organizzazioni. Teoria e pratica del comportamento organizzativo, Nis, Rome Varela FJ (1979) Principles of biological autonomy, New York Womack JP, Jones DT, Ross D (1991) La macchina che ha cambiato il mondo. Rizzoli, Milan

Part II

Tools and Techniques

Tools for Analysis, Planning, and Organisational Development

In this chapter, a series of elements of sociological knowledge will be provided to explain how processes of analysis, planning, and organisational development might be organised and conducted. For this purpose, it is necessary to clarify, in advance, that the cognitive elements referred to here are by no means exhaustive when discussing the topic in question, especially for those who intend to carry out a professional investigation of the question. To carry out an analysis of the phenomenon of organisation, it is necessary to resort to a multidimensional theoretical approach capable of orienting coordinated investigative activities aimed at observing, measuring, and interpreting a series of variables, which we may consider critical,1 that exist in almost all organisations. In line with this heuristic approach, in order to carry out an effective analysis of the phenomenon of organisation, it is necessary to adhere to a procedural scheme, which considers the structural and cultural dimensions, organisational roles, and mechanisms of coordination.

The Structural Dimension of Organisation To carry out an effective structural analysis, aimed at investigating the configuration of organisations, starting from the indications provided by Gallino (1993, p. 472), the following strategic variables might be considered:

1

Critical variables are elements subject to crisis (from the Greek krìsis—choice, decision), and subject, therefore, to continuous transformation. Their analysis provides particularly relevant information which permits us to understand the main trends of change. At the same time, they also represent the strategic variables that need to be monitored while managing organisational processes aimed at effective management of human resources. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_5

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• The constitutive purposes of an organisation, its corporate (or institutional) mission, the main strategies adopted, the products and services provided (the institutional functions exercised). • The activities required to perform the tasks associated with the corporate (or institutional) mission, its subdivision (into phases or processes), the allocation of the roles and structures of the organisational system. • The fundamentals of the workings of the system of command and authority (the distribution of power), the degree of legitimacy perceived by the main professional groups that comprise the organisation, the type of leadership exercised (with particular attention to the role and method of the involvement and participation of collaborators in processes of production, organisation, and decisionmaking). • The environmental context of the institutions and market in which the organisation operates, the main characteristics of the legal, economic, and political system, the stakeholders with which it interacts, its human component, its local socio-cultural system, its processes of social mobility, structure, and labour market trends. • Economic and financial (institutional), productive, and organisational objectives. • The resources required by the organisation and those actually employed to achieve the estimated results, broken down into human, financial, technological, and instrumental (including machinery and systems). • The methods and procedures for recruiting and selecting personnel, the degree of “attraction” of the organisation within the local labour market, the socialisation, training, and education system. • The characteristics of the labour mobility processes within the organisation, and movement from the inside to the outside.2 • The decision-making processes at different levels, the degrees of planning and programming of decisions made with reference to the different models of rationality. • The technology used and its primary (characteristic and distinctive) degree of pervasiveness; its ability to enable (training, education, etc.) and support (administration, design, planning and programming, transversal services, etc.) processes. The level of its propensity for the innovation of processes and products, the system it uses to coordinate and control production (administrative) and hierarchical supervision. • Its historical and current trend towards effectiveness (the ratio between objectives and results), efficiency (the ratio between the resources employed and the value produced), adaptation (the ratio between the demand for resources formulated by the organisation and its supply of the markets), reference (the relationship between the organisation’s offer and the demand of the markets or the external

2

The analysis of this specific variable serves to identify the presence of processes of formation (and/or maintenance) of forms of organisational oligarchy or possible traces of relationships marked by clientelism or nepotism.

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environment), internal integration (the degree of mutual adaptation between the different units or structures of the organisation). • The processes of differentiation and external integration, in relation to the growth potential of the organisation, its rate of development, and probable future trends.

The Cultural Dimension of Organisation In addition, however, to the structural analysis, to understand better and in greater depth some aspects that may remain unexplored and in the shade, it is appropriate to carry out a cultural analysis of the phenomena of organisation, taking their soft critical variables into due consideration. These variables, which tend to integrate those already analysed in the previous structural approach3 (as experimented in various research projects regarding the development of organisational models, the role of leadership, and the enhancement of human resources), may be reflected in the following classification (Cocozza, 2004a, 2010a, b): • The foundations of the operation of the system of command and authority (the distribution of power), the degree of their formal and informal legitimacy regarding the main professional groups that compose the organisation. • The leadership model is exercised, having previously identified a theoretical scheme to which to refer.4 • The role assigned to the participatory leadership model and to that of autonomy, the method adopted in the processes of involvement and participation of collaborators in the organisation’s productive, organisational, and decision-making processes the opposite of the traditional models of human relations and management (autocratic and bureaucratic). • Professional groups and their cultures, the roles and influence they perform within the organisation, and their methods of interaction. • Communicative processes, organisational communication, levels of distribution: strategic communication, functional, formative, and creative communication. • Relational climate and organisational behaviour, vertical and horizontal processes of cooperation and conflict.

3

The initial stage of the cultural approach may be similar to the previous one, since it is aimed at gathering structural information, which, in any case, plays a fundamental cognitive role in the analysis of organisations. 4 An examination of the different types of leadership is carried out more fully in the sixth chapter, where a theoretical framework within which to place the different models is provided. In particular, after examining the development of the various theories of leadership, a theoretical framework based on five leadership models is proposed: autocratic, bureaucratic, human relations, participatory, and pro-autonomy.

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• The relationship between leadership and the policies and tools implemented to enhance human resources. • The role of metaphors in the description of an organisation.5 Most of the structural and cultural phenomena that condition the life of an organisation, its progress and development, like conflict, tension, crises, and decline, can be explained, or at least rationally interpreted, on the basis of the two analytical schemes presented. Moreover, Bonazzi also agrees with the statement that leadership and culture are but two aspects of the same reality: by studying the leadership of an organisation we study its culture and vice versa (2002, p. 163). This logic, which enhances a cultural approach as proposed by Strati (2004) in his essay on Organisational Analysis. Paradigms and methods, makes it possible to cease to consider organisations in a mechanistic manner, but as complex cultural realities comprising logos, ethos, and pathos. Here the tacit knowledge characterising expert knowledge, the construction of cognitive maps, the aesthetic understanding of organisational life, the dialectic between genders, and the relationships between communities of practice and organisation prevails.

Analysing Organisational Roles Once the structural and cultural macro analysis phase of the organisation has been completed, it is possible to move on to the analysis of organisational roles. This analysis makes it possible to distinguish, generally and within every single role, two major areas of intervention: execution and decision-making, related directly to the hierarchical structure of the system upon which professional classification is based. In other words, while the first, which outlines prescriptions, varies, the second regards the discretionary component of roles. The executive area regards tasks to be performed as well as the procedures and rules that need to be respected to achieve certain results. It is within the sphere of decision-making sphere that the degree of autonomy and responsibility correlated with the results to be achieved is found. Usually, traditional models of organisation of a mechanical, Taylor-Fordist, or bureaucratic type contain a markedly prescriptive component regarding almost all the organisational roles; each prescription is directly proportionate to the hierarchical position held within the organisation. That is to say, that at the lower levels of the organisation, at the base of the pyramid, no type of discretionary component is

5 By means of this analytical parameter which regards the metaphorisation of an organisation and with reference to what an important scholar of the cultural aspects of the organisation pointed out (Morgan, 2002), we intend trying to obtain from the interviewees a synthetic image of the reality to which they belong. This means asking interviewees to make a small effort of imagination that, by means of a metaphor, evokes the image they perceive of the organisation to which they belong (Cocozza 2004a, b, c, p. 42).

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acknowledged, while those at the top are not entitled to undertake any form of activity. As has already been seen, these are the classical organisations where those who perform tasks need not think, but there is no way of guaranteeing that they cannot. Indeed, their informal contribution (unprescribed and unforeseen) often depends on the actual achievement of results, while those at the summit of the pyramid have to decide everything. On the other hand, in the new models of an organisation like flat, network or learning organisations, given that they contain a less accentuated hierarchy than that of previous models, the discretionary component, connected with autonomy and responsibility, is spread equally over the organisation’s various roles. A kind of widespread accountability exists which involves all the members of the organisation and the different levels regarding the distribution of tasks and methods applied to achieve certain expected results. This type of micro-organisational analysis is useful in cases where a system of selection of human resources (from the internal or external market) to be attributed a vacant (or new institution) organisational post needs to be set up or a tool for the evaluation of performance implemented, or a training course planned. It becomes necessary if one intends to proceed to the next stage of organisational redesign since it cannot ignore the basic data and information collected using this analytical methodology. Once the data and information deriving from an organisational analysis of the various structural and cultural modes (macro and micro) have been acquired, they are processed to produce a report which takes into account the trends of particular interest highlighted by it. Starting from an interpretation of these trends, we might hypothesise a passage into a possible next phase, represented by organisational planning (or redesign).6 The design or redesign of a new organisational model permits substantial intervention on three sizable aggregates or operational components: the organisation, the structure, the process. Taking into account methodological reflection regarding the distinction between design and redesign, it is possible to intervene on a single operational component, and simultaneously on the others. In particular, redesigning an organisation means action upon a macro component that concerns “the set of people, financial resources and means arranged on the basis

6

The activity of organisational planning can be carried out, when the top management—in the role of internal client (if those who carry out this activity are internal to the organisation), or the client tout court (if they are external)—recognises (or is led to recognise) the need, and believes that the cultural, political, financial, and organisational conditions required to proceed with the activation of an organisational project of this type exist. In most of the empirical cases observed directly in the field, this activity often becomes an activity of redesign, since it does not seek to design an organisation from scratch, but to redesign, in part or in full, organisations that are already structured and operating. Except in cases of newly established organisations, it is possible to assume that, on most occasions, structured beliefs and behaviour styles regarding the main components of organisational planning exist already. These include those relating to the division of tasks, the allocation of resources, the definition of decision-making processes, at times even the professional and relational skills, etc. deemed necessary. All this makes a clear distinction between design and redesign, considering the first far less complex than the second, since, in a certain sense, the action takes place within an optimal context of blank-slate condition.

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Fig. 1 The five fundamental parts of an organisation. Source: Mintzberg (1979)

Strategic summit

Technostr ucture

Intermediate Line

Staff of support

Operative Unit

of a clear model of mutual relationality, aimed at the achievement of a common goal and the guaranteeing of the environmental conditions within which the whole belongs”. The redesign of a structure, on the other hand, is likely to require action aimed at intervening within the “complex set of ways by which the division of labour into distinct tasks is carried out and, therefore, how coordination between these tasks is achieved”. More simply, the design7 of a process might include intervention concerning “ways of carrying out (over time) a set of interconnected actions that give rise to a form of development seen as the transformation of certain inputs in particular outputs, which assume a meaning for the user (the internal or final customer) “. In order to intervene with regard to these three operational categories (organisation, structure, and process), however, it is necessary to identify and analyse, upstream, what Mintzberg (1979, 1983, 1985) called the five fundamental parts of an organisation. In particular, these are the the analytical parts typical of any structured organisational model (Fig. 1): the strategic summit, the intermediate line, the operational core, the techno-structure, and the support staff. In this conceptual scheme, the strategic summit is composed of the people who have overall responsibility for organising and overseeing the following functions (Mintzberg 1985):

7

It might be correct to refer to the activity of design in this case, since it is at a level of this kind of organisation that it is possible that it be considered a veritable “from-scratch” operational component. That is to say, it may be seen as a structure of organisation that did not exist previously, although it was there in structured organisations that historically have tested other organisational methods of coordination of tasks, as well as in established organisational culture.

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• The definition of the overall strategy of the organisation. • The management of the network of relationships with actors outside the organisation. • The supervision of the main activities. In turn, on the other hand, the intermediate line comprises human resources that connect the strategic top management and the operational core (middle management and middle managers), whose main functions are represented by the following activities: • The collection and transmission of information. • The expression and representation of formal authority. • The possibility of being able to intervene in the decision-making flow. The operational core, in turn, is an expression of the human resources that perform executive activities associated directly with the creation (production) of the goods and services specific of a given organisation. The techno-structure, on the other hand, brings together all those human resources that plan, control, and evaluate the process. Their main functions are exemplified in the following activities, which are fundamental for the survival of any structured organisation: • • • • •

Design Planning Formation Training Consultancy for the strategic top

Finally, the support staff comprises those human resources who perform an activity at the service of the main, distinctive processes of a given organisation, with auxiliary functions with respect to the strategic top. The fundamental concepts of design will be examined below. First of all, it should be noted that the organisational configuration arises from the internal coherence between the fundamental concepts of organisational planning represented by the following variables: macro-structure, individual positions, lateral connections, and the decision-making system. In this heuristic organisational scheme, the macro-structure represents the grouping of individual positions into units and the definition of hierarchical relationships between the units. The individual positions, on the other hand, represent the activities carried out by the individual operators; the lateral connections represent the relationship and methods of coordination at horizontal level of the various organisational units. Finally, the decision-making system expresses the decisionmaking process. It is necessary to emphasise the fact that the idea of organisation implicitly carries the idea of the division of labour. In other words, the famous question that needs to be answered is “who does what?” To this another strategic question needs to be added which is, “with what role and skills?” That is, the distribution of operational

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activities, and task allocation among different human resources (individuals or organisational units), involved in a product or a service realisation, require some form of integration and coordination. This coordination, during the planning of the development of an organisation, needs to be identified so as to be transformed subsequently into precisely structured (and recognised) mechanisms for the coordination between human resources and organisational structures.

The Role of Mechanisms of Coordination Any organisation, in order to function and achieve results, to positively integrate the structural and cultural dimensions, needs to make use of adequate and effective mechanisms of coordination, that is, devices in line with the logic of the specific governance of the organisation in question. According to this interpretative paradigm, the main mechanisms of coordination, according to Mintzberg (1985), might be exemplified under the following headings, starting from a verticalised approach to arrive at an integrative, participatory dimension: • • • • •

Direct supervision Standardisation of work processes Standardisation of products The standardisation of abilities Mutual adaptation

Direct supervision is the most traditional form of coordination and is based on hierarchy. It means that each activity is coordinated by the person on a hierarchical level above the person who carries them out. All information is conveyed upwards to descend later as directives. This mechanism is typical of simple, small organisations. Coordinated activities are usually executive or activities with low levels of variability and individual autonomy. The second mechanism, relating to the standardisation of labour processes, belongs to the tradition. It is a mechanism based on the formal design and definition of all the single phases of the process. In this kind of coordination, the formal rules constitute the tool by which to integrate different activities. This mechanism characterises simple, mechanical organisations having mainly executive activities. There is a limited form of operational autonomy of human resources regarding those who rigorously respect and apply predefined procedures. On the other hand, the third mechanism, based on the standardisation of products, can be applied mainly to organisations that deal with the production of physical goods. The coordination of activities occurs by a meticulous specification of the constituent characteristics of the product to be made. This model of coordination is not incompatible with discrete levels of autonomy of the operators.

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Furthermore, the standardisation of skills, which represents the fourth mechanism of coordination, constitutes a model based on the predetermination of the skills that a worker needs to possess in order to be called upon to perform certain tasks. The skills required are cognitive models and represent patterns of professional-derived operational behaviour by means of which activities are coordinated, a model typical of organisations with a high density of professionalism. Finally, the mechanism of mutual adaptation is based on informal and direct communication between the various human resources that populate an organisation. There are no formal rules that mediate interrelationships. Individuals communicating with each other in real time, through this mechanism, are able to bestow continuity on their actions but, above all, they are able to modify the course of their action in a mutually synchronous manner. This is typical of organisations of professionals with highly specialised skills, where there are numerous knowledge workers.8

Main Organisational Configurations After analysing the fundamental concepts of organisation and the mechanisms of coordination of activities, it is possible to outline the main organisational configurations that arise from it. The combination of the different parts of the organisation could give rise to different forms of organisation represented as follows: • • • • •

A simple structure Mechanical bureaucracy Professional bureaucracy Divisional organisation Adhocracy (flexible organisation)

The different organisational configurations identified here represent ideal models, useful for explaining the main trends towards which new models of organisation are moving. Each organisational model is built on a set of parts having adequate levels of reciprocal compatibility and integration. In the empirical reality, therefore, there are concrete organisations composed of parts and characteristics drawn from different contiguous ideal models, placed in direct logical sequence with the list of models indicated above. The first organisational model—the simple structure—is usually small. This means that it represents the exact opposite of what Barnard defined, that is, the complex organisation. In this type of organisation, the techno-structure is either absent or very limited. There is a very small support staff, and the planning of

8 The term knowledge workers was coined by Peter Drucker (1996). Knowledge workers are managers, experts, business professionals, and technicians who have no hierarchical responsibilities. They are all figures characterised by an intertwining of management skills, relationship and cooperation skills, specific technical-professional skills.

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activities is poor. Furthermore, training activities are scarce, at times, even non-existent. There is no rigid division of labour, and there is little functional differentiation between the various organisational units, while coordination is ensured, to a large extent, by direct supervision. More specifically, power over important decisions tends to be centralised in the hands of those at the top of the company. This structure often includes a single-person strategic summit and an organic operational core. These are the traits of the organisation of a typical family-run business. The second and third models presented, namely mechanical and professional bureaucracy, are found above all in companies in contact with stable and undisturbed environments. They are widespread in mature, large companies and in public administrations, of course. The operational tasks are highly specialised, routine, and highly standardised. The rules and regulations permeate the entire organisation, formal communications are used at all levels, and the decision-making process tends to develop following a formal hierarchy of authority. The professional-bureaucratic type, unlike mechanical bureaucracy, develops where the coordination mechanism and the quest for standardisation do not take place by application of a particular prescriptive working method (as in TaylorFordism), but through the standardisation of human-resource skills of those employed in the company. A clear example of professional bureaucracy is found in organisations like schools and healthcare, which provide services of public utility to citizens, but also companies that repair electronic devices and instruments, or skilled artisan services. The divisional type of organisation, on the other hand, consists in the standardisation of results (output) and is adopted in large companies serving a heterogeneous market. Even the divisional solution has its share of autonomy, just like that of professional bureaucracy, but it does not concern people as much as structures. The divisional-structure type enjoys considerable internal autonomy, entrusted to it by the organisation’s central management, with a view to achieve certain productive results, based on the logic of the management by objectives. Finally, adhocracy, a flexible organisation, represents a highly innovative model of organic organisation, also known in project and matrix organisational formulae. Its name derives from an ad hoc working group, an extremely flexible structure which aims at achieving certain objectives. This model regards companies and organisations that operate in competitive environments characterised by strong levels of dynamism and turbulence. Its behaviour is formalised and there is a high horizontal specialisation of tasks. The allocation of tasks does not follow the principles of fragmentation and individualisation, but has rather significant recourse to the establishment of teamwork. Intense use of linking mechanisms is used to promote mutual adaptation, which is the main kind of mechanism used to coordinate within groups and between groups. The different specialists are required to combine into multidisciplinary groups built around specific innovative projects. In this organisational model, we find mutual adaptation between the different members of the group, aimed at achieving common, known, and shared objectives. Sometimes this kind of coordination is determined by the members of the working group

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themselves. The most usual tendency is to group specialists into functional units for reasons of professional aggregation and to use them in small project groups based on market skills. Ultimately, one might conclude by pointing out that each part of the organisation tends to assume a specific function, aimed at making one organisational model prevail over the other (Bonazzi 1993, pp. 273–274). In this sense, strategic top level, availing itself of direct supervision, tends to centralise the organisational functions and re-produce the simple structure, while the techno-structure, favouring the standardisation of the performance of the operational core, emphasises the mechanical-bureaucracy type. In this sense, the strategic top level tends to centralise the organisational functions and re-produce the simple structure, availing itself of direct supervision, while the techno-structure emphasises the mechanicalbureaucracy type, favouring the standardisation of the performance of the operational core. In other respects, the operational core tends towards the affirmation of professional bureaucracy in contrast with the techno-structure, and in an attempt to reduce the external control, while the intermediate line favours greater autonomy and divisionalisation by implementing a process of “balkanisation” of the structures (Mintzberg 1985). Lastly, the support staff, which has led structurally to action based on a logic of collaboration and cooperation, tends towards the organisation type provided by the adhocratic model. The survival of bureaucracy in the two different forms, mechanical and professional, according to Mintzberg, permits us to place this author among those considered post-Weberians. In conclusion, it is possible to assert that we find ourselves operating once again in the post-Fordist era, characterised by a plurality of organisational types, where there is no mechanical subdivision or skills based on the configuration of a given model for reasons of production or technological constraints. Organisational choices, which are always rational, in the sense of choices dictated by economic and utilitarian factors (aimed at a quest for efficiency), but also by cultural and valuebased elements (Cocozza 2005), might be traced back in the main to compliance with the criteria of effectiveness and consistency with which organisations tend to face the daily challenges posed by the market and competition. As Mintzberg aptly suggested: A given theatrical company can adopt a simple structure if the director has a very strong personality, or if there is more than one director. Another might avail itself of a mechanical bureaucracy if it chose to stage musicals adhering perfectly to the composer’s score. Another still might choose to adopt the professional-bureaucracy type of organisation to perfect its production of Shakespeare year after year. A fourth might opt for adhocracy to stage experimental comedies. (1983, p. 424)

At the end of the course of the analysis carried out in this chapter, it might be argued that to understand the main changes that have caused (and affected) the development of the models of the main types of organisations, it is necessary to avail oneself of a multidimensional theoretical apparatus. This theoretical approach enables simultaneous investigation of the structural dimension and organisational strategies (objective), but also of cultural and individual strategies (subjective).

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This methodological choice is absolutely necessary if we wish to achieve an adequate understanding of the increasingly complex and structural “problematic” inherent in the development of the various types of organisation that characterise contemporary society, even more so that of the future.

References Bonazzi G (1993) Storia del pensiero organizzativo. Franco Angeli, Milan Bonazzi G (2002) Come studiare le organizzazioni. Il Mulino, Bologna Cocozza A (2004a) La riforma rivoluzionaria. Leadership, gruppi professionali e valorizzazione delle risorse umane nelle pubbliche amministrazioni. Franco Angeli, Milan Cocozza A (2004b) Utopia e sociologia. Una critica alle società chiuse, Armando, Rome Cocozza A (2004c) Analisi delle linee di tendenza generali del sistema scolastico. Presentazione dei dati e valutazione nazionale. In: Osservatorio sulla scuola dell’autonomia (a cura di), Rapporto sulla scuola dell’autonomia 2004, Armando Editore, Luiss University Press, Rome Cocozza A (2005) La razionalità nel pensiero sociologico tra olismo e individualismo. Franco Angeli, Milan Cocozza A (2010a) Il sindacato come organizzazione: dal modello politico-burocratico a quello progettuale-partecipativo. Bollettino Fondazione Marco Biagi – Adapt, giugno Cocozza A (2010b) Persone Organizzazioni Lavori. Esperienze innovative di comunicazione d’impresa e valorizzazione delle risorse umane. Franco Angeli, Milan Drucker P (1996) Il grande cambiamento. Imprese e manager nell’età dell’informazione. Sperling & Kupfer, Milan Gallino L (1993) Dizionario di Sociologia. TEA, Milan Mintzberg H (1979) The structuring of organisations. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs Mintzberg H (1983) La struttura organizzativa moda o coerenza? Problemi di gestione, n. 6, ed. or. (1981), “Organisation design: fashion or fit”, Harvard Business Review, n. 1 Mintzberg H (1985) La progettazione dell’organizzazione aziendale. Il Mulino, Bologna Morgan G (2002) Images. Le metafore dell’organizzazione. Franco Angeli, Milan Strati A (2004) L’analisi organizzativa. Paradigmi e metodi, Carocci, Rome

Leadership and Management

In this chapter, to carry out an in-depth investigation of the role of complex relational skills, we shall examine the development of the concept and role of leadership in relation to policies of new management and the empowerment of people, in order to understand the interaction between styles of effective leadership and the development of different organisational models. We shall consider the implications associated with the changes the innovative manager is obliged to implement to advance from the status of head to that of effective leader, so that s/he can adequately govern the growing organisational complexity. After introducing the concept of leadership, this phenomenon will be analysed in connection with the relational processes that tend towards collaboration, competition, and conflict, which require the ineluctable development of the managerial skills needed to deal with negotiation processes. As regards the latter, a possible theoretical framework of negotiation will be outlined here as a management process typical of the new organisational and explanatory models of the various phases of negotiation, and enter in depth into particular, conceivable strategies and styles of negotiation that actors bring into play. This process aims at governing conflicting situations and conduct and obliging the actors involved to reach mutually satisfactory agreements with the negotiating counterpart, to build up and maintain a collaborative relational climate, functional to achieving positive overall performative goals. This fundamental requirement increases the level of overall effectiveness and efficiency in any type of organisation.

Leadership and New Management Policies To adequately introduce the issues to be dealt with in this chapter, we need to take into account what has been discussed up until now, which makes it inevitable to start from the assumption that effective organisational management and human resources are mandatory. It is also necessary to guarantee adequate levels of coherence © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_6

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between choice, planning, and tools, between management by objectives and systems of evaluation, between mechanisms of reward and incentives, between communication and training. It is also vital to be able to count on a series of additional managerial tools in order to govern the organisational climate and motivation of collaborators effectively. These valuable tools permit the establishment (and maintenance) of a positive and collaborative relational climate, and the promotion of greater motivation among the human resources belonging to the organisation. After all, as we are well aware, motivated work performance and the establishment of a collaborative relational climate are not at all that obvious but need to be researched and planned, starting from the study of the results deriving from analyses of organisational roles and their redesign. Generally, in this ambit, it is possible to find two large areas of intervention, respectively, that relating to executive power, which outlines prescriptions, and that of decision-making, where the discretionary component weighs more. In this regard, it is helpful to recall that, as has already been shown in the first chapter, while, in traditional models of organisation, the distribution of power is asymmetrical when it comes to those who decide and those who execute. In the new models of organisation, there is a tendency towards greater fairness regarding the discretionary component of the role, and, at the same time, widespread accountability of all members of the organisation towards the results to be achieved. This process of motivation and widespread accountability might be pursued more effectively by implementation of a series of incentives, aimed at intervening more regarding the intrinsic rather than the extrinsic dimension of the role. The increasing role of incentivising systems, within the individual level and the collective one, is associated with the challenging demands for the improvement of productivity levels. As Barbiere (2012) wrote in a report on the contents of recently endorsed supplementary company agreements (valid until 2014) the mechanisms used to calculate variable salaries have been refined and greater space allotted to other fundamental contractual features like the flexibility of working hours, organisation, and professional management. In the collective bargaining contract of the Barilla company, for example, bonuses are based on three parameters of equal weight: company profits, quality (documented indicators and indicators of performance regarding safety, the environment, sustainability), and management of performance at individual plants. The Sanpellegrino company, on the other hand, opted for a correlation linking a variable bonus of 10% to the group’s profits, of 70% to the objectives of the single plant, and the remaining 20% to organisational performance. Barbieri (2012) then specified that the food sector is one of those where the salaries agreed at company level assume extremely sophisticated forms. In addition to the objectives associated with company budgets, there are several goals that regard individual plants, ranging from the reduction of production waste to the reduction of absenteeism. To manage productive peaks and slumps, another fundamental asset capable of increasing competitiveness is work-schedule flexibility. To meet this kind of flexibility, several contracts provide for a “time bank” by means of which extra

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hours can be managed (and recovered) in a manner different from that of an ordinary weekly schedule. In other words, even if greater integration between the collective (policies of industrial relations) and individual levels (human resource management) is positive, traditional remuneration policies or new forms of compensation used to meet the extrinsic incentivising needs of human resources do not suffice. It is necessary to devise policies and programmes of action, aimed at intervening simultaneously upon two levels: that of the intrinsic aspects of work performance (like work content, levels of professional autonomy and organisational and decision-making responsibility, development, and horizontal and vertical mobility), and aspects relating to organisational culture, the development of personal motivation, and the relational climate within the organisation.

New Management Tools It is within this new scenario that the second series of management tools, dealt with in this chapter, need to be placed. They represent transversal relational skills like effective leadership, communication, the ability to know how to communicate and collaborate in a team, and the management of negotiation procedures which need to exist along the entire managerial line and to be employed by those responsible for the structure and/or the coordination of other workers. To be designed, planned, implemented, and evaluated, these skills require a more inclusive type of governance of these phenomena. In order to achieve the new corporate business management objectives which are becoming increasingly complex and ambitious, the policies pursued can no longer be based on the expertise of human-resource operators alone. They need to be decentralised at all levels of the organisation and centrally united as the new relational skills shared by all those operating at managerial level. In this context, the old head of the Taylor-Fordist organisational model no longer performs the useful function for managing the growing organisational complexity of innovative models and nor does s/he possess an adequate kind of culture and relational skills capable of responding to emerging needs of management. A new figure of the manager is emerging, a figure that might tend to become a leader and introduce the skills acquired by the recent empowerment policies into the company to favour the direct management of the human resources for which s/he is responsible. In accordance with what Rappaport argued (1981, p. 11), it is possible to define empowerment as “the ability to increase the possibilities of individuals and groups to actively control their lives” or, as Zimmermann explained as a “sense of mastery and control over what concerns a person’s existence”. As Piccardo too noted: Empowerment is an individual and organisational process using which people, starting from a condition of disadvantage and dependence, are empowered or have their ability to choose, self-determination and self-regulation strengthened and at the same time, develop a feeling of self-worth, self-esteem, self-efficiency, and personal fulfilment, while also reducing

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This concept is connected to that of power, redefining in the boss-employee relationship a type of relationship based on exchange and collaboration rather than on hierarchy. The empowerment of leadership favours a policy of redesignation of work activities in a logic of greater integration, aimed at avoiding the fragmentation of decision-making procedures typical of organisations based on mechanical bureaucracy. This helps reduce two opposing dangers that drive new organisational models: indifference and disinterest, and the conflictual clash between the strategies and objectives of individuals and those of the organisation.

Leadership, Collaboration, Competition, and Conflict Within this new organisational and relational scenario, to establish and maintain a collaborative climate favouring the achievement of high-quality levels of performance, the manager is led to use her/his communicative and managerial skills, though s/he often needs to address various situations involving competition, or conflict,1 where it is essential to possess adequate negotiation skills. What is meant, however, by conflict or competition, and what is the nature of conflict and competition we find in present-day organisations? Initially, we can see that some authors (North 1926) believed that conflict meant a situation where two or more people (or groups) strove to possess the same object, occupy the same space (social or organisational) or a particularly exclusive place, play incompatible roles, set themselves irreconcilable goals, or use mutually incompatible means to achieve them. Furthermore, as Coser (1956) pointed out with considerable clarity, conflict within or between organisations consists in a struggle over values or a claim of rights over insufficiently represented status, power, and resources, where the purpose of the antagonists is to neutralise, damage, or eliminate the rival.

1

Gallino (1993, p. 153) recalled that, generally, in society, the dissociating factors and causes of conflict, which, in any case, are an important form of interaction, are made up of hatred, envy, need, and greed. These are relational situations that arise and, in turn, contribute to giving rise to a power relationship between different social subjects, which, as Cesareo claimed and to great effect, “can derive from strength, blackmail, affection, prestige, money” (1993, p. 135)

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Competition and Conflict At this point, it is worth our while to ask if there is any substantial difference between the concepts of competition and conflict. In reality, they are two important forms of social interaction strongly correlated with each other, though distinct since they aim at obtaining different results. As some scholars (Bottomore et al. 1997, p. 112) pointed out, in the first case it is a form of social interaction, where a subject aims at achieving certain results at the expense of other competitors; in the second case, the subject not only aims at achieving a particular result but also at damaging her/his opponent. Based on this reasoning, it might be stated that competitive interaction tends, essentially, to resemble competition, a sort of race in which various competitors participate directly and indirectly. For this reason, competition can be seen as a positive element, one good for the tone of an organisation seeing that it stimulates the improvement of individual and overall performance. On the other hand, conflictual interaction is different, especially with regard to three issues: “breach” of the rules they involve; disagreement with the acceptability of the social system and the particular culture of the organisation to which they belong; and the ability to successfully innovate established relational and organisational methods. From this perspective, it is evident that, while in an innovative, dynamic company highly exposed to competition, which adopts a flexible (adhocratic) organisational model and is oriented towards the principles of the learning organisation, a certain level of “tolerability” of conflict might be assumed. In military or total institutions or in bureaucratic organisations, that threshold is generally extremely low. In reality, as illustrated below, conflictual interaction, despite performing a necessary role in the development of society and organisations, in extreme cases, if not effectively governed and channelled towards goals of improvement, might be represented metaphorically by a boxing match, or in the most drastic situations, by war or guerrilla warfare, where the foremost goal of the contenders is the elimination of the opponent. In contemporary societies and innovative organisations, it is possible to contemplate the coexistence of numerous management methods used to establish collaborative relationships, though they may also feature several forms of competition and conflict. According to Dahrendorf, in the pluralist society of late modernity and, even more, so in present-day post-modernity, various forms of conflict play an essential part in the development of societies. They are different in nature, but only one of them marks a precise kind of antagonism between social classes, that is, the form due to processes of structural differentiation. This conflict is related to the clash between wealth and citizenship, or as Dahrendorf held, between “the availability of goods (provisions) and the right to access them (entitlement)” (1988, p. 24). In fact, within current social systems, entitlement is an important social resource that tends to give rise to processes of extreme differentiation, both within the same society and globally, between technologically advanced and less advanced societies. A strategic resource which, as was highlighted previously elsewhere (Cocozza 2005), if effectively governed, might evoke a logic of extreme competition between

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individuals driven by an exclusively utilitarian attitude, or cause the emergence of potential conflicts between organisations if not a serious gap between social systems. This kind of competition does not concern the world of material goods exclusively, but, more and more frequently, within the knowledge society, the possibility of accessing information, sources of knowledge, and opportunities of reflective communicative interchange. This phenomenon was analysed authoritatively by economist and philosopher Sen (1988, 1990, 1994, 2004), who, in this regard, provided an interesting interpretation of the role of self-interest and the theory of social choices, in the context of economic rationality, not dictated by an exclusively individualistic logic, but by a tendency towards mandatory commitment which can be altruistic at the same time. As Dahrendorf consistently pointed out, “individual competition and collective action are, in principle, mutually convertible and essentially equivalent expressions of the same degree of considerable social strength, competition (contest)” (1971, p. 504). This important scholar did not make a clear distinction between the two concepts, but associated them, as he tended to bring their two meanings closer together: modern societies change and evolve according to the degree of competition and conflict that arise in and are generated by them. Again, social action might be conceived as competitive and conflictual interaction between the different classes, not in the Marxist sense, but according to a logic of an evolutionary, non-subversive kind aimed at “maintaining and stimulating the change of entire societies and their parts (. . .). As a factor of the omnipresent process of social change, conflicts are profoundly indispensable” (Dahrendorf, pp. 237–238). Class conflict, Dahrendorf (1971) held from a non-Marxist point of view: “Is that form of competition that is necessary in cases where many individuals cannot accomplish their interests by individual effort (. . .) if it is not necessary for the individual to seek the solidarity of the whole of social groups, classes, to pursue her/his interests, then more limited and specific communities of interest will grow in importance”. (p. 504)

It is, therefore, an “action of solidarity that generates conflict between competing interest groups which, increasingly numerous in today’s societies, aim at acquiring advantages for the professional group within a company, or its associates, using policies of lobbying. This is a conception that Dahrendorf oriented towards a vision of “pluralist society”, very far removed from Marx’s class conflict. A kind of conflict that is indispensable for development in closed, totalitarian, utopian, and typical of premodern societies, but it is necessary also in the “open society” hypothesised by Popper, since, as Dahrendorf argued: The structures of authority restrict the possibility that individuals personally realise their interests, joint action is probably destined to remain one of the conveyers of competition even in an open society (ibid, p. 505).

Therefore, for this scholar—in line with other sociologists like Gluckman and Wright Mills—conflict represents a very important social phenomenon for the social sciences. From this particular scientific point of view, conflict might be defined as a “set of antagonistic relations structurally produced by the gap between norms and expectations, and the ineffective (in some cases due to non) interaction between

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institutions and groups.” While, as we know, there is a wave of sociological thinking, according to Dahrendorf, which started from Comte and Spencer and reached Pareto, Durkheim, Weber, and Parsons, that, when examining sociology, preferred social order and stability to conflict and change (1971, pp. 237–238). As to the role of the great sociological models proposed throughout history, Dahrendorf, in his Exiting utopia (1971), expressed rather severe criticism of the theoretical construction of these types of society. In them, as noted elsewhere (Cocozza 2004), “self-referential” societies are envisaged, closed in upon themselves, where everything is attributable to a functional logic as if they were truly utopian societies. In this regard, Dahrendorf made a precise and direct accusation against Parsons and his model of a functional society, when he argued that: The Parsonsian concept of the social system, where everything is functionally coordinated in principle, closely resembles the closed world of utopia. The fact that here everything is right, that every phenomenon can be framed and coordinated, must arouse suspicion in those who appreciate the usefulness of doubt, the clarity of situations, and, therefore, of societies. (1971, p. 4)

Ultimately, Dahrendorf, albeit from a perspective that tends to relaunch neoliberalism, posited a theoretical model of interpretation of society as a pluralist system, within which a certain number of different social groups, with different interests and expectations, interact by means of various forms of cooperation and competition, but also of conflict, aimed at conferring dynamism on and transforming society, on the basis of a developmental kind of logic. On the same wavelength, as regards the role of conflict in the development of social systems, Ferrarotti argued that: Now, it is shown that social conflict can have positive effects too. Considering the consequences of conflict as a pure and simple pathological expression means disregarding the actual reality of historical experience and arbitrarily limits the analysis of a very complex and universal phenomenon. There is no collective life or real social process that does not provide critical analysis with relevant features of cooperation and, at the same time, aspects of conflict. This means that both cooperation and conflict perform essential social functions. (1991, p. 239)

In this area of research, as regards the explanation of the role of conflict within organisations, for a very long time, during the period covering the 1960s and 1970s, the prevailing point of view of Italian management (strongly influenced by models inspired by large North American corporations), and, at times, by the scholars themselves, was oriented by a functionalistic cultural setting based on the following assumptions: • Conflict is intrinsically evil; therefore, its presence is a sign that something is wrong with the organisation; it follows that for the good of the organisation itself, conflict needs be eliminated at the root. • The members of the organisation who cause conflict are victims of emotional issues; otherwise, they would not cause it.

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• To eliminate conflict, and thus solve the problem, it is necessary to remove (dismiss) the employees responsible for it. In cases of more enlightened organisations, where H-R theories find space, psychological help may be required. This explanatory perspective of the phenomenon gave way later to a more modern and innovative approach. Currently, in fact, based on new theoretical elaborations, mainly due to the work of Dahrendorf and other authors like Coser, or scholars of industrial relations (Clegg et al. 1980; Giugni 1992, 1994; Baglioni 1995; Cella and Treu 1998; Cella 1999), we are led to think that: • Conflict tends to be inevitable, inherent in the processes of complication of organisations, and is not necessarily harmful, in particular, when it is propaedeutic to regulating industrial and labour relations. • Some types of conflict might even make an immeasurable contribution to the health and well-being of an organisation, for example by stimulating internal competitiveness capable of activating a policy of continuous improvement. • Regardless of the type of conflict being dealt with, it can be managed to minimise losses and maximised gains.

Forms of Conflict In present-day organisations, various forms of conflict can be found: individual, between two or more subjects; intra-organisational, between different roles or structures belonging to the same organisation; labour or trade-union strife between social actors who are bearers of different interests; or intra-organisational or interinstitutional conflict between different organisations or institutions. These types of conflict have as their object series of factors attributable to two of the major types represented, which are respectively that based on structural aspects and that which emphasises more the cultural characteristics of the phenomenon. The first type, of a structural kind, includes control of scarce resources (tangible or intangible assets), the management of power, and the defence or claim of a certain role or status. The second, on the other hand, concerns the conservation of particular values or the affirmation of innovative values, the prevalence of certain ideas and different ways of proceeding towards the solution of a specific problem, and the defence or assertion of a certain image. Moreover, conflict in certain organisations is not only due to classical asymmetrical distribution of power among the actors (trade-union conflict) but also arises from poorly defined responsibilities and uncertain roles (highly developed organisational models), or vice versa, in organisations characterised by overly rigid predefined roles (traditionally hierarchical organisational models). This is a classic example of potential conflict between different company functions, therefore, between subjects, who are not bearers of different or opposing interests, but share tasks, roles, and objectives.

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Intra-Organisational Conflict By way of example, we are faced with a case of “intra-organisational conflict”, where there is a situation in which two subjects (A and B) decide to found a company and agree that A takes responsibility for manufacturing the product and B to market it. As you can see, it seems a fairly precise agreement, in which there is no room for ambiguity. Well, the situation changes if potential buyers of the product want to see the demonstration before placing an order. In this case, B believes that giving a product demonstration is up to A, as head of the production, while according to A, it is up to B, as sales manager. This shows that the two subjects enter into conflict not because we agreed in bad faith, or not because they are brawlers or quarrelsome, but simply because they did not foresee a contingent fact, which had not occurred from the beginning when they agreed or defined the organisational regulations and related procedures. Since neither of the two parties can decide alone, to reach a solution they need to start a process of negotiation and define an agreement that explains the tasks and roles again. The same discourse, with slightly more catastrophic consequences, can refer to an example taken from everyday life, where the organisational conflict is consumed in a “traffic jam”. It is a question of imagining a situation where four motorists arrive at the same time at an intersection where the traffic light is broken. The ability of each car to proceed is blocked by another car, which sees one car behind the other, without the possibility for anyone to move from its position. In this situation, the simplest solution would naturally be given by the fact that one of the cars backed up and let another pass through so that all the other drivers had free passage. As is known, this solution, which is the simplest, is also the most difficult to implement. Often motorists are unwilling to “give way” to an aspect of lesser importance, to receive a higher value gain, that is, to accept a negligible sacrifice, in exchange for a significant benefit. In work organisations, therefore, a series of particularly complex and varied social interactions occur daily, which, if they occur in a non-pathological but physiological form, can coexist without causing serious and irreparable damage; indeed, in some cases, they could even represent a sort of “indicator” of the degree of vitality and dynamism of the organisation. In other words, the absence of an adequate level of competition and conflicts, not only, as already seen, is a condition that cannot be hypothesised even theoretically, but it is a symptom of stillness, representative of a highly self-referential cultural and organisational context and, for this reason, unable to evolve.

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New Managerial Skills Relational systems of organisation, as mentioned above, need to be analysed as social phenomena in their totality, characterised by a constant twofold type of interaction between different actors and the coexistence of various forms of competition and conflict, and different modes of involvement, participation, and cooperation. In the current context of competition, we believe that the innovative role of management might consist of four new, different capacities regarding managerial activities: • Governance of competitive processes and their cancellation in a logic of the continuous improvement of performance based on the principles of TQM • Prevention of the onset of conflicts by the governance of relational processes and the activation of a selective system of incentives. • Transfer of conflictual energy from an oppositional to a propositional logic, channelling it towards a quest for shared objectives • Creation and maintenance of political, organisational, and relational conditions where collaborative is superior to conflictual interaction In the same direction, other scholars (Bottomore, Gellner, Nisbet, Outh-waite, Touraine, Jedlowski) believe that: The attempt to eliminate the conflict from society is doomed to failure. Conflict is a non-eradicable part of coexistence; it is a fundamental component of the association, as much as cooperation. What can be done, however, is to transform specific types of conflicting behaviour when perceived as dysfunctional or harmful. Duelling, for example, once an essential component of the nobility’s way of life, has essentially disappeared. Revenge and feud survive only in isolated niches of Western societies. Violent strikes in nineteenth-century labour conflicts are a thing of the past, except in sporadic cases. As these few examples show, it is possible to reduce the violence or the intensity of the conflict by regulating or channelling the antagonism, in such a way as to minimize suffering and human costs. (1997, p. 114)

New Relational Situations Individual competition and the logic of collective action represent, therefore, phenomena endowed with strong dynamism and great social strength upon which the development of modern and post-modern societies is based. Collective action includes kinds of conflicts that arise in policies of industrial relations and which are aimed at determining a regulatory framework within which employment relations should be regulated. Examining these considerations, we can deduce that the onset of conflict within industrial organisations and the establishment of power relations between individual subjects or collective actors may arise due to competition over control of material goods, defence of aspects of value associated with images of corporate microcosmos, or society more in general. These situations that tend to guide behaviour are

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relational. Here the sociologist who studies the problems concerning the management of conflict and human resources must seek the method which provides the most coherent explanation, based on the identification of the rationality enacted by the individual subjects and the collective actors involved (Cocozza 2005). There is little doubt that, in the ambit of working relationships, it is possible to come across phenomena leading to the coexistence of collaborative and competitive forms of interaction, though, at the same time, to potential conflict based on assumptions that between individual subjects (management and collaborators) and collective actors (employers and workers’ unions) there is no equal distribution of power and that available resources are distributed asymmetrically. Historically, these relationships were based on an asymmetrical kind of distribution, objectively favouring the entrepreneurial actor and company management. Over time, this situation has evolved considerably but has not affected the structural distribution of the regulatory power of employment relationships. Regarding this developmental phenomenon, Baglioni recalled that In recent decades, a general result of this complex political, social and cultural process emerged clearly. This was the fact that industrial relations are determined less and less by entrepreneurs acting unilaterally and individually. Relations appear to be regulated more and more collectively and lead to consistent, considerable results for workers, even if these are not always stable and universal, as the events of recent years have demonstrated. (1998, pp. 13)

For these reasons, it is possible to affirm, ultimately, that in industrial relations individual subjects and collective actors act essentially through a series of different, complex modes of social interaction which, as discussed in the previous section, provide for the existence of conflict, areas of competition, of collaboration, of participation, and of self-management. These relational modalities whose governance cannot be separated from new complex relational skills are aimed at adequate governance of the growing plurality of interaction, through the activation and management of negotiation processes more and more necessary in policies implemented thanks to the application of innovative organisational models.

References Baglioni G (1995) Democrazia impossibile? I modelli collaborativi nell’impresa: il difficile cammino della partecipazione tra democrazia ed efficienza. Il Mulino, Bologna Baglioni G (1998) Il sistema delle relazioni industriali in Italia: caratteri ed evoluzione storica, in Cella G.P., Treu T. (a cura di), Le nuove relazioni industriali. L’esperienza italiana nella prospettiva europea, Il Mulino, Bologna Barbieri F (2012) Merito e flessibilità, il mix vincente dei contratti efficaci, Il Sole 24 ore, 26 novembre Bottomore T, Gellner E, Nisbet R, Outhwaite W, Touraine A, Jedlowski P (edizione italiana a cura di) (1997) Dizionario delle scienze sociali, Il Saggiatore, Milan (ed) or. 1993 Cella GP (1999) Il sindacato. Laterza, Bari Cella GP, Treu T (1998) Le nuove relazioni industriali. L’esperienza italiana nella prospettiva europea. Il Mulino, Bologna

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Cesareo V (1993) Sociologia. Teorie e problemi. Vita e Pensiero, Milan Clegg HA, Flanders A, Fox A (1980) La contesa industriale. Contrattazione conflitto e potere nella Scuola di Oxford. Edizioni Lavoro, Rome Cocozza A (2004) Utopia e sociologia. Una critica alle società chiuse, Armando, Rome Cocozza A (2005) La razionalità nel pensiero sociologico tra olismo e individualismo. Franco Angeli, Milan Dahrendorf R (1971) Uscire dall’utopia, Il Mulino, Bologna (ed) or. 1971 Dahrendorf R (1988) Il conflitto sociale nella modernità. Laterza, Bari (ed) or. (1957) The modern social conflict. An Essay on the Politics of Liberty, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, New York Ferrarotti F (1991) Trattato di sociologia. Utet, Turin Gallino L (1993) Dizionario di Sociologia. TEA, Milan Giugni G (1992) Diritto sindacale. Cacucci, Bari Giugni G (1994) Una lezione sul diritto del lavoro. Giornale di diritto del lavoro e di Relazioni Industriali 64:203–211 North CC (1926) Social differentiation. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill Piccardo C (1992) Empowerment, Sviluppo & Organizzazione, vol 134, pp 21–31 Sen AK (1988) Etica ed economia, Laterza, Bari, ed. or. 1987 Sen AK (1990) Razionalità, economia e società. In: Crepaldi G, Papini R (eds) Etica e democrazia economica, Marietti, Genova Sen AK (1994) La disuguaglianza, Il Mulino, Bologna, ed. or. 1992 Sen AK (2004) Lo sviluppo umano. La libertà culturale in un mondo di diversità. Rosemberg & Sellier, Turin

Negotiation

In contemporary working organisations, at times several kinds of competition and/or conflict can arise, which, if not effectively governed, run the risk of finding themselves in contexts characterised by relational situations like that of a swastika-form traffic jam. In this scenario, the new complex relational skills that management is induced to assume are implemented to cope with phenomena we can define as a growing plurality of interaction characterised by a coexistence of behavioural modalities ranging from those concerning competitive, conflictual, and collaborative and participatory negotiations. The types of interaction that may be involved in the negotiations can be included within the scheme described in the previous sections, among those tending towards collaboration and competition and those that are typically conflictual, although, in principle, the need to activate processes of negotiation also within contexts characterised by participation, especially when it comes to formal and non-substantial participatory modalities, cannot be excluded. To this end, it might be assumed that difficulties arising within contexts of participation and/or collaborative relationships might be easily channelled (although operational difficulties should not be overlooked) into a logic of a continuous improvement of performance. This activity might be carried out by a manager using the management skills examined this far: from effective communication to empowerment and coaching, or accountability and visionary leadership. In cases, on the other hand, where strong competitive interaction occurs, conflict is declared or foreseen, the manager might be obliged to implement a veritable process of negotiations. Negotiation is necessary in all cases where, within working or in other relational contexts, conflict or serious forms of competition arise (or might arise). They cannot be left ungoverned, as this might damage the organisational climate and affect overall performance adversely. For this reason, to govern these conflicts adequately, managers might resort to negotiations based on a relational kind of logic unlike that typical of traditional collaborative relationships and those which are openly conflictual and recur to a substantially intermediate type of interaction. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_7

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In the culture of negotiations, therefore, we should never use the concept of adversary, which belongs to the theoretical scheme of conflict. Instead, we should use terms like interlocutor or, better still, counterpart, with which it is possible, necessary actually, to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement. For this reason, we can agree with Ghosn, Nissan CEO, when he suggested that “An overly soft manager and an overly hard manager are both catastrophic”.

Skills of Negotiation In this context, skills of negotiation are called into play. They require a managerial learning curve, aimed primarily at the acquisition of complex relational abilities, which, by their very nature, call for the involvement of other competencies like know-how, behavioural issues, and awareness of one’s role. These are skills that can be refined, only and exclusively by means of operational exercise and practice in the field, a sort of training on the job. In other words, the improvement of complex relational skills, like those related to negotiations, occurs only after participation in and management (in person) of numerous negotiations that become gradually more and more complex. These are often unplanned but can be due to events and remain a permanent feature of the managerial role. In this field, as noted above regarding other skills, learning takes place by means of experiences that proceed gradually along a pathway of a kind of novitiate or through an initiatory rite. It aims at accompanying the future negotiator, by the acquisition of the language (which within the ambit of industrial and trade-union relations is highly specialised) to use, an understanding of the roles played by the various actors, and the significance of communications and relational rituality during negotiations repeated over time, like those concerning working relationships. For this reason, professional negotiators tend to adopt specific jargon, gestures, and a ritual that makes them members of a club, regardless of whether they belong to one party rather than the other. The culture of negotiation, therefore, is acquired by experience; there are no particularly specialised learning processes or pathways, which can provide adequate training, except some courses organised by business and management schools or, more recently, by some universities.

Relational Areas of Negotiation It is a matter of acquiring skills that facilitate the ability to govern processes of negotiation within different relational contexts, personal, family (the place where, in reality, people negotiate most), organisational, and labour and trade-union. In this regard, it is useful to remember that the literature that deals currently with the issue of negotiations can be divided into two broad categories. One deals with analyses of processes of negotiation in general and is of essentially North-American origin; the

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other concerns analyses and testimonies of various experiences of negotiation carried out in the ambits of industrial relations and trade-union relations. The first provides texts on general techniques of negotiation which address the topic in a generic and scarcely targeted manner but which fails to indicate either the context or the object of the negotiation, in an attempt to provide, at all costs, a sort of “guide for the good negotiator” (Nieremberg 1968; Zartman and Barman 1982; Winkler 1985; Cohen 1983; Fisher and Ury 1985). The second, on the other hand, proposes two major types of contribution, which aim at providing, respectively, the testimonies of negotiating actors involved in industrial relations (Dealessandri et al. 1987; Mortillaro 1994), and readings that tend to reconstruct the dynamics and processes of negotiation employed in the field of trade-union agreements (Filograsso et al. 1984; Cattaneo 1993; Anonymous s.d.). Industrial relations are a relational area, where, as we know, studies regarding the norms, methods, and degrees of application (or non-application) as well as the role of the social partners abound. However, they do not discuss the principles and techniques that guide the relational processes between the actors or the strategies and conduct of the processes of negotiation. In some cases, as in the works of Cella (1992) and, above all, of Provasi (1987) and Grandori (1992), besides illustrating some empirical experiences of negotiation, they present excellent attempts at framing the phenomenon theoretically, and providing a possible scientific explanation for the behaviour of the actors. They do so in such a manner as to include the contributions of Chamberlain and Kuhn (1965), Walton and McKersie (1965), Zartman (1977), Crozier and Friedberg (1978), Schelling (1980), and Bacharach and Lawer (1981), to provide a framework within which the game of negotiation takes place. Provasi’s thesis is interesting since he believed that the process of negotiation is a game with mixed motivation, where conflicting but cooperative relations, too, driven by a logic of bilateral monopoly, can be found: in other words, unlike other contexts of negotiation traceable back to mere market criteria (the zero-sum or distributive game), in the field of trade-union discussions where the parties are interested in reaching an agreement of mutual satisfaction, rather than paying the costs of non-agreement (1987, p. 17).

Processes of Negotiation and Industrial Relations We shall seek to provide a possible theoretical interpretation and explanatory model of the phenomenon of industrial relations, which is the most widespread and structured one in the culture of negotiation in Italy. This model, included in a pluralist paradigmatic perspective (Easton 1965, 2001; Dahrendorf 1963, 1988; Clegg et al. 1980; Dahl 2002), was developed on the basis of the experience acquired in recent years and the object of numerous research and training initiatives involving managers of industrial relations and/or the human resources of companies and public administrations. An initial outline of this explanatory model was presented, in preliminary form, in Il buon lavoro by Spaltro (1996, pp. 216–226).

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This model was informed by analyses of the aforementioned North-American literature regarding negotiations, which contained several interesting studies that provided a theoretical scheme that went beyond the logic of “zero-sum” negotiation where one party won and the other lost. The newer model proposed an approach envisaging a “variable-sum” game, where all the actors involved benefitted if an agreement was reached. This very effective theoretical approach, applied to negotiation by Jandt (1985), sought to analyse the management of conflict and processes of negotiation based on the win-win scheme, according to which each actor contributed to the negotiation and reaped benefits if a final agreement between the contracting parties was reached.

Explanatory Models of Processes of Negotiation An approach to the analysis of processes of negotiation, which correctly frames the act of negotiation in a theoretical framework, includes three different explanatory models: game theory (Von Neuman and Morgenstern 1948), in particular, that of cooperative games (Axerold 1984); Arrow’s (1977) public choice; and Olson’s theory (1983), relating to the role of free riders in the quest for a rational explanation of the conduct of the collective actor. In line with this heuristic approach, it is fitting to believe that a possible explanation of the construction and functionality of a process of negotiation might be ascribed to the theoretical model introduced by game theory and utility theory1 (Cocozza 2005, pp. 100–110), stemmed from criticism of the classical model of the theory of rational choice (Rational Choice Model), to fill the gaps and criticalities highlighted by various scholars.2 This theory arose from the need to explain the behaviour of actors when the single agent was not the only one to decide and did not therefore need to act in an ideal context, but where her/his decisions were interrelated, to some degree, with those of other actors. Von Neuman and Morgenstern (1948) first introduced game theory and called it so because they considered parlour 1

The utility theory refers to the hierarchy of expected utility, where the actor operating within a certain context chooses on the basis of different possible alternatives, but, above all, of structural decision-making uncertainty. This situation was represented originally by Bernoulli (1738), in the so-called “St. Petersburg paradox”, which describes a contradictory situation where nobody is willing to spend a small sum of money to play a game of chance, despite the fact that the win prospected is strikingly high. Bernoulli hypothesised that the behaviour of the player, in this case, might be deemed rational, because s/he, by opting not to play, did not intend maximising her/his profit, but the expected utility of the risk. This type of process met with considerable consensus, as already mentioned, when discussing decisions made in conditions of uncertainty and in social and collective environments (Cocozza 2005). 2 The issue of rational choice has been studied by several scholars, including (Boudon et al. 2002; Allais 1953; Allais and Hagen 1979; Hagen 1995; Kahneman and Tversky 1979; Harsanyi 1955, 1977).

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games (like chess, bridge, and poker, or more recent games of simulation) isomorphic when it came to the decisions that actors when called upon take in spheres of economic and social spheres alike. Game theory proposed a reading of the possible behaviour of the actors, in contexts where the outcomes of the actions of one depended directly on that of another, like in war, the negotiation of international treaties, competition for survival, among animals or for prestige among humans, wage bargaining, or the functioning of certain sectors of the market economy. The work of Von Neuman and Morgenstern (1948) introduced a twofold classification of games and classified non-cooperative and cooperative games. The first type is the best known and takes into consideration the decisions made rationally by an actor acting in conditions of total isolation. To explain this decision-making context, we use the famous prisoner’s dilemma, in which two individuals detained separately are asked to confess to a crime they committed jointly. Each of the two is informed that the other has already confessed. In this scenario, the actors are informed individually that if s/he adopts a strategy of collaboration with the law which includes denouncing and non-cooperating anymore with his/her partner, s/he can benefit from a reduced sentence. Given this condition, the actor is led to choose an individualistic strategy and not cooperate with her/his partner in crime, but with the law in order to benefit from the reduced sentence while cooperation (non-confession of the crime) and continued collaboration with her/his partner will mean an increase in the sentence. This is a choice of conduct that certainly does not permit a maximisation of the result, as the theory of rational choice posits. The version of the theory of non-cooperative games finds its greatest efficacy and validity in decision-making contexts where only two actors are involved and the classical utilitarian rule applies, meaning that if one wins the other loses and vice versa. This is the basis of the famous “zero-sum” game. This type of behaviour, dictated by egoism and as known in the literature, leads the two actors to behave in a way where both lose.3 But if we take into account other models like cooperative games and simulate situations already experimented using the previous model and introduce the concept of the “variable-sum” win, as Axerold (1984) demonstrated, results and rewards, though different, may be achieved by all the players. In other words, as mentioned above it is possible to determine a situation where, if a cooperative strategy is adopted by all the actors, outcome need not feature a winner and a loser, but some kind of benefit for all involved. Ultimately, game theory, in particular in its cooperative versions, shows that behaviour informed by an exclusively selfish, punctual, and short-term logic produces irrational (illogical) results. This has attracted the attention of scholars towards

The theoretical implications of the “zero-sum” or “variable-sum” approaches were analysed by Nash (1951), Provasi (1987, 1988, 1992), Spaventa (1989), Binmore (1990), Aumann and Hart (1992), Cella (1992), Israel and Gasca (1996).

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the role of the value system and the norms and habits that strongly affect the rational behaviour of individual and induce them to act consciously.

The Theories of Arrow and Olson The second theoretical reference is Arrow, who, when dealing with individual and collective action during negotiations, made a clear distinction between the two phenomena, which respond to a completely different logic. In his work Social Choices and Individual Values (1977), Arrow developed a theory aimed at demonstrating how two significant phenomena related to interaction involving a multitude of actors can lead to critiques of the theory of rational choice based on essentially individualistic and purely selfish assumptions. • Individual predilections that cannot be aggregated into a well-defined structure of collective preferences may fail to produce outcomes that meet the criterion of the maximisation of collective preferences. • Collective behaviour implies the strategic interaction of numerous rational individuals, who, in turn, act on the basis of the effects of the possible actions of others. The third theoretical reference is that of the economist Olson (1983) whose analysis tended to take into consideration the presence of the collective actor in decision-making processes. It posits that the criteria of the classical theory of rational choice cannot be used alone. Olson introduced the problem of the presence in the social game of free riders (literally those who travel or a take a trip without paying), of opportunists who exploit (take advantage of) the benefits provided thanks to policies of the collective good (or public good, like schools, healthcare services, etc.), without paying for its production-realisation. The concept of public good, anticipated by the economist Samuelson (1954), is a “non-excludable” and “nonrivalry-provoking” good, since no citizen can be excluded from its enjoyment, and its access by a subject is not detrimental to the enjoyment by other subjects. Olson’s particular merit was precisely that of transferring Samuelson’s scheme of the public good to that of the collective good. This meant its application in all situations where a group of people is interested in a certain product or service and access by one of its members of the group makes its access available to all the other members of the group. Olson illustrated the dilemma regarding situations of this type, on the supposition that if in a collective situation there were consistent numbers of free riders, the most likely result would be the impossibility of creating the conditions required to produce the collective good. It followed, he held, that this would make it the provision of this service impossible. Olson’s hypothesis rested on the belief that in a context where all the members of a particular group shared an interest, this did not actually imply that they would organise themselves to pursue this common interest, like in cases of strikes in

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support of contractual claims. Precisely in the workings of the industrial relations system there have been cases where many free riders, i.e., subjects unwilling to bear the necessary costs (take part in actions of protest and strikes) involved in demands for new contractual regulation (the benefits of which free riders enjoy the same regardless), that situations arise where the collective good (the new contractual regulation) cannot be achieved so that the whole group is damaged. In other words, the collective action of large groups (which are able to activate policies aimed at establishing greater internal social cohesion) does not automatically pursue the common good; if anything, if it is not oriented in this directed, it needs to be based on a policy of selective incentive. These incentives, activated on the basis of a selective kind of logic, might induce the single members of the group to mobilise, and, in certain cases, to become elements of constraint (internal or external to the group) (Olson 1983). Conversely, interest groups that have only a few members and give rise to a sort of “oligopoly” are in a better position to organise and coordinate their action, since they are better equipped to establish an “optimal” course of action. The second scenario we describe here refers again to industrial relations. Here the ambit regards professional categories, characterised by particular professional specificities, which provide them with a strong degree of bargaining power. The same reasoning can be extended to particular financial groups, which arise on the market and present clear and precise goals and feature a strong strategy of sharing aimed at achieving common objectives. Finally, according to Olson, individuals who act on the basis of utilitarian rationality, that is, on schemes of rational choice or the maximum-benefits-minimum-costs axiom, will tend not to participate in the collective action needed to contribute to the collective or public good. From this point of view, a conclusion can be reached, whereby it is possible to affirm that the basic idea that drives the supporters of the classical scheme of utilitarian rational choice, which claims that individual interest is what fundamentally guides collective choices, was scientifically falsified by Olson. It is within these different relational areas that the management of today finds itself increasingly faced with a series of issues relating to the management of processes of negotiation, in particular those regarding the management of issues of employment and human resources. In order to govern these two phenomena effectively, when the activation of adequate and, at times, necessary processes of negotiation is required, management is obliged to deal with a series of critical variables. These include the development of industrial relations; changes in the concept of negotiation itself; growing plurality and diversity of issues regarding the variables involved in the needs and interests of the actors involved; the continuous transformation and development of relational and negotiational objectives; the sequencing of the different phases of the negotiation; the management of relations and conflict; the management of rituals, symbols, verbal and non-verbal communications during negotiation; and the development of negotiational skills.

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The Development of Negotiations within the Industrial-Relations System First of all, with regard to the development of the system of industrial relations, and, therefore, of potential labour and trade-union conflict, a structural change in the system has consolidated itself. It may be seen as a transition from a model that may be considered conflictual to a participatory one, where the tools used to negotiate assume a role of particular strategic importance (Cocozza 1996a, b, c; Ambrosini 1996; Cella and Treu 1998; Alacevic 1996; Negrelli 2007, 2013). That means that we are witnessing the assertion of a culture oriented towards mutual recognition of roles, the affirmation of the positivity implied in the comparative model, and the promotion of a culture inspired by policies of involvement and participation. In other words, we are moving from a wall-against-wall type of conflict regarding ideologies and roles to a method of bargaining and negotiation where choices governing conflict are shared in order to resolve problems and prove advantageous for all the actors involved. In public administration, in particular, thanks to the rules laid down by legislative decree 29/93, and subsequent, recent collective industrial agreements, we are moving towards a long-term supersession of a relational kind of culture marked by consociation and corporatism. In fact, in present-day increasingly complex and sophisticated corporate organisational models, where no actor makes unilateral decisions and where interdependence is fundamental, it is necessary that one of the two main actors (corporate and trade-union, or otherwise) be able to propose acceptable terms, taking into account the existence and strategies of the other actors. In this context, recourse to processes of negotiation is often taken, in an attempt to resolve problematic situations attributable to a variety of reasons, in order to: • Address and solve complex problems regarding corporates, consortia, business associations, and institutional bodies that cannot count on the unilateral skills and actions of corporate structures (or bodies) alone, something that might lead to intra-organisational or inter-institutional conflict. • Address and solve complex corporate (or institutional) problems not attributable to the unilateral skills and actions of a single professional, organisational role, a corporate structure, or social actor which might lead to intra-organisational conflict. • Define and assume new company (or corporate) procedures of production involving different processes and skills which sometimes involve new professional, organisational, political, and managerial behaviour, which might also lead to intra-organisational conflict. • Analyse problems and find solutions to micro (technical and managerial) issues, in contexts of professional activity, in particular, in organisations that adopt teamwork, which might lead to the development of conflict between individuals. • Define contractual rules to regulate employment relationships and various kinds of work performance, which might lead to outbursts of trade-union conflict.

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In this new organisational and relational scenario, affected by processes of continuous change, where the very concept of negotiation tends to change and become, on rough approximation, a process where “two or more actors (or parties) with common interests and at risks of conflict meet temporarily and voluntarily to discuss, with the ultimate goal of reaching a mutually satisfactory agreement”. In other words, as Provasi argued: A situation involving negotiation, occurs whenever two or more subjects with different interests and values intend (or are obliged) to reach a compromise, in other words, whenever conflicting and antagonistic relationships coexist, necessarily, with elements of cooperation or coordination. As we are aware, this is a situation which recurs in industrial relations where, even in the presence of divergences of interests and values, the parties are forced— given their mutual interdependence and the impossibility of unilaterally asserting their points of view—to seek agreements that guarantee a minimum of coordination, necessary for the survival of the system of which they are both a part and whose fate they share (1987, p. 15).

In this sense, negotiation can be represented as a dynamic and dialectical process, neither predeterminable nor comparable to mechanical and linear activities, where different actors interact, and where it is not possible to define a point of arrival in advance having departed from a given point, since everything depends on the type of interaction established between the negotiating actors. This process can vary even in its relational context as space and time, as well as actors vary. To underline the impossibility of predicting or predetermining the results of a process of negotiation in a linear way, we shall refer to a recent simulation of five different negotiations involving the same sector of Italian trade unionism, carried out on the same days, where about one hundred people, representing different groups of negotiators interacted to reach “mutually satisfactory” agreements, reached five different solutions. In one case only the negotiation was concluded positively. Here the agreement was reached following a series of serious discussion, also at technical level, of effective dialogue between the parties. In the other four cases, the following situations arose: no agreement and postponement to a future meeting; the negotiating objective was partially achieved; the objective was not achieved due to the creation of a climate of hostility due to the entrenchment of individual positions and lack of dialogue and consultation between the parties, problems of communication, and a lack of documentation; and no agreement was reached, as three elements hindered the process: rigidity of roles, lack of prior information, and division among the union’s representatives. In hundreds of simulations of processes of negotiation, structured with information comparable to the cases mentioned here, the achievement rate of agreement was higher, since the negotiators were more competent and had significant previous negotiational experience. All this permits us to claim that each process of negotiation, even if attributable to a specific category (individual, intra-organisational, inter-organisational, industrial, and trade-union), represents a case in itself; therefore, it should be analysed on the basis of its specific typological characteristics. For this reason, it is difficult to find identical processes of negotiation in the concrete reality, even if we cannot exclude the hypothesis that the actors, by repeating certain negotiationary behaviour, commit the same mistakes in different processes of negotiation even with different actors.

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From another point of view, however, it is appropriate to underline the fact that, in the presence of an open and flexible culture in the management of processes of negotiation, the logic of organisational learning is applied to make it possible to acquire skills that, with experience, have an increasingly positive impact upon results and overall performance.

The Structure and Classification of Processes of Negotiation Having clarified the aspects relating to the theoretical framework of the phenomenon and the general characteristics of the process of negotiation, it is now possible to analyse its structure and division into various phases. Negotiation is a process consisting essentially of three major phases (pre-negotiation, negotiation, and post-negotiation), where a series of actions, instants, generally logically sequenced, follow one another, to achieve a purpose that is to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement. In order to implement an effective negotiation, the actors (individuals or groups) need to show that their behaviour is sufficiently autonomous with regard to the process of negotiation, in the sense that they cannot be reciprocally interdependent, from a hierarchical, economic, political, social, or cultural point of view. Even if, for example, in the processes of negotiation aimed at regulating employment relationships, in particular, those at company level, there is a sort of functional dependence of the workers, with respect to the employer mediated, however, through collective action. This asymmetrical relationship between the parties is made more equitable by the rules governing trade-union action provided for by the Constitution (freedom of trade union, art.39 and the right to strike, art.40), and those aimed at safeguarding the right of trade unions to bargain, contained in the Workers’ Statute (law 300/70). In other words, the actors of negotiation need to be assigned an initial level of equality, not of negotiating power, but of recognition of their role during negotiations. The expression power in the process of negotiation can indicate two kinds of relations established between two or more actors, where one of them manages to get the other to behave compliantly, as intended by Weber: power as legitimate not as powerful authority, which for the study of social relations is an essentially amorphous concept devoid of explanatory capacity (1968, p. 52). Then, as analysed better elsewhere (Cocozza 2004a, pp. 49–52), legitimate authority can be classified into three different ways: traditional, associated with respect for family, dynastic, corporate, role and professional tradition, etc.; bureaucratic, by virtue of the law and rational-legal power; and charismatic, which bases its relationship on innovative and irrational elements (not subordinated to legal or traditional rationality) and on the emotional involvement of the interlocutors and even more of the collaborators, who, in this case, it is more correct to define “followers”. More precisely, negotiating power concerns a type of relationship established between two or more actors and the perception that each of them has of that particular relationship. From this reasoning it might be deduced that the power

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during negotiation is essentially correlated to three different dimensions, pertaining to: • The particular perception that one party has of the other, from the point of view of the authority expressed. • The number of elements of exchange that the parties can avail themselves of. • The ability to satisfy a broad range of needs and negotiate the expectations of one party with respect to the other. In other words, the bargaining power of one party is a function of dependence of the other. This is a kind of dependence, which, as Bacharach and Lawer pointed out, can be measured on the basis of the number and breadth and vastness of available alternatives that each party possesses, and according to the degree of commitment it intends to express towards the other party during that particular process of negotiation (1981, pp. 59–61). In this same direction Crozier and Friedberg, introducing the concept of the actor’s role during negotiations, made it clear that if one of the negotiating actors controlled essential resources regarding her/his interlocutors, s/he would be in the best position to withdraw/condition the supply/performance/use of these resources. In this sense, negotiating power is assigned by the structure of social interdependencies and the possibility (capacity) that each actor may render her/his own performances uncertain (Crozier and Friedberg 1978). For this reason, if, for example, a situation arises when party A believes that counterpart B is the only source of resources regarding something that is urgently needed and which cannot be satisfied in any other way, counterpart B is in a position of great power and can adopt certain negotiating strategies and behaviour. Therefore, in an effective kind of negotiation one party cannot be markedly dependent on the other, because this situation would end by affecting the development of the entire process of negotiation. At the same time, a relational negotiating type would no longer exist, but another one, based essentially on relationships of subordination recollective of other types of explanatory schemes of interactions in relational contexts of that kind. The negotiating actors should represent and be bearers of common interests, intended as personal or group objectives (the definition of a contractual norm, the solution of problems, the achievement of a goal, etc.). At the same time, their interests might differ and be in contrast, not be exactly coincident and compatible within “a single” unitary, shared definition. These are essential preconditions for any process of negotiation, since, if there were only common and shared interests, we would be in the presence of effectively participatory interaction, and the need to activate a process of negotiation to solve open problems would not arise. Instead, it would be a case of a collaborative, cooperative relationship. Similarly, if there were only opposite, incompatible interests, the process of negotiation could not be set up, because interaction would be substantially conflictual. Therefore, all processes of negotiation start from a problematic situation, characterised by different initial points of view regarding open problems, to which the actors must find a solution to be

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shared as much as possible regarding both the content and the method by means of which said contents are determined. On the basis of this explanation, it follows that negotiation can be effective and resolve open problems between different parties, if these, in addition to having different legitimate expectations, share the need, at least, to solve the problems, to seek a mutually satisfactory agreement representing the idea of the common point as highlighted by our explanatory scheme. These actors meet. This means that they find themselves in a given place that brings them into direct physical contact, for a “definite” period of time and voluntarily (they are consensually subject to an “order” inherent to relational systems, for example, that of corporate decision-making procedures or industrial relations), to discuss (analyse, find data, test hypotheses, etc.), in order to reach an agreement of mutually satisfactory for all the actors, which may take the form of a regulation, a contractual procedure, a solution to a problem, etc. To this end, it is necessary to clarify that the voluntary character is an indispensable requirement of the explanatory model of processes of negotiation within a pluralist theoretical framework, since, as many scholars of industrial relations have argued (Clegg et al. 1980; Cella 1999; Baglioni 1998), the absence of this prerogative would structurally invalidate its functioning, giving rise to possible totalitarian states or relational systems. These are the relational systems we find in authoritarian regimes, where the parties are not free to choose their negotiationary behaviour independently, since their choices tend to be conditioned by a higher power of an economic, political, or social nature.4 For this reason, negotiations should take place following a series of different steps, where the contracting parties can confront each other directly, observe each other’s behaviour, and look each other in the eye, to understand if their verbal and non-verbal language corresponds. This means that negotiations cannot be carried out at a distance. Perhaps, this way, data and information can be acquired in order to organise exclusively a necessary preliminary investigation of the pre-negotiation phase. Similarly, as we know, personal relationships and direct exchanges are important, since verbal language can be artificial and manipulated, but that of the body does not lie (Morris).

4

This consideration leads us, for example, to ask question ourselves regarding a series of extremely delicate issues debated by some experts, represented by the following questions: in public administration, can the employer (represented by the pro-tempore manager of the structure) really take all the negotiating choices he deems appropriate, obviously in compliance with the law and National Collective Labour Agreements? Up to which point need the choices be agreed on by the political summit? To what extent do the decisions taken in a logic of sharing between the political and managerial summit respond to criteria of effectiveness and efficiency and not to ones of political consensus?

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The Language of Negotiation As regards the language to be used during negotiations, in particular those concerning industrial and trade-union relations, as posited pleasantly in the Young Haggler Handbook (Anonymous, p. 10), the initiatory language of the negotiator is strongly influenced by specialised jargons. Depending on the historical and political period, some terms are used more than others, but, as our amusing Anonymous author noted (ibid., P. 11), the English words ending with “y”, like productivity, competitivity, flexibility, and elasticity, are typical entrepreneurs, while those that end in “ing”, such as bargaining, claiming, restructuring, etc., belong to the lexicon of the union. For this reason, the negotiator in any negotiating context needs to pay particular attention to the use of words, so as not to be automatically labelled as a person favouring the one or other side, but also because the words weigh like boulder, and, once pronounced, they can no longer be withdrawn. Negotiators need to reach the correct solutions and be ready to do so unless they want to be accused of unreliability: the most serious accusation that can be addressed to a negotiator.

Areas of Action in the Negotiation Model: From Conflictual and Consociative Models to the Participatory One Within this relational framework, it is possible to sustain that marginal and possible areas of action can be defined in terms of the negotiators, as indicated in Fig. 1: the specific area of competence of each negotiator is highlighted where the other cannot intervene at all—the so-called area of role prerogatives (entrepreneurial or trade union) and the narrower area of overlap, where it is possible to find common issues capable of solving the open problems which gave birth to the process of negotiation. Negotiation is, therefore, triggered when the negotiators are aware and respectful of their reciprocal role, on the one hand, the trade-union representative, related to the relationships established with their representatives (workers, members of the tradeunion organisations), and, on the other, the manager who represents those (company management, company management bodies) who grant her/him the mandate to negotiate. These two parties belong to the common area, within which it is possible to explore chances of reaching a mutually satisfactory agreement. In order to be reached, this agreement needs to be positively correlated with the other two phases of the process of negotiation: pre-negotiation and post-negotiation phases. As we shall see, the former seeks to create the conditions for the stipulation of the agreement, the latter, which chronologically follows the signing of the agreement and to some extent, also precedes it, in a circular, procedural perspective resulting from that specific post-negotiation phase which represents the basis upon which to begin future negotiations.

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Overlap area Common problem/objective

Actor A

Common area

Actor B

Area of actor B

Area of actor A

Area of negotiation and negotiators

Fig. 1 The negotiational model. Overlap area—problem/common objective. Actor A—Common area—Actor B. Area of actor A—area of negotiation and negotiators—area of actor B. Source: our own

Figures 2 and 3, on the other hand, illustrate two other possible though less effective relational models, which differ substantially from the negotiational model, and which we call, respectively, the conflict model and the consociative model. In the first model (Fig. 2) the two actors are placed in a substantially absolute incompatible diametrical position, which moves along a parallel trajectory, where the parties never meet. In this case, the stipulation of an agreement represents an exceptional fact, a sort of “truce” in the war between the parties, which almost always occurs thanks to the intervention of a third actor. Therefore, in this relational model, even if the actors directly concerned, bearers of oppositional visions, believe they enjoy a maximum degree of freedom, though this is not true. They are free to say only no, but not to autonomously reach an agreement with their opponent— which is what counterparts from conflictual cultures consider each other to be. An opposite relational situation occurs in the consociative model (Fig. 3), rather widespread recently in areas of Italian public administration, though still present in some cases, where there is no clear definition of the responsibility of the social partners and there exists a considerable overlapping of roles. This is a relational model that has been superseded by the rules laid down by the legislative decree 29/93, and by the subsequent collective agreements of the past ten years, which have outlined, on the contrary, a consultative and participatory system of trade-union relations. The consociative system has fostered an inter-actorial relational context where two major characteristics emerge: no clear distinction between the roles of the administrative manager and the representative of the employees’ trade unions, but a considerable

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Actor C

Actor A

Actor B

Area of actor B

Area of actor A

Area of a possible agreement

Fig. 2 The conflictual model. Actor A—Actor B. Area of actor A—Area of a possible agreement—Area of actor B. Source: our own

Actor A

Area of actor A

Actor B

Area of actor B

Area of a possible agreement Fig. 3 The consociative model. Actor A—Actor B. Area of actor A—Area of an always possible agreement—Area of actor B. Source: our own

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admixture of roles and responsibilities, up to the point where, in some extreme cases, the management of and responsibility for a public body and the territorial office of a trade union might be in the hands of the same person; the negotiators were more similar to each other, although belonging to different social area than the subjects who delegated them (the workers) or from which they received their mandate (the top management). This situation was no longer feasible, above all, with the introduction of a new management culture into the public administration based on principles of new public management and a culture of evaluation of the performance of administrative and managerial action (Cocozza 2004a, b, c, pp. 15–36). In public administration, it is also possible to find yet another relational tendency called corporatism, which while it is not really a model is useful to recall all the same. Here the behaviour of subjects, particularly those belonging to the trade unions, tends to be extremely defensive of particular interests, despite the growing importance of general interests. This is a phenomenon we still find in some sectors where the trade unions, which, while not necessarily powerfully representative, can be the cause of harmful disservice to citizens, as in the case of public transport (urban, rail, and air), schools, and healthcare.

Negotiation Strategies: Possible Alternatives In reality, the process of negotiation always arises from problematic situations, connoted by conflicting interests, but, at the same time, requiring agreement. This situation, generally, could rise to two major decision-making moments that oblige the actors, first of all, to analyse the variables of the context, and subsequently evaluate strategic alternatives. Therefore, during the first phase, it is necessary to analyse three aspects of the case: the needs expressed by the actors (or a number of parties) involved, recurring to empathy; the elements of exchange available to both sides, meaning negotiating power; and the need to distinguish between objectives and exigencies, where the former express the historicisation of the latter. Once this analytical phase has been carried out, then comes the need to make strategic decisions, taking all possible, available alternatives and criteria into due consideration. In managing negotiation, the strategic alternatives might be summed up under three essential headings, along a continuum of greater or lesser openness to the possibility of building solid and lasting relationships between the parties and involving three different choices: take or leave, bargain, negotiate. The take-or-leave alternative can be adopted in cases where there is a clear asymmetrical balance of power between the parties; therefore real negotiation is not implemented, but the hegemonic party “imposes” her/his on the other. The possibility of bargaining, on the other hand, can be used when the balance of power is uncertain or equally distributed, and when there is not much time available to seek and find a common solution to open problems, and one of the parties is not very interested in involving the other in the definition of the details of the agreement.

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In a certain sense, by opting for this strategic choice—while it triggers a process of negotiation between the parties and reflects a scheme used to define different types of leadership—the manager (or the other actor) pays greater attention to the contents of the agreement (goal orientation) than to the relational climate in which agreement is sought (climate orientation). The third strategic alternative, to negotiate, connotes a true process of negotiation, where an effective mix of goal-oriented and climatefriendly leadership is created. This is a complex and difficult decision to make. However, it determines a very important negotiating situation, which can have a significantly positive effect on the maintenance of a positive climate, the level of applicability of the agreements reached, and the willingness of the parties to tackle innovative problems with greater trust and openness towards collaboration and participation. In other words, if the difference between the first strategic alternative (take or leave) and the other two turns out to be intuitive because it is clear, the distinction between bargaining and negotiating can be better understood if we use a concept presented in the second chapter, where Flanders criticised the Webb couple’s theoretical position and distinguished between the concept of bargaining and that of negotiation. Within this theoretical framework, negotiating differs substantially from bargaining, because the parties enter into a field relating to prerogatives of power and roles, where, if the intention is to effectively expand one’s sphere of influence, it is necessary to share some of one’s power with the other actor/s playing the game. This way, it is possible to share a wider area of influence, because, in addition to “governing” one’s own area, a common area where the actors can and need to decide on an equitable and shared footing and there is no room for unilaterality. Conversely, the actors “settle for” a different type of contract when they reach a positive collective agreement concerning above all economic issues. In this case, they are not overly interested in the other party’s commitment to a project of transformation or the maintenance of a collaborative relational climate. It is clear that having made the strategic choice to negotiate, the actors tend to expand their spheres of influence over the possible solutions to be adopted and over their control of behaviour (individual and collective, organisational and professional, role and institutional). In the case of bargaining, each of the actors maintains her/his own position, while the “take-or-leave” option which may seem to be the strongest and most insidious position obliges the parties “to dig trenches” to defend the positions reached. However, as we know, throughout the history of mankind, trenches have shown that they cannot be defended forever, because, sooner or later, according to the famous law of the “pendulum”, the balance of power can and does shift, and at that point, the person submitted to a choice will try to regain terrain, without knowing what compensatory interests s/he may require.

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Conducting the Process of Negotiation In order to conduct the process of negotiation effectively, the actors can also make a series of moves and counter-moves, like in a game of chess5 or, more appropriately, a tennis match, doubles actually. Here the players need to choose moves aimed at anticipating the other by designing tactics, implementing strategies/tactics, verifying, updating analyses of the elements of exchange, changing strategies/tactics if and when necessary, and finally implementing policies of readjustment. The latter is fundamental if the negotiator does not want to run the risk of entering a cul-de-sac, from which s/he is no longer able to exit. S/he will need to involve another actor, in order to be rescued from the plight into which s/he has got her/him, perhaps deliberately. This situation calls into question the role of actors external to the process of negotiation and not directly involved in the questions being negotiated. This person is called on when the main actors (the negotiators) have reached an impasse, and can no longer proceed and risk having to abandon the process, something that all professional negotiators detest. The entry into the negotiating scene of a third party, who in industrial relations may be the Ministry of Welfare and Labour, or, in the most serious cases, the Prime Minister, objectively limits the autonomous action of the parties, therefore, and obliges the negotiators to admit failure. In other areas of negotiation, such as individual, intra-organisational, and inter-institutional ones, the third actor is usually someone from a level hierarchically higher than those who, up until then, were delegated to head the negotiations. This third party might be a CEO, a general manager, a managing director, or even a president; in Italian public administration, this might be a representative of Aran or a prestigious political figure (a minister, president of a body, the president of the region or province, a mayor). In managing the process of negotiation, as already mentioned, it is based on the logic of empathy, and ask why the roles of the negotiators often turn out to be substantially specular and what the interlocutors’ motivations may be. From this point of view, it is necessary to consider some aspects of the problems that might lead to the assumption of possible solutions that may be short-term and immediate, 5

In reality, the reference to tennis doubles is preferable, because the conduct of a chess game is not as quiet and peaceful as it might seem to the uninitiated. It is more like a boxing match, given that Kasparow, world champion of this game, pointed out that “chess is the most violent existing sport”—a metaphor masterfully represented in a novel by Maurensig, The Lüneburg variant, which tells of a match between two young players. This match is worth a life, a generation, a clash between races and civilisations. Moreover, this game seems to have been born from a fact of blood, which involved its inventor, who, presenting himself to the Sultan, asked for a modest remuneration in exchange for his invention, corresponding to the result of a mathematical process. The game involved placing grain of wheat on the first square, added with two on the second, with four on the third and with eight on the fourth, and so on, up to the power of sixty-four. When the Sultan, who had willingly accepted the modest compensation requested, discovered that he would not have enough resources, he had the inventor of the game killed, his head cut off. But he did not know that another catastrophe was in store for him. He fell madly in love with the game of chess, because of which he ended up by losing his mind and power over his kingdom.

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of a general nature, or relating to issues of prestige. For this reason, it is important that the negotiator ask her/himself which of the interlocutor’s real needs s/he can satisfy and carefully examine her/his activity, since this analysis will reveal possible elements of exchange to be “put on the table”, and enforced through her/his negotiating power. In any case, a cultural issue exists that, before policies or negotiations, can determine the progress of a process of negotiation. It is the question of how to start the negotiation from an advantageous position. In this regard, it is good to clarify that when choosing between cooperation and competition, the most effective choice always remains cooperation. This choice tends to create value, while competition places itself, objectively, within a logic of closure and wall-towall claims of value. So, when the negotiator finds her/himself in a situation where the counterpart is very strong, s/he cannot certainly create an insurmountable limit, for at least four reasons: s/he runs the risk that it may turn out to be an overly rigid constraint; it may restrain the imagination and, therefore, hamper the creation of a viable solution, which will always be innovative, either in content or in the way the agreement is reached; it can be excessive; it may be the worst solution.

The Phases of the Process of Negotiation The process of negotiation, as illustrated in Table 1, goes through three major phases, each one strongly, dynamically, and dialectically interrelated with the others. These are the pre-negotiation, negotiation, and post-negotiation phases. These are three phases, which, using the metaphor of the chess game, foresee 14 moves arranged in a logical though not necessarily temporal sequence, which Table 1 The three phases of the process of negotiation Pre-negotiation phase 1. Birth of the opportunity to negotiate 2. Definition of the problem/ object and objectives 3. Quest for and evaluation of alternatives 4. Development of the claims platform 5. Verification of consent and compatibility 6. Choice of the confrontation strategy 7. Composition of the negotiating delegation Source: our own

Negotiation phase 8. Presentation of the claims platform 9. Negotiation and comparison between the parties 10. Final decisions and choices 11. Agreement

Post-negotiation phase 12. Verification of consent 13. Management of the agreement 14. Verification of the results

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permit the entire process of negotiation to take place. This process affects both delegations in a specular way and starts from the pre-negotiation phase, where the opportunity to negotiate arises. It then goes through the central phase of negotiation and discussion proper, aimed at reaching an agreement, to arrive at the verification of the results during the post-negotiation phase involving the application (or non-application) of the agreement reached. Having clarified the general framework, within which the negotiation takes place, it is possible to analyse the three major phases of this process by describing the specific activities that should be carried out by the negotiator during each phase, in a circular and recursive logic.

The Pre-Negotiation Phase During the pre-negotiation phase, which performs an essentially analytical and investigative role, a series of important activities are carried out: the analysis of the problem to be negotiated, the collection of information regarding the problem, the definition of the main issues, and objectives to be pursued. During this phase, the trade-union party prepares the claims platform, which consists of a series of requests to be presented to the entrepreneurial counterpart at the beginning of the next phase, and which, from the point of view of the employers, become a set of problems to be addressed and solved. More and more often, at this stage, the company delegation analyses the open problems within the company relating to transformations of production or the introduction of technological and organisational innovation, in order, if necessary, to try to address and solve them later with the contribution and responsible involvement of the trade-union counterpart. For this reason, these actions must be interpreted through a mirror of logic and full and legitimate relational reciprocity between the negotiating actors. All this means that the behaviour of one actor conditions that of the other, and vice versa. For example, one of the two negotiating actors, by making a certain proposal on the salary issue, not only defines her/his position, but induces and, in certain cases, obliges the other party to express her/his position, even if the latter had no intention of exposing her/himself on that particular subject. At this stage, it is necessary that both parties verify the framework of the compatibility of their positions, in relation to the particular economic, political, and regulatory context in which they operate as they strive to obtain the relative degree of consent essential to the assumption of certain positions. In other words, the negotiators receive indications from those who grant their “mandate” (they may consist of a document indicating the conditions and limits within which the process of negotiation can be conducted, and probable and possible “areas of agreement”). These conditions, for obvious reasons, always have two main features: their details are unknown to the public, so as not to invalidate the development of the actual negotiation preventively; they belong to a mixed set of options, ranging from a minimum to a maximum

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degree of acceptability. When these two criteria are not met, negotiations languish,6 either because the parties—aware, in advance, of the limits posed—are placed in positions so very distant from each other that they are unable to identify “that common ground” of solutions, which the parties find acceptable or bearable, or because the limits within which it is possible to mediate are too rigid, and, therefore, incapable of providing sufficient room for manoeuvres. In this case “the mandate is rigid”, in the sense that one of the parties, or both, want to impose different positions on the counterpart, or, although negotiations have started, they are not intended to conclude with an agreement. Having made these initial choices, the next step requires choices based on a comparative analysis of the three possible strategies available: take or leave, bargain, negotiate. These initial decision-making choices are propaedeutic to the definition of priorities, a concrete form of managerial action, which makes the difference between an effective and an ineffective negotiator. In the language of negotiation, that of trade unionism or contracts, for example, anyone should be able to negotiate, but it is only an effective negotiator who is capable of establishing adequate, reasonable priorities at a given point of the transactions. In other words, verification of compatibility and the definition of priorities (terms ending in “y”) at the end of the process is relatively simple, because, at that point, these negotiating elements have become variables that are obligatory; that is, they are the result of negotiation games already carried out by other actors. For this reason, planning, organising, and carrying out effective pre-negotiations means creating the conditions for positive management of the following phase of actual negotiation between the parties. This first phase is the prelude to the achievement of an agreement.

The Negotiation Phase During the negotiation phase, the negotiator needs to prove the effectiveness of her/his leadership, since s/he is expected to govern a series of critical variables necessary to the management of conflicts that may arise because of her/his mandate and/or attitude towards the counterpart. To manage these, decision-making skills and resistance to stress are necessary. In fact, negotiation, even where there is little or no conflict, is potentially stressful, although it is necessary to remember the existence of positive stress, also known as eustress, meaning the right dose of stimulus required to perform well, especially during negotiations involving diplomatic and representational abilities, or involving high levels of organisational and managerial responsibility.

6

Situations of this type can be observed, both in international and in political negotiations, which, in recent Italy, present numerous instances of this kind, which concern the majority and opposition groups, and which involve large parties that are particularly composite because of this.

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Furthermore, the negotiator is obliged to control the use of time, which, as we know, is not a boundless resource. For this reason, each negotiation is bound by a time limit within which it needs to be concluded; otherwise, it risks degenerating, causing damage and the loss of advantages. The effective negotiator should, therefore, understand when s/he still has time to explore new proposals and pursue innovative pathways by availing her/himself of the ability to discern between and combine proposals and counter-proposals based on clear, precise arguments, or when it is time to launch a definitive proposal. For this reason, particularly during negotiations, the negotiator should never express haphazard opinions, but advance proposals supported by data and information, cite sources, and always be prepared for a technical check. This last consideration specifies the fact that in negotiation the delegation of one or more negotiators, with a decisional function, is vital. A head of each delegation needs to be appointed, and then the parties will nominate a series of technical professionals or experts to obtain information regarding reference standards (labour lawyers and industrial relations experts), or acquire data and make projections regarding the costs of certain requests or the platform as a whole (labour economists). In particular, the conduction of negotiations may require negotiators to use what we might call the Zen technique in negotiation. This technique consists in neither rejecting nor accepting the position of the counterpart, but considering them as one of the possible variables, and envisaging the negative effects on the party who formulated them unless they are considered interesting. To achieve this, it is not useful to forward counter-proposals immediately, but it is necessary, instead, to ask questions and take suspensive pauses which permit proper rearrangement of ideas and positions even in conjunction with the entire negotiating delegation. In short, an agreement is reached between the parties when the negotiators have created the proper conditions. Moreover, no one will ever sign an agreement if the conditions do not exist, and lacking these, they need to be built, since agreements do not materialise by magic, but thanks to the art of rhetoric and conviction, and, above all, dialectics. The negotiator needs to possess dialectical ability, without which s/he will never be able to reach an agreement. Already, the philosophers of ancient Greece considered these facets of the art of speech, by means of which something could be demolished or affirmed, starting from the questions and answers of the interlocutors. In this regard, Schopenhauer recalled in his The art of getting right. Exposed in 38 tricks that ... as a rule, everyone will want to make his own statement prevail, even when for the moment it seems false or doubtful; and the means to succeed are, to a certain extent, offered to each by their own cunning and wickedness: what teaches them is the daily experience of disputing. Each, therefore, has its own natural dialectic, just as each has its own natural logic. But the former is not as certain a guide as the latter. (1991, p. 17)

During negotiations, the very core of the process is a matter of convincing and showing the other that the final proposal is reasonable, is respectful of prerogatives, and will bring benefits to both parties.

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A negotiator needs to know how to convince if s/he wants to convince the interlocutor, since agreement needs to be prepared and cultivated. Just as a long journey cannot be improvised, so agreements must be planned.

The Post-Negotiation Phase Finally, the post-negotiation phase represents a very important part of the process of negotiation and, for the negotiators, it acts as a way of checking the difference between the agreement and the pre-negotiation situation. During this assessment, the negotiators should ask themselves if the agreement endorsed has improved the problematic situation, from which the process of negotiation stemmed, and whether the contents of the agreement have actually solved the open problems. After this, the negotiators proceed to verify the acceptance of the agreement by both sides, by the workers who avail themselves of assemblies or referenda, and by the top management who analyse a report which permits them to make comparisons and carry out an assessment of the progress made thanks to the negotiation. This last type of verification that the negotiators need to prepare is the most difficult, at times the less usual one. It concerns the degree of applicability of the agreement reached. This is a question that, from an exclusively legal point of view, ought never be asked, because it is senseless, because the agreement is destined to be applied in any case. However, this does not always happen in the real world; therefore, on the basis of sociological analyses it might be argued that there are three types of agreement: those actually applied, those not applied, and those that are unenforceable. Unapplied agreements are those that, although the conditions exist, are not implemented because the political will of the parties is lacking, while those that are unenforceable because neither the conditions (political and often cultural) nor the will exists. These agreements are difficult to apply because they are often the result of relations and processes of negotiation conducted by the hegemonic party using a take-or-leave strategy, or, in some cases, following bargaining. This is a strategy that does not make use of a leadership respectful of methods and processes, or a positive, collaborative relational climate central to the interests of the negotiators, but focuses on mediation privileging the contents and achievement of predefined goals. The party with the greatest negotiating power tends to adopt a serious and rigid attitude towards the achievement of its reconstituted goal. In these cases, the other party, usually weaker, has either undergone the agreement, and therefore, does not fully share the conditions of the agreement reached using a take-or-leave strategy, which is why the application is not favoured, or, if it is the outcome of a bargaining strategy, is not yet ready to be culturally guaranteed. These considerations permit us to assert that, if the intention is to define procedural agreements, which outline reference frameworks and commit the parties to observe an innovative and transformative period of reflection, neither short nor very short, but middle-term, then the take-it-or-leave strategy will certainly be the least effective. This is a strategy that

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The party with little power tends to choose to negotiate, to increase its negotiating chances Asymmetric power

The part that has more power tends to choose to take or leave

The relation is important Power assessment and choice of negotiating strategy

Uncertain power

Time is limited

Necessity commitment other party

The relation is important

Power equally distributed

Time is limited

Necessity commitment other party

Negotiation Take or leave / Haggling

Negotiation

Negotiation

Haggling

Negotiation

Fig. 4 Interaction between the evaluation of power and choices of negotiation strategy. Evaluations of the power of choice and strategies of negotiation. (1) Asymmetrical power: the party with less power chooses to negotiate, to increase her/his chances—the party with more power tends to choose the take-or-leave approach. (2) Balanced or uncertain power: the relationship between the parties is important—Negotiate. Time is limited—Take or leave it or bargain. Commitment is needed on the other side—Negotiate. (3) Equally balanced power: the relationship is important— Negotiate. Time is limited—Bargain. The other party needs to commit—Negotiate. Source: our own

negotiators tend to adopt when there is a considerable gap between the parties, and a highly accentuated asymmetrical balance of negotiating power. Figure 4 was drawn up in an effort to provide a general picture of possible kinds of interaction between the evaluation of power and choices of negotiationary strategy. Three different situations in the scheme represent circumstances where the negotiator finds that the balance of negotiating power may be asymmetrical, balanced, or uncertain, or equally balanced, due to the selection of criteria relating to the structural conditions of the negotiation (time may be limited), or to cultural and relational conditions (the importance of the relationship between the parties as an exigency to trigger or maintain the counterpart’s commitment). The combination of

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these variables might lead the negotiator to choose one of three possible strategic alternatives, represented in the following classification: take-or-leave, bargain, negotiate. The negotiator will need to heed, however, a series of elements, which can characterise the negotiationary behaviour of the actors belonging to the two delegations transversally, since one party may privilege the following aspects: form, economic, internal, and symbolic considerations, the immediate future, specific results, material issues, progress, background, prestige, reputation, political advantages. Conversely, another party may prefer the f elements like substance, political, external, and practical considerations, the middle-term future, relationships, ideology, tradition, particular cases, results, and collective well-being. Ultimately, effective processes of governance of negotiation highlight a series of elements to which the negotiator needs to pay particular attention. These regard the following issues: the fact that the structural interdependence of the parties that are created can place limits on the unilateral actions of the actors, and calls for a collaborative relational attitude, that, therefore, negotiations can affect the discretional leeway of the parties and their margins of freedom, and that, if a collaborative climate is established, it can, in turn, positively influence the management of shared projects of transformation. On the other hand, however, we cannot ignore the fact that, in opposite cases, the negotiator may find her/himself acting in a relational context conditioned by opportunistic interaction, which exert leverage on the tactics employed, on non-transparent management of information, or on the intention of gaining an advantage (personal, collective, current, etc.). Furthermore, there can be cases in which some actors show a more than positive willingness to endorse an agreement. This involves demonstrating their intention to sign any kind of agreement, in order to be admitted to the table,7 even by resorting to trickery and cheating. In any case, it is necessary that the negotiator consider the fact that the process of negotiation is always related to elements of potential conflict, which have never subsided fully. For this reason, it is important to be aware of instances where even if the parties agree to prepare a cake—to use a culinary metaphor—the fact remains that to achieve this goal, there may be (and are) different ideas concerning both the recipe and on how the cake is to be shared. Similarly, the negotiator needs to be particularly aware of the increasing interdependence between people and roles, in particular that concerning the most significant roles, like the head of the delegation or employers’ technician and the secretary of a union with majority leanings or of a union closer to the opposition (minority, but admitted to negotiations). It is important

7

This case arose in recent years within the sphere of trade-union relations in the public transport, health, and school sectors, where, seeing that there is still no regulation of the representativeness of the trade-union organisations, necessary for their recognition as signatory interlocutors of the CCNL, therefore beneficiaries of certain rights and guarantees, some new trade unions subsequently endorsed agreements that were not developed thanks to their contribution. In some cases, the contents were not even shared by them, as shown by the non-applicative behaviour assumed subsequently.

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to consider the ways certain people play particular roles. This is something that can increase or reduce their importance as players in the game of negotiation. Their degree of importance depends on their personal interpretations of the played role, or even on the expectations of the other actors regarding that particular role. Finally, the possible difficulties that may harm negotiations or the climate, which arise due to problems due to ineffective processes of communication when the negotiators do not listen to each other and tend to play squash rather than tennis doubles, giving rise to an impassable “wall against wall”.8 This is an impassable wall, not because there is a rigid physical (material) limit, which in any case can be overcome, but a cultural limit, that is, one linked to the basic assumptions and beliefs of the people who guide the behaviour of the negotiators. This element brings the focus to bear again on the inextricable relationship that exists between people and the interpretation of roles, during negotiations, as in other forms of social interaction, including those that occur within the family. There can also be serious problems of noncompliance between two or more of the negotiating actors which prevent those affected by similar relational difficulties from coming into direct contact with others who are equally recalcitrant. Intervention becomes difficult when this problem affects people who play important roles or are at the head of a delegation, but, as already explained above, this kind of person is not suitable to manage negotiations. This is a role that might be played, effectively, even if not officially, by another member of the delegation. In that case, there would be a formal leader and a substantial leader, who to act would require the acknowledgement of both her/his own and the other negotiating party. The effective leader called upon to manage the negotiation might, generally speaking, have to face some critical issues based on the following variables: coherence between the different roles expressed by the delegation and the style of leadership enacted by the head of the delegation; the management of information, in terms of quantity and range, quality, and credibility of the sources, required to support the negotiation; the management of off-table events (events taking place in other places or areas), which tend to condition, at times even orient the negotiation; the cadencing of the time schedule, in relation to both the objectives to be achieved and the development of the relational climate; the management of the budget available regarding the compatibility and limits contained in the mandate; and the management of consensus at various levels regarding compliance with the conditions established in the mandate and means used to involve the various agents.

8

The metaphor of the tennis doubles is preferable, not only because it is a non-violent sport, but also because it provides a good image of the differences between single and collective action, which if well organised can make the game interesting; it ends up by becoming a team game with challenges for both couples. It obliges each player to play well, as well as each pair to remain close and respond effectively to the shots launched by the other players. This sport, as doubles, even if it might seem very similar structurally and technically to squash, it actually takes place within an almost opposite cultural dimension characterised by considerable distance and where each player needs to respond (by paying attention) to the other players’ game.

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Leadership in the Governance of Processes of Negotiation Ultimately, if one wished to analyse effective leadership in the governance of the process of negotiation, from the point of view of models of style and orientation, one might argue that leadership cannot be based on traditional models of management, but, rather, on a participatory model, while orientation needs to aim at an adequate mix between the achievement of goals and the maintenance of a collaborative climate. These considerations give rise to some indications concerning the styles of persuasion that the negotiator might bring into play when seeking to manage negotiations. There are, essentially five different styles, which assume the following characteristics: • The persuasive style: aims at convincing the interlocutor, systematically, making use of proposals and analyses. • The assertive style: aims at defining expectations and is used to evaluate and identify a system of incentives, made up of rewards and punishments. • The connective style: based on listening, help, and empathy. • The style of fascination: used to depict desirable future scenarios and find common grounds for action. • Withdrawal style: based on disengagement and avoidance of conflict. In reality, in the management of negotiations, an important and, to some extent, irreplaceable role is that played by the trust between the parties, a factor that can condition and orient choices of the strategies and tactics to be implemented. Figure 5 is a summary of the various correlations that tend to be created between the level of trust existing between the actors, the favourite strategic choices, and the possible tactics adopted. This scheme shows that a positive correlation exists between the actors’ level of mutual trust and strategies of openness towards the interlocutor. It means that the higher the level of trust is, the more the negotiating strategy is employed, and vice versa, when trust is weak, there is a tendency to assume a negotiation strategy first then one of a take-or-leave type. From this scheme, it emerges that a negotiator can move from a relational situation characterised by a low level of trust, where the actors may not deal exclusively with the other party while dealing competitively with several parties, without recognising the opposite party’s legitimate right to conduct the negotiation. In a situation where there is a high degree of trust between the parties, the strategy of negotiating openly to solve problems is adopted, and highly fluid behaviour is applied, like asking questions or making requests in terms of priority needs, establishing the goals and conducting analyses of means favouring a collective exchange between the delegations during the negotiation. Objectively speaking, this is an optimal situation that is difficult to find in concrete reality. On the other hand, it is based on direct observation of the phenomenon, which, in recent years, found some cases where a consolidated collaborative relational climate existed, but the negotiators had known each other personally for

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Level of trust Low

Strategy Don't treat exclusively

Tactics Dealing with several parties in a competitive manner

with the other side Take or Leave

Using a power relationship to be the only or or the most convenient resource for the needs of of the other party Exerting maximum pressure by imposing or setting limits Limiting disclosure: Hiding information about the priority needs Have some flexibility only in the means of primary exchange

Medium Negotiation prudently

Presenting aims as required Mandatory or required Negotiate at the level of objectives Try to identify the other's needs in order to in order to be able to propose alternative or different ways of Satisfaction of the others' needs

Negotiation openly

Suggesting aims to solve better to meet your/their needs Reveal your needs and priorities on a basis of reciprocity of reciprocity Encourage exploration of means of exchange other ways in which the parties can can meet each other's needs

Uppe

Negotiation: problem-

Ask questions or make requests in terms of needs

solving

priority rather than goals Carry out analyses of the means of exchange together during the negotiation

Fig. 5 Levels of confidence and strategic choices. Levels of confidence—strategy—tactics. Low: means dealing exclusively with the other party or dealing with multiple parties in a competitive manner. Take or leave it: involves using the power of relationships as the only or most convenient resource by means of which to deal with the other party’s needs. Bargain: means exerting a maximum of pressure by imposing or setting limits. Limiting information: involves hiding priority needs and conceding some degree of flexibility only regarding primary means of exchange. Medium—Negotiating with caution: means presenting the objectives as mandatory or obligatory. Negotiation occurs at the level of objectives. This involves the identification of the needs of the other in such a manner as to be able to propose alternative goals or other ways of meeting the needs of the other. Negotiating openly: requires an open declaration of the goals as a better way of meeting the needs of both parties. The disclosure of needs and priorities needs to be reciprocal. Alternative means of exchange need to be sought, that is, other ways by means that permit the parties to satisfy

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quite some time, and based on their confidence on experience, i.e. on previous successful agreements they reached together. Duluc and Botteri (2003) tackled the issue of leadership built on trust, proposing an innovative method by means of which processes of leadership and the “confidence or trust factor” are integrated to obtain concrete development of human resources within a framework of organisational effectiveness. The authors, who have the right psychological background and business experience acquired in important multinational corporations, indicated the elements essential to foster confidence/trust in themselves and others and develop trust within the organisation and define the operational and concrete steps to make this process feasible and applicable. But what skills should a negotiator acquire to improve her/his performance? This varies, or course, from case to case, but there are undoubtedly areas of learning that need to be strengthened. These regard, in particular, the following aspects: communication, interpersonal and collective relationships, the management of conflict and difference, verbal and non-verbal behaviour, creativity, memory, resistance to stress, the ability to diagnose problems and define objectives, decision-making style, the ability to forecast situations and manage the role of negotiator, the use of delegation and fulfilment of the mandate, the management of power and leadership, the use of time, style of negotiation, strategies of confrontation, persuasion and argumentation, the exercise of representativity, strategic thinking skills, and the ability to evaluate results. Within this ambit, the concept of bisociation enunciated by Koestler (1975) acquires particular importance; by this term, he intended intellectual operations capable of uniting two frames of reference, associative contexts or styles of reasonings normally considered incompatible. Although one needs to remember that creativity is not the result of the imagination alone, but as Leonardo claimed, the outcome of hard daily work and “obstinate rigour”. It is an important creative formula for a negotiator, who, to be effective, needs to be able to combine worlds, cultures, policies, objectives, and tools belonging traditionally to alternative fields, according to a win-win logic.

 ⁄ Fig. 5 (continued) each other’s needs. Low—Negotiate: requires solving the problem by asking questions or making requests in terms of overriding needs, not goals. It also requires analyses of the means by which to foster collective exchange during the negotiation. Source: An adaptation of the schemes of Maslow and Herzberg

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Experiences of Negotiation Undoubtedly, the participation and conduct of numerous negotiations are very useful to observe in order to learn to play one’s role better, like in tennis doubles. There is also to take part in participatory observation of negotiations conducted by others, or analyse processes of negotiation that have already been concluded. To this end, when analysing a case, the potential negotiator (as a scholar) should examine the following elements carefully: • The context, taking into consideration the particular characteristics of the reference ambit and the various responsibilities of the delegations, and, in particular, of the actors. • The pre-negotiation phase, when the problem/object of the negotiation, the subjects of the negotiation, the objectives, and the strategies of confrontation adopted by the actors are analysed. • The negotiation phase, where the weight of the main critical issues is calculated, with regard, in particular, to the various subjects dealt with, the relational climate, agreements reached (examining the contents), or non-agreements (examining the reasons why not). • The post-negotiation phase, during which consensus is examined along with the ways used to manage the agreement, the difficulties associated with the application of the agreement, and the open potential, are all taken into consideration. This is a sequence which may permit the negotiator to enter into a particular world, which has its own recursive rituals, such as that of difficult, complex, and suffered agreements resulting from all-night negotiations. As noted in the Young Haggler Handbook, regarding widescale negotiations: During the day you can hold meetings, useful perhaps, but it is the night that matures the negotiation and prepares its conclusion. The contractor must intuit when it is time to sleep at night. S/he will confide it to her/his collaborators, in a low voice and with pleasant complicity. “Tonight is the night”. So, be prepared to “stay up all night” and if you are lucky, you may even manage two or three consecutive hours of sleep and see your prestige and importance increase. Just imagine that when, the next morning, they look for you in the office and the secretary will be able to say that you are not in the office because “his excellency stayed overnight”. (Anonymous s.d., p. 37)

Ultimately, as Provasi pointed out, the process of negotiation differs from other board games, like chess or poker, since in these the rules are set and are exogenous in nature. These rules are accepted and respected and the players are obliged to stick to them without being able to change them. In the game of negotiation, on the contrary, the rules are the result of interpretations of the endogenous nature of the actors, which may change the rules, or, in some cases, play a different game to achieve this result (1987, p. 46). In this logic, what makes the model of negotiating action particularly interesting is the tension between the quest for the interests of one’s own party and the simultaneous need to find rules of social reciprocity. These are rules that play a creative role in the process of negotiation and represent the

References

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fundamental assumption valid for all negotiating actors who seek an adequate level of effectiveness when managing the process itself (ibid, p. 239). For this reason, the sharing of rules and the establishment of a good level of commitment, necessary to maintain a positive relational climate, are certainly the decisive factors regarding the management of effective processes of negotiation, which will bring benefits to all the actors involved. Furthermore, the degree of cooperation established between the parties can be increased so much so that the actors may adopt innovative proposals and behaviour styles, in terms of contents and methods, which give rise to possible scenarios of multiple exchange and solutions of mutual satisfaction. In order to acquire and improve the relational skills necessary to govern the activity of negotiation of developing organisational situations and in increasingly complex processes of production, in some corporate cases regarding experiential training (Cocozza 2012), the methodology of organisational development was proposed and used that of “Lego Serious Play™”,9 based on the use of materials produced expressly by the famous Danish company to facilitate managerial practices. The main objective of this methodology is to induce participants to a threedimensional model of their problem, be it strategic, operational, or relational, “with their own hands”. During the workshop, where this methodology is learned/experimented, the participants attribute a recognisable, agreed-on form to the requests that the group perceives as most urgent. During this process, the participants follow three steps: the representation and discussion of a model of the collective problem; the construction of the model; the identification of some practical solutions, and the bestowing of a comprehensible and operationally usable form to them. In other words, the final model, which is the result of the collective commitment of the participants, takes the form of a “professional landscape”, which can be photographed, filmed, and stored to be worked on again later.

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Grandori A (1992) Processi e tecniche di negoziazione nelle organizzazioni. In: Costa G (ed) Manuale di Gestione del Personale, vol I. Utet, Turin Hagen O (1995) Risk in utility theory, in business and in the world of fear and hope. In: Götschl J (ed) Revolutionary changes in understanding man and society, scopes and limits. Kluwer, Dordrecht-London Harsanyi JC (1955) Cardinal welfare, individualistic ethics, and interpersonal comparisons of utility. J Polit Econ 63 Israel G, Gasca AN (1996) Il mondo come gioco matematico. John von Neumann, scienziato del novecento, Nuova Italia Scientifica, Rome Kahneman D, Tversky A (1979) Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47 Koestler A (1975) L’atto della creazione. Astrolabio Ubaldini, Rome Mortillaro F (1994) In principio era il conflitto. Intervista sulle relazioni industriali in Italia, Il Sole 24 ore, Milan Nash J (1951) Non cooperative games. Ann Math 54 Negrelli S (2007) Sociologia del lavoro, Laterza, Bari-Rome Negrelli S (2013) Le trasformazioni del lavoro, Laterza, Bari-Rome Nieremberg GI (1968) The art of negotiating. Pocket Books, New York Olson M. (1983) La logica dell’azione collettiva. I beni pubblici e la teoria dei gruppi, Feltrinelli, Milan, ed. or. (1965), The logic of collective action. Public Goods and Theory of Group, Harvard University Press, Harvard Provasi G (a cura di) (1987) Il gioco negoziale, Franco Angeli, Milan Provasi G (1988) La negoziazione sindacale: strategia e procedure. Prospettiva sindacale 66 Provasi G (1992) Simulazione e intelligenza artificiale nello studio delle relazioni industriali, in Cella G.P. (a cura di) (1992), Il conflitto. La trasformazione, la prevenzione, il controllo, Giappichelli, Turin Samuleson P (1954) The pure theory of public expenditure. Rev Econ Stat 36:387–389 Schelling TC (1980) The strategy of conflict. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Schopenhauer A (1991) L’arte di ottenere ragione. Esposta in 38 stratagemmi. Adelphi, Milan Spaventa L (1989) La teoria dei giochi e la politica economica. Il Mulino, Bologna Von Neuman J, Morgenstern O (1948) The theory of games and economic behaviour. Princeton University Press, Princeton Walton R, McKersie R (1965) A behavioural theory of labour negotiation. McGraw Hill, New York Weber M (1968) Economia e società, Edizioni di Comunità, Milan, ed. or. 1922 Winkler J (1985) Guida pratica alle tecniche di negoziazione, Franco Angeli, Milan, ed. or. (1981), Bargaining for results, Heinaman, London Zartman WI (1977) The process of negotiation. Sage Publication, Beverly Hills Zartman W, Berman M (1982) The practical negotiator. Yale University Press, Newhaven

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In the current social and economic context, having explored the issue of how to manage processes of negotiation, while seeking to build an effective, innovative kind of leadership, it is necessary to make clear that on the basis of a logic of greater enhancement of people, the role of the management of diversity is becoming an increasingly important and appreciated “area of experimentation”, fundamental to intervention within the country’s most innovative companies. The actions involved seek to manage and fully enhance differences, considered a set of “potential resources” that each person brings to their job to make a contribution and enhance its performance. The management of diversity involves, therefore, “the adoption of targeted, segmented personnel policies aimed at enhancing the various needs, exigencies and expectations of the different types of people who work in a company, as a function of the improvement of the company’s overall performance” (Cocozza 2011a, b). On the one hand, some companies have continued to implement the old and rigid management policies of Taylor-Fordism, once again suggesting a universal management model that continues to evaluate people as “cost factors”, standardising and eliminating difference. Other companies, on the other hand, by acknowledging the essence of change and the revolutionary scope of the new theoretical paradigms, participate in the real need to implement a policy of diversity, starting from awareness that the diversity existing in each human is functional to the achievement of competitive advantage by the organisation. In the literature of management, the latter is intended as follows: “In the event that two or more firms compete within the same market, a firm has a competitive advantage over its rivals when it continuously obtains a higher degree of profitability, or when it has the possibility of achieving it” (Grant 2006). Competitive advantage is unquestionably linked to the professional value of human capital and degrees of motivation employed by the latter in processes of production. The needs of the individual and those of the organisation find common satisfaction in the management of diversity, intended as a virtuous strategy of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_8

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success for the organisation. Within the process of change in business, the management of diversity aims at enhancing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of which each individual is a bearer and which can be brought into play to achieve corporate goals. Human capital is no longer seen as a means by which to achieve an end but represents the main resource at the disposal of a company, throughout the whole of its process of production, to achieve an advantage over its competitors (Cuomo and Mapelli 2007). This from the point of view of organisation permits choosing to invest in the management of diversity, the possibility of obtaining a concrete and successful organisational response capable of improving the management of their business. Furthermore, it permits the reduction of costs deriving from non-compliance with the legal regulatory requirements regarding equal job opportunities, costs due to the selection and training of staff, with particular reference to the turnover of personnel with different characteristics (for example, non-EU nationals or people belonging to other “minorities”), as well as costs associated with the health and absenteeism of human resources. A final aspect that legitimises the attention paid at present to policies of diversity lies, however, in the development of the markets and the consequent need of flexibility. Organisations need staff who possess the skills dictated by the progress they are experiencing. “Ethnic-cultural diversity itself provides specific skills: think, for example, of the knowledge of new outlet markets of non-native employees or of the technological-IT skills managed with ability by some ethnic groups” (Padua 2007). As regards the effects on people that derive from effective management of difference, it is necessary to keep in mind that the individual/work relationship has undergone a radical change, by virtue of which human resources are less and less interested in mere increases in salary and aspire, rather, to highly personalised assignments, capable of leading to self-fulfilment and personal well-being. Basically, the expectations that people demand in the workplace are growing. Strongly individual expectations are dictated by motivational needs and the desire for real career prospects, rather than by economic conditions. The attitude of employees who live in a condition of racial, ethnic gender, disability diversity, or even sexual preference can change when they perceive the interest the organisation has in them. They will be induced to spontaneously improve individual and group performance leading to a consequent increase in the company’s economic results. Often, despite the protection and egalitarian guarantees offered by national and community legislation, aimed at eliminating all forms of discrimination, the diversity still find it difficult to express its potential, even to find a job (Digh 1998). “Policies of diversity management favour a more positive perception of human capital on the part of companies, on the other hand, of the values of the organisation on the part of the workers. This change in relationships can lead to improvements in the organisational climate and a strengthening of the cultural values of the organisation” (Cuomo and Mapelli 2007).

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Specific Causes of Diversity in Organisations As addressed in the previous sections, the origin in the broad sense of the issue of diversity in organisations can be traced back, among others, to reasons of social and economic change, which had an impact on the theoretical approaches of management within the businesses. In particular, there are entire series of objective factors that legitimise organisations to choose to undertake policies of diversity management. One of the first aspects, as anticipated above, concerns the qualitative increase in the needs that individuals demand of the working world. Human resources within a work organisation need to understand that the real increase in the quality of one’s life is due not to economic incentives, but to motivational levers and an adequate career enhancement. Basically, the number of people who exceed levels of basic needs is growing and moving towards needs of self-realisation. A further reason why an organisation opens up to projects of diversity management is the continuous development of models of organisation and “tasks” within organisations. “If it is true that individuals demand more of their respective organisations, on the other hand, the latter also expect more and more concrete results and effective and efficient performance. This way, the specificity of individual tasks and duties increases” (Cuomo and Mapelli 2007). A subsequent, obvious factor that drives the management of diversity is what is called cross-culture, intended as the coexistence of workers of very various nationalities within a working environment, as the result of the progressive internationalisation and globalisation of the markets. In organisations, especially multinational ones, people from different countries, bearers of different cultural values and messages, find themselves collaborating and living together as co-workers. “The issue of culture is also emerging in small and medium-sized Italian companies, which do not necessarily have working relationships with foreign countries: it happens more and more often that, given the migratory phenomena recorded in recent years, non-EU personnel are found in productive departments, on construction sites, in assisting children and the elderly and, gradually, also in offices and laboratories” (Cuomo and Mapelli 2007). An ulterior phenomenon of acceleration of tools top used to manage diversity is the feminisation of the labour market, asserted by the progressive weakening of the traditional model of the division of labour within the home (the man responsible for providing the economic resources necessary for a family, the woman, the fulcrum of the home, devoted to caring for the home and children). Due to the unequal distribution of the family household workload, women continue to bear greater responsibilities when it comes to childcare, despite everything. Finally, the last aspect of particularly great impact capable of favouring policies the management of diversity is the presence of disabled people within the various work environments. With regard to people with disabilities, contemporary society has identified appropriate cultural and regulatory tools to redesign their position within society. In Italy, to tackle the problem of discrimination against individuals

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with disabilities, Law no. 68/1999 on “Rules for the right to work of disabled people” established a method of integration based on fruitful collaboration between disabled workers, employment services, and employers. “The objective of the law was to formulate a functional diagnosis permitting the identification of the global capacity, both current and potential, of disabled persons to be legally integrated by law” (Cuomo and Mapelli 2007). As is evident from the trends described above, that the framework of motivational objectives and of those pertaining to the social and individual spheres that induce organisations to address the issue of diversity is multiple and complex. For this reason, the issue with the management of diversity cannot be interpreted as a passing “fad” of the business culture but as a managerial and organisational dimension of the companies of the future.

Organisational Culture and Diversity Confronting diversity means dealing with the cultural dimension. Organisations as cultures (Gagliardi 1986; Alvesson 1996; Bodega 1993) are complex universes that contain a myriad of subtle links and a network of different values that need to be valued and integrated into a common vision of the development of the organisation. Each organisation has its own particular reference culture that may be more or less open to acceptance of diversity. The implementation of projects of difference management within an organisation presupposes the development of a culture which favours diversity as its main objective (Cuomo and Mapelli 2007). “The first step that an organisation which seeks to focus on the inclusion of diversity needs to take is of a cultural nature...while culture simultaneously constitutes the bond and the resource permitting change; when we talk about culture, in fact, we find ourselves within a contradiction: cultural homogeneity as a factor of communicative speed and shared values, but also as a brake on the acceptance of new ideas and solutions different from the past” (Bombelli and Finzi 2006). Today, numerous studies highlight the centrality of organisational culture and the link between culture and corporate performance: it is necessary to encourage the development of a type of culture oriented towards acceptance of diversity in order to obtain satisfactory business results. Every organisation, however, encounters a physiological limit to its acceptance of diversity, the so-called resistance to different. In this case “The real difficulty lies in being able to understand which the elements of homogeneity that support organisational performance are and which can be the exclusive result of tradition, of shared cognitive modalities, but not necessarily updated” (Cuomo and Mapelli 2007). There is a form of the physiology of (in-group) cohesion which is also a factor of organisational cohesion. Acknowledgement of oneself in a group is rewarding from an individual point of view and a factor capable of creating and supporting identity. After all, each of us is naturally inclined to seek confirmation regarding their choices and vision of the world. Cultural homogeneity represents, on the one hand, a factor

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Table 1 The management of diversity and organisational cultures Monolithic organisations – High degrees of internal homogeneity – Unrepresented women and ethnic minorities – Greater presence of individuals from the dominant class

Pluricultural organisations – More internal heterogeneity – Inclusion of people from different backgrounds – Compensation for discrimination by reduction

Multicultural organisations – Recognition and evaluation of diversity – All resources are integrated and express their potential – Absence of prejudice and proactive management of intergroup conflict

Source: Cox (1993)

of communicative acceleration and sharing of values, on the other, it can act as a brake to the acceptance of new ideas and solutions different from those of the past. The “in-group” factor can, therefore, turn into a group-think phenomenon, a limit to a group’s ability to welcome new ideas, different positions that are not in line with their prevailing opinions (Bombelli 2004). Each organisation, therefore, has physiological limits which prevent acceptance of diversity. It would be appropriate for organisations which wish to adopt policies of diversity management to define the elements of homogeneity that support organisational performance and above all those capable of fostering the best possible kinds of organisational culture which attributes importance to uniformity of expectations and results and provides for the sharing of essential values including the acceptance of diversity. Cox (1993) made a decisive contribution in this area by pointing out that a cultural group was “an affiliation of people who share certain norms, values or traditions that are different from those of other groups. Therefore, cultural diversity indicates the representation within a social system of people with affiliations to different groups of cultural significance”. Cox (1993), as can be seen in Table 1, prospected an interesting classification of organisations as far as diversity was concerned, in support of the importance of implementing processes of cultural integration for organisations that seeks to recognise and enhance difference. An organisation that succeeds in developing conditions aimed at enhancing diversity and the integration of all those with different backgrounds, by means of fair, inclusive working conditions, that may be defined as a “multicultural organisation”. As regards multicultural organisations, Leonard (1998) explored the composition and management of creative teams, emphasising the importance of “creative abrasion”, that is, the promotion of innovation through interaction between different personalities and points of view. Managers should not gather “clones” around them but should prefer diversity of cognitive and behavioural characteristics within workgroups in order to create “brain teams”. Innovation and creativity are very often perceived as elements of instability in an organisation while a balanced system

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stems from continuous learning processes based on comparison between different people. Comparison and openness to different inputs create greater flexibility for the system and safeguard its survival in the market. This permits the assertion that the management of diversity represents a strategic and operational choice for companies. This leads to a business practice operating on two apparently opposite levels, that of equality and that of awareness of difference aimed at guaranteeing the same opportunities each employee in a different way. “Each resource is valued according to its rhythms, skills and qualities” (Barabino, Jacobs, May 2001). This involves the management of diversity within an organisation which requires, first of all, acceptance of internal lacks homogeneity and legitimisation of the value and authenticity of difference, not only as regards the management of the products or services offered or customer targets; difference may also regard the people who work for the company. This approach should permit human capital to develop and a broad, integrated spectrum of skills and behaviour to arise within the organisation following accommodation of issues like gender, race, nationality, age, background, and experience (Cocozza 2008).

From Head to Successful Leader Capable of Governing Growing Organisational Complexity From what has been analysed so far, it is clear that in new types of organisation the grip of the hierarchy is slackened, while the systems of coordination and control are significantly transformed, to give rise to flat organisations or short companies, where the summit of the pyramid disappears. In this context, the manager with organisational responsibility cannot continue to play the simple role of boss, but should instead tend to acquire a series of organisational skills and a style of behaviour that permit him to manage the growing complexity, typical of innovative organisations. Her/his role and managerial action, as investigated elsewhere (Cocozza 2004, p. 150), should move in the direction of the acquisition of a logic of effective leadership. In this developmental process, the manager, in addition to acquiring certain relational skills, should know about the organisation and its logic of action, in order to interpret its innovative values by trying to interact with and at the same time orient the different cultures of individuals and professional groups.

The Five Reflexes of the Leader In the new economic and organisational scenario, as Romain and Metsch argued, in their interesting volume, Managing Differently. The Five Reflexes of the Leader (1992), the pace of private and working life has become startlingly fast, the

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environment unpredictable, organisational, technological changes extremely frequent and pervasive, while gestures and words have lost their traditional meanings. For these reasons, management needs to create new reflexes. In this logic, therefore, different direction means increasingly acquisition of “new awareness” of a more participatory type of leadership, which asks one to • • • • •

Listen (before speaking) to inquire. Feel (before judging) and evaluate. Understand (before explaining) and decide. Welcome (before resisting) and inform. Train others and train oneself. In this regard, Kotler in 300 Answers on Marketing, explains that: Many believe leaders need to have charisma. However, charisma is no guarantee of efficacy. Many great leaders do not bother to build a charismatic image; they are lovable, often straightforward, and show a real interest in customers and employees. (2005, p. 102)

The quest for more effective leadership leads to accepting and managing conflict (alongside consensus) and disorder (alongside order). In line with this approach, one can argue that a “good manager” can therefore be the person who tends to be the leader of the group/office/structure for which s/he is responsible, as well as the head of the hierarchical and bureaucratic pyramid, who, by virtue of this acquired (and acknowledged) function, can assume the role of conductor or coach. S/he is the individual who knows all about the resources available to the organisation and decides to send the right person “into the field” at the right time. In this regard, as Sferragatta in The Goals of the Coach (2013) proposed that the work of the coach (in the case of rugby) is based on different theoretical approaches, starting from the Self Determination Theory, 1 the Goal Orientation Theory 2 aimed at the achievement of Self-Efficacy, 3 that can be applied in sport, as well as in other relational and organisational areas. The coach performs her/his task on and off the field and finalises her/his action to foster the development of the athletes and enable to express their characteristics and potential in sport and in their everyday lives as best they can.

1

This is a theory based on the assumption that people are active organisms that tend to develop and grow, master the challenges of the environment and integrate new experiences to create a coherent sense of self. This trend must be adequately supported by a style of leadership consistent with the goal of harmonious growth of the person. 2 The orientation of goals aims at re-examining the critical issues and successful cases experienced, in historical-biographical terms, by analysing the stability of behaviour, planning and the consequences of achieving/failing to reach established goal, and their relevance for motivation and the future direction of research. 3 It refers to the generative capacity that develops within the ambit of the cognitive social theory, aimed at orienting a coherent set of cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioural skills, in such a way as to enable adequate handling of the achievement of certain goals/objectives.

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In other words, as the well-known Volleyball coach Velasco aptly stated in an interview: One cannot be a great coach if s/he obliges a player to move according to his intentions, but when s/he teaches players to move on their own terms. The absolute ideal, which because it is so is unattainable, is reached when the coach has nothing more to say because the players already know what they need to know. Everyone needs to possess in addition to technique and knowing how to play, strategies and tactics...Team spirit is the key to success. . .(2011, pp. 1–2).

The Leader as Conductor In this perspective, the conductor is the effective leader of a complex organisation comprising a considerable number of specialists, who are those mainly responsible for the final results of the business’s performance. In the history of scientific thinking, the orchestra is a metaphor that was used for the first time by Aristotle in his Second Book, where he compared the dynamics of politics to the way an orchestra works. Since then, the orchestra as a metaphor was used several times with reference to theories of organisation and, in the 1990s, Drucker argued that the organisational methods of innovative companies of the future would increasingly resemble those of the industrial tradition and the symphony orchestra (1996). On this specific subject, we refer to research carried out regarding the organisation of the orchestras at Rome’s Santa Cecilia’s Musical Conservatory (Cocozza 1995), which brought to light two particular elements: the presence of several types of orchestras (symphonic, modern, chamber, jazz) requiring different organisational methods; the non-existence of rigidly structured intermediate hierarchical figures responsible for the regulation and coordination of the orchestral activity. In general, in the case of the symphony orchestra, the single musician (specialist) has a direct rapport with the musical score and the conductor and, through a series of necessary sequenced phases—individual study, concertation and ensemble rehearsals, dress rehearsals—contributes to creating the final collective product the public performance. In the case of the jazz orchestra which has no formal conductor, the musicians improvise and follow each other’s input producing an interplay that contributes to the production of the synergetic result.

Application Models of Leadership As has been investigated elsewhere (Cocozza 2004, pp. 43–66), a general theory of leadership might be explained schematically in the following five applicative models of leadership in a sequence that is not necessarily of an automatic or

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evolutionary kind: autocracy, bureaucracy, human relations, participation, autonomy. These are five models of leadership connected with as many types of organisation, which give rise to four different styles of management. The first is known as managerial style and unites some of the characteristics of the autocracy typical of military and total organisations (like prison) and of bureaucracy, a style common in the public administration as well as in large and markedly hierarchical companies. These organisations adopt models that can be traced back to mechanical bureaucracy and, sometimes, to the professional bureaucracy. In these organisations, the functions are carried out, respectively, by UAP, in the more advanced cases by DP or DGP. The human-relations style is found, however, in organisations charged with the provision of services, which pay greater attention to social relations between managers and collaborators through they remain anchored to models of organisation similar to those of mechanical bureaucracy and professional bureaucracy. In the case of the human-relations style of leadership policies regarding personnel is carried out by essentially the DP or the DPRI, when greater attention is paid to the requests of the system of industrial relations and the workers’ trade unions, in some cases of companies particularly sensitive to the culture of DGP. With the affirmation of the divisional or per-project organisational models in the field of competitive enterprise, in response to challenges posed by international competition and total quality management, the participatory style was introduced. The spread of this style of leadership led to the birth of more sophisticated humanresource management policies associated with the current configuration of the DRU, and the development of new relational skills more widespread among line managers and those responsible for structures or the coordination of other people. Finally, more recently with the expansion of the new flexible and adhocratic organisational models—consisting of horizontally integrated network companies, responding to the principles of globalised competition, and/or of the learning organisation—a more advanced and sophisticated style of leadership is beginning to arise, that of autonomy (ibid., pp. 60–65). In the current sphere of Italian business and organisation the characteristics of the leader attentive to relational and motivational aspects are often associated with the participatory leadership style, the most widespread innovative type, where the leader acts as a sort of coach whose profile foresees the following five abilities (Cocozza 2004): • Knowing how to communicate inside and outside the organisation. • Knowing how to influence one’s collaborators positively by establishing collaborative and non-conflictual relationships. • Knowing how to motivate their collaborators to achieve certain objectives. • Knowing how to plan the achievement of certain objectives. • Knowing how to foster a “strategic vision” of change throughout the organisation. With regard to the development of the most advanced style of leadership, autonomy, direct observation of Italy’s company and organisational reality carried

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out by means of constant research, consultancy, and training in recent years, leads us to believe that some of the country’s innovative companies are still at the initial stage of implementation. For this reason, this kind of leadership might find concrete empirical confirmation in particular organisational structures engaged in activities aimed at favouring knowledgeability like the presidential staff, study, scientific research, and experimentation centres, or in larger, more composite organisations, where several leadership styles coexist. A kind of leadership capable of favouring autonomy might be found, therefore, in extremely innovative organisational models, where the tasks to be performed are highly complex and require their collaborators to be highly creative. In other words, this kind of leadership is aimed at governing innovative organisations exposed to competition (national and international), with high concentrations of knowledge workers (Cocozza 2004, p. 67).

Participatory and Autonomous Leadership Research on moral leadership carried out by Sergiovanni seems to tend towards the development of this style of leadership. Here, it is argued that the innovative leader when managing people, in addition to resorting to the coaching techniques, implements a strategy, through which s/he does not propose to direct her/his collaborators using the logic of the “triumphal march” but by using a series of actions that should Remove obstacles, provide material and emotional support, take care of the details that make the journey easier, share participation in the march and satisfaction at the end of the journey, identify a meaningful destination for the next journey. (1992, p. 10)

The manager who uses this particularly advanced style of leadership resorts structurally to individual and group creativity to identify common solutions. S/he also employs problem setting rather than just problem-solving techniques, as well brainstorming and groupware. The choice of privileging problem setting over problem solving is informed by the following consideration: the scheme underlying the logic of problem solving answers the question “how to do it?”, while in problem setting, the question is “what to do?”. From a methodological and heuristic point of view, the latter precedes the former and helps to identify the criteria by which to outline a series of actions aimed at obtaining effective added value. It might also be argued that the use of the problem-solving technique is consistent with organisational and management policies oriented towards compliance with the principle of efficiency (how resources are used); while, on the contrary, that of the problem setting (combined with the first) is part of a policy inspired by the much more important principle of a quest for managerial effectiveness (what the resources employed achieve). From numerous empirical observations, data and information that confirm a management framework seem to emerge. This is a framework where companies turn out to be efficient in their action, but not so very effective in their overall results.

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In other words, there may be organisational situations where management favours efficiency over effectiveness, by deliberately placing the former before the latter, or simply ignoring the strategic dimension of effectiveness because of a lack of vision and understanding of the importance of the close interaction between the two. In these cases, human resources risk being involved heavily in programmes of efficient and tiring action, which, however, do not produce the expected results, or, in any case, fail to correspond to the efforts made. For this reason, company management should assume as much responsibility as possible for its policies, actions, behaviour, and obviously for the actual results obtained, which means assuming all the corresponding duties and honours. A leader, to achieve autonomy, should act by making extensive use of all the tools of conscious involvement and responsible participation possessed by her/his collaborators, to create a “team spirit” and activate widespread accountability towards shared objectives, according to a policy inspired by principles of commitment (mutual commitment). The management, who adopts this style of leadership, should play the role of coach, and support the action of the group, indicating the route to follow and acting as a moral guide. This functions can be expressed through organisational, professional, personal, responsible, and exemplary behaviour. In the case of this type of leadership, as Jaoui (2012) proposed, in his essay We are all creative! Freeing the imagination and living better, it would be well worthwhile to take command of one’s life, find easy solutions to complex problems, awaken and exploit the hidden resources that everyone has within themselves, and get the most out of ourselves and those around us. These goals are common to many, but they can often be frustrating. For these reasons, it is necessary to develop personal creativity and that of one’s collaborators, through an entertaining pathway, that, using games, small exercises, and experiments, helps to make people aware of their creative potential and implement it naturally and easily. As Puccio et al. (2013) argued effectively, in modern societies and organisations, creative and successful leadership is essentially based on the ability of each person to proactively guide on-going change and correlate their actions with those of others. In this process, creativity plays a fundamental and irreplaceable role, which is made more effective by an approach called Creative Problem Solving (CPS). This new approach is divided into various steps (conceptual passages), which require a high degree of involvement of all the actors: diagnosis, vision, strategy, conception, evaluation, contextualisation, and tactics. More specifically, this type of leadership, as Goleman (1999, 2000, 2002, 2011) argued, in a completely innovative manner, might be developed in a better way, starting from the use of the so-called emotional intelligence, that is, the ability to express emotions, recognise those of others and to concede leeway to feelings, and not to reason only. This is a concept of reason, which Goleman intends in restrictive terms, definable as “a rational orientation aimed at the achievement of exclusively utilitarian purposes, or conformation to a specific kind of organisational behaviour”. In reality, regarding this kind of definition of rationality, Weber had already defined it not only as a rational orientation regarding a purpose but also as a phenomenon informed by values or feelings, while other important social scientists like Pareto,

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Simon, Sen, Giddens, and Alexander foresaw it too, albeit with different nuances. These issues were explored in a recent essay on the development of rationality in the history of sociological thinking as an attempt aimed at superseding this restrictive interpretation of reason and rationality and going beyond the explanatory paradigm that refers to utilitarian logic only. In particular, it proposes an interpretation of the development of the concept of rationality aimed at a better understanding of the role of culture, values, and feelings in issues of human action, but, as Simon’s theory posits, also those of social action and organisational behaviour (Cocozza 2005). In this regard, Goleman rightly pointed out that very often in our societies and organisations there is a prevalence of behaviour, or rather a reading of behaviour that excludes the intervention of feelings. For this reason, a relational situation is produced where affective illiteracy prevails, that is, the inability to relate to others or to foreshadow the consequences of our actions. This situation induces people to act on behavioural patterns based on egocentrism that block the emotional and relational exchanges typical of social life and tend to prevent the development of possible, cooperative practices between people who share the same condition, the same problem, the same goal. This is a dangerous perspective for current corporate organisational models, which end up being the exact opposite of that sought by using the effective style of leadership (participatory and autonomous), mentioned above, where there is a tendency to employ human resources to foster involvement and participation. But this is not the only danger faced by the quest for a new type of effective leadership, since, as Selznick hypothesised, many years ago, the manager, when carrying out this delicate task, may run three sizable risks (1957): escape into technology, into utopianism and into opportunism. In the first case, the leader relies blindly on technology in the strict sense or on a system (rules, procedures, machines, etc.); in the second one, a development of the status quo is expected to be unlikely and feasible; while, in the third case, not being able to reach overly utopian results, s/he may aim at pursuing opportunistic advantages (personal, clan or group), sometimes without respecting the moral standards and dignity of her/his interlocutors. The manager needs to deal with the real risks lurking in innovative, complex, and sophisticated, though fragile, organisational types unless s/he adopts a responsible managerial attitude towards the shareholders, the company (organisation), and the stakeholders, in particular, the people who collaborate with her/him.

New Tools for Participatory Leadership In recent years, in addition to the techniques of empowerment and coaching, mentioned above, several participatory tools and methods like team building (the creation of working groups) find increasing space in the management of human resources, accountability (accounting for one’s work as a manager of resources), self-management (being—or becoming—the manager of oneself), and visionary

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leadership (sharing one’s vision). To carry out this new role a manager should strive to become an effective leader use of a series of new soft managerial tools like communication, training, conscious involvement, and responsible participation. These new tools can act as levers of fundamental strategies capable of activating effective leadership to foster a profound and real change in the culture and relational climate of innovative organisations. These are new tools that permit effective governance of a multiplicity of interaction involving various company actors associated with changes in new organisational models. They might be listed under several headings including collaborative and participatory interaction based on established, shared objectives corresponding to a greater level of relationships in specific theoretical conditions, where relationships are based substantially on principles of self-management. However, competitive interaction can arise too, where the subjects and actors are bearers of different interests and points of view, in a context of scarce availability of resources. On the other hand, it can be potentially (not necessarily) conflictual, due to the propensity of people to impose their roles, ideas, or values on others.

Methods of Social Interaction in the Workplace To obtain an overview of various modalities of social interaction and try to explain the roles they play within business contexts, it may prove useful to examine the explanatory scheme developed and presented in Table 2. As we can see in this table, social interaction in the workplace is classified under five different headings, analysed according to the distribution among the actors of various types of interests, objectives, and power. These include the areas of conflict, competition, collaboration, participation, and self-management. The first type, which regards conflict, is characterised by opposing and incompatible interests and objectives regarding the different actors. Here, the distribution of power is essentially asymmetrical or expected to be uncertain. In this case,

Table 2 The processes of social interaction in work contexts Kind of interaction Distribution of interests and objectives among the actors Distribution of power among the actors Source: our own

1. Area of conflict Opposition and incompatibility between interests and objectives Asymmetrical or uncertain power

2. Area of competition Different and partly shared interests and objectives Uncertain power

3. Area of collaboration Common interests and objectives

4. Area of participation Common interests and shared objectives

Uncertain or fairly evenly distributed power

Equally distributed power

5. Area of selfmanagement Total sharing of objective interests and ways of reaching them Substantial parity

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phenomena that contemplate the coexistence of a strong system of command, and, at the same time, the outburst of important conflict of various kinds can occur. Conflict can occur in individual, endo-organisational, intra-organisational systems, or in labour and trade-union relations. In the area of competition, distribution of interests and objectives with characteristics of commonality and diversity can be found, while the distribution of power, in this case, is uncertain. The third area, that of collaboration, on the other hand, possesses characteristics that produce a different configuration concerning that of competition, where common interests and objectives prevail. In this case, power is uncertain or equally distributed. In the sphere of participation, on the other hand, we find the initiation of a paradigmatic relational change, which provides for the presence of common interests and shared objectives, and an equitable distribution of power between the different actors. This change culminates in the fifth area of self-management, where, theoretically speaking, the total sharing of interests, objectives, and ways of achieving them is accomplished. This is an essentially theoretical relational kind of reality that is not very widespread. In it, there is substantial parity in the distribution of power among the actors so that each can influence different phases of the life of the organisation with equal strength: planning, the realisation, and evaluation of all policy-decisional, productive, and organisational processes. It is probable that not many real cases of this kind of relational modality exist, except for some cooperative companies which adhere to these principles and have equal partners each endowed with the same professional skills. There are no employees, since this would create a difference between the different subjects and lead one or more of them to count objectively more than the others. Similarly, this situation might be imagined in modern and innovative, newly established companies, operating, in particular, within the service sector (consultancy or personal-services firms), founded by young professionals who possess equivalent specialist skills and the same potential chance of professional success. Ultimately, as mentioned several times above, management is induced to implement a series of managerial actions aimed at governing the growing organisational complexity and relational plurality present more and more in new production contexts by taking into account the fact that it will be able to deal with competitive or conflicting as well as collaborative and participatory relationships. About the prospect of the participation of workers in the life and management of the company, as provided in principle by article 46 of the Italian Constitution, there exist four different models of industrial relations at international level (Cella and Treu 1998; Cocozza 1996, 2006a, b, 2012): • In the traditional US model—apart from the recent share-capital shareholding experience of workers of the Chrysler company—a company cannot be prevented from defaulting because there is no policy of supplementation or involvement or, but only a logic of contractual exchange based on a scheme of business unionism. • The Japanese model of lean production focuses on the direct integrative participation of working groups with a view to total quality management and Kaizen (continuous improvement), without the involvement of trade unions.

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• The positive Swedish experience, based on the scheme proposed by the “sociotechnical” theory which provides for forms of participation and co-determination of organisational and productive processes, as well as the presence of minority trade-union representation (Landsorganisationen i Sverige) in corporate decisionmaking bodies (Board of Directors). • The German model, which provides for the structured and regulated participation of workers and trade-union representatives (of the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund), through co-decision and co-determination (Mitbestimmung), forms of organisational and decision-making participation, in the supervisory bodies of large companies (Supervisory Board), provided for by their dual corporate governance system.

References Alvesson M (1996) Prospettive culturali per le organizzazioni. Angelo Guerrini e Associati, Milan Bodega D (1993) Per un'interpretazione simbolica dell'organizzazione. In: Strati A (ed) Estetica e organizzazione, vol 137. Sviluppo & Organizzazione Bombelli MC (2004) Diversity management: motivazioni, problematiche e prospettive di utilizzo. In: Mauri L, Visconti LM (a cura di) Diversity management e società multiculturale, Franco Angeli, Milan Bombelli MC, Finzi E (2006) Over 45. Quanto conta l’età nel mondo del lavoro. Guerini e associati, Milan Cella GP, Treu T (1998) Le nuove relazioni industriali. L’esperienza italiana nella prospettiva europea. Il Mulino, Bologna Cocozza A (1995) Concertazione, orchestra e ruolo del Direttore. Dalla cultura musicale a quella delle relazioni industriali. Industria & Sindacato 6:10–15 Cocozza A (1996) La sfida della partecipazione. Relazioni industriali e gestione delle risorse umane nell’impresa. Franco Angeli, Milan Cocozza A (2004) La riforma rivoluzionaria. Leadership, gruppi professionali e valorizzazione delle risorse umane nelle pubbliche amministrazioni. Franco Angeli, Milan Cocozza A (2005) La razionalità nel pensiero sociologico tra olismo e individualismo. Franco Angeli, Milan Cocozza A (2006a) Direzione risorse umane. Politiche e strumenti per l’organizzazione e la gestione delle relazioni di lavoro. FrancoAngeli, Milan Cocozza A (2006b) Formazione mercato del lavoro impresa. In: Reggiani GP, Tiraboschi M (eds) Scuola università e mercato del lavoro dopo la riforma Biagi. Giuffrè Editore, Milan Cocozza A (2008) Presentazione della ricerca “Diversity”: La gestione della “diversità” negli ambienti di lavoro, Relazione introduttiva, Convegno finale di diffusione dei risultati, Ministero del Lavoro, della Salute e delle Politiche Sociali, Associazione Nuovi Lavori, Cnel, Rome, 14th Novembre 2008 Cocozza A (2011a) Legalità, sviluppo economico e sociale: un'analisi sociologica. In: Federici MC, Garzi R, Moroni E (eds) Creatività e crisi della comunità locale. Nuovi paradigmi di sviluppo socioculturale nei territori mediani. Franco Angeli, Milan Cocozza A (2011b) Valuing diversity to grow together. A sociological analysis of policies of diversity management in innovative companies, in developing entrepreneurs. Inspiration, Information, Implementation, Josè Carlos Sanchez Garcia Editor, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca

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Cocozza A (2012) Comunicazione d’impresa e gestione delle risorse umane. Valorizzare le persone nelle imprese innovative e nelle pubbliche amministrazioni virtuose. Franco Angeli, Milan Cox T (1993) Cultural diversity in organisations. Berret- Koehler Publishers, San Francisco Cuomo S, Mapelli A (2007) Diversity management: gestire e valorizzare le differenze individuali nell’organizzazione che cambia. Guerini e associati, Milan Digh P (1998) Religion in the workplace: make a good-faith effort to accommodate. Hr Mag 43:84–131 Drucker P (1996) Il grande cambiamento. Imprese e manager nell’età dell’informazione. Sperling & Kupfer, Milan Gagliardi P (1986) La costruzione dell’identità organizzativa. Sviluppo Organizzazione 96 Goleman D (2000) Lavorare con intelligenza emotiva. Rizzoli, Milan Goleman D (1999) What makes a leader. IEEE Eng Manag Rev 27:4–11 Goleman D (2011) Intelligenza emotiva. Che cos'è e perché può renderci felici. BUR Rizzoli, Milan Goleman D, Boyatzis R, McKee A (2002) The emotional reality of teams. J Organ Excell 21 (2):55–65 Grant RM (2006) L’analisi strategica per le decisioni aziendali. Il Mulino, Bologna Jaoui H (2012) Siamo tutti creativi! Liberare l'immaginazione e vivere meglio. Feltrinelli, Milan Leonard P (1998) Postmodern welfare: reconstructing an emanicpatory project. J Sociol Soc Welf 25:193–193 Padua D (2007) Sociologia del Diversity management. Il valore delle differenze culturali, Morlacchi, Perugia Puccio G, Mance M, Murdock M (2013) Leadership creativa. Competenze che guidano il cambiamento, Franco Angeli, Milan

Part III

Case Studies

Reforms of the Public Administration and New Person-Oriented Organisational Models

The Characteristics of Bureaucratic Organisation Much has been said and written about the development of the different organisational structures of the public administration, as a typical bureaucratic model, as well as about the methods of operational management implemented by public managers.1 It was Weber, in his masterpiece Economy and Society (Italian translation 1968), published posthumously in 1922, that we find a magisterial analysis of the organisation of bureaucracy. The theses contained in that study (Weber 1968, p. 52) continue to have a remarkable explanatory ability, in particular as regards his definition of the three ideal types of power, classified on the basis of their different sources of legitimation: rational, traditional, charismatic power.2 In a concise but precise manner, Gallino, referring to Weber’s theorisation, named the characteristics of a pure form of bureaucracy and listed its typical variables. These specific variables can be summed up as follows (1993, p. 81): • A stable and easily recognisable hierarchy of authority, made visible by appropriate symbols. • Highly advanced levels of the functional specialisation of tasks, that is, the breakdown of a process of production into its main functions. • A qualified technical staff chosen on the basis of their specific competences. • A constant use of formal procedures for the conduct of the office work. 1 Analyses of the models of organisation of the public administration were carried out by: Crozier (1969), Izzo (1975), Bonazzi (1993a, b), (2002), Cerase (1999), (2002a, b), Cocozza (1997a, b), (2000), (2004a), (2006a, b), (2010a, b), (2012a, b, c), La Rosa (2004). 2 An in-depth investigation of these concepts is contained also in Cocozza (2004a, b, c, pp. 48–52).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_9

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• The rights and duties of each post, therefore, of each person admitted to that position are codified in detail. • Limited authority: each superordinate is also subordinate, from the bottom to the top of the organisation. • Everyone is subjected to strict office discipline and regular checks. • Salaries are differentiated according to position and are normally fixed, i.e. they are independent of fluctuations of the volume of service. • The members of the organisation perform their duties without consideration for the persons to whom the activity refers, but with regard to only the technical situation involved. • The material tools and means used for administrative purposes are separated clearly from personal property. • Written communication is particularly important, as compliance with the organisation’s acts is essential, and the acts need to be written in order to be deposited in the organisation’s “memory”. • The disciplinary rules are strictly and permanently related to the nature and extent of infringement of the rules, in view of the purposes of the organisation. Other scholars also believe that the specificity of the ideal model of Weberian bureaucracy might be summarised by using a series of organisational characteristics, as well as those listed below: • Fidelity of the office and duty of obedience to superiors; disciplined competence and the assignment of specialised and fragmented tasks to individual employees. • Hierarchy order of offices and subordination to the higher authority (office); specialised training and prescribed levels of education. • Public competitions for entry and access to higher levels, with universal criteria for assessing the merit of the competitors. • Career advancement in administration for reasons of merit (often based on seniority). • Full-time activity, meant as a profession carried out on an on-going basis. • Official secrecy and strict separation between office work and private life of the public official. • Fixed monetary salary, no direct contact with the client, no fluctuation based on the results. • No possession by employees of the tools required for their work, which are owned, instead, by the administration and on the use of which the official needs to report (Bonazzi 2002, p. 32). Again Bonazzi (2002, p. 52) defined the essential features of a pure bureaucracy as follows: A pure bureaucracy tries to eliminate or at least control as much as possible any extraorganisational influence on the behaviour of its members. The control it exerts concerns factors both internal and external to the organisation. Inside, the bureaucrat is selected, trained and compelled to act in accordance with her/his role, at the exclusive service of the organisation. Her/his conduct is immune from feelings, intentions or strategies other than

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those of the organisation which s/he serves. No individual rationality different and independent of that of the organisation is allowed.

From this ideal-typical description of bureaucracy according to Werber, Bonazzi derived three specific characteristics of the pure bureaucratic organisational model: A centralised structure, because critical decisions are the exclusive task of central top management, while routine decisions are delegated to lower or marginal levels; a standardised structure, which seeks to guarantee precise operational procedures. The employees are required to comply with these procedures because (a) it is assumed that they are the persons best suited to the achievement of certain goals; (b) the uniformity of behaviour foreseen permits the substitutability of employees: if everyone performs the work in the same way, the same results are obtained, regardless of who performs the task. The standardisation of procedures and results involves the depersonalisation of the service and is an integral part of bureaucratic rationality; a rigid structure, because it does not contemplate change. (2002, p. 53).

Bureaucratic rationality, therefore, does not foresee the possibility of change, since, over time, it always recognises itself as itself, as if part of an immutable reality.

The Main Policies of Reform of the Public Administration For this reason, in the current international socio-economic scenario, in which public administrations are increasingly affected by significant processes of reform, the culture of bureaucracy is unable to meet the challenge of the times. As was argued elsewhere (Cocozza 2004a), the reform of public management is part of a scenario of major structural transformation of the public administration, which, in the concrete “implementation” of the reforms, encounters “inevitable criticality”, which can only be resolved through the mandatory activation of a “targeted project of change”. For this purpose, we consider it useful to recall an important study carried out by the OECD regarding the processes of change of the public administration of the most technologically advanced countries, which highlighted the existence of “inevitable critical issues” to be faced when addressing challenging need to change and in the implementation of political and organisational reforms (Oecd 2002a). The OECD survey argued that the current challenge that many public administrations were facing was no longer a matter of “whether to change”. The emphasis was now on “how to change” to improve the effectiveness of a country’s administration and competitiveness. To reach this objective, a modification of the fundamental values, expectations, and the dominant political and managerial cultures in every public body administration was indispensable. Without this development, the reforms were destined to be simply “nominal and in principle”, of a superficial nature, and their impact is likely to be zero or, in any case, limited to the short term. In this relevant process, as argued elsewhere (Cocozza 2004a), a role of primary importance is needed therefore to be assigned to public management and the ability to plan.

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In fact, according to research carried out by Jones and Thompson (1997), the strategic implementation of new public management might be achieved more effectively through implementation of the “5R” design model. The basic principles of the 5Rs can be summed up accordingly as follows: the restructuring, or elimination from the organisation of everything that does not contribute to the value of the service provided to the community; redesign, that is, reconfiguration of the activities rather than the adoption of marginal solutions; reinvention, or development of new ways of producing services; realignment, i.e. harmonisation of the structure of an organisation and strategy, and finally rethinking which required an acceleration of the processes of analysis and feedback. This was, therefore, a model capable of facing the challenge posed by the policies of reform induced by the profound political, economic, social, and cultural changes affecting (and which will affect increasingly) today’s society.

The Policies of Reform of the Public Administration Adopted in Italy In this new scenario, even Italy since the early 1990s adopted a series of policies of organic reform3 of the public administration, to make them more effective and efficient and more in line with the efforts of modernisation the country was addressing. In this logic, by policy, as Meny and Thoenig (2003), two important scholars of public policies, argued, we mean a policy that does not intend only to restructure and rationalise (bureaucratic inefficiency), but also to identify a new mission for institutions, rethink the role of the organisation of the State and other institutions of public administration, in order to define programmes and promote actions aimed at pursuing the greater effectiveness of public policies, the organisational streamlining of structures, a more appreciable quality of the public services provided to the community. We are referring there to the reforms adopted after 1990 with the introduction of the principles of access to public documents and the participation by public in the bureaucratic processes regarding our administrative system. These were followed by the fundamental norms of reform contained in legislative decree no. 29/93, the so-called Bassanini laws and Frattini decrees (both ex-ministers of the Italian Ministry of Public Administration).

3

These are policies with a significant degree of organicity, in the sense that they were inspired by a specific project, different and alternative to the erratic policies adopted in previous decades. It is necessary to remember, however, that, to some extent, the process of “rationalisation of the administrative organisation” and the debate regarding the privatisation of public employment and administrative efficiency could be traced back to an initial study by Massimo Severo Giannini in the early 1970s and the following one known as the Giannini Report 1979 regarding the state of public administration (Cocozza 2000, p. 13).

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Summing up the main reform policies adopted recently in Italy, these innovations may be attributed, essentially, to three different types of transformation, aimed at achieving the following objectives (Cocozza 2004a, pp. 17–20): • Reconsideration of the relationship (inseparable link) between politics and administration, attribution of autonomy and responsibility to the role of the executive on the basis of the norms provided by Legislative Decree 29/93, and subsequent amendments, up to recent provisions contained in law n. 145 of the 15th of July 2002, “Provisions for the reorganisation of state management and the promotion of exchanges of experiences and interaction between the public and private sectors”. This latter provision introduced some significant innovations, including new norms regarding the assignment of managerial positions and the adoption of the logic of the so-called spoils system, in our opinion, in an overly extensive form.4 The provision for the assignment of management posts is of focal importance since it should have indicated the purpose and duration of the assignments, as well as the objectives to be achieved in light of the priorities, plans, and programmes defined by top-level political and administrative bodies. • Substantial change of the logic of the system of control, foreseen by legislative decree 286/99 (and subsequent protocols), passing from an outlook focused on formal and preventive control of legitimacy to various forms of subsequent control, of an internal nature and linked to substantially strategic results associated with the implementation of policies, management control, and the evaluation of the activities of upper-echelon managerial executives. • Profound redefinition of the institutional structure of the system and the administrative functions assigned to the State, the regions, and autonomous local bodies, a process initiated with law 59/97, continued with legislative decree 112/98, and subsequently by the norms modifying Title V of the Italian Constitution, and, lastly, by recent government measures aimed at amending the second part of the Constitution. These norms prospected considerable strengthening of the administrative role of the regions and local authorities and a new qualification of central and peripheral state administration. The latter, on the one hand, was downsized at quantitative level, while on the other, it was characterised by relevant directional, high-level administrative functions and by support of the system of autonomy. These reforms recommended the achievement of important objectives, not easily achievable in the short term, like changes in the culture of administration in favour of the interests of the community, the technological enhancement of means, the streamlining and simplification of procedures, the formation of administrative leverage oriented more towards a logic of management. Furthermore, the definition of a 4

This law extended the rule of the spoils system to all public management, previously reserved consistently only to Heads of Departments and General Managers, in an excessive extensive perspective which tended to impose a “rigid subordination” of managers, rather than prospect the “necessary, coherent integration” between the role played by top-level policies, reserved to the sphere of management.

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new reference regulatory framework in favour of the innovative management of human resources, by using processes of privatisation of the occupational relationships of public employees and contracting as a source of regulation. Based on this last process of reform, the National Collective Labour Agreement became the primary source of the regulation of industrial relations. All labour disputes passed from the jurisdiction of the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) to that of the Labour Court, which operated in the field of private law. This set of innovative objectives, however, were not always achieved, since there was considerable “resistance to change”, but also because sometimes, by failing to consider this phenomenon of bureaucratic response to the reform action, the political summit had recourse to a political logic that was too direct. In reality, the objectives contained in these policies were ambitious and required a “qualitative leap”: the transformation of one model (cultural, organisational, relational) into another. Therefore, a cultural and interpretative paradigm change of the mission, role, activity, and tasks of public administration was under discussion. It was, therefore, a question of passing from a bureaucratic to a telocratic model (from the Greek telos, a set of tools used to achieve an end/objective) (Cocozza 1997a, b, 2000, 2004a). This organisational analytical scheme was informed by the classic bipolarisation of theoretical models (mechanical solidarity—organic solidarity), already developed by Durkheim (1962), and built on the basis of the studies carried out, within the context of the research related to the Glacier project (Burns and Stalker 1974), aimed at the identification of a new paradigm of more participatory corporate management, as well as on the basis of what Butera proposed more recently (Butera 1987; Butera 1988, 1990). To favour a greater understanding of this phenomenon, of the organisational elements that characterise transition from a bureaucratic to the telocratic model, their features have been illustrated in Table 1. If this was the challenge posed by policies of reform, it needs to be emphasised that the organisational and cultural changes associated with the achievement of these objectives, and, therefore, the transition from a bureaucratic to a telocratic model, were not even, in theory, mechanically and homogeneously transferable to the specific realities of the various public-administrative realities by virtue of innovative legislative rule alone. One cannot think of implementing change merely by outlining a new regulatory framework: the capacity of the legislative regulation, even if innovative, to induce the changes in organisational culture and professional behaviour deemed necessary, was not sufficient for the achievement of that end. With a few exceptions, these ambitious objectives were always pursued consistently or achieved effectively, above all because, during the implementation of the reforms, many administrations encountered rigidity, resistance to change, and a tendency to maintain positions of power, small privileges, and income acquired under the previous bureaucratic system. In this regard, it is useful to recall and highlight the existence of an extreme variety of situations and contexts (organisational, cultural, and relational) not only

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Table 1 The development of public administrations from the bureaucratic to the telocratic model Organisational elements 1. Environment of reference 2. Strategy

3. Structure

4. Decisionmaking system

5. Leadership

6. System of trade-union relations

The bureaucratic model Predictable

The telocratic model Turbulent

Policies oriented towards formal compliance with administrative regulations conservation/maintenance of a niche – pyramidal – centralised – rigid – watertight compartments – little responsibility – poor delegation – not very timely

Policies aimed at achieving objectives evolutionary/innovative customisation/quality – network – decentralised – flexible – high circularity/feedback – responsibility for the objectives – delegation by competence – timeliness – participatory – innovative – professional – participatory – based on the definition of shared goals

– authoritarian/laissez faire – bureaucratic – adaptive – conflictual – consociative – corporative

Source: Cocozza (1997b, 2004a, b, c)

among the ministries, but also within the public structure itself, at levels of both central and local administration. In keeping with this logic, we can say that following the introduction of the principles of decentralisation and autonomy into the Italian system, public administration became significantly pluralist and polycentric and comprising diverse, specific realities. For these reasons, it is no longer possible to use the “singular”; we need to use the “plural”, and interpretative categories attributable to “unity”, not to “uniqueness”, “decentralisation” rather than simple “bureaucratic verticalisation” and “autonomy” instead of “hierarchical subordination”. To this new analytical and interpretative framework we need to add the fact that the extension of another important principle—that of subsidiarity (vertical and horizontal)—has produced a situation where services of public utility are now structurally provided by private or cooperative bodies, in a logic of contracting out and in (to other public administrations, through consortia), as in the case of education and training, health and social assistance, in a logic of functional integration. In this situation of substantial administrative reform, an important, significant role has been attributed to managers, who have become the beating heart of the entire system. It is they who are asked to contribute to the construction of a managerial organisational culture, capable of responding adequately to the challenges posed by the new economic, political, social, and professional scenario. The choice of a managerial model involves a new style of leadership requiring:

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• The prior determination, by political bodies, of programmes, objectives, and priorities. • The allocation of financial, instrumental, and human resources adequate to the achievement of assigned objectives. • The predetermination of the parameters to use to evaluate the results with reference to the objectives planned. In this regard, we speak, therefore, of a transition from a culture of the norm to a culture of the results, or rather to a new way of conceiving the norm as instrumental to the pursuit of the objectives of the administration (Franzoni et al. 1995; Cerase 1999; Dell’Aringa et al. 2001, Lupò Avagliano 2001; Borgonovi 2002). Because, if it is true that, in the traditional kind of bureaucratic administration, managers were expected to guarantee compliance with the law as an expression of an essentially normative and procedural competence, in this new expansive phase of administration, they are called upon to achieve the objectives established by the political authority, fully, when directing an administrative action towards the effective, efficient, and cost-effective pursuit of the public interest. We can, therefore, agree fully with the affirmation of new powers and skills attributed to managers, as well as the links between administrative institutions informed by a logic of managerial efficiency aimed at the development of concrete responsibility for results. However, in order that the process of “reconfiguration” may progress and develop, it is also necessary to change the logic of the action of the administrative actors, their choices, their cultures, their values. Essentially, the changes introduced as a result of regulatory intervention appear more as a space to be explored than a set of rules to be applied; hence, the importance of investigating the ability of each manager to interpret and support change, since it is on this kind of potential that the opportunities for true innovation will rest in the near future.

The Reforms of the Italian University System As was the case of other sectors of the public services, the Italian university system was also affected by a series of reforms initiated with Ministerial Decree 509/1999 and continued with Ministerial Decree 270/2004, which introduced important changes aimed at adapting Italian universities to the European model of higher education agreed upon with the other countries of the Union and based on three main levels of study: Bachelor’s Degree, Master’s Degree, Postgraduate Diploma, or Doctorate of Research [Ph.D.]. The principles contained in this reform aimed at pursuing the following objectives: to shorten the time required to obtain a basic degree and reduce the number of dropouts; to combine methodological and cultural education with professional training; to create a two-degree system of studies following a 3 + 2-year formula;

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to facilitate student mobility at national and international level by the introduction of the University Educational Credits system. More recently, Law 240/2010, known as the “Gelmini reform”, profoundly changed the Italian university system. It aimed at raising the competitive and meritocratic levels of the country’s universities, at reducing the self-referentiality of the academic components regarding choices of strategy and governance of the system and those concerning the recruitment of professors. As has been argued by authoritatively Sandulli and Cocconi (2012), “The reform seems, at the same time, to have significantly compressed the autonomy of universities. It is too early, however, to formulate a judgement regarding law number 240/2010. To appraise its effects, we shall have to await the conclusion of the complex implementation of the “cascade” process. The law required, on the one hand, that universities adapt their statutes, on the other, that the government adopt numerous regulations and decrees of implementation”. In any case, although the autonomy of Italian universities introduced into the system for the first time by law 168/1989 (Ruberti law) has always been weak, it has certainly opened up spaces within the field of regulatory, organisational, didactic, and financial autonomy. This prerogative has not always managed transparently and with a great sense of responsibility by the universities. With the recent measures, we have gone from limited to apparent autonomy. The uniformity of the system, among other things, does not tend in favour of the purposes professed by the reform, namely competition between universities and a system of merit. From the point of view of the governance of the system, reform laws and other sectoral legislative measures passed last 3 years, as well as the policy of “indiscriminate” cuts have strengthened the central position of the Ministry of Education, University and Research [MIUR] when it comes to financing, and that of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. From the point of view of the prospected organisational model, the latest measures which sought to achieve a more correct and greater simplification by uniting the activities of research and teaching in a single structure (Department), have, however, emphasised a propensity towards centralistic competences and their centralisation, thus, effectively limited the true autonomy of MIUR and the universities and that at intra-organisational university level. Finally, in terms of analysis of the strategic scope of the measures contained in the Gelmini Reform, a number of critical variables need to be kept under constant observation: (a) (b) (c) (d)

The system of governance The issue of the evaluation of research and teaching The process of internationalisation The funding of the university system, in terms of the number of resources available, methods of allocation, flow, investment, and innovation capacity

In other words, the high degree of complexity of the global context in which the university system operates would require a relaunching of autonomy in terms of

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teaching, research, organisation, management, and the ability to produce innovation, but also strong goals to be part of the management (Rector, Board of Directors, Academic Senate, top managerial and administrative level), on the basis of a logic of responsibility and a high degree of accountability, rather than a logic of bureaucratic, organisational neo-centralism. Similarly, in light of the provisions of the institutional design outlined by the new Title V of the Italian Constitution, the school system has been posed with a new challenge, since, as Cocozza (2012c) argued, it is necessary to support effective implementation of the principles of autonomy and responsibility in the Italian education system, by the involvement of all the actors who, in various capacities, play an important role in the functioning of the Italian school system. These are school managers, directors of general and administrative services, teachers and other figures, school administrators, councillors and regional executives and local autonomies, representatives of the social partners. To this end, also the parents of pupils and students need to be involved, in order to improve the performance of students and the results that the entire system might achieve, if the effective modernisation of the educational policies, culture, and organisational behaviour were achieved. Ultimately, it is necessary to implement a new organisational logic, which places student expectations and aspirations at the centre of the educational process, while at the same time, contributing to the important task the school and university system is called upon to perform that aimed at the cultural, economic, social, and civil development of the country.

The Challenge of the New Title V, Criticalities and Perspectives of the Brunetta Reform Within the institutional scenario outlined by the reformulation of Title V of the Constitution (constitutional law 3/2001) as noted by numerous authors (Piraino 2002; Pizzetti 2002; Poggi 2002a, b; Torchia 2002; Olivetti 2002; Caravita 2002; Mangiameli 2002; Bassanini 2003, 2010), article 117 established the separation of powers between the State and the Regions. The State reserved exclusive legislative power over the “general rules of education” and the determination of the “essential levels of service” concerning civil and social rights to be guaranteed throughout the whole of the national territory. These regarded education, health, and social assistance. In addition, the principle of legislative concurrence between education and vocational training was introduced and the autonomy of educational institutions acquired constitutional status to be safeguarded with respect to possible interventions by the State and/or Regions. At the same time, the revised article 118, which promoted the application of the principles of subsidiarity, differentiation, and adequacy, established that administrative functions should be attributed to the Municipalities unless, to ensure their uniform exercise, they needed to be entrusted to the Provinces, Metropolitan Cities,

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Regions, and State. The principle of subsidiarity itself was enhanced further when it was established that the State, Regions, Metropolitan Cities, Provinces and Municipalities should “favour the autonomous initiative of citizens, individuals and associates, to carry out activities of general interest”. These are provisions that cannot but be related to the field of education and training, where both educational institutions and local authorities have an objective interest in coordinating policies and defining common projects, based on shared goals. This context of structural, procedural, and, above all, cultural transformation saw the inclusion of the development of the role of public management, in particular that of the local bodies involved most deeply in the construction of an increasingly indispensable process of positive interaction with (and between) the school system, families and the worlds of business, the professions and social and cultural associations. As analysed critically in chapter two, the transformation of relations between schools, universities, and the territory encountered difficulties when endeavouring to “implement” reform in concrete. “Inevitably critical issues”, which might be resolved effectively by the development and activation of a “project of change” related to the institution of precise “targeted training course”, arise. Reform should outline a new framework of the skills necessary to face the challenges posed by the profound renewal in progress nationally and internationally. Explicit reference to local institutions, more exposed and interested in relationships with the citizenship (end-users) to the effective implementation of the principle of subsidiarity, was due to the assumption acquired thanks to numerous research projects into the development of theories and models of organisation (Bonazzi 1999, 2002, 2003; Butera 2001; Gherardi and Lippi 2000; Gherardi and Nicolini 2004; Cerase 2006) on the basis of which it might be argued that any organisation, if effectively stimulated by confrontation with the users of the services provided, are induced to reflect more on their own work, measure and evaluate the results, and carry out the reforms of their own organisational and management processes and procedures need.

The Brunetta Reform The implementation of Law 15/2009 fits into the organisational panorama prospected by the transformations provided for by the Title V Legislative Decree 150/09. This set of rules—known as the Brunetta Reform, after the name of the Minister for Public Administration and Innovation who promulgated the law—constitute both an organic reform of industrial relationships regarding public servants and a reorganisation of administrative activity. This Reform, as specified by the Minister himself, issued new rules regarding

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(a) The cycle of management performance aimed at assessing administrations and employees in order to improve services and acknowledge merit. (b) Selectivity of the award of bonuses and rewards. (c) Enhancement of the managerial responsibilities and reform of the collectivebargaining system, in order to clarify the respective areas of competence of administration and bargaining. (d) Simplified procedure for the application of disciplinary sanctions as well as a definition of a classified list of particularly serious offences leading to dismissal. This reform of the public administration, as stated above, albeit with some degree of discontinuity, enhanced the process of the administrative action initiated with Laws 241/90 and 421/92, associated with the process of privatisation of the public service as per legislative decree 29/93 and the redefinition of the new role of public management, introduced by legislative decree 165/01. The new cycle of management performance provided administrations with a framework of action meant to achieve the transition from the culture of means (input) to that of results (output and outcome) sought by the previous reforms. The Decree defined each phase of the management cycle with a degree of precision that was simultaneously sufficient to ensure homogeneity and flexibility and cover the entire reality of public administrations. The implementation of the new cycle of management performance affected relationships with staff, by means of the system of rewards, and the relationship with the public based on customer satisfaction and transparency. Furthermore, as argued by Deodato and Frettoni (2009), by Scognamiglio (2010), among the numerous innovations, priority needs to be given to the elimination of the regressive tendency of the law towards collective bargaining, the development of a permanent system of measurement and assessment of individual and collective performance, the enlargement of the powers and responsibilities of management, the rationalisation of collective bargaining procedures, the reinforcement of disciplinary tools. In this direction, the intervention aimed at redesigning the public organisational system by using the following tools belonging to the managerial culture of organisation: (a) (b) (c) (d)

Planning strategies and objectives. Planning activities. Measurement and evaluation of organisational and individual activities. Attribution of bonuses and penalties, by the organisation to managers and employees. (e) Reporting results.

The strategic purposes of the reform were identified in Article 1 which represented the interpretative key of the entire provision, as it provided for the adoption of the following measures: (a) Better organisation of work. (b) High qualitative and economic standards of functionality and services.

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(c) Incentives for the quality of work performance. (d) Selectivity and competition of career advancement. (e) Fortification of management (autonomy, powers and responsibility); an increase in the efficiency of public employment (to combat low productivity and absenteeism). (f) Transparency of the work of public offices. This standard introduced innovative concepts into the culture of public administration regarding the measurement, evaluation, and transparency of performance. As part of these innovative measures, the introduction of the concept of performance made it possible to overcome the traditional notion of productivity, intended within a bureaucratic logic of the assembly of undifferentiated procedures originating from self-referential structures and offices. It advanced a new context of comparison and action, because it strongly reaffirmed the assumption that public bodies represented a system of interdependence, whose action was oriented towards principles of effectiveness, efficiency, economy, and transparency, but also towards quality and the participation of citizens. The emphasis on the concept of performance aimed at positively highlighting the contribution that subjects (manager, office, workgroup, single worker) make when working to achieve institutional and organisational goals and satisfy the needs of citizens served by the public administration. For these reasons, the cycle of management performance (Article 4), introduced by the Brunetta reform assumed a strategic role, which is based on the phases of PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act). It was introduced in particular into innovative models of the organisation of evaluation and planning, to be included in the structure of administration thanks to fundamental strategic functions like planning and the allocation of resources; monitoring; measurement and evaluation; the consequences of evaluation and reporting for purposes of internal and external control (including citizens). During the first phase, each public administration, as part of its strategic guidelines, was expected to aim at identifying and defining the objectives to be achieved, as well as the expected results, values, and indicators by which to measure them. To this end, by the 31st of January of each year, public administrations have to draw up a three-year programmatic document (Performance Plan, art.10) to perform the following functions: management (identification of strategic and operational guidelines, indicators for the measurement and evaluation of the performance by the administration, as well as the objectives assigned to the managerial staff); communication and transparency (obligation to publish documents); reporting (illustration and explanation of deviations). In order to support the spread of virtuous organisational conduct and sanction non-compliant behaviour, the law provided that in the event of failure to adopt the Performance Plan, the administration was prohibited from disbursing result-based remuneration to executives who appeared to have contributed to the failure to adopt the Plan due to omission or to inaction in the performance of their duties;

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prohibitions regarding the hiring personnel or the assignment of consultancy or collaborative projects. During the second phase, the link between strategic objectives and allocation of resources was achieved by spreading the operational objectives over the various departments/offices. During the third phase, the monitoring activity was started to verify whether it was necessary to implement corrective action to verify performance trends regarding expected objectives. During the fourth phase, however, the annual measurements and assessments of organisational and individual performance are organised. To this end, public administration offices adopted the Performance Measurement and Evaluation System (art. 7.), which made it possible to identify the phases, times, methods, subjects, and responsibilities of the process of measurement and evaluation of performance; as well as procedures of conciliation, ways of linking and integrating existing systems of control financial planning and budgeting. In fact, System Performance Measurement and Evaluation represented the tool permitting the measurement and evaluation of organisational performance and took into consideration the following variables: (a) Outcome, intended as the final satisfaction of the needs of the community. (b) Management efficiency, the implementation of plans in compliance with the deadlines and standards defined. (c) Social effectiveness and participation, in terms of the quantitative and qualitative development of relations with citizens, stakeholders, users, and recipients of services, through the development of forms of collaboration too. (d) Economy, intended as efficiency of the use of resources, with particular reference to the containment and reduction of costs, as well as the optimisation of the scheduling of administrative procedures. (e) Effectiveness and efficiency, that is, the quality and quantity of performance and of the services provided. (f) Equal opportunities, intended as the achievement of the promotion of the positive action and equal opportunities included in the policies adopted. Finally, following the conclusion of the complex activity of evaluation, as mentioned here, during the fifth phase, we move on to the implementation of the system of rewards aimed at enhancing merit. The sixth phase, on the other hand, required that the various indicators obtained be processed and the results reported to the political-administrative bodies, the top management of the administrations, the competent external bodies, the citizens/users, the parties interested by delivering the Report regarding the performance to be adopted, by the 30th of June of each year. As was highlighted above, an important role was played by the measurement and evaluation of individual performance. In this regard, it was necessary to clarify and distinguish the measurement and evaluation of the performance of managers of units organised autonomously from that of non-managerial personnel. The first type of evaluation, which concerned managers, was to be based on the following elements:

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Organisational performance of the structure assigned to them. Achievement of specific individual objectives. Demonstrated professional and managerial skills. Ability to evaluate their collaborators, demonstrated by means of a significant differentiation of opinions.

The measurement and assessment of the individual performance of non-managerial staff, on the other hand, needed to refer to the following parameters: (a) Achievement of a specific set or individual objectives. (b) Quality of the assured contribution to performance of the organisational unit to which it belongs. (c) Skills demonstrated. (d) Professional and organisational behaviour of each. Periods of maternity, paternity, and parental leave were not to be considered during the assessment of individual performance. The reform also introduced a new system of bonuses, based on compliance with the principles of selectivity and competition regarding career advancement and recognition of incentives and meritocracy. It forbade the distribution, in an undifferentiated way or on the basis of automatisms, incentives and bonuses associated with performance in the absence of checks and certifications of systems of measurement and evaluation. In order to discourage a widespread practice in some public bodies, the decree required coherence of organisational behaviour and a direct link between the discipline of the disbursement of bonuses and the activation of the cycle of management performance, in its particular and specific set-up. In this regard, as was anticipated above, a series of criteria were indicated to favour the effective application of the differentiation of evaluations, allocating the staff to different levels of performance so that, at the end of the process: (a) 25% placed within the high merit bracket, to which 50% of the resources allocated to the ancillary treatment linked to individual performance might be attributed. (b) 50% placed within the intermediate merit bracket, providing for the allocation of the remaining 50% of the resources intended for ancillary treatment. (c) The remaining 25% placed within the low merit bracket, with no payment of ancillary treatment associated with individual performance. With regard to the possible action required to adapt the national indications of each administrative body, supplementary collective bargaining may provide exceptions to the percentage of 25% to an extent not exceeding 5%, increasing or decreasing the high merit bracket, with a corresponding compensatory variation of the percentages relative to the other brackets of merit. It might be argued that the Brunetta reform represented a method of strong media impact since it tended to involve directly or indirectly the citizen-client as a proactive interlocutor, who was intended to relaunch the role of public administrations in

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central and local government and remind the managers—including those of the structures of administration of schools—of the role of real employers, comparable to those of the private sector. At the same time, it also presented itself as a pathway permitting a relaunch of the productivity of public offices, introducing an effective selectivity of the evaluation systems, as well as a greater degree of responsibility on the part of managers and collaborators, with increased disciplinary sanctions. On the other hand, the subjects affected by Brunetta’s measures were innumerable, as well as the extremely clear and precise criteria concerning organisational and managerial areas of particular importance. Among these were a return to an employment-relationship structure that tended to be publicist in form, a reduction of contractual spaces, as well as a redefinition of a new system of trade-union relations, providing for the reorganisation of collective-bargaining procedures by means of strong subordination of the decentralised bargaining according to the law and national collective bargaining of the sector. At the same time, specific legislation was implemented regarding the system of standard evaluation, including references to international standards of quality and the establishment of an independent Commission for evaluation, integrity and transparency (CiVIT) and a more direct link between evaluation and productivity bonuses. In reality, the Agreement signed by the Government and by the CISL and UIL trade unions on the 4th of 2011 on this issue, as underlined Oliveri (2011) and Severino, seems to have substantially weakened the rigid system of bonuses and incentives provided for by Article 19 of Legislative Decree 150/09, since the contracting parties agreed that employee performance would be assessed not by applying the 25%–50%–25% criterion of, but using the “efficiency-dividend” parameter, referred to additional savings due to administrative processes of rationalisation and reduction of the costs of administrative operations. The aim was to ensure the stabilisation of wages and salaries. Finally, the reform also dealt with the principles of recruitment, aimed at privileging competition, abandoning vertical career advancement, and the reorganisation of management according to an innovative logic which, on the one hand, attributed a role to citizens regarding the evaluation of public employees. On the other hand, it aimed at diffusing a greater sense of responsibility on the part of those who write and those who accept false sick notes. However, this complex, sophisticated reform presented several “criticalities”, regarding, in particular, the huge number of and differences between local administrative bodies and the opportunities available to take action, even before intervening with precise, targeted norms. It was advisable to create a policy of accompaniment providing managers with technical skills, expertise and consultancy and cultural communicative, relational and training tools suitable for achieving “objectively advanced” goals within Italy’s myriad administrative realities. A Critical Reading of the Processes of Innovation Introduced by the Brunetta Reform Faced with this new challenge, in fact, it is possible to argue that the real “litmus test” of any reform always lies in the technical tools meant to support the concrete

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implementation of regulatory provisions and in the culture of the actors themselves who are called upon to implement these reforms in their everyday lives. Regarding this complex reality and the challenge posed by the implementation of reforms in public administrations, a volume by D’Alessio and Di Lascio (2009) presented the proceedings of an important international conference on the development of the system 10 years after the Bassanini Reform. They probed the difficulties it encountered, its particularly critical features and the actual possibility of asserting that Italian public administration had changed significantly and positively also about the new challenges deriving from the recent Brunetta reform. The debate that ensued led to verification of the degree of concrete implementation achieved by the reform processes which had been initiated. An examination was conducted of the contradictions and/or counter-trends that had emerged within the operational reality of the administration regarding the criteria that informed the reform and the contents of the process inaugurated 20 years previously. These were issues to which the legislative decree 150/09 tried to provide an answer: identification of performance indicators and procedures capable of permitting benchmarking between national and international administrations; relationships between administrative assessment and that of managerial and non-managerial staff; the types of monitoring and the procedures to be adopted; a relaunch of the role of the civil servant and, at the same time, the implementation of policies aimed at producing effective empowerment of management and others meant to enhance the skills of public servants; the establishment of forms of involvement, the intervention of citizens/clients, such as to permit effective and timely transparency regarding the outcome of the evaluative measures aimed at improving services in terms of quality and user perception. A critical key to apply when reading the Brunetta reform (Cocozza 2009; Scognamiglio 2010) is that of comparing what was foreseen by legislative decree 150/09 and what had already been indicated in legislative decree 286/99, which 10 years earlier had aimed at systemic reorganisation of internal controls and the introduction of a culture of verification, control, and evaluation of ex-post performance, based on concrete results. The provision of incentive remuneration quotas was supposed to be commensurate with the actual achievement of results. The 1999 legislator believed in the possibility that internal controls might positively affect the quality of the action and services of the public administration, in a framework of trust in the ability of administration itself to activate good governance practices, also by reducing formal controls in favour of greater attention to operative results. In the same logic and with the support of the claims for autonomy, a the constitutional reform overrode controls regarding the local authorities few years after, abolishing the Regional Control Committees (Coreco). From this point of view, experience has proved that a good law, like legislative decree 286/99, was not necessarily capable of producing good results. Often, despite the establishment and activation of forms of internal control, the results turned out to be lower than expected, the dysfunctions continued to exist, the managers with very few exceptions continued to attribute and receive optimal appraisals which meant obtaining the economic incentives foreseen, even though the quality of services provided to the

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community had not improved. As Scognamiglio (2010) recalled, failure to reach the expected goals was due to two factors: the exclusion of personnel from an effective, coherent performance-evaluation system, with the result that management, devoid of tools for the effective control of collaborators, preferred to adopt the line of least resistance, that of tolerance and laissez faire, also about assessment of the action of management itself. It also failed to carry out a reform based on internal efficiency which sought to improve administrative functionality in terms of verification of planning/cycles of goal achievement. As has been recalled several times, in many cases regarding the school system, the public employer did not perform the tasks envisaged by the new regulatory framework effectively, because of the so-called privatisation of the public sector, the surrender of roles and the frequent introduction of decentralised bargaining and the action of local union leadership. All these factors negatively affected the possibility of achieving effective, efficient management. The Brunetta reform, in other words, attempted relaunching the achievement of an ambitious goal, that of evaluating public policies, by robust surveillance of internal control of action by the application of “prescriptive” procedures in the area of the performance cycle and the correct activation of criteria for the differentiation of assessment. This is a vital objective for local administrative bodies, the outcome of whose policy is often immediately assessable perceptible by the individual citizen, company, family, or collective social actors who are in direct and indirect relations with administrators and public managers within the community. On this precise front, the reform tends, on the one hand, to strengthen the relationship between the manager and her/his collaborators, to make each person responsible for the results of her/his individual and collective performance; on the other hand, it builds the foundations of assessment and rewards on merit by establishing a system of evaluation of performance and launching the activity of the National Commission for integrity and transparency in the field of public administration (Article 13). One of the critical issues was certainly the creation of the independent performance-assessment body (OIV) in all the single administrative bodies, or rather, as suggested by the law (Article 14), in an associative form. This body assumed a fundamental role for the appropriate functioning of the regulatory provisions regarding the monitoring of the overall workings of the evaluation system, of the transparency and integrity of internal controls and the drawing up of an annual report regarding them. In addition, the independent assessment body had the task of performing a function decisive for the analysis and timely communication of the critical issues regarding the competent internal bodies, as well as to the Court of Auditors, the Inspectorate for public service and the independent Commission for the assessment, transparency and integrity (CiVIT) of public administration. Furthermore, in line with what was indicated by the aforementioned Commission, the body of independent assessment was to act as guarantor of the correctness of the processes of measurement and evaluation, as well as of the positive correlation with the relative bonuses paid, in compliance with the principle of valorisation of merit and professionalism and the promotion of good practices in the field of equal opportunities.

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These are the critical issues related to the “delicate” functioning of the independent Commission for the evaluation, transparency, and integrity (CiVIT) of public administration since it was given tasks of strategic importance (direction and control), but also of support (advising, expertise, study) for the achievement of the objectives established by the Brunetta reform. Among the first tasks, we find those of providing all public administration bodies, in compliance with the responsibilities associated with the exercise and autonomous evaluation of each administration, the technical and methodological support required for the implementation of the various phases of the cycle of performance management; indications regarding the definition of the structure and methods needed to draw up performance plans and reports; the analysis and interpretation of observations and findings regarding the plans and reports provided by the local authorities. Similarly, the Independent Commission for the Evaluation, Transparency, and Integrity (CiVIT) of the public administration was supposed to define the parameters and reference models by which to Measure Performance and Evaluate Systems and the guidelines for the preparation of the three-year programme of transparency and integrity (Article 11) and quality of public services, the norms for the appointment of the members of the independent assessment body, the promotion of comparative analyses of the performance of public administration based on management performance indicators and their publication on institutional sites and other media along with the initiatives deemed useful; the preparation of a ranking system for the assessment of the performance of the state administrative and national public bodies. Of particular importance, too, is the promotion of initiatives in favour of interaction with citizens, businesses, and their representative associations; trade unions and professional associations; associations representing the public administration; internal and external bodies for the assessment and control of the public administration. This perspective leads to some potential dangers concerning the way to apply the reform correctly, in addition to the competencies and the unitary political determination required to advance in the same direction. It was also necessary to forge a nexus between political leadership, politics and management, but also attempt to extend the application of methods developed by the central administration to all other forms of administration, including those of the local bodies and foster the necessary involvement of the workers’ unions. In this regard, it should be emphasised that the device regarding the system of incentives undoubtedly presents more shadow than light, since the literature contains considerable criticism regarding strongly predetermined methods of differentiation (Oliveri 2011). The criticism expressed in an open letter on the occasion of his resignation as a member of the Civit by that Pietro Micheli addressed to Minister Brunetta also moved in this direction, when he argued that “[...] in no organisation can individual evaluation bear good fruits if there is no good management of an organisation. Instead, the consensus obtained thanks to the “anti-slacker” campaign and the fact that the law contained some excessively prescriptive elements (e.g., grouping those who were assessed into ex-ante defined bands) focused everyone’s attention on individual performance. The pressure brought to bear on “idlers” paid off at the beginning (reducing absenteeism), but it also ended up diminishing the reputation

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and sense of belonging of many civil servants. And since these are among the most powerful motivational levers available, it can be hard to (re) motivate public staff to do better by introducing turnstiles and cc cameras (removed after the recent stability law). To make the public administration more efficient and competitive, it is important, first of all, to solve problems at an organisational and systemic level. This is where your reform could have made a difference by focusing on the creation of public value and the assessment of the impact of administrative action, in an environment too often selfreferential. Because when all comes to all, what interests citizens and businesses most is the quality of the services they receive”. It is useful to note that according to Micheli’s thesis, the legislative decree 150/09 focused excessively on the measurement of individual productivity informed by a proto-industrialist scheme, while, in the most modern organisations productivity was essentially the outcome of the collective work of teams and groups, related mainly to the results produced by new policies of management and organisation. In the new organizational models, individual incentives weigh less, because they are closely linked to highly bureaucratic and prescriptive work, individual tasks or well-defined individual roles prevailed, and there was a lack of an adequate culture of evaluation and customer satisfaction policies. As a recent publication by the Italian Evaluation Association, which brought together several interesting contributions by scholars and operators in the public sector, a new awareness regarding the profound weakness marking both the culture of evaluation and the competitiveness of our country began to emerge. That provided several useful strategic and operational indications, but it argued that, if one truly intended to achieve lasting results, it was absolutely necessary to treat the topic of public performance with reference to the centrality of the evaluative component in order to improve socio-economic conditions and interests regarding equity in Italy. In this regard, it was argued that, however, one seeks to judge the reform in progress, from this point of view, undoubtedly marked a decisive moment of discontinuity. Furthermore, as Bolognino (2010) pointed out regarding the role of management itself, it was necessary to focus on at least three critical issues: (a) The link/connection between the application of sanctions and the results of the system of evaluation. (b) The reduction of guarantees which weakened the role of the opinion of the Guarantors Committee. (c) The perplexities arising from new hypotheses of liability pursuant to art. 21, paragraph 1 bis, legislative decree n. 165/01. This thesis was on the same wavelength as the critique advanced by Caruso (2010), who, in the analysis of the changes in labour law in the public administration, underlined how, although inspired by the canons of New Public Management, the current reform did not pursue the objective of performance through regulatory the flexibility and decision-making autonomy of public managers, but by resorting to instruments of managerial regulatory that tended to be of a top-down type.

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In other words, even in the presence of precise rules, which could not be considered self-applying, immediate, and easy to implement, it was absolutely necessary to create the conditions whereby each administration would be enabled to develop its own method and follow a specific political-cultural pathway agreed upon as much as possible between the actors concerned so as to achieve the objectives established by the reform. To do this, it was necessary to start again from the new role assigned to the public manager, who once more became the main actor of the process of reform and who needed to become the motor of the management of both the change in progress and that of the future, for purposes both of an effective modernisation of the public administration and an improvement in the overall performance of the country as a system.

Corrections and Perspectives of the Brunetta Reform The new Protocol on public employment signed on the 10th of May 2012 between the Minister of Public Administration and Innovation, Patroni Griffi, the Regions, the Provinces and the Municipalities and the trade unions represented a significant demonstration of commitment on the part of the Government and intervened regarding some key points of the reorganisation of the public administration foreseen by the Brunetta reform. As indicated in a note from Aran (2012) regarding the structure of the system of trade-union relations, the protocol was seen as a social pact favouring “the conscious participation of workers in the processes of rationalization, innovation, and reorganisation of the public administration”. Recognition of collective bargaining as a source of the determination of the pay scales and the enhancement of the status of public workers brought about no substantial changes to the situation of the time. In this sense, the text of the agreement which made explicit reference to art. 2, paragraph 3 of Legislative Decree no. 165/2001, sought to avoid the risk of abolishing the clause currently in force which provided for unilateral action by public employers, including that regarding matters of remuneration, introduced by Legislative Decree no. 150/2009 in the event that an agreement with the trade union was not reached. In terms of mobility, the passage that argued that the need to link qualification and professional training pathways to mobility towards other administrative bodies seemed to anticipate a more incisive role of trade unions regarding mobility, while the current version of art. 33 regarding surplus personnel (after the changes introduced by art. 16 of law no. 183/2011) provided for information concerning the initial phase of the procedure only. A more recent provision (August 2013), contained in the so-called decree of action of the Letta Government, introduced a set of norms regarding the civil service aimed at effective maintenance of the system regulating industrial relations within the public administration, paying particular attention to the solution of the age-old unresolved issues of the stabilisation of temporary workers and the recruitment of

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winners of public competitions who remain unemployed despite having passed the relative examination. In Italy, today, these two phenomena involve a total population of about 320,000 people and are the result of the endemic flexibility of industrial relations within the public bodies, aimed, during periods of crisis and scarcity of resources, at guaranteeing a series of services to citizens, according to a short-term organisational logic devoid of a middle-term perspective. This flexibility has now become a structural feature of our public employment system, where, lacking credible perspectives often makes work precarious (Cocozza 2008a, b). According to the Minister of Public Administration D’Alia (2013), in June 2013, temporary workers in public employment numbered about 250,000, of which 133,000 in education hired with temporary contracts, based on a legal system all its own. The other 117,000 are divided as follows: 70,000 among the staff of the regional and local authorities, over 30,000 in the healthcare sector, the remaining 17,000 present in ministries and non-economic public bodies. Furthermore, those who have won a competition and without entering into effective service number about 70,000. However, this analysis of the employment structure of the public system, as Minister D’Alia (2013) stated also needs to consider a percentage of “redundancies”, which amount to about 7000 people. As regards the management of these complex events, more recently, during the first half of 2013, a positive sign of openness seems to be the involvement of the trade unions in processes of rationalisation of the public administration. In this context, a further significant novelty is the identification, within the ambit of “trade-union information” of the hypothesis of “joint examination”. Equally important is the number of sectors and bargaining areas regarding this issue. It maintains the importance of bargaining when defining the composition of the sectors, though seems to charge the Government with the establishment of the maximum number, though it tends to favour a reduction rather than an increase. The protocol then establishes how to strengthen the powers of representation of the regions and the local authorities in collective-bargaining procedures and enhance the areas of autonomy and co-responsibility in defining the resources allocated to renewal of contracts. As regards the issues relating to the measurement and evaluation of performance, and reward systems, the supersession of the “compulsory” system of distribution of resources for variable salaries and personnel in the well-known three categories of merit is envisaged. Furthermore, bargaining is assigned the task of shifting the centre of gravity of incentive systems towards organisational performance to the detriment of the measurement of individual behaviour except for managerial staff against whom the link between salary bonuses and individual results achieved continues to prevail. As regards the regulation of the new provisions concerning the labour market, there are no particular innovations regarding the generation of permanent employment relationships, while, in the case of flexible work relationships, the desire to limit the use of flexible contractual forms regarding the various reasons envisaged

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for them, in cases of temporary or exceptional needs and consequential applicational restrictions, is confirmed. As to disciplinary proceedings, the legal norms on dismissals is redefined, without intervening on matters regarding the competence of bargaining on this particular aspect of the discipline of industrial relationships. Furthermore, there is a need to define laws aimed at defining precise guarantees in the event of wrongful dismissal. Staff training continues to play an important role and be relaunched, as a tool for developing skills required for the civil service, by reorganising the public trainingschool system, both central and local, in order to: guarantee uniform public staff training; improving the permanent training level of in-service workers; optimising the allocation of resources. Finally, with regard to a relaunch of the role of management, the plan is to strengthen the autonomy of management with respect to political bodies, in continuity with the latest reform. To pursue this objective, some possible areas of intervention have been identified: the strengthening of the role and functions of management; the consolidation of the mechanisms of selection, training, and evaluation; the qualification of the procedures governing assignment. Reference is also made to the need to encourage the mobility of executives and the need to connect the performance of executives to a more effective system of incentives and remuneration is reiterated.

Globalisation, the Complexity, and the Development of the Organisational Culture of the Public Administration The profound transformations produced by the globalisation of the economy, the tremendous pervasiveness of technological and organisational innovation, and the constant change of processes of production towards a perspective of quality and personalisation of products/services require a reconsideration of the social function of the public administration, the role of companies and the system of the regulation of labour relations. In the current situation of crisis, if we intend to pursue a policy of fair and lasting development, it is necessary to give rise to an innovative cultural process, rather than to a political and regulatory one, where it is necessary to attribute an adequate role to choices of strategic responsibility towards all stakeholders. The aim is to increase and improve the growth of the system of production, as a mandatory precondition for the production of value and wealth, to be correlated and rendered compatible with a new framework of more advanced social rights. It is now widely agreed among scholars and operators that, in order to achieve expected strategic objectives more effectively, innovative companies and virtuous public-administrative bodies need to invest in policies to enhance people since their skills, motivation, and behaviour depend on these. In this new context, the

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strategically oriented policies of organisational communication and the management of human resources assume a fundamental role. Since they are positively correlated with business policies due to the profound changes taking place, which have led to the affirmation of innovative organizational models and new cultures oriented towards the principles of total quality management, lean production, learning organisation, empowering people, people care, diversity management, and work-life balance. The collaborator has ceased to be considered exclusively as a “cost” and is now a “strategic resource”, indispensable for the purpose of increasing the value for customers and the effective pursuit of the objectives of the mission of the institutions. The research projects mentioned above are part of an international scenario, within which a series of global transformations that determine our societies today and their educational systems have created profound structural instability and a process of continuous change (Cocozza 2012b). In this new scenario, over the last two decades, a broad, worldwide debate has arisen concerning the concept of “social capital” and a variety of dissimilar methods has been proposed to definite and analyse it. This is an important concept referring to that particular “system of relationships of trust between local subjects and institutions that favour the preconditions for the economic, social, and cultural development of a given territorial community”. A system that, when it functions positively, generates civic sense and, in turn, favours investments and enhancement of human capital, acquired by means of a process of education and continuous training, which constantly interacts with the fabric of production and institutions. The question of the decisive role of share capital was also dealt with by Mario Draghi in the Report of the Bank of Italy (2009), where it was argued that the size of Italian companies, in the past, had often guaranteed the flexibility necessary to cope with changes in world demand. However, today this same characteristic appears to be a factor of weakness, even under normal conditions of the economic cycle. In particular, small companies struggle to absorb the high fixed costs associated with activities of export and innovation. The result is that there is a positive relationship between the size of a company, on the one hand, and the level and dynamics of productivity, on the other. In fact, with regard to the concept of trust, the latter needs to be understood in a cognitive (not normative) sense and as interpersonal and/or institutional/systemic trust, meaning that none of the actors possesses all the necessary information or is in a condition of absolute “specific ignorance” since in these two cases there could be no true equality of interaction and participation such as to permit the achievement common and shared goals. It is based on proactive logic and an institutional and entrepreneurial inclination based on ethically oriented economic transactions, professional exchange, and negotiation seeking mutual satisfaction (win-win logic) regarding the development of integrated economic districts that mould and develop real “territorial cognitive systems”. The development of social capital and with it of the economic and civil community of a given territory is linked, therefore, to public policies, but also to forms of private and personal strategies of behaviour oriented towards ethical conduct marked by a high civic sense and the conviction that the production of necessary public

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goods requires the contribution and involvement of all citizens, social actors as well as of public and private institutions. Innovation grows and develops where a greater degree of economic freedom and entrepreneurship act jointly along with roles of support and promotion of public policies and initiatives which public administration bodies implement to achieve objectives, which supersede the bureaucratic culture and the logic of mere formal compliance with the law. In this perspective, the new role of the public manager, while considering the necessary organisational specificities, like any other manager responsible for the structure of an organisation should strive to integrate and render compatible the principles of autonomy and responsibility assessable by means of an adequate system for measuring the results achieved and aimed at rewarding merits and virtuous behaviour. In line with this approach, the Third Report Generating the Ruling Class in Italy survey promoted by the Luiss Guido Carli University of Rome (AA.VV 2009) highlighted how demands for rewards of merit, which rose from both top-level institutions and the general population, had come to represent a new way of conceiving this concept, seen no longer as a lever for the achievement of personal success but as a public virtue. The data the survey processed make it clear that the cost of demerit fluctuated between 3% and 7.5% of GDP, leaving no doubt as to its entity and impact. It appeared clear that the enhancement of merit as a criterion to apply when selecting the ruling class was not an option but a necessity. The same report emphasised the increasingly vital role that personal responsibility needed to play, not only as an evaluative parameter, but also as a prospect and a principle capable of directing the behaviour of all those holding important public and private posts. In this sense, when it comes to evaluating university systems, on the basis of the most advanced experiences (USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Northern European countries) it would be necessary to consider four different parameters grounded in the information collected from among the students (users): the quality of teaching; the extent and depth of the research carried out; the type and customisation of the services provided; the degree and quality of the involvement of the stakeholders; employability rate and spendability of the degrees obtained on the labour market. In this direction, the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), an associative body of the national quality-assessment agencies to which all the principal European countries that signed the Bologna Declaration adhere, prepared the Standards and Guidelines for the Assurance of Quality within the Area of Higher Education in Europe (ESG). The Document, approved during the meeting of the European University Ministers in Bergen in 2005, defined the characteristics that quality assurance needed to assume in each of Europe’s universities and university systems: not a prescriptive list of aspects to be examined and evaluation methods to be respected, but a set of principles to follow the development of autonomous quality systems. The architrave upon which these ESGs rest is the attribution of responsibility to the universities who need to assure the quality of the

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service they provide, while they remain to set objectives compatible with national legislation and their accountability towards the stakeholders. The national system of guarantees is based, therefore, on the results of quality activities assured by the universities, appraisable using the following variables: (a) The involvement of employers and students at all levels of the quality assurance pathway. (b) The functionality of the quality assurance procedures aimed at improve teaching and learning processes. (c) The publication of the quality-assurance-process objectives and reports and, more generally, their concept of quality assurance practices as tools aimed at promoting the transparency and dissemination of information. In this regard, during the present crisis of national economies, the control of public spending and the efficiency of the services provided to the public now appears to be somewhat of a ukase imposed by the financial institutions to guarantee continuous economic growth and the maintenance of the levels of well-being achieved by individual nations. Within these scenarios, the behavioural ethics of political decision-makers and technocrats called upon to manage the public sector should guide the economic evaluation of public policies. However, as we know, the Italian reality is highly differentiated. There are divergences between the country’s regional and local bodies. This situation produces striking differences in the results achieved by Italy’s various regional and local offices. This reality requires carefully differentiated analysis in order to be understood. Attention to these values shows that the country is beginning to change atmosphere and rediscover the fact that the real economy also brings a positive reversal of hierarchies of values with it. In reality, a public manager, as head of a public body, more than the managers of the other sectors, ought to adopt a style of behaviour oriented towards full compliance with the principles of accountability and commitment towards the direct and indirect stakeholders with which the administration dialogues. A situation that illustrates the reasons for the innovative actions implemented by implementing participatory leadership is that of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, as well as the experimental training project organised by the Consorzio Comuni Trentini, or the quality groups of the Territorial Agency or excellent external-relations activities like that of the Italian Space Agency. As documented on the Labsus5 website, the “Open-Schools” project also moved in this direction. Promoted by the Campania Region and financed by the ESF (European Social Fund), it has already entered its third year and maintains an innovative degree of openness towards the territory and involvement of the local cultural and associative fabric by establishing “school-networking” systems.

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This shows that citizenship and participation have their first meeting ground in schools and universities. Schools are the first grand institution where, thanks to belongingness and togetherness, people begin playing an active role in a community. In fact, although the initiative is part of a broader project aimed at intercepting the needs of young people and implementing action capable of effectively preventing risk, marginalisation, and distress, among its main objectives are the dissemination of the culture of active citizenship, as well as those of raising the level of personal responsibility, improving the sense of belonging to the territory, facilitating communication exchanges between subjects and the territory, between subjects and institutions, with a view to involving people belonging to the community. Similarly, in Lamezia Terme, the Municipality and the Town’s Traffic Police Corps together with the parishes have promoted the “Traffic-police-for-a-day” project, where a hundred very young scouts went looking for breaches of the city’s traffic norms. The initiative, organised by Agesci in collaboration with scouts of several parishes from Lamezia, is part of a broader project aimed at training boys and girls to become good citizens, foregrounding respect and responsibility. Considerable commitment was asked of the girls and boys. If at first they learned how to behave in the street playing a game, later they were asked to “study” and, after the traffic police visited their headquarters, sit for an exam to obtain a certificate confirming their participation in the Traffic-police-for-a-day” initiative. The inhabitants of another area of Italy, Monte Morello in Tuscany, equally committed to the development of civic sense, met to offer to pay out of their own pockets for the construction of a new aqueduct, public though privately funded. This ambitious project, born after the local administration declared having no economic resources to invest in a project, aimed at connecting the houses of Sesto Fiorentino and Vaglia to the Mugello section of the public network. The cost of the operation is estimated at around 1.5 million euros, all borne by the citizens. These are cases of particular interest and national importance because they show how in areas of territorial autonomy, when series of “necessary conditions” arise, it is possible to pursue effective and positive implementation of reforms: (a) An adequate strategy, which implements the strong commitment of political and managerial summits, informed by a logic of an integrative, non-conflictual or hierarchical subordination. (b) The assumption of a participatory type of leadership, which knows how to interact synergistically informed by a logic of strategic orientation capable of activating different managerial levers of human-resource policies. (c) An organisational communications policy, which permits a close correlation between different levels of communication (functional, strategic, training, and creative) at present not adequately coordinated with each other. (d) A programme for introducing a specific innovation of processes and structures at all levels and regarding all activities. (e) An inspiring ad hoc scheme aimed at training people how to plan, a fundamental tool required to support the acquisition of professional, managerial and relational knowledge and skills, necessary for the completion of a real, effective

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implementation of the reform of processes of public administration such as to bring about real change. The reforms of the public administration, therefore, are not self-applicable; they require a significant effort involving institutional consultation, if they really aim at producing a change at the service of the local and national community and at achieving a fair and lasting economic, social, and cultural development. These involve a series of anything but simple issues, which, as already mentioned, represent the true litmus test of effective and adequate implementation of processes of reform within the public administration. In other words, the managerial capacity for governance of organisational processes (administrative procedures typical of a lean kind of organisation) and work relations with people should not be based any longer on the primacy of heteronomous legislative regulations and mere formal compliance with the norms that condition the behaviour of the parties (collaborators and citizens) obliging them to adhere to hierarchical obedience. They ought to be based, rather, on the authority of the leadership brought into play during direct relationships (the individual dimension) and on a collaborative, participatory, negotiatory, and inclusive logic applied to the management of trade-union relations (the collective dimension). Alexis de Tocqueville had already observed in his great political, but, above all, sociological treatise, that democracy was based on essentially two main elements, something he confirmed following his visit to America in 1831. These were: a process of interaction and social transformation, giving rise to real political institutions; institutions which gave birth to laws capable of regulating political life itself, through a set of political, social, and economic structures based on democratic principles. The process and these institutions need to be based, substantially, on the contribution of individuals or groups of citizens, who produced the famous “associationism of intermediate bodies” representing the backbone of democracy. One could say, in more modern terms, that they bestowed body (form) and substance (content) on experiences of concrete, subsidiarity self-organisation of civil society capable of guaranteeing the public good as an indispensable form of service. In this regard, as Abbruzzese et al. (2013) argued in a recent essay entitled “Civil society in Italy” where they analysed several case studies regarding the North-East of Italy and the national at large, it was in associative life that forms of action aimed at the pursuit of objectives favouring the common good—also an example of solidary bonding—might be affirmed. From a comparison between a number of empirically investigated cases, it emerged quite evidently that a factor that favoured the development of Italian society significantly was the pervasiveness of associative-type organisations, which also constituted its main driving force. This significant conceptual framework, fundamental for the future, receives very little response, unfortunately, from the vast majority of political leaders and senior public managers from other areas of the country. In fact, it comes up against innumerable organisational difficulties, above all, countless critical issues of a political and managerial nature.

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In other words, today more than ever before, the personal, structural, and institutional dimensions need to engage and cooperate, because a series of certainties that for several decades acted as the reference architrave of our social system are disappearing, while faith in progress, as a promising and unavoidable future scenario, is diminishing. In this regard, as already pointed out by Esping-Andersen (2000), the golden age of capitalism, when everything seemed to work, is over. It is possible that, in the new economic order in the making, the welfare state— probably one of the most extraordinary achievements of modern history—may turn out to be unsustainable. The problems that beset it are due to malfunctions of the labour market and of systems of public assistance. The former has failed to guarantee full employment and equality; the latter risks being unstable and infertile. So, it is not so much a matter of “importing” reference models that operate in other countries, but that of bestowing greater stability to the current welfare model also within the spheres of education and training, while taking into account the important role subsidiarity policies can continue to perform, locally in a logic of multilateral partnership. The contribution made by families is also fundamental. In this regard, as argued in an interesting work published by Milan’s Bocconi University which analysed public-management tools useful for the development of the territory (Brusoni and Vecchi 2009), it was necessary to acquire a strategic political outlook capable of planning and managing integrated initiatives within a territory. Among the initiatives this work foresaw ways of attracting investments, the internationalisation of companies, innovation of research and technology, strategic planning, and integrated design. From this perspective, it was necessary this volume held, to enhance, on the one hand, the skills and the ability of local administration bodies to plan, with a view to developing subsidiarity. On the other hand, it was vital to pay particular attention to the definition of the role of agencies of development, to the funding of initiatives and projects of local development based on collective financing, the raising of private capital to finance projects and of mixed venture capital to subsidise funds and design management tools for the administration and coordination of programmes of development. Very often these issues are complex, in particular those regarding the definition and management of local public service policies, where there is a dearth of knowledge and skills capable of enabling managers to play the role of the majority shareholder of a mixed company permitting him to orient the behaviour of individuals. There is also a lack of the technical skills required to manage the tools that regulate relationships between the various subjects (public, private, non-profit) that, today, satisfy needs of public utility. It is becoming increasingly evident that the management of these problems recalls once again the role and skills of the public manager, in particular s/he who operates at local level. In fact, in another essay on the role of public management in favour of the development of territorial competitiveness and local governance (Panozzo 2005), it was noted that these issues were not affected only by policies and services available to businesses and citizens, but also by the reform of public organisations

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and the strengthening of the professional identity and behavioural integrity of public leaders. Similar reasoning, if guided by a clear strategic outlook and supported by a “targeted project of change” and adequate resources (human, economic, technical, and instrumental) might be applied to school management and the administration of central and decentralised institutions. It is within this new context that the innovative role of the leadership of local authorities as well as that of the administration of schools needs to be sought and no longer in the ability to “provide services directly” to the community. It needs to be sought within a perspective of Big Society capable of knowing how to identify partners with whom to network at collective territorial level and provide them with an institutional framework that permits them to express innumerable subsidiary potentialities in relation to the traditional role of the State and the old concept of local public action, starting from the southern Italian regions that experience the current economic crisis with greater difficulty. As ex-British Prime Minister Cameron pointed out, it was not a question of theorising a “minor” but of designing a “better” state, capable of intervening where necessary, without squandering resources and starting from a positive view of the actions of individuals and intermediate bodies. Arena (2011) expressed a similar view concerning intervention when commenting on a Sentence of the Italian High Court (SU, 16th of February 2011 n.3811) which ruled on the new role of subsidiarity and the reinterpretation of the concept of state property, advocating horizontal administrative policies involving citizens in the management of assets functional to the satisfaction of the interests of the community. In this regard, having ascertained the difficult situation in which the country found itself, Arena (2011) argued that to restart Italy it was necessary to reduce injustice and inequality by entering into a new developmental phase, like that of the 1960s. He also sustained that the main responsibility in this sense rested with the ruling class, called so by no fluke, because its task was to look ahead and indicate a way out by using the innovative tools and principles of subsidiarity, solidarity, and responsibility. In this perspective (Arena 2011) claimed that [. . .] active citizenship is achieved by taking care of the common good, whose enrichment enriches everyone, but whose impoverishment impoverishes everyone.

From this point of view, the future of individuals and the community was seen as the common good which everyone was required have care of because the “quality” of personal, social, and institutional life depended on having a future more or less rich in possibilities. In the determination of this the role of local administrations was central. In conclusion, this is the direction indicated also by Janet and Robert Denhardt in their fundamental essay The New Public Service: Serving, Not Steering, published in 2003 and re-edited in 2007. This volume provided a precise picture of the many voices demanding the reaffirmation of democratic values and citizenship, the

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relaunching of the logic of service in the public interest, and the affirmation of principles aimed at fostering the development of a new kind of public service. According to these authors, this new perspective, characterised by a paradigmatic, political, and organisational dimension, might be pursued by coherent implementation of the following seven basic principles: the civil servant at the service of citizens not to be considered mere customers; constant respect of the public interest; enhancement of citizenship as a value upon which to base the improvement of public service and go beyond a business logic; strategic thinking and democratic action; recognition of the fact that public accountability is not easily applicable; service rather than rule; the enhancement of people and not of productivity alone. This perspective is also absolutely necessary for the improvement of the quality of the education system and the promotion of a new kind of protagonism of local autonomies. It is the harbinger of meaningful indications capable of improving the role of local public managers and favouring greater awareness on their part seeing that they experience the dimension of citizenship and the democratic value of their action every day. This is reflected indisputably in the quality and degree of economic, social, civil, and cultural development of the territorial community where managers operate.

The New Role of Public Management In this new scenario, the role and tasks of management underwent a series of important transformations, which we find in the new text of legislative decree 165/01, consolidated and coordinated in light of the changes introduced more recently by legislative decree 150/09. In fact, the new managerial functions of general offices (Article 16) concern: the formulation of proposals at the policymaking level of administration of matters within the competence of top management; proposals defining the resources and professional profiles required for the performance of the tasks for which they are responsible related to the preparation of the three-year plan regarding staffing needs. Similarly, they are required to take care of the implementation of the plans, programmes, and general directives defined at the policy-making summit and attribute to managers the tasks they require and responsibility for the implementation of specific projects and administration, the definition of objectives and consequent assignment of the human, financial and material resources necessary; to undertake acts concerning the organisation of the non-general-managerial-level offices and perform administrative acts and measures and exercise the powers of expenditure and of acquisition of revenues falling within their competence, except for those delegated to executives. In addition, they direct, coordinate, and control the activities of managers and those responsible for administrative procedures, even availing of surrogate power in the event of inertia, and engage in the organisation and administration of personnel as well as trade-union and labour relations. Likewise, they contribute to the

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definition of suitable measures to prevent and combat corruption and monitor the compliance of their collaborators for whom they are responsible. The managers, on the other hand, as stated in the new art. 17, exercise, among others, the following tasks and powers: formulate proposals and express opinions to the executives of the general management offices; they take care of the implementation of the projects and management assigned to them, adopting the related administrative acts and measures and exercising the spending and revenue acquisition powers; they direct, coordinate, and control the activities of the offices that depend on them and of those responsible for administrative procedures, including with substitute powers in the event of inaction (directive action). In carrying out their duties, to streamline organisational and management procedures, executives may have recourse to the delegation, for a determined period, with a written and motivated deed, of certain activities and tasks (implementation of projects; coordination and control of office activities; management of personnel and financial and instrumental resources) to collaborators who hold the highest functional positions within the offices for which they are responsible. In this innovative logic, the legislative decree 150/09 added to the foreseen competencies, also those of contributing to the identification of the resources and professional profiles necessary to carry out the assigned tasks, to elaborate the three-year planning document for personnel needs; to manage the personnel and the financial and instrumental resources assigned; carry out the assessment of the personnel assigned to their offices, in compliance with the principle of merit, for economic progression between the areas, as well as the payment of indemnities and incentive bonuses, in the manner and forms already mentioned. An organisational model is redesigned, characterised to some extent by a stop and go scheme, which certainly gives the management a primary role and endows these figures with greater authoritative powers, compared to the recent past, but these are payable, insofar as they are acted in a logic of comparison and direct and indirect involvement of their collaborators, to achieve common and shared objectives as much as possible. In other words, in particular, as regards local and small-sized administrative bodies, once the strategic objectives have been defined and the tools necessary to achieve them have been specified, one should move from an organisational and managerial logic driven by a traditional management model to that oriented towards a culture inspired by collaborative and participatory leadership, which knows how to involve and motivate the people who populate the organisation (individual dimension) and, at the same time, can make positive management of trade-union relations compatible with these objectives (collective dimension). In the light of the transformation involving the new role of the public manager, the different post-reform structures (administrative, managerial, and organisational) rendered traditional, generic, and indistinct policies obsolete and, to some extent, even surpassed the era of individualisation of policies and launched, instead, the era of projects aimed at real personalisation, passing from efficiency (centred on the enhancement of knowhow) to motivation (know what) and, above all, to a sense of the human action of people and commitment within the workplace by investing in know why.

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After all, it is known that in a collaborative, motivating, and confident organisational context, results tend to be better and more effective. Similar results are easily found in local and regional public-administrative bodies, or in wellmanaged educational institutions whose organisation and management are oriented towards a logic of service and a quest for the common good. This is a situation where there is widespread awareness of the fact that the success of any political programme, of the application of any reform, of the application of “good local governance”, depends largely not only on the quality of the structure (and administrative management) required to apply it, but also on the ability of administrators to implement it and foster its enactment by engaging inadequate communication with collaborators, citizens, businesses, families and, of course, ultimately, with the electorate. On the other hand, in line with this approach, it is necessary to note that managers as a feature of the paradigmatic change which arose in recent years tend to add to their role many of the prerogatives typical of the entrepreneurial figure, sometimes even replacing it and performing its formal and informal functions. Similarly, administrative management performs a fundamental function for the determination, design, and effective implementation of public policies. For this reason, it needs to build up a positive relationship with the political summit, not oriented towards a logic of political or bureaucratic dependence or opposition. This relationship aims at creating an interactive system based on a logic of cooperation and innovation capable of favouring “good governance” and the effective personalisation of public services by fostering increasingly greater involvement and participation of citizens in the determination and evaluation of the services rendered to the community. As Wright Mills (1951) posited we might argue that the work of managers and public executives has ceased to perform an exclusively instrumental function and has begun to assume an expressive role by using it as a means by which people manifest their social existence and, through it, achievement of their highest expectations. People need to be motivated when doing what they do, rejoice in the results of their work, commit themselves to ethically oriented and socially responsible “welldone” jobs. Moreover, by positively accepting this challenge, as Levi far-sighted stated and hoped for (1987, p. 81): If we exclude prodigious and individual moments that fate may grant us, a love of one’s work (unfortunately is the privilege of very few people) is the best concrete approximation of happiness on earth.

Ultimately, it is legitimate to argue that managerial behaviour oriented towards the ethics of responsibility, principles of lifelong learning and the growing personalisation of services in both the public and private sectors, represent a positive reference model and the main driving for the economic, social, and civil rebirth of Italian and European society.

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The Role of Virtuous Public Administration in the Modernisation of a Country What role might virtuous public administrations play by adopting an innovative culture and an organisational model oriented more towards the achievement of objectives and the support of modernisation? This question poses a true challenge and in the face of this challenge, recently the reform proposed by Minister Madia set itself a number of particularly ambitious objectives regarding new parameters governing public management, greater citizen participation, and a consistent simplification of procedures, to be achieved also by a radical digitalisation of the system. These transformations, to become effective, require the implementation of a new organisational model and a different mindset inspired by a strategically oriented governance policy. In line with the policies of the principal Ose countries and the European Union, Madia’s reform seeks to pursue a series of innovative objectives. These include guaranteeing citizens and businesses the right, thanks to the widespread implementation of ICT, to access all documents, services, and data of interest to them digitally, thus reducing the need to enter public offices in person. Further objectives include definitions of minimum levels of the quality, usability, accessibility, and time consumption of public-administration services and the provision of regimes of special sanctions and rewards for the administrations themselves. Furthermore, it involves their redefinition and simplification so that they may meet the needs of citizens and businesses when it comes to speed, time, and transparency. It means full digitisation of each administration’s services, as well as of their organisation and internal procedural processes. This leads to reductions of office space and personnel, including managers, and reassignment of staff to IT-supported activities, with the exception, however, of vital procedural needs relating to processes of the re-internalisation of services, and relative corroboration of the offices providing services to the public. It is a matter of rethinking and reassessing the organisational role of the State and the other public administrations in order to redefine programmes and promote action aimed at rendering public policies more efficacious, making administrative structure organisationally more streamlined and guaranteeing an appreciable level of quality in the public services provided to the community. Over the past 20 years, in a scenario affected by profound transformations of the economic and social systems, in a context of greater and greater financialisation and flexibility and the growing pervasiveness of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), as highlighted by numerous analyses and research projects (Cerase 2002a, b, 2006; Dahrendorf 2003; D’Alessio, Di Lascio 2009; Cocozza 2004a, b, c, 2010a, b, 2014a, b), what has been and continues to be put to the test is the very ability of the entire public system (political and administrative) to perform a series of innovative tasks adequately. The current challenge that public administrations find themselves facing regards not so much “whether to change”, as “how to change”, how to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public organisations, by defining roles aimed at conducting a new political and institutional mission, designed on the basis of renewed networking policies focused on interaction between central, regional,

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local, and functionally autonomous agencies. The aims include listening to and interpreting the new institutional and service demands of citizens, families, and businesses, redesigning the activity of the public system, by drawing up a new, leaner organisational model endowed with a greater degree of effectiveness and efficiency, transparency, accessibility and endowed with the ability to dialogue with the public with a view to relaunching the public role of the regulator on the basis of a correct implementation of the principle of subsidiarity. On the basis of this logic, following the introduction of the principles of decentralisation and autonomy within the Italian legal system, it is possible to sustain that the public administration has assumed a character of significant plurality and polycentricity, which no longer requires a “singular” but a “plural” analytical approach, with interpretative categories attributable to “unity”, not “uniqueness”, to “decentralisation” rather than to “bureaucratic verticalisation” and “autonomy” rather than to the “sub-hierarchical order”. From this derives the need to rethink the current cultural, rather than structural and organisational structure of the state and identify a common root, something that unites the different levels of public bodies, a “new vision of public service” as well as an “innovative mission”, upon which each administration can base all its actions. This view of matters is capable of renovating the very idea of the strategic role an integrated system of public administration, its managers and operators can play on a daily basis in favour of the citizenry. The Objectives and Nodal Issues of the Madia Reform Within this new scenario, the Italian public administration is dealing with the reform bill drawn up and promoted by the Minister for Simplification and Public Administration, Marianna Madia. The bill followed an innovative public consultation in which around 40,000 citizens took part. The general lines of the bill required the Government to “Reorganize the public administration”, starting from the proposal launched in July 2014 by the Council of Ministers and presented to Parliament and approved after several readings. The act has allowed citizens to have an open discussion on highly sensitive, current issues, with a view to driving innovation, and has recently been the subject of some important addenda. The chief “novelties” approved by the Senate, with respect to the text originally presented, can be summarised as follows: the provision of a transitional period before the abolition of the figure of the Secretary. The reform intends to accelerate and simplify the procedures required to provide services to citizens, businesses, and the community. It aims at countering the weight of bureaucracy and reducing the need for the public to have to go personally to public offices, thus providing for a more adequate reconciliation of life, family, and working times. More specifically, the reform intends to pursue the “by no means new” and ambitious goal of having the public administrations dialogue more with citizens and businesses and producing an effective and virtuous development of the digitisation of the work and organisational processes of the public-administrative system. In the first place, the law, extremely complex in its application and not immediately implementable without some necessary “political and cultural conditions”,

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aims at pursuing a series of objectives in terms of optimising administrative procedures and redesigning organisational and managerial processes, regarding: (a) the redefinition of decision-making processes, also with reference to the ways in which stakeholders (citizens, families, businesses) can participate when it comes to information technologies and the application of digital identity in the public system; (b) the obligation that each administration adapt its organisation to the principles of the exclusivity of its points of contact with the citizenry and businesses, with particular reference to dedicated desks for productive and building activities; (c) the consolidation and acceleration of disciplinary measures against disloyal civil servants, so that falsification of presence on duty or absence based on a false medical certificate leads to dismissal without notice; (d) the obligation to simplify administration in order to render procedures and results comprehensible to the public; (e) the obligation to abandon the use of paper for normal administrative purposes and ensure the transmission of data electronically; (f) the use of open-standard software, not dependent upon specific proprietary technologies and recourse to applicational cooperation and Application Programme Interfaces—(API). Secondly, the reform aims at highlighting policies of human-resource management, where the Government assumes the mandate to intervene on some issues having a strategic value regarding structural classification, organisation, and management. Specifically, more recently the issue of evaluating employees in order “to recognise their merits” and assign “rewards” has been taken up again along with the need to develop “distinct systems for measuring the results achieved by the organisation and those achieved by individual employees”. In fact, the mandate is charged with redefining some of the thorniest issues at the centre of the reforms launched over the last 25 years (Cassese, Bassanini, Frattini reform) and, more specifically, the Brunetta reform which featured evaluation, the “fight against slackers”, and the autonomy of managers. These are reforms which have aimed, respectively, at simplifying bureaucratic procedures and “untangling the legislative skein”; introducing principles of effectiveness, efficiency, and economy and privatisation of the employment relationship of public employees; adopting measures and tools derived from managerial culture, in an “excessively directorial” logic to apply to performance-cycle management and the public sector; attributing the task of selecting executives and managers to the Italian School of Public Administration (SNA); introducing of a criterion of mobility between the public and the private sectors. Among the open topics remains that of special careers, i.e. the burning issue of the evaluation of administrations and employees aimed at improving the recognition of merit and the selective assignment of rewards. Within this developmental framework, the Madia reform intends to improve the autonomy of the management by:

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(a) restructuring the managerial framework by recurring to a “single role” system and the possible introduction of roles unifying the management of regional administrations and local authorities, in order to redefine, relocate, and relaunch planning and the unitary diligent action of the effective, efficient “public employer”; (b) improving the degrees of transparency and public controllability of the processes of recruitment, organisation, and access to management, by defining a clear, thorough procedures based on competitions or training course plus competitions, as well as the time criteria adopted for the conferral of managerial duties; (c) reviewing the duration of executive appointments as well as of the availability of unappointed executives; (d) defining the responsibility of managers towards the administration, the public and stakeholders, the procedures for the evaluating the results obtained, including the possible dismissal after a given period of non-assignment and performance of facility managers; (e) redesigning the functions of the management of the regional and local authorities, including those foreseen by the reform of Title V; (f) the punishment of executives for “administrative-accounting liability” following fiscal damage caused by deeds approved by them. A provision, added later (January 2015), among the paragraphs of article 13 of the draft law, intends to establish “the strengthening of the principle of separation between political-administrative direction and management” and the consequent “regime of liability of executives, by exclusive attribution to them of administrativeaccounting responsibility for managerial action”. Furthermore, some of the provisions of the reform aim at reorganising the role of the “Conference of services” starting from the rules of convocation, the simplification of tasks, and the use of IT tools to favour the streamlining of procedures and the containment of costs. Finally, to revise and simplify the anti-corruption provisions measures of publicity and transparency are proposed. They aim at favouring a discipline that is as clear and transparent as possible, also with regard to the non-conferability and incompatibility of positions in public administrations and/or in publicly-controlled private bodies. Within the context of the Government’s mandate to reform the public administration, besides restructuring the managerial classification system by recourse to the “single role” principle, we find the strategic nature of the cultural and professional project aimed at unifying managerial training at the National School of Administration (SNA), reorganised as departments corresponding to the former bodies, and the consequent closure of all the central-administration training schools. The SNA will need to ensure the development of a new organisational culture capable of promoting a new governance of decision-making processes and a more precisely targeted and effective allocation and management of resources. Specifically, the innovations in question cover two particularly significant aspects, which

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might act as a “litmus test” of the degree of effective change produced in the public system. In other words, the result of this umpteenth reform of the public administration depends on how these two variables will be dealt with, including the muchdiscussed use of staff mobility procedures. The latter is another new feature, to be used to achieve a correct definition and assignment of objectives (institutional, structural, and operational) by the top political to the managerial rank and from these to the other levels of the organisation, on the basis of exhaustive organisational analyses and examinations of the functionality of processes and the adequacy of remits and workloads. These are issues that were highlighted already as critical variables encountered during the implementation phases of the previous reforms and which animated the debate surrounding the Brunetta reform. All told, if it is to govern this innovative process and intends to truly design and bring about an organic change with a view to achieving effective results, the Madia reform can only start once more from the critical issues left open by the Bassanini reform. It will need to depart from those that emerged during the actual implementation phase of the Brunetta reform, still being applied in many administrations to provide for a strategy of necessary coherence between cultural, organisational, and work processes. The Implementation of Innovative Organisational Processes in the Public Administration When it comes to the indisputable challenge posed by the implementation of reforms within the public administration, it is indispensable, first of all, to identify the difficulties encountered, the particularly critical aspects and evaluate the effective possibility of claiming that currently the Italian public administration has changed significantly (and positively) due also to the Brunetta reform. In other words, in this direction, it would be important to verify the degree of concrete implementation of the reform processes launched, so as to foreground the series of actual contradictions and/or counter-tendencies that emerged at administrative-body level regarding the criteria that inspired them and the contents of the reform processes begun over 30 years ago now, by Ministers Cassese and Bassanini. An interesting reflection on the topic of the assessment of the university sector and the role of the Anvur (the Italian National Agency for the assessment of universities and research institutes) is provided by an essay by Rebora (2013), with the significant title: Nessuno mi può giudicare? L’università e la valutazione. (Can nobody judge me? The university and assessment). In line with this paradigmatic setting, from the complex and, in some ways, exhausting application of the Brunetta reform, among the many indications that emerge, one, in particular, assumes a predominantly relevant role and represents a challenge from which it is absolutely necessary to start. This is the empirical verification of the assumption that, in the implementation of reforms of the public administration. “The effectiveness of any reform is almost always correlated to the degree of adequacy of the motivation and mindset of the various actors called upon to implement measures of reform in everyday life, starting from those with political and managerial leadership roles, as well as those who engaged in representation. It correlated even more so to the measures of support set-up (communication, training, evaluation, incentives, and

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motivation) and the technical instrumentation required by the personnel to accompany and support the concrete application of the regulatory provisions.” (Cocozza 2014c, 202). These represent a set of critical questions to which the legislative decree number 150/09 also tried to provide a possible answer, with a view to pursuing several objectives. These included identifying performance indicators and procedures capable of producing a benchmarking for national and international administrations; creating a relationship between administrative evaluation and assessment of managerial and non-managerial personnel; defining the type of monitoring and procedures to adopt; relaunching the role of the public employer. At the same time, they also sought to implement policies aimed at effective empowerment of the role of management and the implementation of policies capable of enhancing the skills of public workers, to establish forms of involvement on the part of citizens/users capable of favouring effective and timely transparency of the results of the assessment itself such as to lead to improvement of services in terms of quality and user perception. A critical interpretation of the Brunetta reform and the difficulties associated with its concrete implementation (Scognamiglio 2010; Cocozza 2014a, b) is that provided by a comparison between what was foreseen by Legislative Decree n.150/09 and what had already been indicated by Legislative Decree 286/99, which, 10 years earlier, had reorganised the internal controls systemically and introduced the cultural idea of assessment, control, and the evaluation of ex-post performance, based on real results. The payment of incentivising benefits needed to be commensurate with the achievement of actual results. The 1999 legislator believed that internal controls might have a positive impact upon the quality of the acts and services provided by the public administration, within a framework of trust in the ability of administrative agencies to implement good governance practices while also reducing formal controls in favour of greater attention to the results achieved by the managers. In the same spirit and on the basis of claims of autonomy, a few years later, the constitutional reform cancelled controls over the territorial bodies, definitively, by abolishing the regional control committees (Coreco). Despite this, experience has shown that a good law, which the legislative decree 286/99 certainly is, is not necessarily capable of producing good results. Frequently, even though forms of internal control have been devised and activated, the results have proved to be inferior to expectations and dysfunctions have continued to exist, the executives, with very few irrelevant exceptions, have continued to make and receive optimal assessments. This means that they have continued to receive the foreseen economic incentives, even without confirmation of corresponding improvements to the quality of the public services provided to the community. As Scognamiglio (2010) recalls, the failure to reach the expected goals was due to two events: the personnel were exempt from an effective, coherent performance-appraisal system, which meant that managers, devoid of effective tools by which to control their collaborators, preferred to adopt a line of tolerance and laissez faire also with regard to their own conduct; the lack of a vision of the action aimed at a logic of internal efficiency with a view to improving the administrative functionality of endorsement of the planning/achievement cycle of the goals to achieve.

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Another critical point regards the methods used to implement the activity benchmark promoted by the Brunetta reform and rendered procedural due to subsequent resolutions issued by CiVIT (the anti-corruption and transparency commission). This produced a clear Popperian case of unintended consequences of intentional actions If, on the one hand, the regulatory provision proposed the activation of a virtuous process of comparison between administrations and continuous improvement of the overall results at operational level, on the other, it led to a process of isomorphism and a euphemistically high homogenisation of the documents produced. In this regard, it should be emphasised that the arrangement of the system of incentives undoubtedly presents more shadows than light, since the relevant literature presents severe criticism of strongly predetermined differentiation methods (Oliveri 2011). It has been pointed out that the choice of focusing overly on the measurement of individual productivity, following a proto-industrialist scheme, is ineffective, since in most modern organisations productivity is essentially the outcome of a collective endeavour, of teamwork and related to the results obtained by new policies of management and organisation. These new organisational models foresee that individual incentives weigh less because these are closely linked to a highly bureaucratic and prescriptive type of work organisation, where individual tasks or well-defined individual roles prevail and there is no adequate culture of assessment coupled with an almost total absence of customer satisfaction policies. Often the demotivation of people employed in public administration is caused by their not feeling appreciated for the goals reached or for their dedication to their job. This detracts value from the effort they make. As a publication by the Associazione Italiana di Valutazione [the Italian Association of Assessment] (Urbani 2010), a compendium of a number of interesting contributions written by scholars and people working within the public sector suggests, and opportunely so, a new kind of awareness is emerging regarding the profound weakness of the culture of assessment and the competitiveness of our country. This volume provides many useful strategic and operational indications, but it clearly argues that, if one intends to achieve truly lasting results, it is absolutely necessary to make assessment a central feature of the performance of public servants. This is the case if one really intends to improve Italy’s conditions of social economy and equity. In this regard, it argues that, however one wishes to judge the reform in progress, from this point of view, it is certainly an expression of discontinuity. Furthermore, as Bolognino (2010) suggests with regard to the role of public management itself, it is necessary to focus on at least three critical issues: a) the link/ connection between the application of sanctions and the results of the assessment system; b) the reduction of guarantees due to the weakening of the role of the rulings of the Board of Trustees; c) the perplexities deriving from the new hypothesis of liability pursuant to art. 21, paragraph 1 bis, Legislative Decree no. 165/01. Caruso’s criticism (2010) is along the same wavelength. In his analysis of the changes in labour laws governing the public administration, he points out that, although inspired by the canons of New Public Management, the Brunetta reform does not

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pursue the goal of performance by availing itself of the regulatory flexibility and decision-making autonomy of public managers, but by resorting to managerial regulatory tools that tend to be of the top-down type. A New Organisational Model? Within the new political-administrative scenario, the application of the Madia reform appears, therefore, as an ambitious challenge, since, as demonstrated by some researchers (Oecd 2002a, b; Cocozza 2004a, b, 2010a, b), in order to achieve positive results, it needs to have a time frame of 3–5 years, during which it is necessary to create the “political and cultural conditions” necessary to carry out an effective implementation of the reform. Among these conditions, it is worth mentioning the need to define specific and measurable political-administrative and production objectives to achieve. These have to be identified at a central level and applied to the various levels of public bodies. Furthermore, a programme for the operational application of these objectives to the various processes and all the activities of public administration. As some scholars recall (Castells 2002; Negrelli 2013), the changes to public administration proposed require effective application of the potential of ICT to productive processes and the effective digitisation of procedures if one is to provide services close to citizens’ needs. The goals of the Madia reform are ambitious and require a “qualitative leap” from one model (cultural, organisational, relational) to another. It is a question of moving from a bureaucratic to a telocratic model (from the Greek telos, a set of tools to use to achieve an end/objective) (Cocozza 2004a, b, c). This is a new organisational model of a polycentric type, inspired by the principles of decentralisation, subsidiarity, and functional autonomy, based on the logic of a network and not on hierarchical centralisation. It is oriented not exclusively towards formal compliance with the law, but towards the achievement of objectives, in a perspective of quality and the personalisation of services based on greater involvement and participation of collaborators, the public, and all stakeholders. This means that one cannot think of bringing about the change expected by merely defining a new regulatory framework. The ability of legal measures, however innovative, to implement the necessary changes to the organisational mindset and professional behaviour of administration is insufficient though necessary to bring about a significant process of cultural and professional renewal of all public-sector managers and civil servants. It is not a question of theorising a “minor state”, but of designing a more effective, more efficient, integrated public system closer to the citizens, capable of intervening where it is really necessary, without wasting resources (human, technical, economic, and financial) and starting from a positive view of the actions of individual actors and intermediate social bodies. The new role envisaged was inspired by a serious principle of subsidiarity, which sees the involvement and active participation of citizens in the management of assets functional to the satisfaction of the interests of the community. Within this process of reform, it could be vital to relaunch the role of the third sector and emphasise the values that inspire and encourage more and more young people to engage in voluntary work at local, national, and international levels.

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In this regard, faced with the difficult situation in which Italy finds itself, as Arena (2011) suggests, to restart the country it is necessary to reduce instances of injustice and inequality by entering a new phase of development, akin to that of the 1960s. In this sense and the chief responsibility lies with the ruling class, called this and not by chance, because its task consists in looking ahead and indicating a way out recurring to the tools and following innovative principles like a sense of civic duty, subsidiarity, solidarity as well as personal and institutional responsibility. Departing from this view, he adds that it is necessary to foster a new season of citizenship, characterised by greater respect for public affairs and a more adequate endowment of social capital, concretely supported by the activities carried out by local administrations, since (Arena 2011) “active citizenship is achieved by taking care of common assets, the enrichment of which enriches everyone, but the impoverishment of which impoverishes everyone”. A New Perspective: From New Public Management to New Public Service The severe criticism regarding the self-referentiality of management, the unsustainable conditions of inefficiency and the poor orientation towards user satisfaction to which public administrations in western countries have been subjected, has led scholars and operators to propose the supersession of the bureaucratic model, seen as a single-functioning model of public administration, by models of administration closer to managerial logic. A common denominator of the reforms of Italy’s public sector, despite the multiplicity of regulatory aspects, is the quest for and application of managerial logic and tools capable of bringing about higher levels of effectiveness and efficiency. This managerialisation process finds confirmation in the theories of New Public Management. This line of research shows that the improvement of the public administration can be implemented through the application of decision-making logic and operational tools inspired by private law, to better mark the differentiation with respect to the applied logic typical of the public economy. Some authors, including Gruening (2001), state that New Public Management cannot be defined as a new paradigm, but as a sum of principles already expressed independently in the past by various theories. However, the prevailing literature has declared New Public Management to be a new paradigm, recognising its merit of having made a contribution to changing the logic and management tools of public administrations, by means of: (a) transition from an administrative model based on rules and roles to a management model based on results and resources; (b) progression from a logic of management by deeds to a strategy of results with a view to directing public behaviour towards more economic choices concerning the new scenarios; (c) separation between the political and administrative spheres in an attempt to provide the work of public administration with greater accountability; (d) the renewed role of the public manager, as a key actor for the effective management of change through adequate motivation of people regarding their duties and full valorisation of the potential and contributions of individuals.

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From this point of view, the most virtuous administrative bodies (Cocozza 2010a, b) have a tendency to move from a quest for an acceptable degree of efficiency (centred on the enhancement of know-how) to policies that aim at boosting motivation (know what) and, above all, at enhancing people’s appreciation of human action and commitment to the job by investing in know why. On the other hand, in line with this approach, it is necessary to point out that administrative management, in the process of paradigmatic change that has evolved in recent years, is called on to build up a positive relationship between top-ranking politicians not oriented towards a logic of political or bureaucratic dependence, but towards a logic of cooperation and innovation in favour of “good governance” and the effective personalisation of the public service, by introducing forms of involvement and active participation by citizens in the co-determination and assessment of the effectiveness of the services provided to the community. With the new challenge represented by the Madia reform, one could go beyond the logic of New Public Management attempted first by the Bassanini reform and then, upon different executive methods, by the Brunetta reform and move towards a more innovative vision of New Public Service, by relaunching the logic of service in favour of the public interest and aimed at affirming fostering the development of a renewed kind of public service. This view, which represents a new and specific paradigmatic but also political and organisational dimension, could be pursued through the coherent implementation of the following seven fundamental principles (Denhardt 2007): (a) to place oneself at the service of citizens, not as if they were mere customers; (b) to respect the public interest; at all times; (c) to valorise citizenship as a value for improving the public service, going beyond the logic of business; (d) to think strategically and act democratically; (e) to recognise the fact that public accountability is not easy to apply; (f) to serve, rather than rule; (g) to attribute value to people, not simply to productivity. Within this new scenario, it would be mandatory to apply the existing rules correctly by simplifying them and avoiding the introduction of new legislative rules and administrative regulations which risk having the unintended effect of rendering the procedures and tasks of the bodies more complicated because of additional duties. To respond adequately to this challenge, the system of public administration would need to activate a particularly complex, non-simple, and non-deterministic process of cultural institutional and administrative transformation, which it is not possible to improvise or “import” acritically from other organisational contexts or national systems, or determine it through on the basis of managerial logic. This is a process that might be based on a development of an organisational culture which values shared objectives, merit, and behaviour consistent with established objectives as well as personal and institutional responsibility, a challenge to be achieved through substantial investment communications, training and organisational

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learning, in order to support an effective process of organisational change. It is a perspective where culture plays an increasingly decisive role, since, as Senge et al. (2013) suggest, in today’s constantly changing economic, social, and organisational world it is necessary to realise that an organisation is a human community when all is said and done. We need to aim at promoting organisational learning and explore the dynamics associated with the activation of transformative change and the innovative possibilities it offers to a world that has, and at its own peril, lost its balance. In other words, we need to act within an ambitious but absolutely necessary perspective if we wish to improve the quality of the action of the public-services system, in particular in key sectors like education, training, healthcare, and employment. A Training Programme at Rome’s Bambino Gesù Paediatric Hospital and the Community Spirit The training project designed for the managers and collaborators of Rome’s Bambino Gesù Paediatric Hospital, the Vatican State’s world-famous children’s clinic, is oriented in this direction. This is an important training course, organised by the Department of Educational Sciences of the Roma Tre University, for the years 2018–2023. During the first phase, the goal was to promote and spread a community mindset, in a perspective aimed at implementing a strategy based on the logic of the empowerment of people, organisations, and communities and firmly grounding the roles of the actors and institutions in the following values: inclusive and sustainable innovation; transparency of processes; ethical leadership; the centrality of the person; the enhancement of the community. The second phase focused on the culture of assessment, through the implementation of organisational behaviour aimed at creating a result-oriented work environment and recognition of the value of the person. In line with this logic, it is necessary to recall that in the “managerial cycle of human resources”, the process of assessment, linked to a policy of the “management by objectives”, performs a crucial function. This is because, on the one hand, it pinpoints the different levels of performance on the basis of which decisions regarding the distribution of rewards are made (system of incentives), on the other, it provides useful information for the design and implementation of training activities, development policies and career planning by assessing future potential. The evaluation of personnel means, therefore, an organic and permanent system aimed at ensuring an objective and reliable appraisal of each collaborator, periodically expressed by his/her direct superior to evaluate performance and the professional characteristics of staff expressed during the execution of their work, with a view to integrating this system with others used to judge activities and results for a given period. More in detail, the course aimed at training evaluators intends to create the technical and cultural conditions capable of permitting a company’s evaluation system to achieve six fundamental goals:

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– enhance the skills and potential of professional and organisational development; – identify the gaps between the skills required by the role and those actually possessed by the collaborator, thus identifying the training needs of the personnel; – promote processes of performance improvement in terms of quality, making the collaborator aware of his/her level of performance and stimulating its increase in a targeted manner; – measure the individual and average capacity of personnel in order to achieve, results appropriate to the objectives assigned within the scope of their remit; – disseminate and share sector, group and individual objectives within the organisation, in a logic of inter-functional integration and transparent communication, promoting constructive and structured relational interactive dynamics between personnel and management; – provide the system of incentives with targeted inputs according to principles of fairness, with a view to promoting and rewarding merit, commitment and productivity, on the basis of homogeneous, specific, and shared criteria. Ultimately, the “OBPG Value” training course intends to strengthen the opportunities and benefits provided by the assessment tool and enhance the behavioural and professional skills of the personnel who work at Rome’s Bambino Gesù Paediatric Hospital. Public Administration and the Challenge of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) More recently, for the 2022–2023 two-year period, the Italia Domani [Italy Tomorrow] programme, an integral part of Next Generation EU, intends to implement a project of economic recovery dedicated to the member states of the European Union known as the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). According to the Government, Italia Domani should bestow a precious legacy on future generations, engendering a more robust, sustainable, and inclusive form of economic growth. With Italia Domani, the country should have a more efficient and digitised public administration and Italian citizens benefit from more modern, sustainable, and widespread transport system. Italia Domani’s investments and reforms should make the country more cohesive territorially and create a more dynamic labour market devoid of gender and generational discrimination. Italy integrates the PNRR with the national plan for complementary investments, with additional resources of 30.6 billion Euro. With reference to the role of public policies, the PNRR aims at supporting the development of the country, through a reform of the public administration, with a view to supporting education and research, inclusion, and cohesion. With its Mission 4, Education and Research and Mission 5, Inclusion and Cohesion, the PNRR sets itself two ambitious objectives: to improve the degree of development of the country; reduce historical regional, intergenerational, and gender disparities, which limit the development of Italian society and its weight within the European and global economy. Mission 4, starting from an analysis of Italy’s structural deficiencies, seeks to reinforce the conditions required for the

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development of an economy endowed with a high degree of knowledge, competitiveness, and resilience, starting from recognition of the critical points of our education, training, and research system. In detail, Mission 4 Education and Research envisages the achievement of the following objectives: the improvement of the quality and enlargement of the quantity of education and training services; improvement of teacher recruitment and training processes; expansion of skills and enhancement of scholastic reform and increase of the number of doctorates; the corroboration of research and the dissemination of innovative models for basic and applied research conducted jointly by universities and businesses; support for innovation and processes of technological transfer; strengthening of the conditions supporting research and innovation. Mission 5, on the other hand, is structured along two specific lines of action: the adoption, in agreement with the Regions, of the National Program for the Employability Guarantee of Workers (GOL), aimed at: charge taking providing specific services and customising professional training; superseding the excessive heterogeneity of the services provided at local level having first identified essential levels of services; pursuing proximity of intervention and integrative networking of local services; work placement of people with disabilities. It also provides for the adoption of the National New Skills Plan in order to reorganise the training of workers in transit between jobs and the unemployed, by strengthening the professional training system and defining essential quality levels for upskilling and reskilling of beneficiaries of income support (unemployment benefits), of citizenship income allowances and workers who enjoy extraordinary or derogated wage support (redundancy funds derogating treatment in areas of complex crisis). The Plan will also integrate other initiatives, concerning measures in favour of the young—such as the strengthening of the dual system—and of NEETs. It will also provide training for adults with very low skills. This is a complex challenge that requires successful implementation of reforms by: (a) an adequate strategy that brings into play strong commitment on the part of the top ranks of politics and management, in a logic of integrative, not conflictual or hierarchical subordination; (b) the assumption of a leadership of a participatory type that knows how to get the different management levers of HR policies to interact synergistically, on the basis of a logic of strategic orientation; (c) an organisational communications policy, which fosters close correlation between different levels of communication (functional, strategic, training, and creative) that are not adequately coordinated at the moment; (d) a programme for the introduction of a specific innovation of processes and structures regarding all levels and services; (e) an imposing targeted training plan, as a fundamental tool in support of the acquisition of the professional, managerial, and relational knowledge and skills necessary to carry out a real and effective implementation of reform of the public administration in order to bring about real change.

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The reforms of public administration are not, therefore, self-applicable. They require an important concerted effort on the part of the institutions if one really wishes to bring about changes that place the institutions at the service of the local and national community and achieve fair and long-lasting economic, social, and cultural development. In other words, the capacity of public governance must not be based any longer on the primacy of heteronomous regulations of a legislative kind and on the formal observance of the rules. This traditional approach to service causes the behaviour of the interested parties (staff and citizens) to conform to a hierarchical brand of obedience. The new model needs to be grounded in a solid culture of public service, in the authority of the executive leadership and in a collaborative, participatory, negotiatory, inclusive type of logic, above all when it comes to the management of labour and trade-union relations. This condition is indispensable if one intends endowing an ambitious project that envisages a system of social inclusive governance with a soul. The plan runs the risk of being perceived, by those charged with implementing it, as a top-down technocratic reform. In conclusion, in a turbulent, scarcely programmable and sketchily planned and highly unstable scenario, if one truly intends to achieve the objectives envisaged in Mission 4 of the PNRR—education and research—it is necessary to promote an educational pact between schools, universities, students, families and the economic, social, and cultural institutions capable of dispelling the myth that “study is useless”. To manage the foreseen reforms, the Italian Government has undertaken to implement an effective system of governance and monitoring of the process. This is a strategic task of vital importance, since the main difficulties encountered when seeking to implement the reforms of the school system, over the last two decades, fell into three categories: a political view which is often too “managerial”; organisational behaviour of a bureaucratic type; a tendency to manage the implementation of the reforms in a differential manner. For these reasons, the present process of reform, to be applied effectively, needs to be based on a strategic educational pact, shared by all the actors involved, while the management of its implementation should be based on a training programme of support and accompaniment for teachers, school managers, and auxiliary staff and on a plan favouring communication with and the direct involvement of students and parents. It is, therefore, necessary to guarantee the responsible involvement of all the interested parties, with a view to developing a common strategy and sharing the aims, objectives, methodologies, and procedures indicated in the PNRR. This long process of reform of the public system requires the adoption of a new strategic vision and an adequate innovative culture regarding the management of policies and organisation because as Weick suggests, “... the new principle which must guide the action of the actors in complex organisations, will have to reverse the common statement, ‘I’ll believe it when I’ve seen it’ and replace it with an epistemology that claims, instead, ‘I’ll see it when I’ve believed it’” (1988, p. 357).

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Entrepreneurial Culture and the Evolution of Organisational Models: The Challenge of the Integral Enterprise Model

This chapter analyses the considerable transformations that have produced a profound transmutation of the economic, social, and cultural system and decreed the end of the “grand narratives” in technologically advanced countries. Furthermore, various ways of developing capitalism1 are examined and the reasons for the assertion of flexible capitalism within the global market are studied in depth (Sennett 2001) and with it, the various attempts made to overcome TaylorFordism as a mainstream organisational model. Particular attention is paid to the birth of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) culture and its intellectual configuration. Then we examine the managerial solutions implemented during the golden age of the Olivetti company and the strategic role played by culture, lifelong learning, research, and innovation in support of eco-sustainable development. More specifically, the opportunities and criticalities addressed when seeking to supersede the concept of CSR and affirm the integral enterprise are explored, starting from the historical experience of Adriano Olivetti’s company and the interconnections established with the stakeholders, the community, the city, and the territory. Another possible form of development is the Benefit Company, that is, a firm which, while carrying out its business and besides sharing its profits, pursues one or more beneficial objectives and operates in a responsible, sustainable, and transparent way with regard to people, communities, the territory and the environment, cultural and social assets, activities, bodies and associations, and other stakeholders. Benefit Companies (SB) are highly dynamic organisations and represent a development of the very concept of a company: they blend into their corporate goals, in addition to those regarding profit, that of having a positive impact on society and the biosphere. In this sense as Laura Olivetti points out (2001, p. XIII), that “one might say that Adriano Olivetti was a man for whom resignation was an unknown; he was a man

1 Here, we are talking about the diffusion of the gig economy (economy on demand) and the sharing or circular economy, forms of economy not discussed in this essay.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Cocozza, Understanding Organizational Culture, Contributions to Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43860-8_10

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who believed in what he thought was right and did not give up in the face of the many difficulties he encountered. One example for all is the role played by “practical knowledge”, as in the case of Natale Capellaro, the mechanical genius who from his beginnings as a simple labourer became the Technical General Manager of the Olivetti company. We also have the experience of the sociologist Luciano Gallino, which embodies the potential associated with a training process characterised that stemmed from self-study. As Rebaudengo recalls in his book, Adriano Olivetti’s firm provided all staff, without any kind of prejudice, great opportunities for growth and vertical social and professional mobility. Other interesting experiences are those of Pier Giorgio Perotto and Gastone Garziera, who with a handful of other people from Olivetti helped create the P101, rightly considered the world’s first personal computer. It was devised before Apple and IBM, but above all before HewlettPackard, which was the first to copy it (Perotto 2015). To complete this picture of Adriano Olivetti’s broad-ranging vision, we need to recall the fact that architecture and urban planning also played a decisive role in his vast plan. In terms of urban design and the role of planning, as Scrivano clarifies in the volume Costruire la città dell’uomo. Adriano Olivetti e l’urbanistica [Building the city of man. Adriano Olivetti and town planning] (2001, p. 85), “Olivetti’s personal involvement in the town-planning efforts launched at the same time in Ivrea and in the Canavese area,2 a territory firmly rooted in the background of Olivetti who was as much an intellectual and man of culture as he was an industrialist, the origin of a continuous pathway however bumpy at times”. Likewise, aesthetics played an equally important role in Adriano Olivetti’s strategy, since, as Ferrarotti points out, from a privileged position as a participant observer of corporate decision-making processes (2001, p. 43), “it wasn’t enough for him to build perfect machines. They had also to be beautiful. Hence, his industrial design and the fact that his Lettera 22 typewriter is on show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York”. The Birth of a New Business Culture and the Role of the Entrepreneur With a view to outlining a new entrepreneurial mindset, this volume aims at analysing the ideas and policies of Adriano Olivetti, implemented first in the Ivrea industrial plants and then internationally and classifying him as an “innovative” entrepreneur, in Schumpeterian terms. He was an entrepreneur who believed in the policy of continuous innovation, who in his day had already developed a far-sighted vision of the future of Italian and international industry. Gallino (2001, pp. 5–6) considers him an “anticipator”, but also a “reformer” “who exercised his innovative imagination on many different fronts and who cannot, therefore, be confined to the specific sphere of a given company, like Henry Ford or, if you prefer, Walther Rathenau,3 more similar to Olivetti because of his European culture and his 2

A geographical and historical area at the foot of the Alps mountains in North-West Italy, in which the main city is Ivrea. 3 German industrialist, writer and politician, founder and chairman of the AEG, Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft, electrical company. He acted as a Minister several times.

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celebrated friendship with artists and architects (from Edvard Munch to Peter Behrens). Gallino (2001) also claims that Adriano Olivetti was also an “innovator” on account of his view of the entrepreneurial function and the role of the company within a given territory and in society. Contrary to the theories of neo-classical economy, Schumpeter (2002) assigns a vital role to the recession phase when an effort is made to support innovation and overcoming crises by implementing targeted investment plans. In order to be able to pursue higher levels of development, a company needs to adopt a policy of continuous innovation, consisting in the implementation of the following operational actions: the production of new goods; the adoption of new production methods; the development of new forms of organisation; the opening of new markets; the acquisition of new sources of supply. This complex strategy bases its action on a more than ever up-to-date assumption that “if one intends to pursue equitable and lasting development, corporate profit has to be reinvested for the benefit of the community”. The same conviction is expressed by Schumpeter (2001) when he argues that innovation brings a profit to the entrepreneur, first of all, but in the long run, the benefits spread throughout the community and the territory. In fact, as emphasised by La Rosa (2022) in Il “modello” Olivetti. Passato, presente. E futuro?, [the Olivetti “model”. Past, present. And the future?] “participation upon which Olivetti’s experience rests can also be seen outside the company, within the territory”. As far Adriano Olivetti himself was concerned Gallino (2001, p. 6) tells us that he wanted the “ company’s mission to mean ‘first of all the creation of work, employment’, to make sure the city (...) would benefit from the economic activity (. . .) He demanded, no less, that the company also spread culture everywhere, all around its plants. He wanted the company to spread beauty, aesthetic values, harmony of form all around it”. According to Berta (2017, p. 67), “this explains his desire to enlist the best architects and urban planners of the time to build structures of high architectural value: industrial establishments, branches and subsidiaries, in Italy and around the world , but also buildings for social services, kindergartens, houses for workers, colonies for the children of employees, cultural centres, libraries”. Adriano Olivetti, in his famous inauguration speech at the Pozzuoli plant on the 23rd of April 1955, maintained that “the secret of our future is based, therefore, on the dynamism of the commercial organisation and its economic performance, on its system of prices, on the modernity of its machinery and methods, but, above all, on the industrious and conscious participation of everyone in pursuing the company’s goals(. . .) The social attempt of the Ivrea factory, an attempt that I do not hesitate to say remains incomplete, responds to a simple idea: the creation of a new type of enterprise beyond socialism and capitalism”. The Economic and Social Metamorphosis and the Development of New Cultural and Organisational Models As De Masi writes in the preface to Adriano Olivetti e le Edizioni di Comunità (1946–1960), [Adriano Olivetti and the Community Editions (1946–1960] by De’Liguori Carino (2008, p. 13), “it is almost impossible to transport today’s reader

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into the cultural climate of the Italy in which Adriano Olivetti worked. Everything that interested him most—on a theoretical level: sociology, social philosophy, ethics, aesthetics; on a practical level: modern production, reformism, worker participation, territorial planning, contemporary architecture, design—was unknown as yet in Italy at that time. An irreducible conflict between employers and trade unions persisted; politics was marked by the dichotomy between Catholic inter classism and the communist class struggle; culture reproduced this dichotomy in cinema and literature; the company was nailed to paternalistic industrial relations at best; aesthetics lingered on the bad taste of naive national-popular styles”. Since the time of the context outlined by De Masi, many transformations have radically changed Italy and the world. In actual fact, in the current global scenario (Luhmann 1975; Morin 2017), old ideas are waning, organisations and institutions are far removed from stable equilibrium and appear to be oriented towards a continuous quest for the new. The future remains uncertain and unpredictable (Morin 2001; Cocozza 2020a, b, c, 2021). At the same time, new social arrangements, sometimes antithetical, are affirmed confirming concepts of the liquid society (Bauman 2002, 2008), of risk and uncertainty (Beck 2017), of flexibility (Sennet 2001, 2008) and the conflict arising between the availability of goods (provisions) and the right to access them (entitlement) (Dahrendorf 1988, 2003, 2009). On the one hand, as Gallino (2010) holds, the “irresponsible” business company appears on the scene, which, beyond its elementary legal obligations supposes that it does not have to answer to any public or private authority, or to the public opinion when it comes to the consequences of its activities in the economic, social, and environmental fields. On the other hand, as illustrated elsewhere (Cocozza 2010a, b), the culture of responsibility and discussion of the role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is evolving. A comparison begins with the theoretical debate between economists and social-science scholars in the 1970s, when Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner for economics, argued that the principal social duty of a company was to obtain higher profits in a competitive market so as to produce wealth and work for all in the most efficient way possible. According to this position, the only social duty of a company was to obtain higher profits in compliance with the rules of the market and thus produce wealth and work. In more recent years, however, a rather different, sometimes opposite position has been making headway, supported by those who believe that a company should aim not only at increasing the economic value of the resources at its disposal but also at assuming responsibility for the effects its activity has upon the social system within which it operates. In reality, when it comes to Friedman’s statement regarding the need for a company to produce profit, this should not cause a stir, also because an important US trade-union leader like Samuel Gompers argued that the gravest crime entrepreneur might commit was not to make a profit. The issue, therefore, is not whether a company ought to create profit. On the contrary, this variable represents the necessary precondition which permits enterprise to address competition on the market. The true question refers, rather, to the

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ways in which it pursues the result, to the policies by means of which it makes a profit and to the policies of redistribution of the resources obtained. In other words, a company is obliged to produce wealth in order to facilitate its gain sharing with shareholders as well as with its internal (workers, suppliers, vendors, etc.) and external (customers, local institutions, and communities) stakeholders. In short, the question needs to be analysed from two different points of view relating to the role of the entrepreneur in society and to the fact that the economic and social actors—in a renewed perspective of a participatory type, while maintaining their specific autonomy and responsibility and non-overlapping key roles (as an alternative to consociational methods)—tend to implement policies and actions aimed at safeguarding the company as a common good above the interests of any single party. This is a perspective that does not intend to eliminate possible clashes. Conflict is a feature that cannot be eliminated as it is inherent to the asymmetrical distribution of information and decision-making power among the parties. What should be sought, instead, is ways of regulating and mitigating them, by establishing a system of shared rules at the service of better corporate governance. In line with this approach, as Baldini explains very effectively, in a volume concerning the culture of the “new entrepreneur” (2002, pp. 124–125): “Certainly it is impossible to act without profit. However, profit is not the ultimate motive, nor the only one that pushes the entrepreneur to act. He is motivated by the joy of creativity, by a sense of family, by the desire to hold a strong position on the market, by social prestige. Entrepreneurs, even if they do not strive to make a profit, in most cases are concerned primarily with maintaining their business. This requires longterm reflection and often the need to renounce the notion of ephemeral maximization of profit... For the wise entrepreneur it is not a question of the maximization of, but of the maximization of the total situation where profit is merely one of the components”. After all, Schumpeter as far back as 1912, with his Theory of Economic Development had pointed out that the essence of the specific function of the entrepreneur was to discover and put into practice new combinations of productive factors, create innovation and, consequently, generate economic growth. On this point Carroll (1991), when drawing up his well-known Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility, placed the imperative of economic responsibility (be profitable) on the first level of responsibility. Then, he appropriately made it clear that this result needed to be correlated and with particular attention to compliance with legal (obey the law), ethical (be ethical) and, lastly, community responsibility (be a good corporate citizen). In this context of development, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility followed two different theoretical strands, which are to be found first, in the oldest tradition of the European and Italian schools (Zamagni), in Filangieri’s civil economy, in the Italian school of public finance, in business ethics (Maffettone, Forte, D’Orazio); secondly, in the American school, which has its roots in a philosophy ranging from Bentham to Rawls, from Harasanyi to Sen, as well as in the transition from the economic theory of the shareholder (Friedman) to that of the stakeholders

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(Freeman), but also in the business ethics of American liberal Catholic thinking (Novack, Sirico). This new interpretative paradigm does not consider, therefore, that socially responsible behaviour as an element accessory to the corporate strategies adopted for the pursuit of economic goals, but holds that it constitutes a founding component of the very nature of enterprise. From this point of view, social responsibility is interpreted as a “strategic lever” of competition, rather than as an additional activity the costs of which have to be borne. This is certainly an ambitious conception with very high stakes: CSR is not only a matter of ideal tension, but of an organisational strategy capable of integrating economic performance with the growth and sustainable development of society and the community where a company operates. On the other hand, a kind of organisational and institutional action, inspired by an innovative paradigm of an anthropocentric type, is beginning to spread and finds empirical confirmation in an organisational model known as integral enterprise, which goes beyond what is called the “socially responsible” (Carroll 1991, 2008; Alford et al. 2009; Zamagni 2012, 2013; Nigro and Petracca 2016; Malaguti and Salvati 2017; Gangi and Mustilli 2018). From an organisational point of view, it means that companies “pursue high economic and social performance in an integrated way” and “act concretely to protect and develop the integrity of stakeholders and the physical, economic and social environment” (Butera 2020, p. 255). This corporate organisational model has its foundations in the experience of Camillo and Adriano Olivetti, where production, organisational, and personnel development policies that went beyond the logic of traditional utilitarian, conflictual, and prejudicial opposition were experimented. The founders of Olivetti directed their organisational, relational, and productive actions along a virtuous pathway that might be called coopetition (Cocozza 2020c, 2021), a term the Oxford Dictionary explains as “collaboration between business competitors, in the hope of mutually beneficial results”. One might argue that we are dealing here with a profound bouleversement, a sort of upheaval that Beck (2017) saw as a process of metamorphosis. Lyotard introduced the concept of “postmodern”, in his essay La condition postmoderne (1979), where he claims that the contemporary era has come to a close due to the end and delegitimisation of the “grand stories” (les grands récits). Bauman (2002) stated that, “it is probable that Rockefeller’s desire was to build huge factories, railways and pipelines and own them for as long as possible (for eternity, if one measures time by the duration of the life of a man or a family). Bill Gates, on the other hand, has no qualms about breaking away from what he had created with such pride the day before; today it is the crazy speed of circulation, recycling, obsolescence, disposal and replacement that creates profit”. According to Butera (2020, p. 14), “the best Italian companies, which we studied in the Italian Way of Doing Industry programme, have faced the crisis by continuing to innovate their products and services, their market positioning, strategies, business models, processes, governance, sizing, their macro- and micro-organisation, technology, skills and, above all, their identity. They were born small and have grown by

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internationalising”. Rees (2019) asks, “will technology be at the service of our wellbeing, of scientific, economic and civil progress, as it has always been throughout our history? Or will we end up ‘dehumanizing ourselves’?” Flexible Capitalism and the Supersession of Taylor-Fordism Sennett (2001, p. 9) writes that “in America today, the term ‘flexible capitalism’ is being used more commonly to indicate a system that represents more than a variation on an older model. All emphasis is placed on flexibility. The attention paid to flexibility is changing the very meaning of work, and also the words used to define it”. In fact, as Sennett goes on to explain (2001, p. 50): “What is pushing modern capitalism towards decisive and irreversible changes, however disorganised or unproductive they may be, are deeper motivations. In this they are linked to the fickle nature of consumer demand, which produces another distinctive feature of flexibility: the flexible specialisation of production. In other words, flexible specialisation seeks to deliver products to the market faster, within a much wider range than that typical of Fordist standardisation, so that the consumer can choose from among a vast range of options and personalise the product. This developmental process means that the consumer is not obliged to buy standardised goods and products, but becomes increasingly aware, more demanding, and selective also because the desire to acquire more knowledge emerges with respect to the products purchased. Consumers cease being an economic category to become people who think and reflect about their purchasing actions. These are people who decide to use their mode of consumption so as to change their lifestyle or rather the style of their status The strengths of this renewal revolve around a number of fundamental features of the mature consumer, who expects greater consideration, as an ethical, critical, responsible, and supportive human being. Gallino (2009a, b), on the other hand, questions himself critically about this strategic development: “why do companies ask increasingly for work flexibility, what human costs we are paying and what might the economic costs be were the country obliged to address the issue of whether one really wanted to combine employment instability with income security? What had all this got to do with globalization, what characteristics should a global labour policy possess in order to live up realistically to the true dimensions of the problem?”. In this sense, when discussing the implementation of the new work-organisation Olivetti model, Novara (2004, p. 29) points out that: “the transformation of traditional assembly lines into integrated assembly units (where a group of workers assembled and tested a product or one of its functionally autonomous parts) and the conversion of monotechnological workshop departments into integrated technological units (where all the workers were employed in the cycle of machines that created the finished pieces) gave the workers a knowledge of the product, its production process and verification of the result”. Within this new scenario, a further acceleration of the process of metamorphosis is occurring precisely due to the recent response to the Covid 19 pandemic. A different role of the public authority is emerging regarding matters of economy and public welfare policies now tend to diminish, while bureaucracy resists though it

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dwindles. As the economy becomes more dynamic and unscrupulous, we are witnessing the maximum pervasiveness of remote work. The diffusion of this new organisational model is assuming an important strategic function, aimed at pursuing the following objectives: the promotion of better social, economic, and environmental sustainability; the 360-degree development of effective digitisation of processes; the relaunch of the role of human-resource management (HRM) in the governance of the digital revolution; concrete application of the work–life balance, aimed at pursuing a fair degree of equilibrium between professional and personal life, with particular attention to care of the family. Stability and loyalty to the company, the strength of old capitalism no longer exist; now uncertainty, unexpected behaviour, perennial innovation and major, albeit different, forms of power, control, and inequality are asserting themselves.

The Olivetti Model and Its Strategic Roles of Culture, Lifelong Learning, Research and Innovation La Rosa, Rebaudengo, and Ricciardelli (2004), in their Storia e storie delle risorse umane in Olivetti [The history and stories of human resources in the Olivetti company] detect a renewed interest in the experience of the “Olivetti of the best”, the particular human adventure that united personal, organisational, and managerial experiences and which might represent a “model” to follow. It is worth recalling what Drucker (1987, p. 233) already suggested several decades ago that an “innovative company organises itself so as to abandon what is old, obsolete, no longer productive, which is why, every three years or so, a ‘process’ to the life cycle of each product, or service, or market occurs, and the decision is made to abandon those deemed obsolete”. In the opinion of Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, and Flowers (2013), it is necessary to consider an organisation as a community where people are the artifices of its conduction. Barnard (1970) too recalls that “the net satisfaction that induces a man to make a contributory effort to an organisation derives from the comparison he makes between the advantages and disadvantages entailed”. He then adds that “material rewards beyond the subsistence level are ineffective except for a limited percentage of men (...) even in strictly economic organisations where it is supposed to be true, money without distinction, prestige, position, is so clearly ineffective that greater gain accompanied by loss of prestige can rarely be used as a temporary stimulus”. Bonazzi (2002) observes that the legitimacy of the Barnardian theoretical scheme, based on cooperation between the expectations of individuals and those of the organisation, finds its raison d’être in the logic of the fair relationship between effort, rewards, and incentives. Regarding the alienation of workers Adriano Olivetti, who had experienced the life of a worker, referring to the experiments he promoted in his factory, claimed he

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knew (Cubeddu 2007, p. 22) “the terrible monotony and the burden of repeated gestures performed endlessly in front of a drill or a press” and “that it was necessary to free people from this degrading slavery. But the journey to freedom was tremendously long and difficult”.4 His ultimate goal became “to avoid the alienation produced by gigantic factories, and oppressive separation from nature”,5 so that the person can “have the feeling of a more harmonious and complete life outside and within the job”.6 But to achieve this goal, he realised that it was not enough “to want the ‘optimum’ and not the ‘maximum’ of human energy, [...] to perfect the instruments of assistance, the best working conditions”.7 The alienation of the person from work is disease of the mind, not only of the body.8 To cure it, we need to address psychological problems; therefore, we need to “provide awareness of the purpose of work the achievement of which was no longer the task of an ‘enlightened master’, but of society”. Again Olivetti on the question of the alienation of the worker and the supersession of the Taylor-Fordist model prophetically affirmed that (Cubeddu 2007, 23–24) “the joy of work, now denied to the majority of workers in modern industry, will finally be able to re-emerge when the worker understands that his/her effort, labour, sacrifice—which will continue to remain a sacrifice—is materially and spiritually linked to a noble, human entity she/he is able to perceive, measure, control because her/his work will enhance that living, vital, real, tangible community where she/he and her/his children have life, ties and interests”.9 If the goals of the factory “are concrete, visible, tangible, close at hand, then the entire organisation will be endowed with a sense of participation and a profound reason to work daily”. This means permitting the worker to mentally own his/her work thanks to the continuous process of Bildung underpinning the ethics of self-responsibility.10 Ultimately, as Cubeddu (2007, p. 27) points out, “if the question of the alienation of the person by work is at the root of Adriano Olivetti’s political thinking, the methodological criterion followed when drawing up his L’ordine politico delle

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Prime esperienze in una fabbrica [Early experiences in a factory] in Società Stato Comunità, cit., p. 3. 5 Town planning and local freedom, in Città dell’uomo, cit., p. 108. 6 L’ordine, cit., p. 10. The Italics are original. 7 See Prime esperienze in una fabbrica, p. 3. 22. 8 See Luciano Gallino, Alienazione [Alienation], in Id., Dizionario di sociologia, reprinted and revised, Turin, Utet, 1983, p. 16. 9 See. L’industria nell’ordine delle comunità, cit., p. 46. 10 See. Saverio Santamaita, Educazione Comunità Sviluppo. L’impegno educativo di Adriano Olivetti, Rome, Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, 1987. Franco Ferrarotti argues that “the working class, according to Olivetti cannot be socially, economically and politically emancipated except through the conscious and autonomous initiative of the working class itself” (Un imprenditore di idee. Una testimonianza su Adriano Olivetti, ed. Giuliana Gemelli, Turin, Edizioni di Comunità, 2001, p. 81). See also Vittorio Gamberini, “Adriano Olivetti è morto: grave lutto per l’organizzazione scientifica”, in Organizzazione scientifica e tecnica amministrativa, a. IV, n. 3–4-5, 31st March-30th April -31st May1960, pp. 220–221.

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Comunità [Political order of Communities] is the answer that, even before ‘suggesting’ various concrete solutions, he gave to the political crisis of the contemporary world”. When it comes to the role of education in the emancipation of the worker, as Santamaita writes (1987, p. 73) in Educazione Comunità Sviluppo. L’impegno educativo di Adriano Olivetti, [Education, Community, Development Adriano Olivetti’s educational commitment] “the educational level of management is assuming greater and greater importance: the ‘traditional’ engineer is joined by the architect, the urban planner, the sociologist, the psychologist, the social worker, that is, by the protagonists of the interaction mentioned above”. Integral Enterprise, Community, and Territory Amid Ethical, Economic-Social, and Civil Considerations On the basis of what Ricottilli (1993) states, the structures of economic systems change over time, engaging in a continuous interchange with the spheres of culture and value as well as those of the organisational, technological, and productive nature. For this reason, it is extremely important to understand the mechanisms that determine how they alter. Schumpeter (2001, 2002), who identified the entrepreneur as “the innovator” and, examining the role of innovation within modern industrial economies broadly, systematically and in depth, underlines the fact that the theory of economic development is controversial and complex, therefore, to succeed in analysing it adequately, an interdisciplinary approach is necessary. Camillo and Adriano Olivetti’s “was a company that had a powerful and strict organisational structure, but also a soul based on sharing informed by the company’s values, its principle of social responsibility and its genuinely lively network. This model resembles, perhaps, that which made Toyota, Dell, HP, Google, and, in Italy, Ferrari, Brembo, Ferrero, Luxottica and Zambon, great. Olivetti was, above all, a company with an extraordinary ability to learn, to change, to innovate” (Butera 2020, p. 259). The integral company model, which is also that of Illy and Loccioni, may be outlined represented organisationally as follows (Butera 2020, pp. 257–258): “strong responsibility for results; (. . .) continuous verification of the rapport between leadership and results; change of structures on the basis of circumstances and opportunities; high-quality staff; intellectual redundancy; the presence of upperechelon executives on the production site (gemba as the Japanese were to say later); obsession with quality; refined social regulation systems (think of the presence of a personnel office which took charge of all cases of hardship due to any factor whatsoever); effective and respectful internal relations; cosmopolitan professional communities, communities of practice, networking and much more” Again according to Butera (2020), the relational structure of mutual trust and widespread responsibility is the main reason for Olivetti’s success until 1975 but also for that of the industrial districts of small and medium-sized enterprises, companies devoted to export and leaders in their various sectors. For a better understanding of the “corporate welfare” phenomenon, a useful classification is provided by Treu (2016, 20). He lists various types of measures based on their functions within the various socio-organisational contexts of a company:

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(a) measures that focus on the essential needs of workers (healthcare, children’s education, shopping for food and other personal items, finance, transport); (b) measures sensitive to the collateral needs of workers, especially in environments with highly qualified and high-salary personnel (leisure and wellness packages, accessory services, support to the collaborator’s professional identity), (c) Farnsworth House (1950–1951), the masterpiece of the German architect Mies van der Rohe; the challenge of the “glass house” which awaits socially responsible companies; (d) other measures relating to contexts sensitive to reconciliation between work and the family reality (personalised schedules, job sharing, institutes for work–life balance, smart working); (e) institutes belonging to contexts characterised by a significant presence of immigrant personnel, with a view to integrating (permits for family reunification, courses of Italian language and culture, provision of suitable housing, services aimed at promoting integration within the context of local society); (f) welfare measures applied within contexts characterised by key professional figures, for example, forms of profit sharing, shared ownership, and ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). In defining a new reference paradigm, it is absolutely necessary to integrate the well-known dimension of New Public Management with the perspective outlined by Janet and Robert Denhardt in their fundamental essay The New Public Service: Serving, Not Steering (2011). A perspective like this, as has been argued (Cocozza 2014, 2016b), presents a paradigmatic, as well as a political and organisational aspect, which might be pursued by reform processes that coherently implement the following seven fundamental principles: serving citizens, not as if they were simple customers; always respecting the public interest; enhancing citizenship as a value to use to improve public service, beyond the logic of enterprise; thinking strategically and acting democratically; recognising the fact that public accountability is not easy to enforce; serving rather than ruling; valuing people and not just productivity.

Conflict and Hierarchy or Collaboration and Responsible Participation: What Leadership for Social Inclusive Governance Confronted with the process of the profound transformation of work and logic that guides new organisational behaviour, Sennett (2008, p. 122) proposed the relaunching of the culture of the artisan, the main actor of Made in Italy, making it clear that the goal of that mindset was “knowing how to do things well for one’s own pleasure: a simple and rigorous rule of life that permitted the development of extremely refined techniques and the birth of modern scientific knowledge”. In order to proceed along the lines of innovative logic, it is necessary to point out the distinction between “know-how”—that is, the ability to carry out a prescribed

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operation, in simple situations, in a repetitive and merely executive way—and “knowing how to act”—the ability to address complex and unforeseen situations, take initiatives that present a critical and novel character (Le Boterf 2000). Dealing with these challenges, Bauman (2008, p. V) states and rightly so that “insecurity grips all of us, immersed as we are in an impalpable and unpredictable world made up of liberalization, flexibility, competitiveness and endemic uncertainty, but each of us consumes his/her anxiety alone by experiencing it as an individual problem, the result of personal failings and a challenge to individual gifts and abilities. We are led to seek, as Ulrick Beck caustically observed, personal solutions to systemic contradictions, we seek individual salvation from common problems”. Bennis (1999) points out that the leader does the right things, while the manager does things the right way by paying attention to the values of the organisation and the scenario within which the organisation operates. On the twentieth anniversary of the new version of Bennis’ essay On becoming a Leader, the main differences between the two figures are summed up as follows (Bennis 2009, p. 42): “the manager administers and the leader innovates; the manager supports and the leader develops; the manager focuses on systems and structure, the leader focuses on people; the manager is based on control, the leader inspires trust; the manager accepts reality, the leader questions himself and seeks new realities and situations; the manager has a short-term view, the leader has a long-term perspective; the manager asks how and when the leader asks what and why; the manager always has his/her eye on the backline, the leader has his/her eye on the horizon; the manager accepts the status quo, the leader challenges it”. Haslam, Reicher, and Platow (2013), in an essay on the psychology of the leader, on his/her identity, influence, and power, maintain that the sense of leadership does not consist in expecting people to “do” this or that, but in ensuring that they “want to do” this or that. It is no coincidence that Bonazzi (2002) argues that leadership and culture are two aspects of the same reality. He claims that by studying the leadership of an organisation we learn about its culture and vice versa. Robbins (2010) argues that leadership is an interactive, a mainly bidirectional phenomenon since being a leader is as much the result of individual skills and characteristics as the ability to represent and voice some of the needs present within one’s own group. As Morin points out quoting Montaigne, it is a matter of forming future leaders who have a “well-made” rather than a “well-filled head”, people who possess “a general aptitude for posing and dealing with problems; organizing principles that make it possible to connect knowledge and give it meaning” (2000). This heuristic dimension also belongs to the analysis of Strati (2008), when he argues that the understanding of organisational life, conventionally dominated by the “logicalrational” approach, is linked also to aesthetics, to analyses of perceptive sensorial dimensions, frequently to affective and extra-rational variables. As Strati (2008) remarks, the experience of subjects in the workplace, the role of emotions, sensitivity, taste, the imagination and passion are fundamental elements to examine when seeking to understand and govern organisational action.

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In line with this approach, Shein in his essay The Corporate Culture Survival Guide (2009) recalls that in order to understand the corporate culture and succeed in clustering professional groups, one needs to analyse not only the behaviour of actors who share a purpose and possess the means of achieving it, but, rather, to examine in depth the structure of the specific “system of social relations” brought into play. An analysis of the structural variables alone (common purpose, objectives, method and resources) does not permit one to obtain a broad picture of the organisation, above all, of the culture which, on the contrary, represents the “essence” of the organisations and of their relationships: what people have learned by sharing, the well-known “tacit assumptions” upon which they build their strategies, practice, and experience their daily behaviour (Cocozza 2014). In this context, Piore and Sabel’s Flexible Specialisation represents the antithesis of the production system embodied in Fordism. The authors call the system they studied “a permanent innovation strategy” requiring one to adapt to constant changes, rather than trying to control them. To underline the importance and the need to move in the direction of greater productive and organisational collaboration, Sennett emblematically analyses the case of innovation management in the telecommunications sector (2008, p. 39): The history of mobile phones is an eloquent example of the superiority of collaboration over competitiveness. The cellular telephone was born of a collaborative transformation of two technologies: the radio and the telephone. Before the merger of the two technologies, telephone signals were transmitted through fixed cables, while radio signals were transmitted over the air. In the 1970s a form of mobile telephony was used in the field of military defence; these were large and cumbersome radio sets with dedicated wave bands; some versions of civilian mobile phones were used in taxis, but had limited range and poor sound quality. The fixity of the cable telephone was its fault, clarity, and security of transmission its virtues. The core of the matter was circuit-switching technology, developed, tested, and perfected over many generations. It was this technology that needed to be transformed so that radio and telephone systems might be amalgamated. The problem was clear, the solution too: the difficulty lay in how to connect them collaboratively. Examining the companies that first studied the transformation of circuit-switched technology, economists Richard Lester and Michael Piore found that in some companies both collaboration within the company and external collaboration with other companies made a decided contribution to solving the problem, while in other companies, internal competitiveness reduced the impulse of engineers to improve the quality of switches. (. . .) The conflict between the business sectors was deliberately ambiguous, because something more than technical knowledge was required to truly grasp the niceties of the problem: lateral thinking was needed. To meet this challenge Motorola and Nokia adopted a method involving technicians and engineers to manage conflict and foster collaborative orientation. This way they achieved excellent results. On the contrary, Ericsson and some other companies (Sennett 2008, p. 39) “apparently proceeded with greater linearity and discipline by dividing the problem into parts”. It was expected that the birth of the new switch would occur through “the exchange of information” between one office and another, rather than by creating an interpretive community. Ericsson’s rigid organisation led to failure. In the end, the problem was solved, but with greater difficulty: the various offices cultivated and defended their own backyards.

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In other words, in the face of these profound transformations, together with the many experiments of “unregulated flexibility”, a quest for the meaning of the new behavioural modalities began. As the Olivetti company designed by Adriano tried to demonstrate historically, the challenge means aiming at a better understanding of an ongoing structural and cultural revolution, with its absolutely unpredictable outcomes. On the one hand, it involves social and institutional actors—entrepreneurs, company management, trade unions, workers and public institutions—on the other, it requires sociologists and economic and social scientists to explain these emerging phenomena. It is a matter of creating an alliance between actors and scholars, to promote a better understanding of the innovative phenomena that are changing the rational logic that guides the redesign of work processes, the configuration of structures and the use of the technology and skills required to perform new tasks. This meant that along with the many experiments of “unregulated flexibility” a quest for meaning—Weick’s sensemaking (1997)—began regarding the new modes of organisational behaviour. In this challenge, as Cadeddu pointed out in his La riforma politica e sociale proposta da Adriano Olivetti (1942–1945) (2006, p. 26), [the political and social reform proposed by Adriano Olivetti (1942–1945)] (2006, p. 26), “Olivetti hoped in the advent of new forms of representation and selfgovernment, not only as regards the political order, but also as regards the economy. Hence the idea of what would have been called a ‘factory community on a human scale’. Basically, the goal that Adriano aimed at was a factory system that was also a forge of social and cultural evolution; and, therefore, not simply a machine to produce goods or services”. With regard to the development of the concept of community, as Rebaudengo explains Le sette parole chiave della Olivetti 1926–1978: [The seven keywords of the Olivetti company1926–1978] “Adriano Olivetti’s concept of community assumes different profiles, all present in his thinking and his social, political, entrepreneurial action, as well as in the fields of architecture, urban planning and design. The “concrete community” is a “new foundation capable of recomposing the unity of man” (Ferrarotti 1960). It is the “new measure”, the peak of convergence, where the person and the state come together united by the mutual guarantee of their function and meaning, administrative efficiency and ideological-political tension, their historical past and socio-physical environment”, in a nutshell a proper balance between municipalism and the metropolis. Ferrarotti calls Adriano Olivetti’s project autonomous social industry. As Cubeddu (2007, p. 35) points out, “in Adriano Olivetti’s political thinking and institutional engineering, beyond the strong volunteerism of his discourse, we find a farsighted vision of things, which not only grasped the depth and tendencies of the transformational processes underway, but also aimed at prefiguring new guiding lines regarding the relationship between politics, the economy and society”. This “new socio-economic era” contains elements of unpredictability that condition the ability to make predictions and take effective decisions (Cocozza 2021). To examine the role and the evolution of the various types of enterprise present in our economic system in greater depth, it is necessary to start from a number of studies (Polanyi 1974, 1978; Swedberg 1994; Martinelli and Smelser 1995; Cella

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1997; Mingione 1997; Powell and DiMaggio 2000; Esping-Andersen 2000; Borghi and Magatti 2002; Trigilia 2002; Mutti 2002; Granovetter 2005; Regini 2007; Bottazzi 2007, 2009; Negrelli 2007, 2013; Streeck 2009, 2013; La Rosa 2004, 2010; La Rosa et al. 2016, Bagnasco 2010; Gallino 2011; Cocozza 2014, 2020a, 2021). In these essays, in keeping with the scientific approach presented by Granovetter (2005), in his The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes, it is argued that economic development is never self-referential or separate from territorial reality, but has always a socially embedded character, making it an open system, involved in a continuous dialogue with the stakeholders, strongly rooted in the social, cultural, and institutional reality in which it operates. A further intuition inspired by Adriano Olivetti concerns the evolution of the relationship between an economic system and its local territory. In Berta’s opinion (2016), Adriano Olivetti’s intuition certainly influenced the analytical scheme inherent in the concept of “industrial district” and in the analyses of Tuscany by Giacomo Becattini, of Emilia-Romagna by Sebastiano Brusco and of the “Third Italy” by Arnaldo Bagnasco. As Fuà and Zacchia (1983) argue, this might provide a useful explanation of the success of the endogenous development of the regions of the NEC (North-East-Centre) area which probably obtained better results than those which it might have obtained had it imported external resources and models. Adriano Olivetti was truly inspired by the cultural approach of Emmanuel Mounier. This means that his cultural notions are framed by a paradigmatic “personalist and community” vision. Furthermore, with Jacques Maritain, Adriano Olivetti shares a vision of an authentically democratic and spiritually inspired society. To complete the theoretical framework of reference outlining the bases of Adriano Olivetti’s thought, Cubeddu (2007, p. 33) recalls how he was influenced by English labourism, Proudhon, Weil, Gurvitch: He adds that it is also necessary to remember the attention he paid to Kelsen, Croce, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Aristotle. Finally, to conclude this analysis of Adriano Olivetti’s political vision of the most sensitive issues, as Berta writes his Le idee al potere [ideas in power] (1980, p. 27), “there is no writing by Olivetti where the joint terms of work, culture, democracy do not appear to define the factory”. More recently, the expansion of new flexible and adhocratic models, consisting of companies belonging to a horizontally integrated network responding to the principles of globalised competition, and/or of the learning organisation, is giving rise to a more advanced, sophisticated, and autonomous style of leadership (Cocozza 2014, 2021). This creates an effective type of social commitment towards all the company’s stakeholders, from personnel and shareholders to customers and suppliers and opens up a new perspective of ethical leadership (Ciulla 1998; Kaplan 2004) capable of adequately stimulating emotional intelligence (Goleman 2000, 2011; Goleman et al. 2002), in the pursuit of effective and lasting change. The contribution of culture and values is prized at all levels of the organisation, through management policies aimed at real personalisation, passing from efficiency

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(bent on enhancing know-how) to motivation (know what) and above all to the significance of people’s human action and to commitment in the workplace, investing in know why (Cocozza 2012, 2014). Butera highlights a scientific kind of interest that goes beyond a significant degree of social and civil passion (2020, p. 19), since “designing and managing effective, efficient, sustainable, ethical, person-centred organisations is a value, a duty and a right”. However, the assumption of a theoretical reference paradigm that places the person at the centre starts from recognition of the fundamental role played not by the individual (abstract and general), but rather by the person, intended as a concrete (Sturzo 2005, p. 6) and particular subject (Selznick 1988, p. 88), in his/her existential quality and within his/her historical-social and cultural context, comprising life chances, options, and ties (Dahrendorf 1988, 1995) which, as Cesareo and Vaccarini (2006, pp. 22–23) effectively argue, “configures him/her as a single subject, structurally open to relationships with the other ... endowed with creative capacity and resistance to homologation”. Actually, as Butera (2020, p. 14) explains, innovation plays a decisive role, since “the best Italian companies, which we studied in the Italian Way of Doing Industry programme, have faced the crisis by continuing to innovate their products and services, market positioning, strategies, business models, processes, governance, sizing, macro and micro organisation, technology, skills and, above all, their identity. They were born small and have grown by internationalising themselves”. Moreover, the reform of the public administration plays a strategic role in the modernisation of a country. During the process, it is essential to understand that to write good laws is not enough it is necessary that during the implementation phase we are aware that “no minister, councillor or super consultant can do it alone, but only if she/he activates a visionary, concrete programme capable of gaining the support of social powers and provided with adequate professional resources; that means creating a participatory governance model” (Butera 2020, p. 18). The diffusion of knowledge and the new tools have made it possible to reduce instances of inequality, but have not changed the deep-rooted structures of capital, unlike what was imagined during the optimistic decades following the Second World War. Piketty in his essay Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014) emphasises the fact that the evolution of capitalism presents a series of critical elements, the understanding of which should not be sought any longer by analysing the economic and structural spheres alone, but rather social, cultural, and relational factors. In current successful development processes, a strategic role is being played more and more by cultural and social capital, by trust in institutions, culture and social cohesion, as well as in networks of organisational relationships between economic and social actors and the institutions (Coleman 1988; Putnam 1993, 2004; Donati 2007; Cartocci 2007; Putnam et al. 2010). In this examination of the various dimensions of capital, it must be remembered that, as Bourdieu (2015) points out, three different types exist: economic, social, and cultural. Economic capital is based on the availability of material and financial resources; social capital regards the networks of relationships within the realms of employment and culture based on scholastic-type skills and those inherited from

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extra-scholastic socialisation. Cultural capital is not simply constituted by educational qualifications but concerns the set of symbolic assets transmitted by the various educational agencies (above all the family but also the school, Life Wide Learning and the non-formal learning processes). It determines the overall cultural level of the individual and, at the same time, his/her chances of success when competing socially. For this reason, cultural capital is also social capital, that is, a set of opportunities the social network makes available to each individual in terms of confrontation and participation. As an essay by Dallolio argued, in the Olivetti experience continuous training plays a fundamental role for those who assume positions of accountability within structures or teams. The training programmes aimed at extending and improving levels of autonomy and responsibility of all the coordinators and collaborators. Similarly, the essay by Gosetti and La Rosa argued that “an aspect that characterized the Olivetti experience was the importance it attributed to training. The Olivetti company’s school, the Mechanics Training Centre, did not focus solely on technical subjects, but dealt also with aspects relating to the culture of work, the history of the workers’ movement, the economy and other social issues”. It was a veritable experience of non-instrumental integral education and training, but also an interesting form of economic, social, and cultural participation in the life of the company and of the community. This experience marked by considerable openness was destined to ripen in 1973 when the metalworkers’ CCNL[collective labour agreement] included the right to paid leave in order to study. The famous “150 hours”11 were extended to improve the culture and technical skills of the workers. The hypothesis drawn up and which is still valid was based on the assumption that by improving the level of competence and by enlarging the scope of the responsibility of the workers, their Weltanschaunung regarding management policies could be brought closer to that of the manager and the entrepreneur. As regards participation in the life and management of a firm, Adriano Olivetti (1955), in a famous speech delivered to the workers of his Ivrea company, on Christmas Eve 1955, illustrated his strategy for the relaunch of the company and attributing greater weight to the Board of Management, a structure of enormous importance when seeking to foster the responsible participation and motivation of employees. In that speech, considerably in advance of the human-resource management policies of the 1990s, he proposed a company policy aimed at improving the quality of working life. Adriano Olivetti actually sustained with conviction that “although the Board of Management still performs limited tasks, it has shown a The expression “150 hours” indicates a contractual guarantee permitting employees a maximum number of 150 hours of paid leave to use for personal education and training. They were introduced in Italy for the first time in 1973, on the occasion of the renewal of the national contract of metalworkers. Officially, the 150 hours have never been abolished; however, their use has progressively decreased over the years, remaining linked to the particular context of the 1970s and major mobilisation. On the other hand, more recently they have been replaced in part by other forms of lifelong learning. 11

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sense of responsibility and spirit of collaboration, which we deem worthy of note and useful in every respect. It sincerely seeks to make this factory, compatibly with the actual situation, a more dignified, freer place in which to live and work”. As Musso recalls (2009, p. 260), who refers to an interview with Avonto (member of the Management Board) regarding research and experimentation, “at Olivetti a type of research was carried out that involved sociologists, psychologists, and trade unionists. This meant that the organisation of work became a form of participatory knowledge, in the sense that things were experimented together, and consensus was required to start new forms of organisation”. This moral dimension is indispensable and well defined by Sen in the paradigm of the capability approach, intended as the ability to and capabilities required to act/perform in a dimension where personal, economic, and social life are integrated, since “capabilities are notions of freedom, in a positive sense: the real opportunities one possesses regarding the life one can lead”. Economic activity contains, therefore, not only technological and productive dimensions, aimed at giving rise to a process of accumulation of economic and financial capital, but it also has ethical and moral values, which condition personal behaviour, rational action, and organisational choices. For this reason, some Catholic scholars like Becchetti, Bruni, and Zamagni (2019) aim at re-evaluating the ideas of the theorist Antonio Genovesi who wrote Economia Civile (1765) (Civil economy) and held that forgotten elements, such as reciprocity, fraternity, and gratuity, were necessary to promote social well-being. These are elements that today might be found again in the role and action of cultural and social capital. While keeping these in mind, it is necessary to recall the fact that cultural and social capital, unlike economic capital does not become impoverished through use. On the contrary, it creates a positive multiplying effect, which generates new opportunities for confrontation, expands personal motivation, and outlines unprecedented spaces for cooperation and organisational participation. For these reasons, as Rebaudengo recalls, “For Adriano Olivetti entrepreneurial activity was never an end in itself”—He always emphasised the social role of a company, the need for a close connection with its relevant stakeholders, the strategic function performed by the education and professional training system in favour of the socio-economic development and civil progress of a given territory. This reflection is absolutely necessary within the current scenario, since in Italy, the strategic function of the education system has entered a state of crisis due to globalisation, to the extreme pervasiveness of technological and organisational innovation, the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the methodological transformation and teaching/learning processes brought about thanks to distance learning. We are facing a challenge which, for the first time in contemporary history, renders the strategic function of the education system less coherent than it used to be since it is no longer capable of guaranteeing the achievement of two important objectives: an effective process of upward social mobility, the so-called social elevator; the gradual, progressive improvement of the quality of life and work, by means of a constant process of functional literacy and the acquisition of technical

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skills. As these are no longer adequate today, their inadequacy produces the phenomenon of occupational mismatching. This perspective, as Adriano Olivetti had anticipated, maintains the need for a culture of the community, for educational and continuous training, as well as active labour policies. It also advances the idea that integral enterprises and the production system, in general, should be able to plan in such a way as to create employment and wealth. These points were the grounds upon which initiatives promoted by the Elea Olivetti training company were based. In conclusion, when seeking to understand the role of Adriano Olivetti, we find the conception of the entrepreneur as an “innovator”, in the Schumpeterian sense, endowed with a far-reaching vision, attentive to the enhancement of the person, to his/her continuous education and the role of ethics as essential components of entrepreneurial action. This dimension of values was prophetically emphasised by Luigi Sturzo when he argued that an “economy without ethics is diseconomy (2005)”.

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Conclusions

Starting from a sociological analysis of the various types of organisation, on the basis of a necessarily interdisciplinary approach, this volume intended to explore the complex world of organisations, ranging from the bureaucratic model to the flat company, to the paradigm of the New Public Service, to school networks, to the fundamental contribution of values and culture to organisational strategies. These concepts now characterise the development of all kinds of organisations with which citizens interact directly or indirectly and determine an unstoppable, to some extent unpredictable process of innovation and change.

The Economic, Social, and Cultural Change of Our Societies If we look at the parabola of the economic development of societies, we can see that unlike societies which based on an economy of rural life and craftsmanship survived for millennia without changing their basic structural characteristics, the society that was born from the first industrial working and social life. With the development of the second industrial revolution (the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), several profound changes and innovations took place and marked the significant metamorphosis of the whole of the so-called short century. It is the society of today, starting from the 1960s, that boosted the process of change underway, producing four different kinds of transformation in 40 years, starting with the late industrial society, which exploded with the 1973 oil shock and inaugurated the era of dissolutive stabilisation. A symbolic date which, as Pombeni pointed out (Fiore 2012), produced a “historical transition” and not just a “historical passage”. This era of transition closes with the axial age (Bellah and Joas 2012) of the last period of modernity (1494–1973) and opens that of post-modernity, where

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series of continuous economic, cultural, religious, and political crises follow each other.1 The “historical transition”, as a historiographical problem, is much larger in scope, in terms of transformation, than the expression “historical passage” can connote and takes place in the presence of three conditions (Pombeni 2012): • The perception by contemporaries of a change that makes “after not only different from before, but uninterpretable in the light of the latter”. • The change in the various “life circles” in which human beings find themselves, due to the lack of tools that endow the place of each person in “history” with meaning. • An “undeniable” and “fatal” transformation of social “structure” and “fabric”. From that moment on, nothing has ever been the same. In a few decades, at least according to the scholars, various transformations have alternated: the service society (1980s), the information society (1990s), and the knowledge society (2000s), which throw open unexplored and unpredictable spaces for cooperation and competition, or for cooperative competition and competitive cooperation. These are transformations that were difficult to imagine until a few years ago in companies and organisations that tended to be closed, considered impregnable and unsinkable, but, above all, timeless. Instead, the global scenario that characterises the second decade of the new millennium is complex and multifaceted, characterised by several opportunities, that are not easy to grasp, but also by four particularly critical phenomena: • The inability of companies, including multinationals, to cope with new methods of competition, which risk or even undergo bankruptcy. • The considerable development and growth of the sectors of the new economy, which, moving within a logic of an increase in unemployment (Hanush 2012)2 and the conditions driven by financialisation of the economic system, have arrived at a point where Amazon, the online sales company, was able to buy out the Washington Post, the second most important newspaper in the USA after the prestigious New York Times. • The involvement of public policies in this decline of local and national public institutions which have remained blocked in a logic of Fordist-type development and an essentially state-based welfare system.

1 By this, we mean a “pivotal age” around which, for a given period of time, the world revolves and characterises its spirit and essence. After this period the world is no longer what it had been before. Within axial ages there are evolutions, expansions, and even regressions, but the essential feature does not change. There is no turning back from the new structural characteristics established. The concept of axial age was originally developed by Jaspers, then taken up by Eisenstadt and Schluchter, more recently by the American sociologists Bellah and Joas. 2 This is a technological process where the economy and business grow, without a corresponding growth in employment. It regards both the Western countries, characterized by a process of mature industrialization, and the BRICS countries.

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• The particularly aggressive advance of the new BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, China, India, Korea, South Africa) into the club of the industrialised countries and the passing of the baton from a structure based on a comparison between the G8 and the G20. Countries aimed at governing global processes. The list of western industrial giants that have failed in recent times would be too long to recall, starting from Pan American World Airways to the Enron Corporation, not forgetting those who lost because of the unethical behaviour of important companies like the Lehman Brothers Holdings or the Italian Cirio and Parmalat companies. Furthermore there are the cases of the bankruptcy of the city of Detroit, the situations of extreme crisis in countries like Greece, Portugal, Ireland in part or, to a lesser extent, Italy, the particularly serious situation of some regions and structurally indebted municipalities. Similarly, the growing phenomenon of the penetration of world markets by the newly industrialised BRICS countries is creating quite a few problems of resistance to the western economic system. In this direction, the global economic set-up has changed structurally, if we consider the location of the world’s top 500 companies. According to the statistics compiled by Fortune magazine in 2012, the top 15 countries according to the number of companies allocated to them are the following: the USA (132); China (73); Japan (68); France (32); Germany (32); the United Kingdom (26); Switzerland (15); South Korea (13); the Netherlands (12); Canada (11); Italy (9); Australia (9); Brazil (8); India (8); Spain (8). These data demonstrate clearly that a huge new challenge faces the European economic and social system and the Italian one in particular. A reasonable response to this challenge, one aimed at getting back into the contest aimed at achieving a level of greater effectiveness and efficiency and a socially inclusive, compatible, and synergic logic, might be the Horizon 2020 research and development programme launched by the European Commission. This was the EU framework programme for research and innovation for the period 2014–2020, which, in a single funding programme, brought together the research and development foreseen at the time by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP), with activities related to innovation framework programme for innovation (CIP) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) for competitiveness. With a budget of around €80 billion, the Horizon 2020 fund aimed at securing the EU’s global position as regards research, innovation, and technology and was designed to foster growth and jobs new in Europe. The project aimed at pursuing three key priorities: scientific excellence, industrial leadership, and social challenges. With regard to scientific excellence, Horizon 2020, with the contribution of the European Research Council, proposed supporting world-renowned scientists in the field of blue-sky research; the development of future and emerging technologies and collaborative research in order to open up new fields of international innovation; the provision of training and career-advancement opportunities; the creation of European research infrastructures and support for access to world-class facilities.

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As regards industrial leadership, the intention was to promote a kind of leadership capable of facilitating industrial technology, of supporting innovation by increasing penetration of the market, of creating stimulating jobs within the spheres of in ICT, nanotechnology, advanced materials, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, processing, and space. It also sought to favour access to risk capital by encouraging private investments and venture capital in the sector of research and innovation; innovation in SMEs and the buttressing of SMEs in innovative projects. At social level, however, the Programme posed several challenges relating to health, demographic change, and the welfare system, as well as the safeguard of the freedom and security of Europe and its citizens. In this direction of socially inclusive and eco-sustainable development, the project’s concerns were: support of European citizens with a view to fostering a longer and healthier life; a European bioeconomy, based on investments favouring greater security in food supply, the sustainability of agriculture, seas and forests, the exploration of waterways; safe, clean and efficient energy; the development of smarter and safer transport systems; action aimed at improving the climate and greater efficiency of resources and raw materials. Ultimately, the Horizon 2020 Programme intended making Europe as part of a changing world, a more inclusive, innovative, and reflective social community. It meant activating innovative processes involving a profound transformation of what was deemed irreversible in nature and giving rise to continuous change. This change, of a cultural nature, was not always accompanied by strategies capable of adequately analysing and forecasting or by the flexibility of the culture of organisation and management within companies and other types of organisations, including public administration. In this new heuristic direction, as Strati (2008, 2010) emphasised, particular attention to the cultural, aesthetic, and relational dimension has established itself in studies of organisations and management, configuring a new field of analysis and a new kind of methodological awareness. The understanding of the organisational life of traditional organisations, dominated by the logical-rational paradigm, following a new qualitative approach, refers to the role of aesthetics in innovative organisations and to analyses of their perceptual, sensorial, and emotional dimensions. This new approach aims at analysing the personal and organisational strategies implemented, bringing into play the work-practice experiences of subjects, the role of emotions, sensitivity, taste, imagination, passion: all fundamental for an understanding of organisational action. From a methodological point of view, the understanding of the aesthetics of organisations can account for the deeper dynamics of organisational life that orient production processes and interpersonal relationships significantly. In this heuristic direction, Attila and Gherardi in their essay on Studying Working Practices (2007) pointed out that, in the new technological and organisational scenario of this new century, work was characterised by the growing content of the knowledge available and by the fact that the knowledge required to complete a complex task was developing increasingly so that it became “enclosed” within professional communities of people who shared a particular know-how and certain working practices. This was an interpretative paradigm that revised the tools and

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methodologies for the study of organisations, work, and those particular interactions between people, roles, structures, processes, and values that have become the object of in-depth studies of a new kind of economic sociology.

The Era of Historical Transition We live in the era of consistent historical transition in the sense Eco conveyed in an interview (Fiore 2012, p. 41): “typing rather than writing with a pen is progress. But writing with a computer is transition: I acquire potentialities that change my mental set-up”. These are reasons why, in an increasingly indeterminate and indeterminable global scenario, affected by processes of continuous changes of an economic, technological, organisational, and cultural nature, it is not easy to reach definitive conclusions, since, in the very nature of this “new socio-economic era”—there are elements of unpredictability, which condition forecasting skills, even those based on empirical evidence or on verified and controlled scientific theories. Indeed, as Elster noted in his The Explanation of Social Behaviour (2010, p. 564): There are two reasons why the social sciences cannot predict and explain in a robust manner. The first is that, even in cases where beliefs and preferences are known, it is possible that the action may remain, to some extent, indeterminate and unpredictable. When the decisions to be taken are shrouded in uncertainty or are very complex, it is possible that the behaviour eventually adopted needs to be traced back to what Keynes called “animal spirits”, rather than to identifiable characteristics of the situation to which one can react in defined ways. Of course, in these cases, people generally act by adopting practical rules; the problem is that there are too many norms. For example, there may be multiple alternative focal points: do as has been done in the past versus do as your neighbour did.

Moreover, with regard to the complexity of social and organisational behaviour, as the author points out, their dynamics is based on a tendency to interconnect, which can be explained more effectively if one uses an explanatory scheme based on two major dichotomies: selfishness versus altruism and temporal myopia versus farsightedness. In fact, it was noticed (Elster 2010, p. 111) that: These two issues integrate one another, considering that the second oppositive pair is the inter-temporal version of the interpersonal between the pair in the first...they are linked from a practical point of view too because foresight can mimic altruism.

This dichotomous scheme makes it possible to highlight the central focus of an understanding of new organisational phenomena and the possible guidelines by means of which to address and manage current and future organisational issues. As Elster (2010, p. 111) pointed out, in an enlightening manner, the thesis that identified the tendency towards indeterminacy of social and organisational behaviour was based on the following statement, “The set of human motivations is a cake which can be cut in many ways”. This conclusion is not easy to assume, since sometimes, even for social scientists whose task is to explain and predict certain phenomena, as Elster (2010, p. 565)

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acknowledged, “the complexity and instability of human behaviour simply appear impressive and irreducible”. However, as Thaler and Sunstein (2009) argued, in their essay Nudge, they introduce the concept of The Gentle Push or a new strategy capable of improving our decisions, introduce positive practices of citizenship, and help people choose the best for themselves and for society. To do this it is necessary to learn to use human irrationality for a good end. According to these two authors, the fields of application of this new approach to incentives are potentially unlimited. From the pension system to waste disposal, from the fight against obesity to that against trafficking, from organ donation to financial markets, there is practically no sector of public or private life that cannot benefit from the approach called “libertarian paternalism”. Gino moved in this direction too in the essay on The Right Choice (2013), when he argued that, on the basis of a series of psycho-social experiments, the mistakes often made when making everyday choices are due to the fact that we do not “trust” others and do not listen to their advice.3 In line with this paradigmatic approach, the analysis carried out in this volume seeks to demonstrate that organisations, in the various types analysed here and in accordance with each one’s particular logic of governance to survive, need to address the processes of continuous transformation of markets (or of their institutional reference contexts in the case of public bodies). They often change their strategies, policies, structures, technologies, processes, operational and coordination tools, in a collaborative manner, to transform their culture and working modes into more effective organisational learning systems capable of dealing with these changes. The proposals of Argyris and Schon (1978), relating to The Learning Organisation and Life-Long Learning, belong within this context to highlight the importance of “learning to learn”, which avails itself of specific training groups whose aim is to analyse organisational successes and failures, as well as the factors facilitating or hindering possible processes of innovation and change. This interesting thesis sustained by Argyris and Shon (1998) rested upon the belief that in order not to disappear, even the most solid organisations needed to learn how to recognise the signs of change. For this reason, there was a need to develop through continuous learning to guarantee competitiveness. Ultimately, in order to obtain effective changes, organisations need to have an adequate dimensional critical mass and a quantity and quality of resources (human, economic, and technological) proportionate to the innovative efforts they are obliged

3

An empirical example drawn from the Italian reality is the behaviour of the protagonists of the famous TV game I fatti vostri [Your business], where the competitor who gained less or lost more was the person who did not accept the advice of the audience.

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to sustain. For this reason, the problem of downsizing in the face of the challenges of innovation and globalisation arises—overwhelmingly and urgently in the Italian panorama—and impacts upon small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as municipalities and provincial councils with small and insufficient numbers of citizens/users permitting the realisation of an effective, economic break-even point regarding the provision of quality, targeted and personalised services.

The Strategic Role of Research, Innovation, and Culture in Favouring Development In this perspective of strategic indeterminacy and continuous change, it is worth recalling what Drucker (1987, p. 233) suggested several decades ago: ...the innovative company organises itself so as to abandon what is old, obsolete, no longer productive, which is why, every three years, a ‘process’ regarding the life cycle of each product, service, or market is carried out, and we decide to abandon those deemed obsolete.

This indication harkened back to an economic era of the past, that of Fordism, while today’s economy of flexibility and indeterminacy with its analyses of the human life cycle, if carried out in depth and participated in by all the stakeholders, should take a closer look at timing, in some sectors, annually even half-yearly/ quarterly/monthly. Time-scheduled examinations of analyses and decisions not only shorten and condition the set-up and functionality of structures, as well as the partition of the processes, but also require a new organisational culture oriented towards a paradigm based on the change and enhancement of people and the diversity present within organisations, as strategic assets capable of carrying out an effectively genuine innovative project. This innovation improves the yields of the overall performance of an organisation, not in an ephemeral and transitory, but a lasting way, since it is based on an entirely conscious and participatory renewal of personal, professional, productive (administrative in public administrations), and organisational behaviour. In this new scenario, the ability to analyse organisational structures and culture is fundamental and should not be the prerogative of a small caste of super experts, but a skill shared by all managers responsible for structures, processes, technologies, and people. Moreover, new systems of production based on processes and the widespread presence of teamwork induce and, to some extent, require constant organisational maintenance capable of providing the necessary information in the shortest possible time so as to favour intervention regarding the dysfunctions detected. For this reason, there was a need to set up an activity of continuous organisational analysis and redesign, to involve as much as possible, albeit with different degrees of responsibility, all the professional groups present in organisations, bearers of tacit skills of value both to diagnosis and re-development.

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In innovative organisations, as Drucker (2010) suggested, in The Five Most Important Questions Self-Assessment Tools: Facilitator’s Guide, in processes for the redesign of organisations, attention needs to be paid to the following variables: (a) Define a procedure for the design and management of an organisational model of self-assessment, including the methods for fostering group commitment and the formation of teams. (b) Identify objectives, collect and analyse data, prepare and engage in dialogue and evaluate plans for their strategic and operational implementation. (c) Prepare an introductory writing workshop, illustrating “step-by-step” objectives and methodologies and provide participants with the necessary information. (d) Create a dialogue with the members of the team and set up workshops to prepare the resources involved in design, including the creation of workshops. (e) Prepare one or more PowerPoint presentations, explaining how to do the exercises foreseen by the workshop and copy them into the participants’ workbooks. In other words, it is a question of rendering cultural and organisational behaviour (individual, professional, and institutional) more effective and adaptive, in the direction of a logic of bridging and networking, capable of creating a team and giving life to an integrated, inclusive social network, since the overall results of business performance depend on the solidity of this system of relationships. This particularly complex process of cultural transformation, which is neither simple nor deterministic, cannot be either improvised or “imported” uncritically from other organisational contexts at micro level or that of a national system. Nor can it be determined by means of managerial logic. It needs to be based, instead, on a development of the organisational culture that appreciates merit, behaviour consistent with institutional objectives, values and shared responsibility. In a perspective where culture plays an increasingly decisive role, as suggested by Senge et al. (2013), in the current economic, social, and organisational context in a state of constant change, it is necessary to recall that an organisation represents ultimately a human community. For this reason, nothing is more important than ways of perceiving the future and acting in order to become, with others, the architects of its management. The authors, scholars, and pioneering managers of organisational learning, in this volume, explore the dynamics of transformative change and the innovative possibilities it offers a world that has dangerously lost its balance. For this reason, they invite us to promote a deeper degree of learning to be more present in the world and acquire awareness of ourselves as part of something greater, of a more or less structured organisational context, where consciously or unconsciously it is possible to play an important role. Although, unfortunately, as Acemoglu and Robinson (2013) pointed out with great acumen, in their essay Why Nations Fail. At the Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, that the extreme complexity of events, the origins of miserable phenomena (poverty, decay, and subordination) lie in the quality of the political and economic institutions nations provide themselves with. If we analyse in depth the history of the great empires, from the Roman Empire to mediaeval Venice, from the

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Incas and Maya destroyed by Spanish colonialism, to the devastating impact of the slave trade upon tribal Africa, from the absolutist China of the Ming and Qing dynasties to the new absolutism of Mao Zedong, from the Ottoman Empire to the Middle Eastern autocracies, it turns out that the ruling elites often preferred to defend their privileges and exploit social resources rather than build a pathway of well-being for all. To determine the organisational success and improve the overall results of companies, as well as of more complex organisations (States), cultures, values and the role of institutions play a decisive and essential role.

From Management to Leadership in Social Inclusive Governance For this reason, it is absolutely necessary to favour the acquisition of skills and values by public and private management, in such a way as to accompany the transition from the role of manager to that of leader, since, as Bennis (1999) explained perspicaciously, a leader does the right thing, while the manager does things the right way. The leader has a broad vision of the future and moves towards it, dealing with the what and the why. In terms of innovation and development, the manager, on the other hand, has a focused kind of vision, deals with how, aims at control, seeks stability, and manages the present. Furthermore, on the twentieth anniversary of the new version of his well-known essay On Becoming a Leader, Bennis summarised the main differences between the two figures as follows, specifying that (2009, p. 42): The manager administers and the leader innovates; the manager supports and the leader develops; the manager focuses on systems and structure, the leader focuses on people; the manager is based on control, the leader inspires confidence; the manager accepts reality, the leader questions himself and searches for new realities and situations; the manager has a short-range view, the leader has a long-range perspective; the manager asks how and when, the leader asks what and why; the manager always has his eye on the bottom line, the leader has his eye on the horizon; the manager accepts the status quo, the leader challenges it.

In this perspective, it is a matter of accepting an exciting challenge, no longer postponable, addressed to scholars informed by an interdisciplinary logic, but also addressed to management and the various executives of organisations. The aim is to call into play a synergy of cultures, skills, and experiences—though they regard different roles—capable of governing projects for the rationalisation of processes of production effectively, pervasive technological innovation, human-resource management, communication, training, development, and the enhancement of people. In such a significant planning and value perspective, as Sen far-sightedly posited, in his The Wealth of Reason, in Economic Action (2000, p. 122): Values play an important role in determining economic performance and vary sufficiently from area to area to explain economic successes and difficulties. Differences in values, however, are not immutable and the importance of studying this topic consists partly in

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understanding the world we live in, but also in selecting useful material for analysis and debate on the nature and merits of our values. . .If in this field, we have, as I believe, a debt of gratitude towards authors like Max Weber, this is due to their contribution when they suggested that asking a good question was better than giving a good answer. The question of the role of values in economic success requires an informationally rich and structurally detailed answer, not a one-variable formula focusing on factors like Protestantism, Christianity, Confucianism or “Asianity.” We need to develop theories, not slogans.

It is, therefore, necessary to acquire a profound vision of the phenomena analysed and their systemic interactions in a perspective of broad and medium-long-term development, in order to obtain an adequate understanding of the changes under way and prepare to govern it effectively, from a perspective of participatory leadership. Moreover, as General Eisenhower pointed out, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want to be done because s/he wants to do it”. On this same wavelength, Haslam A.S., Reicher S.D., Platow M.J. (2013), in a recent essay on the psychology of the leader, held that the identity, influence, and power, the sense of leadership did not consist in ordering people to “do” this or that but to get them to “want to do” this or that. Regarding this 360° “cultural openness” towards innovation, involvement, and participation, we should remember that all historical periods posed the question of leadership, albeit in different ways. In this regard, an interesting and original interpretation of the need for leadership present in the ancient world and an analysis of the role of leaders in the Bible was provided by Di Marco (2013). According to him, the Bible describes the action of people endowed with divine investiture, narrates their deeds, honours them, highlights their characters. Di Marco’s analysis which starts from Abraham, who, thanks to a brilliant intuition, transformed a group of relatives and servants into his people using a ritual “sign”. Jacob then became the head of a people that was to take the name of Israel and which he himself was to organise into 12 tribes. Joseph, his youngest son, on the basis of his merits alone became a leader and made Egypt the centre of the world by managing its internationalisation. Gideon was capable of adapting to unforeseen situations, he was not stopped by fear, he reflected, innovated, acted, and won. Likewise, Solomon, who was far-sighted, endowed with “strategic vision” regarding his kingdom, administered public affairs well and wisely. Esther faced danger, trusted in the future, and offered her life for the common good: love, faith, courage, and beauty are the pillars upon which her action rested. Finally, Daniele was the most reliable of them all; he adapted his behaviour to interact with various rulers, which is why he was the first true temporary manager; he resorted to intelligence, humility, and determination. All these biblical leaders possessed distinctive characteristics: they shared with others and together nourished a transcendental dimension (sharing of reference values); in their dreams (visions), they were able to imagine (make “predictions”), and this, even in the presence of negative events, made them capable of governing them more easily. In order to respond to the challenges one encounters, therefore, as Morin suggested, referring to Montaigne, it was a question of educating future leaders

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endowed with “well-made heads” and not with “full heads” so that they might have “a general ability to pose and deal with problems; organise principles that make it possible to connect knowledge and provide it with meaning (2000, p. 15)”. We find an interesting and innovative heuristic factor in the analysis carried out by Strati (2008). He argued that the understanding of organisational life, conventionally dominated by the “logical-rational” approach, might also be linked to aesthetics, to analyses of perceptual, sensorial dimensions, or to affective and extra-rational variables as Cocozza (2005) argued or, as Goleman (2011) suggested to the emotional intelligence, comprising self-control, stubbornness, empathy, and attention to others. In other words, as Strati (2008) recalled, the experience of subjects in their working practice, the role of emotions, sensitivity, taste, imagination, and passion are elements fundamental when seeking to understand and govern organisational action. This perspective regards a reflective and relational type of organisational development informed effectively by what Butera and De Michelis sustained in their Italy that Competes. The Italian Way of Doing Industry (2011). Here, the two scholars hypothesised the emergence of a new socio-economic model, a new type of enterprise still in embryonic form, unlike the industrial “castles”, but based on the idea that “small is beautiful”, and born of a dynamic bottom-up process promoted by companies, organisations, and territories that meet and blend at the new “territorial crossroads of vital worlds and long-term networks”. Similarly, Pini (2013) suggested, Italy’s low growth rate depended on multiple factors. However, the weight of the deficit of innovation in the organisation of work and the lack of involvement of employees and trade-union representatives were often overlooked. In this area, our country is one of the lowest scorers in Europe. The European survey carried out by the Eurofound (2011), relating to the adoption of best work-organisation practices4 and involving over 27,000 industrial and service plants, out of 30 countries Italy ranked close to the bottom of the list just before Malta, Turkey, and Greece. This survey took into consideration five sets of working practices: flexibility of hours; performance-related salaries; training; work in teams with decision-making autonomy; involvement of workers and representatives in the definition of the organisation of work. The flexibility of working and training schedules were the features found most frequently in one-third of the companies; financial and economic incentives and employee involvement were present in about one-quarter of the plants. In about one-third of the factories, at least two sets of innovative practices were being used. The interesting fact that emerged was that the phenomenon of the adoption of multiple practices produced the well-known complementarity effect, meaning that the total benefits of a cluster-type adoption were greater than the simple sum of the benefits deriving from individual

4

For a review of the literature on best work-organisation practices, see Leoni R. (2013), Organisation of Work Practices and Productivity, in Grandori A. (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organisation. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, forthcoming.

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practices. As Pini (2013) recalled, the sole use of working-hour flexibility did not have a strong impact on performance, while training, the involvement of workers and representatives, and the establishment of working groups had highly positive effects on both working conditions and the management of human resources as well as on the overall economic performance and productivity of the company. This approach was recalled in an interesting interview by Minister Delrio (former President of Anci), published in the Technology Review, regarding a highly complex, topical issue concerning the role of Smart Cities in sustainable mobility policies, which to obtain appreciable results require an indispensable strategic and organisational interconnection between public and private policies and structures, since, in this context: The mother of all innovations in our country is undoubtedly the strategic governance of processes. We need an approach that looks far ahead and passes through policies, in a governance in which the public, at various institutional levels, knows how to direct and choose the direction required to create the conditions for smart cities, to govern processes of authorisation and selection, closely control execution. But it is the private players, in partnership with the public system, who bring into play their entrepreneurial skills and abilities for the benefit of a more intelligent, inclusive and sustainable kind of life. (2012, p. 38)

The governance model referred to here, if properly discussed, supported, and enhanced, might positively “infect” companies, organisations, and territories with innovative sensemaking and propose appropriate policies of development. However, as Butera and De Michelis (2011) argued, today this model is still fragile, requires interventions of research and communication, the provision of real services to businesses, economic policies, and the consultation of public policies all currently insufficient. In this regard, as Grassini suggested, in his recent essay The Short Horizon. Risks of Death for our Capitalism? it is necessary to try to understand to what extent the main capitalist systems—those of the USA, Germany, Japan, and Italy—operate in a manner sufficiently oriented towards the future with a view to maintain high levels of investments without ignoring those who work and consume as well. Not many institutional, economic, and social actors have realised as yet that the issue of the time horizon within which the decisions of companies, investors, and regulators are taken has become most sensitive and important for the economic and political system in which we live. Fewer still are the numbers of those who provide advice on how to improve this extremely critical situation, starting with a relaunch of ethics as a guide to choices regarding finance, economics, organisation, and production. For these reasons, as was often the case over the past two decades, the institutional, economic, and social actors interested in innovating are invited once again (Cocozza 2013), to look ahead and develop a concerted strategy aimed at investing in knowledge, relations, innovation, and research, re-found a fair and lasting kind of development guided by a social logic of inclusion by enhancing people fully, by setting up lean, autonomous, and self-responsible structures.

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