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The relationship between power, technology and organizing is a longstanding theme in organization studies, typically articulated along two polarized positions: a pessimistic and an optimistic one. Both positions assume a deterministic view in which technology “impacts” society and organizations, thus missing the intricate and often ambiguous dynamics that surround power and technology. Accordingly, this Special Issue focuses on the intricacies of power, digital technologies and organizational processes. Presenting the rationale of the papers that compose the Special Issue, we suggest five themes arising when empirically and theoretically approaching these intricacies: 1) digital technologies and power relationships in organizational structure and processes; 2) relationships between technology, power and workers’ participation; 3) digital technologies, algorithmic control and power renegotiation; 4) digital technologies, practices of human resources management and the joint design of technology, work, and organization; 5) hyper-industrialization as a critical lens to approach technology, work, and organizing. Taken all together, the papers help overcoming simplifications as well as polarized representations of the relationship between power, digital technologies and organizing.

Questo scritto mira a indagare il rapporto tra potere pubblico e piattaforme digitali, nella prospettiva di una loro crescente collaborazione nel contrasto a fenomeni quali la disinformazione, i contenuti antiscientifici e i discorsi d’odio. Mira altresì a sottolineare le questioni di rilievo costituzionale che tale cooperazione può porre nonché le vie alternative che si possono prendere in esame., This paper aims to investigate the relationship between public power and digital platforms, with a view to their growing collaboration in the fight against phenomena such as disinformation, anti-scientific content and hate speech. It also aims to underline the constitutional issues that such cooperation can raise as well as the alternative ways that can be considered.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between the mixed methods approach and the evaluation field, with an overall look at the international social science area. Analysing a set of papers that make use of mixed methods, a reflection on the prevalence of the evaluation field is presented. Text analysis through the Structural Topic Model (STM) technique allows to extract topics from a corpus of documents. Findings show how the evaluation filed has a relevant role within the area of studies that use a mixed methods approach. Evaluation emerges indeed as a topic itself. Moreover, relationships among evaluation and other disciplinary fields wherein mixed methods are used can be highlighted. The overview presented in this study allows to look at trends within the mixed methods approach in social science and within evaluation, as well as intersections between the two areas.

The paper aims to introduce the reflection upon the Mixed Methods (MM) approach and evaluation research that will be attained in the following contributions. It is by now largely recognised how rarely one single evaluation strategy may fully capture the entire complexity of social phenomena happening in the “real” world. Nowadays, many recognise that combining different strategies and techniques within one evaluative process it is more efficient than using conventional evaluation approaches with a single research strategy. This article recomposes the developments of a need for a MM approach in Italy. Moreover, other papers in this special issue are briefly presented by identifying a common thread, represented by the reflection suggested in the paper by Jennifer Greene.

In this paper, we explore econometrically the impact of judicial efficiency on the attractiveness to FDI of Italian municipalities. The distinctive contribution of this paper is manifold. First, we consider the efficiency of different types of judicial proceedings (i.e. enforcement of civil contracts and labour contracts) across local courts and of different judgment levels (i.e. first and second instance courts). Secondly, we consider an ideal case: Italy is a centralized country, where the same laws apply in all the national territory, but the degree of law enforcement varies considerably across different courts. Lastly, our results have interesting policy implications, since they may help in highlighting the importance of non-targeted FDI policies as factors driving the location choice of MNEs.

This paper proposes a reflection on the critical aspects of implementing an ethnographic study mediated by the use of information and communication technology (ICT), using as a case study a pilot research that was carried between October and December 2020. The recruitment of the study participants was conducted through the use of social media, the communications with the participants was developed via e-mail, the interviews were carried out with a videoconference platform, and also the interaction between the authors needed to analyze and discuss the collected data was conducted using both synchronous and asynchronous online communication. The general aim is to promote a more reflection on the use of ICT in contemporary ethnography.

Alla luce di una sintetica ma mirata analisi di materiale edito e inedito, il presente contributo si propone di indagare il complesso dei rapporti personali, intellettuali e scientifici intercorsi tra Ludwig Binswanger e il suo “venerato maestro e amico” Eugen Bleuler tra il 1907 e il 1939. Binswanger, che iniziò la sua carriera di psichiatra proprio come assistente volontario presso la Clinica psichiatrica universitaria di Zurigo (il “Burghölzli”), pur manifestando una particolare ammirazione per la “figura spirituale” di Bleuler e per alcune sue specifiche innovazioni teoriche in senso clinico-strutturale, non ha tuttavia mancato di sottolineare alcuni elementi di criticità nella sua concezione della natura umana, come il monismo determinista della sua "Naturgeschichte der Seele" del 1921., By a brief and focused analysis of published and unpublished material, this paper investigates the complex of personal, intellectual and scientific relationship between Ludwig Binswanger and his “revered teacher and friend” Eugen Bleuler from 1907 to 1939. As known, Binswanger’s career in psychiatry began at the “Burghölzli” Clinic in Zurich. Although Binswanger showed particular admiration for Bleuler’s “spiritual figure” and for some of his specific theoretical innovations in the clinical-structural sense, he did not fail to criticize some features of his conception of human nature, like the determinist monism conveyed in his 1921 "Naturgeschichte der Seele".

La critica di Kelsen al concetto di “religione secolare” è incentrata su un’opposizione dicotomica tra religioso e secolare. Nel nostro saggio ci sofferme-remo sui due principali argomenti della critica mossa da Kelsen agli autori che adottano impropriamente il concetto di “religione secolare” nell’interpretazione della modernità: la critica dei falsi parallelismi, e la tesi della autocontraddittorietà del concetto stesso di “religione secolare”. Nell’ultima parte del saggio esaminere-mo l’ipotesi di sostituire all’opposizione dicotomica “religioso vs. secolare” un più articolato sistema di opposizioni non dicotomiche, ma polari: l’opposizione “reli-gioso vs. laico” e l’opposizione “sacro vs. secolare”., Hans Kelsen’s critique of the concept of “secular religion” is based on a dicho-tomic opposition between religious and secular. In the present paper we examine the two main arguments advanced by Kelsen against those authors who improper-ly use the concept of “secular religion” in their interpretation of modernity: the cri-tique of false parallelisms, and the thesis of the self-contradiction implied in the very concept of “secular religion”. In the last section of the paper, we analyse the hypothesis of replacing Kelsen’s dichotomic opposition between religious and secular with a more articulated system of non-dichotomic polar oppositions: “reli-gious vs. lay”, and “sacred vs. secular”.

This paper focuses on a traineeship experience for students of the Master Degree Course in Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Milano Bicocca. After an introduction on the complexity related to the profile of adult educators, the paper will discuss the fundamental assumptions that oriented the provisional traineeship structure and the role of tutors. After the critical process of evaluation of a pilot course, the paper will focus on the transition from a traineeship with a research-based approach to a guidance model with a blended-learning one.

The paper focuses on the relationships between power and technology in the field of organization studies, shedding light on the conceptual juxtapositions arousing from the debate. It discusses the many concepts of power and the relationship between digital technologies and power. Then it focuses on the role of digital technologies with respect to automation processes and control dynamics and deepens the transformations of jobs and professions in relation to digital technologies’ adoption. The contribution calls for overcoming the dualistic nature of debates, so to understand sociality and materiality, power and technology as a form of continuum.

The first relevant attempt to describe mixed methods (MM) in the field of evaluative research is attributable to Greene and Caracelli (1997). The authors distinguish various forms of MM starting from the purposes for which they are used. Since 1997 important developments occurred in academic and professional debates related to MM in evaluative research. Starting from the reconstruction of the debate on the usefulness and use of MM in evaluative research, this paper reflects on the ontological, epistemological, methodological, and axiological issues related to evaluative research processes using MM. This consideration needs to involve an extended vision of the issues underlying the choices of specific methods in the research process. This is even more necessary in evaluative research constitutionally engages with complex dilemmas, especially on the axiological level.

The paper focuses on the relationships between power and technology in the field of organization studies, shedding light on the conceptual juxtapositions arousing from the debate. It discusses the many concepts of power and the relationship between digital technologies and power. Then it focuses on the role of digital technologies with respect to automation processes and control dynamics and deepens the transformations of jobs and professions in relation to digital technologies’ adoption. The contribution calls for overcoming the dualistic nature of debates, so to understand sociality and materiality, power and technology as a form of continuum.

The contribution deals with the different economic evolution of two small manufacturing towns in the Brescia province: Gardone Val Trompia, specialized since the sixteenth century in the production of firearms, and Toscolano that, together with Maderno, represented for centuries one of the most important settlements for paper production in the Italian Peninsula. After having examined the reasons for their success, with particular attention to the organizational structure of the activity, the characteristics of the workforce and marketing strategies, the reasons for their different destiny will be outlined. In fact, while Toscolano has progressively lost ground since the nineteenth century, until a complete deindustrialization in the twentieth century, the arms district of Gardone, grown around the Beretta firm, still represents one of the most vital industrial experiences of the Peninsula

Survey methodologists confront complicated choices regarding survey design since they want to ensure high participation rates and quality data in a relatively short period of time. Indeed, declining participation rates and inadequate data quality are serious problems in the field of surveys, particularly if they are ad-ministered via the Internet. This paper shows whether a shortened questionnaire and SMS/e-mail reminders maximize response rates and data quality. Our email survey is targeted at students registered in degree courses at the University of Milan Bicocca. It is an experiment, assessing the effects of different combinations of reminders and var-ious questionnaire lengths on participation, accuracy of filling out the questionnaire and overall response time.

The Teatro alla Scala in Milan is playing a position of primary artistic interest in the field of national and international Opera and Drama. This paper aims to analyze the control system adopted by this Institution in order to develop some remarks about the relevance of management control system in Italian cultural organizations. In the past, in these realities the incisive public presence has often hindered the development of such managerial processes. The research has been carried out through a deductive quality methodology. This means that, empirical research has been realized later than the study of the literature on the topic. The case study has been carried out by submitting an interview to the responsible of Management Control. The empirical investigation has led us to develop some observations about management control organizational functions in the Opera houses. The paper identifies the key factors influencing the role of performance measurement system.

The article intends to reflect on the application of the ethnographic technique called “shadowing” in the field of sociology of law. While adopting an empirical approach, this tool is particularly appropriate to understand social actors’ behaviour and to re-construct the complex network of interconnections between law and society. Starting from an analysis of the distinctive features of “shadowing”, this paper will present a summary of the findings resulting from a period in the shadow of a labour judge in an Italian court. The article aims to enhance an extended debate about the most appropriate qualitative research techniques to study the legal operators’ activities.

Negli ultimi vent’anni, i sistemi giudiziari del sud Europa sono stati oggetto di svariate riforme, in alcuni casi imposte dalla Troika, in altri adottate in risposta alle influenze esercitate da Consiglio dell’Unione Europea, Direzione generale per la competizione della Commissione, Corte Europea dei Diritti dell’Uomo e network giudiziari europei, promossi da Consiglio d’Europa e Unione Europea. Tuttavia, a valle di questa lunga stagione di interventi, la giustizia nell’Europa meridionale risulta ancora, nel complesso, al di sotto degli standard europei. Se però cambiamo la scala di riferimento e ci avviciniamo idealmente agli uffici giudiziari sul territorio, possiamo osservare fenomeni sorprendenti. A dispetto dell’opinione diffusa, infatti, molti tribunali del sud Europa sono delle “arene di innovazione”, dove negli ultimi anni sono stati sviluppati molteplici interventi, volti a risolvere problemi interni di funzionamento, migliorare le condizioni di lavoro degli operatori e accrescere la qualità dei servizi erogati ai cittadini. Paradossalmente, tutto ciò fa sì che i sistemi giudiziari dell’Europa meridionale, da un lato, fatichino ad attuare le riforme promosse a livello centrale e, dall’altro, incontrino grandi difficoltà nel diffondere le innovazioni, che rimangono di sovente una sorta di “patrimonio locale”. L’articolo intende creare un “ponte immaginario” fra sociologia, scienza politica e diritto, per analizzare i percorsi di innovazione giudiziaria in Italia, Spagna, Portogallo e Grecia. Il saggio presenterà i primi risultati di una ricerca empirica quinquennale, mai condotta in precedenza, che ha impiegato quattro principali tecniche qualitative: interviste semi-strutturate, analisi documentale, osservazione partecipante e shadowing, coinvolgendo magistrati, capi ufficio, dirigenti amministrativi, funzionari, avvocati, vertici dei ministeri, membri dei consigli superiori e delle scuole della magistratura dei quattro paesi. L’articolo persegue due obiet, Although in recent years the Southern European judicial systems have been subjected to several reforms – in some cases, imposed by the Troika and, in other cases, adopted under the influence exerted by Council of the European Union, Directorate-General for Competition, European Court of Human Rights and judicial networks, promoted by European Union and Council of Europe – many empirical evidences show that the quality of justice is still, on the overall, below the European standards. But if we change the scale of reference, we can see that many judicial offices of Southern Europe are “arenas of innovation”. However, one the one hand, the Southern European judicial systems struggle to implement the reforms promoted at the central level, and on the other hand, they have great difficulty in spreading the innovations, which often remain a sort of “local heritage”, intrinsically linked to the courts and their practitioners. All this represents a paradox that characterizes the Southern European judicial systems. This article wants to build an “ideal bridge” among sociology, political science and law, to analyse the paths of judicial innovation in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece. The paper is the result of a five-year empirical research and aims to promote an extended debate on the perverse and paradoxical effects of the continuous promotion of innovation, both in the judicial systems and in other sectors of the public administration.

Questo contributo discute i risultati di indagini nordamericane sull’esposizione alla violenza domestica in infanzia (EDV) e l’evoluzione degli approcci con cui il problema è stato affrontato nei servizi a tutela dei bambini. L’analisi dell’esperienza in Nord America mostra come la raccolta sistematica di dati e la ricerca empirica abbiano avuto un ruolo fondamentale nell’evoluzione delle pratiche di intervento, nella decostruzione di assunti e pregiudizi diffusi nel lavoro sociale, e costituisca tuttora la guida per la programmazione e la valutazione degli interventi., This paper discusses the results of studies on children’s exposure to domestic violence (EDV) in North America, and how the child welfare system response to the issue has changed over time. The North American experience suggests how the systematic collection of data and empirical research have played a fundamental role in deconstructing stereotypes and guiding both policy makers and field workers in the attempt to tackle the problem.

The paper is concerned with the question, How does the signifier "barbarism" work? as opposed to the more canonical question, What is barbarism?. The move is meant to shift focus from reflection on the content of the notion to reflection over its theorethical functioning within some specific discursive strategies. Three of these strategies are discussed: Lèvi-Strauss's understanding of "barbarism" in Race and History; the ancient use of the antonymous concepts "Greeg/barbarian" as interpreted in contemporary Greek scholarship; and Michel Henry's view of "barbarism" as the negation of life. A distinction is drawn between relational uses of the signifier, which are said to be of an anthropological character, and non-relational, disjunctive uses, which may serve the purpose of interiorizing barbarism's threat.

This paper aims at presenting a discussion of the economic theory of road pricing, as a preliminary both of evaluations of applied schemes and of comparison with alternative policy instruments. Environment and road capacity are scarce resources: the citizen-consumer enjoys freedom of choice but users may not pay an efficient price, all the more so when user-generated negative externalities are taken into account. The social marginal cost of using road capacity is the sum of private costs paid by the user (fuel, depreciation, time) and of social costs paid by other users (congestion delays), public authorities (road maintenance) and society at large (pollution). Traffic congestion, and associated pollution, is a typical urban phenomenon: in fact, although private costs are higher in congested areas (cities) than in uncongested areas (countryside), diseconomies are relatively even higher, so that traffic (congestion, pollution) is in excess of what would be socially optimal. The typical theoretical answer is to 'internalise externalities': consumer still choose according to their willingness-to-pay, but bear a cost related to the diseconomies they generate. The attempt to make the private user pay for social costs is justified on social efficiency grounds, in so far as it discourages movements producing a private benefit lower than the sum of private and social costs. Although the impact of road pricing appears on the demand side, it may guide longer-term decisions on the supply side. Paper contents are as follows: road pricing theory is presented; criticisms to it are discussed; complementary effects of uses of road pricing revenue are evaluated.

Working on teaching today means observing and decoding the teaching-learning process which is established between the adult and the child, between the class and the context, and between man and society. Today, in Italy, the Ministerial indications, although outlining the frame of reference and the goals to be reached, allow ample possibilities of autonomy for schools, simultaneously allowing being positioned in a dialogue at a distance with the other countries of the European Union. In 2006, the Recommendation of the European Parliament and Council defined the eight key skills to ensure the subject’s permanent learning. In the United States, the key skills are described in wider, positively vague, terms, on areas referred to critical thinking, to collaboration, to creativity and meta-cognition, and are set out in different explanatory frameworks. Amongst the skills proposed, we are focusing here on the one oriented towards creativity, fundamental for the complete development of the person projected to the future meant as a set of factors including the cognitive aspects, the traits of the personality, the motivational aspects, the emotive factors and the connection with the environment that stimulates or inhibits the expression of the creative potential. This paper, by some explorative studies’ outcomes that involved primary teachers and students, meant to discuss how inserting creativity in teaching by skills, means supporting the abilities involved in it, promoting the child’s experience through the offer as issues and conversations of the contents of knowledge, with various and flexible teaching strategies aimed at concerning the cognitive and learning styles of each one.

Littering is the abandonment of small waste in public areas and the night economy concur to its increase. Many creative neighbourhoods are the centers of nightlife and local authorities are struggling to reduce the conflict that they might arise - including the management of littering. The paper presents the results of research conducted in Milan in Ticinese neighbourhood and identifies consumer behaviour profiles, the amount of litter produced and finally the institutions’ response to the problem.

This paper discusses the relationship between collaborative action research, in-service teacher education and classroom action research. A pilot case study on K12 competency-based learning provides an example of the collaborative action research process. The project involved a total of 40 senior teachers of kindergarten, primary and secondary school. Results from the qualitative analyses reveals: personal conceptions of teacher design and methods, main factors that contribute to change practices and the reasons for change resistance.

The paper is an introduction to a series of essays discussed in two parallel sessions during a conference organized in Rome on the 25th and 26th of September 2016 by the department of Methodology of the AIS (Italian Association of Sociology). Given the introductory nature of the presentation to the contributions that have accepted the challenge of Big Data, trying to integrate these powerful research instruments with official statistics, surveys and data stores, the goal here is to retrace, through the submitted essays, some of the most noteworthy aspects of Big Data that require careful epistemological and methodological reflection.

La redazione del bilancio è stata interessata da numerose riforme, contabili, civilistiche, fiscali, con l’obiettivo di migliorare la trasparenza dell’informazione, la sua utilità per gli operatori, di favorire i processi della stessa globalizzazione, attraverso l’armonizzazione delle norme contabili, alfine di migliorarne la capacità informativa La consapevolezza dell’importanza di una informativa trasparente per migliorare i rapporti con gli interlocutori sociali, siano essi finanziatori, azionisti, creditori, clienti, fornitori, dipendenti, autorità governative, ha visto le imprese impegnate nella redazione di “bilanci integrati”, dove i risultati economico finanziari sono comunicati insieme a quelli relativi alla governance e agli impatti sociali e ambientali delle strategie. Il volume si propone di offrire un quadro degli strumenti a disposizione del lettore del bilancio per valutare la performance dell’azienda e la sostenibilità delle strategie nel lungo termine, partendo dall’illustrazione del contenuto del bilancio d’esercizio e della sua evoluzione nel tempo. Sono approfondite le metodologie consuntive e prospettiche di analisi di bilancio, per indici e per flussi, sviluppate dalle banche e dagli analisti finanziari, con particolare attenzione agli strumenti di analisi del fabbisogno finanziario dell’impresa e delle modalità di copertura. Il saggio affronta inoltre il tema del cambiamento delle fonti di finanziamento per le imprese italiane, che devono aprirsi a nuove alternative, rivolgendosi al mercato, sia azionario che obbligazionario. Lo sviluppo di nuovi operatori, dai fondi di private equity ai fondi di investimento “etici”, attenti alle strategie di responsabilità sociale delle imprese, operatori che hanno integrato la tradizionale analisi economico finanziaria con quella sociale, ambientale e di governance (analisi ESG) rappresenta un’opportunità da cogliere., The preparation of the Financial Statements has been affected by numerous reforms, accounting, civil, tax, with the aim of improving the transparency of information and its usefulness for operators, while encouraging the process of globalization itself through the harmonization of standards accounting and, at last, to improve the quality of the information shared. Awareness of the importance of a transparent information to improve relations with the stakeholders, whether lenders, shareholders, creditors, customers, suppliers, employees, government authorities, have engaged companies in the drafting of "integrated reporting", where financial results are reported together with those concerning environmental and social impacts, and governance too. The aim of the book is to provide an overview of the tools available to the reader of financial statements to evaluate the performance and sustainability of the strategies in the long term, starting from the illustration of the content of the financial statements and its evolution over time. Detailed methodologies for financial analysis, with ratio and flow of funds, developed by banks and financial analysts are presented. The paper also addresses the issue of the change in the sources of financing for Italian companies, which have to be open to new alternatives, ranging from banks to the financial market. The development of new investment organizations, like "ethical" funds, interested to strategies of corporate social responsibility, explain the presence of the new integrated reporting, useful for ESG analysis (environmental, social and governance).

Career guidance is a complex issue, involving a macro-level (social context), a meso-level (inter-active context) and a micro-level (individual as a context). The paper highlights the relationship between learning and orienting, the generative power of disorientation and the systemic character of orienting/self-orienting. To adopt a systemic perspective means to orient oneself towards an enacted epistemology, i.e. a reflexive and critical sight, that is implemented in embodied and enacted pedagogical practices, i.e. marked by doing, play, art, performativity, and aimed to open possibilities of transformative learning.

This volume collects some of the papers presented at the session “How much do urban neighbourhoods matter in a networked globalised world?” of the RC21 Conference held in Berlin in August 2013

Seaport management holds great interest for both scholars and practitioners, given its growing economic relevance. In theory, scholars are seeking a single conceptual framework within which to shape the issue clearly. In this respect, the purpose of the paper is to conduct a preliminary literature review on seaport handling from a supply chain management perspective. Three categories in particular are investigated: actors and services, flows and operations, strategy and value creation. Drawing on the findings from the research, several academic and managerial implications are advanced.

Are neighbourhoods still important in a globalised and connected world, where people are supposed to be crossing borders more easily than ever, and connected all the time with others no matter where they are? Does it still make sense to look at the neighbourhood level to understand the dy-namics of change in and of the urban fabric? How do social networks and space - mainly neighbourhoods - interact with one another? This volume collects some of the papers presented at the session “How much do urban neighbourhoods matter in a networked globalised world?” of the RC21 Conference held in Berlin in August 2013. The relation between space and social relations is an old one in urban studies (from Weber and Simmel on), and it is now reformulated in terms of space/neighbourhoods and social networks. I will not go through that litera-ture which is referenced by almost all authors in this volume and in particular in Marques’ article. All contributions presented in this volume tackle the is-sue be it from different perspectives, and all together they show the complex and bidirectional relation between these two fundamental elements. Starting from the contributions in this volume, two issues can be raised that are shown in a powerful way in the articles: access to places and spaces is always mediated by social networks; space and places contribute to struc-ture social networks, and the access to those spaces/places contributes to re-affirm differentiation in social status

La fase di maturità in cui il costrutto di diversity management si trova, accanto alla crescente diffusione delle sue applicazioni, hanno portato a delle riflessioni in chiave critica sul concetto di diversità e sulle sue applicazioni organizzative. Il presente lavoro intende mettere in discussione le pratiche di gestione della diversity all’interno delle organizzazioni e il concetto stesso di diversità attraverso una revisione dello stato dell’arte del diversity management e approfondendo alcuni aspetti controversi della gestione della diversità in azienda che spesso ne inficiano l’efficacia quali: le dinamiche di inclusione o accentuazione dello stigma; la connessione tra il diversity management e le pratiche di gestione delle risorse umane; il vantaggio competitivo creato dalla gestione della diversità; il legame tra diversity management e comunicazione e la misura dell’efficacia delle pratiche di diversity management. Viene proposto, inoltre, un nuovo framework teorico in cui il concetto di diversità viene sostituito da quello più inclusivo di “pluralità”. Secondo questo approccio ogni persona è diversa da qualsiasi altra perché è la costruzione stessa dell’identità che porta a una miriade di sfaccettature che non possono essere appiattite su una singola caratteristica e la diversità è meglio compresa se si considera l'influenza dei diversi aspetti della diversità congiuntamente piuttosto che separatamente per ciascuna dimensione., The maturity stage characterizing the development of the construct of diversity management, along with the growing popularity of its application in organizations, led to critical thoughts regarding the concept of diversity and the diversity management practices. The paper aims at debating on these practices, as well as on the notion of diversity itself, through a critical review of the literature on diversity management and by deepening some controversial aspects of diversity management that invalidate its effectiveness, e.g.: dynamics of inclusion or accentuation of stigma, connection between diversity management and human resource management practices, competitive advantage brought by diversity management, link between diversity management and corporate communication, and measurement of the effectiveness of diversity management practices. Moreover, a new theoretical framework is proposed, where the concept of “diversity” is replaced by more inclusive concept of “plurality”; as well as an organizational approach that is aimed at revising management systems and managerial training in order to transform diversity management practices into a consolidated management strategy.

This paper proposes a high-frequency coincident economic activity indicator, constructed according to the dynamic factor model methodology introduced by Stock and Watson (1998a,b). The principal component analysis is used to summarize the information contained in a large dataset in a limited number of common factors, capable of capturing the main features of local business cycles. The EM (Expectation Maximization) algorithm then allows to obtain an estimate of the year-to-year variation of regional GDP or provincial value added. The exercise is applied to Lombardy and to the provinces of Milan and Pavia

Niccolò Tartaglia (Brescia 1500-Venice 1557) authored Quesiti et Inventioni diverse, written in Italian and divided into nine books, each including a series of queries about specific military matters like shooting, gunpowder, infantry order, ballistics and mathematics. The work was really successful in Italy with at least four editions (1546, 1554, 1562 and 1606) and prestigious enough to be translated several times into various foreign languages between 1547 and 1846: twice into French and German and once into English. The English version, entitled Three Bookes of Colloquies concerning the arte of shooting, was completed in London in the year of the Armada by a certain Cyprian Lucar, who translated the first three books in order to obtain and divulge information on ballistics, a new science evidently of primary importance for the defence of a country, especially when war was looming so close. Although Lucar chose to translate only three books out of the original nine, the resulting text is endowed with its own style: it is precise, well-structured, with an overall coherence and sense of completeness. Lucar aimed in fact to grasp and clarify Tartaglia’s ideas and principles on such important topics as artillery and ballistics. As both works are structured on a series of 'queries', the dialogic part clearly commands first place and plays the role of a protagonist. The main aim of our paper will be to indepth the way in which modal verbs are deployed by the translator as a tool for conveying intentionality in the strongly persuasive context of a dialogic text with didactic purposes.

Italian scholars have demonstrated growing interest in immigrants’ political engagement. Most studies have focused on associationism and conventional forms of political participation, while little research has investigated their unconventional involvement. Additionally, in the context of urban conflicts, they have been assumed as passive political actors, or at least this can be deduced from the scarce attention dedicated to them. The paper aims to question this interpretation, while at the same time contributing to research on immigrants’ unconventional engagement, through an examination of two conflicts that exploded in north-eastern Italy. In particular, the following questions will be addressed: what shapes can immigrants’ political engagement take? How does it articulate with contentious dynamics? Can any form of recognition emerge from it? In order to answer these questions, evidence will be drawn from a research carried out in the cities of Modena and Verona, between 2008 and 2010. The analysis will build on the theoretical perspective by Dancygier (2010) to then criticise its scarce dynamicity with respect to a pragmatic approach. Contentious dynamics will be inspected alongside their articulation with immigrants’ political engagement. This will provide empirical material to test the key hypothesis by Dancygier, according to whom it is power which mainly contributes to the emergence of native-immigrants conflicts, and the lack of it which anticipates the emergence of immigrants-state actors conflicts. The analysis will then be taken further to explore the type of ‘recognition’ (Fraser and Honneth 2007) that can derive from urban conflicts.

This paper proposes a high-frequency coincident economic activity indicator, constructed according to the dynamic factor model methodology introduced by Stock and Watson (1998a,b). The principal component analysis is used to summarize the information contained in a large dataset in a limited number of common factors, capable of capturing the main features of local business cycles. The EM (Expectation Maximization) algorithm then allows to obtain an estimate of the year-to-year variation of regional GDP or provincial value added. The exercise is applied to Lombardy and to the provinces of Milan and Pavia

L’articolo presenta due studi volti ad indagare la rappresentazione sociale del rischio fra i giovani adulti. Nel primo studio, di tipo qualitativo, sono stati realizzati 3 focus group che hanno coinvolto 20 giovani adulti (età media = 22; DS = 2.57). Ai partecipanti è stato chiesto di: i) realizzare un collage che raffigurasse il concetto di rischio; ii) proporre una classificazione delle diverse tipologie di rischio. Il secondo studio, cui hanno partecipato 200 giovani adulti (età media = 21.65; DS = 2.59), si è basato sulla sollecitazione di associazioni libere in risposta alla parola stimolo “rischio”. Le associazioni sono state analizzate tramite il programma EVOC. Dall’esame dei risultati dei due studi si è potuto osservare come la rappresentazione sociale del rischio sia caratterizzata dalla contemporanea presenza di una dimensione valutativa negativa, per la quale il rischio è associato all’idea di pericolo, accanto a una sua valutazione positiva, per cui il rischio appare essenziale per la crescita personale oltre ad essere associato al divertimento e alla vitalità. Inoltre è emersa una certa problematicità rispetto al controllo del rischio, la quale porta le persone ad un senso di frustrazione, negazione e fatalismo. Infine, tale rappresentazione è risultata articolarsi differentemente in base all’appartenenza di genere dei partecipanti., The paper presents two studies which investigate social representation of risk among young adults. The first one is a qualitative study, involving 20 young people (mean age = 22; SD = 2.57) and it was based on 3 focus group. Participants had to: i) realize a collage about risk concept; ii) classify different risk typologies. The second study, which involved 200 young adults (mean age = 21.65, SD = 2.59), used free association to the stated word “risk”. Associations were analyzed using the EVOC program. On the whole, the two studies show that the social representation of risk has both a negative dimension, relating to the danger idea, and a positive dimension, relating to the personal development and the fun. Moreover data show some critical aspects regarding the risk control, which lead people to feel frustration, denial and fatalism. Finally, risk representation seems different depending on participants sex.

The paper investigates the role spatial agglomeration has in affecting firm mortality of industries. In particular, the role of variety and specialization is addressed, along with the extent to which industrial clusters can be retained industrial districts. Empirical evidence is provided for a large panel of Italian provinces and manufacturing sectors, over the period 1995-2007. Urbanization economies, rather than localization ones, significantly diminish firm mortality of industries at the local level. The same holds true for industrial variety, even far from the specialization core. Industrial districts, instead, are neither safe nor dangerous places for firms, unless variety is controlled for. Preliminary evidence is also provided by the serial and spatial autocorrelation of firm’ death and start-up rates.

Viene qui illustrato un intervento educativo-promozionale volto a prevenire la guida in stato alterato tra i giovani adulti. L’intervento è stato sviluppato facendo riferimento a un modello teorico che integra i modelli socio-cognitivi della psicologia della salute con la teoria delle Life Skills. Esso si propone di rendere le persone consapevoli dei propri comportamenti e di accrescere le loro risorse personali, al fine di aumentare il controllo che possono esercitare sulle proprie decisioni e condotte. L’intervento è articolato in 7 unità di lavoro, da implementare in piccoli gruppi, e prevede l’utilizzo di metodologie attive. L’efficacia dell’intervento è stata verificata confrontando i cambiamenti nei comportamenti e negli orientamenti verso la guida in stato alterato dei partecipanti con quelli riscontrati in un gruppo di controllo coinvolto in un intervento solo informativo. Per la valutazione si è fatto ricorso a metodologie quantitative e qualitative. I risultati hanno messo in luce come l’intervento sia stato in grado di modificare sia i comportamenti legati alla guida in stato alterato sia diverse determinanti psico-sociali che possono essere considerate antecedenti del comportamento attuale e futuro., In this paper we present a promotional-educational intervention specifically designed to prevent driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs among young adults. Its goal is to make people aware of their behaviors and to augment their personal resources in order to increase the control they can exercise over their decisions and actions. The project comprises seven work units to be implemented in small groups and involves the use of active methodologies. Outcome evaluation of the intervention was carried out by comparison with the results of a control group which took part to an informative intervention. Both quantitative and qualitative tools have been used for the evaluation. Results show that the intervention has been able to change both behaviors related to drunk driving and other psycho-social determinants that may be considered antecedents of current and future driving behavior

A partire dagli esiti di una ricerca sulle rappresentazioni sociali della maternità (Camussi, 2009), il contributo indaga "la solitudine delle madri" attraverso l’analisi delle produzioni discorsive di un gruppo di donne (lavoratrici, cultura medio-alta, residenti a Milano) con un’esperienza di maternità "normale". I risultati mostrano che la solitudine è una scoperta tanto sgradevole quanto inaspettata e deriva: 1) dall’assenza dei partner, padri "nuovi" e coinvolti, spesso non altrettanto adeguati a cogliere la complessità del ruolo materno; 2) dalla mancanza di reti famigliari e sociali che forniscano alle donne condivisione e supporto, riducendo l’investimento e le attese sul partner On the base of a previous research on social representations of motherhood (Camussi, 2009), the paper investigates "the loneliness of mothers" through the analysis of discursive production (semi-direct interviews, focus groups, follow-up) of a group of women ( workers, well educated, resident in Milan, Italy) with an experience of a non–pathological motherhood. The results show that the loneliness the women experiment after the childbirth is an unexpected and unpleasant discovery. It depends on: 1) the presence of partners acting as 'new involved fathers”, but often not adequate to capture the complexity of the maternal role, 2) the lack of family and social networks that provide women with a sense of empowerment through sharing support and reducing the investment on the marital partner.

The aim of this paper is to show how and why it is possible to assess both direct and indirect effects of exogenous income injections on mean income of different household groups using a new approach based on the decomposition of SAM-based multipliers. The approach we propose allows analyzing the level of inequality in the distribution of income linking the formation of household income to the features of country’s productive structure. After deriving the “accounting price multipliers matrix”, we introduce a new technique (Pyatt, Round, 2006) in order to decompose each element of the total multiplier matrix which enlighten in “microscopic detail” the linkages between each household group’s income and other accounts whose income has been exogenously injected. The meaning and the relevance of the multiplier decomposition method will be illustrated with an application to the Italian economic system

The paper analyzes the change in the size distribution of Italian banking groups over the period 1999 to 2007 following a wave of M&As among large banks. Had this process increased the degree of concentration we would have expected greater credit rationing for small firms, given the central role of Italian banks in financing small firms. We measure this change through widely used measures of concentration on branches. First, we observe a steady increase in concentration that can be captured only by looking at the overall size distribution. Other measures do not perceive this change until the year 2007, when the very large banks merged. Second, by focusing on the banking groups that have been active players in M&As we do see a decline in concentration, since smaller players have caught up with the larger ones in terms of rate of size increase. This contrasts with the role of the new entries and the disappearance of banks following mergers, that has increased the dispersion of market shares. The implications are that: i) there is a credit termination risk due to the rise in active players’ size, but ii) credit rationing may not occur due to a substitution effect in credit supply from new entries.

The paper recalls some choices that were made 15 years ago, when health psychology was formally established in Italian universities, evaluating their consequences for the psychological profession. An initial investigation of the available data suggests that the impact of health psychology on the profession has been secondary and marginal, although in line with recent changes. Health psychology could therefore play a strategic role, beyond the influence which it has had up to now.

In questo lavoro sono esaminate le principali aree di ricerca nell'ambito della malattia grave in età evolutiva ed è presentata una raccolta della letteratura empirica sull'efficacia degli interventi psicologici nella malattia grave pediatrica nehli ultimi trent'anni, In the last twenty years, psychological interventions by different health workers have spread in paediatric hospitals. More recently, the psychological and medical trend towards evidence based intervention models has induced the need to define models and interventions in the area of psychological distress. In this paper, we discuss the main areas of research within serious paediatric illness and present a review of the empirical studies on the effectiveness of psychological interventions published in the last thirty years. This review shows that the effectiveness of psychological interventions in serious paediatric illness is still quite poor: some cognitive-behavior approaches have proved partially effective, while the results of individual psychodynamic therapy are still uncertain. Moreover, most studies suffer from many methodological limits, and the large variability in the way studies are performed and documented makes comparison between them very difficult

In questo paper si intende approfondire le determinanti del legame tra attività di regolazione tariffaria e il valore dell'azienda sottoposta a regolamentazione. Sono molteplici le motivazioni in base alle quali la determinazione del valore dell'impresa è a pieno titolo considerata l’elemento centrale della politica di regolamentazione. In particolare, per paesi come l’Italia, dove per molti anni le politiche di privatizzazione hanno costituito un obiettivo strategico primario indispensabile per riequilibrare i conti pubblici ed accedere alla prima fase di avvio dell’Unione Europea. In generale, la determinazione del valore dell'impresa da parte del Regolatore non è finalizzata ad una decisione di investimento quanto piuttosto ad un intervento di policy che mira a creare le condizioni per tutelare il valore dell'impresa sul mercato senza pregiudicare il benessere degli utenti del servizio. La nostra ottica di analisi è quella del Regolatore intenzionato a determinare senza pregiudizio il valore dell'azienda, individuare il livello di efficienza economica raggiunto e l'entità del capitale investito netto, al fine di formulare una appropriata politica di regolamentazione che gli permetta di raggiungere tutti gli obiettivi che si prefigge.

In questo paper si cercherà di approfondire gli aspetti tecnico economici connessi alla determinazione dei canoni di accesso alle reti di trasporto ferroviario; si cercherà inoltre di valutare gli effetti dei canoni sulla politica di investimento infrastrutturale del gestore di rete. Saranno valutate gli elementi costitutivi del canone di accesso alla rete viene denominato infrastructure charging o access charges system e l’insieme dei criteri tecnico-economici attraverso i quali i sistemi ferroviari dei paesi dell’Unione apriranno le proprie reti alla concorrenza di altri operatori che attraverso le tariffe di interconnessione potranno far circolare i propri treni attraverso una struttura di network ferroviari integrata.