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Our article is part of a micro-inquiry into the small reality of co-ownership to formulate hypotheses on the evaluation of behaviors (non-pharmaceutical precautionary measures) in addition to pharmaceutical actions put in place by the authorities against future pandemics. Our article takes its first steps in the fact that one of the most common ways to fight the COVID-19 virus is to avoid close contact between people. Indeed, our condominium meetings have been canceled at the first COVID-19 vague (in late February 2020), and social distancing as well as the use of masks and hand sanitizer in the concierge are measures still adopted at the end of 2022. External people (parents, visitors in general, and patients from the three health offices housed in the condominium) have been reduced, and certain businesses, such as bed and breakfasts, which were operating until 2019, had been closed following the first vague of COVID-19 pandemics. The general condominium association has been centralized under the conscious direction of the doorman led by the administrator of the condominium and a support lawyer. Stray animals at the foot of the condominium and fed by a couple of residents have been reduced to the strict minimum. On a sample of 39 people questioned and from an age range between 17 and 93 years, actually residing in the condominium and excluding those members of families who do not actually reside there, we inquired how the risk of COVID-19 infection has decreased over the past year (December 2021-December 2022). The useful variables to determine the correlations between the precautionary behaviors adopted by the co-owners and a possible reduction in the risk of infection are: 1) size of the family (self-observed); 2) level of education (self-observed); 3) professional status (self-observed); 4) salary (self-observed); 5) travel history (self-observed); 6) annual charity (self-observed estimate); 7) confidence in sustainability (interviews via mobile chat); 8) doses of vaccines already taken to the time of the survey (interviews via mobile chat); and 9) depressive symptoms (interviews via mobile chat). Our survey targets to highlight how residents’ safety in the case of one of the most recent periods of COVID-19 pandemics—i. e. the starting winter season 2022‒2023—is somehow safeguarded by cooperative games because of condominiums rules’ fulfillment as well as by socio-juridical precautionary measures taken by the ruling association.

Job insecurity is attributable to the fear of being exploited by the organization and may have negative effects on employees. For example, it may lead employees to adopt non-compliant or deviant behaviors that harm individuals and their organization. However, knowledge about specific fears that have positive or negative effects on employees and organizations is limited. Therefore, this study aimed to detect the main fears related to job insecurity in an organization and the hidden meanings included in each of these fears that may cause negative and positive effects on important work-related outcomes. Further, we identified safety behaviors related to the previously identified fears. Notably, we investigated whether fears reduce well-being, the number of accidents and near misses, and behaviors related to safety and whether they increase the perceived probability of making mistakes. We conducted 65 focus groups with 37 managers/employees and 180 workers in separate groups. Furthermore, they completed a self-report questionnaire. We identified eleven fears and related meanings and ten safety behaviors. Multivariate regression analyses revealed that fears were significantly negatively associated with well-being and safety behaviors but not with the probability of making mistakes and causing accidents. Thus, fears play a key role in promoting behaviors, organizational strategies, and employees’ well-being. The analysis results show that fears are included in a main general factor and suggest a new way to consider fears at work. Given our findings, we propose a new definition of fear in the organization.

Purpose This paper aims to propose an explorative metamodel of the key organizational competences management and presents a Web-based tool (Co.S.M.O.© Competences Software Management for Organizations) for all-around assessment of the identified competences. Design/methodology/approach Building on the Great Eight Competencies Model- GEC, the European Qualifications Framework-EQF and focus group feedback, an online questionnaire was developed to manage the key organizational competences and to adapt the competence metamodel to the Italian context. Findings The competence metamodel described in this study and its newly designed tool (software with online questionnaire) could be used at the organizational level to improve productivity and efficiency by allowing an easy identification of key organizational competences and facilitating their acquisition and sharing. Research limitations/implications Currently, the metamodel is mainly theoretical and the software sustained only a partial validation. Practical implications The developed tool is a dynamic, easy to use and interactive Web-based software useful for managing the competences in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Social implications European official documents invite companies and institutions to work together and share human capital: the European Qualifications Framework-EQF, at the base of this model, facilitates a common organizational language for human resources management. Originality/value Managerial competence literature indicates that a comprehensive model capturing a link between the EQF and a managerial competence model has not yet been considered in the literature.

Purpose This paper aims to empirically examine career guidance services in terms of e-service quality, information quality and perceived value. It specifically examines students’ perceptions of quality to explore the effects of e-service quality and information quality on perceived value. Design/methodology/approach Students from the University of Verona participated in a quantitative survey, and 119 questionnaires were collected to assess the perceptions of respondents on e-service quality, information quality and perceived value about the career guidance e-service. Findings The results indicate that students perceive high value for the career guidance services; the perceived value depends on both service quality of the e-platform and information quality of the report; and efficiency is the most important dimension of e-service quality, while adequacy appears to be the most important dimension of the report. Practical implications These findings reveal that service organisations such as universities should invest in career guidance services, given that such services are appreciated by students and contribute to reducing the gap between education and job opportunities. In the design phase, service organisations should pay attention to students’ career development needs by developing e-platforms that are easy to use, appealing, efficient and with continuous system availability and reports that include relevant, understandable, reliable and adequate information. It is important to provide students with a report after they have completed a questionnaire. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research empirically evaluating the effects of perceived e-service quality and information quality on perceived value with specific reference to career guidance e-services.

International cooperation projects aim to support populations in developing countries or affected by emergency situations and to promote their wellbeing in a coherent way and in line with the 10th Sustainable Development Goal and with the principles of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development. This study analyzed the ways in which such projects influence two psychosocial variables, fatalism and self-efficacy, which are of great importance in determining the attitude of people to promoting change and improving their living conditions by themselves. The sample (N = 510) consists of adult users of Caritas Italiana projects in developing countries, namely, 161 individuals in Argentina, 123 in Bosnia, 96 in Sierra Leone, and 130 in Sri Lanka. The results indicate that the very fact of being involved in cooperation projects, both economic welfare and social promotion projects, favors a reduction in fatalistic attitudes and that greater perception of self-efficacy predicts a reduction in fatalism. Specific effects are presented in relation to the different cultures, and education levels of the countries analyzed.

The location of this research is the university, through which we are progressively channeled into a seemingly insoluble Gordian knot. What is our participation in the university and what cultural and human commitments inform this participation? More trivially, what rights and duties does the individual acquire or lose within his or her academic identities? Our main target was finding an ideal organizational practice to examine, such as an emergency event. What strategy can the university adopt? Can it realign its distortions and retain its resources? How and in what ways? What information is needed for this purpose? Which actors are relevant in this process? A systemic survey model is, therefore, presented to analyze data obtained from a sample of 200 respondents from various academic groups, including students, professors, administrative staff, and other stakeholders. Quotas were used for the primary challenge posed by the pictures representing dimensions according to a systemic schema of organizational effectiveness (OE). Respondents were then asked to judge the dimensions and pictures against their personal capacity for intellectual identity, functionalism, and materialism. During the test, the participants were expected to develop their capacity to approach phenomenal consciousness and the search for its neural correlates, thereby becoming familiar with the high-order demands and challenges posed by the current information available to them. A nine-item interval behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) was used to develop a systemic matrix that could show the participants&rsquo, collective OE when an emergency event occurs at the university. This study aims to stimulate a broader investigation into the preparation of programs and plans that should be a priority today in the context of sustainability in educational institutions, thereby setting useful thresholds on decision-making paths. To develop the collective model, a matrix generated by each respondents&rsquo, dimensional modal values (DMVs) in the test and the overall samples&rsquo, modal values (OMMVs) were used. Borrowing from Luce&rsquo, s theory of probability, we analyzed the similarity of the OE university matrix from the results in descending order, restricting our attention to modal values which were chosen for the test and demonstrate how the learning model was formulated to assume that each group with evolved behavior could respond adaptively to a conditional function thanks to its permanence in a university environment.

In this study, a triangulation of (a) spatial data, (b) self-awareness, and (c) behavioral self-analysis seeks to provide an explanation from an innovative perspective for the likelihood of the occurrence of predatory crimes in the city center. This study does not examine the circumstances in which criminal acts occur. Instead, it focuses on a broader concept that combines both the configurational factors and the behavioral interconnections in which criminal acts occur. We orient the occurrence probability of crime towards appropriate objectives in the presence or absence of attractors/detractors, with interesting variation in the behavior of the acting subject&mdash, in our case, a random walker (also called the Random Movement&ndash, displacement Agent, or RDMA, in the text), which is the key variable that triggers the occurrence probability of predatory crimes. The relationship between spatial and/or behavioral observations and the probability of the crimes that may result from such observations is limited in this text to &ldquo, predatory crimes,&rdquo, which are the most common and light forms of crimes that endanger both human quality of life and the related safety in the city. Such crimes include theft, damage (specifically crime against public property and all similar offensive acts, such as littering and incivility), physical attacks (restrained to attempted violence against defenseless people), robberies, and car thefts (i.e., the most frequent crimes in urban areas). The theory of complexity, specifically as illustrated by the in-depth work of the 20th century German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, also suggests the importance of self-analysis in specific contexts to construct a mosaic of social phenomena. We conducted both a behavioral self-survey and a metric-based self-analysis by measuring random walks (RWs) to achieve some common behaviors&mdash, for example, buying food, shopping, or just looking at shop windows&mdash, on the streets of downtown Hamburg, Germany. RWs are used in our article to indicate random walks in the city center and any activities that may arise from them, such as protecting oneself from potentially hostile contexts, seeking information, or conforming oneself to official signals and customs. The hundreds of images taken by us in October 2019 during their RWs in Hamburg form a reservoir of our pictures, with the aim of showing the acceptable patterns of random movements&ndash, displacements that emerge. This method was primarily discursive but based on the ongoing search for a transformative conduit of behaviors that were intuitively established and observable for us but actually involved a complex process of imaginative ideation that was impossible to promote and pass on to the reader.

Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Bildungswissenschaften 36 (2014) 3, S. 481-499, Il presente lavoro prende spunto dalla realizzazione del progetto di ricerca/intervento "Master Universitari e competenze acquisite. Validazione e certificazione" finanziato dalla Regione Veneto. Il progetto ha consentito di realizzare una serie di osservazioni e riflessioni sulle metodologie didattiche, sugli strumenti di valutazione e di certificazione legate sia agli apprendimenti realizzati in ambito formale che a quelli non formali. (DIPF/Orig.), Die Realisierung des vorliegenden Forschungsprojekts "Master Universitari e competenze acquisite: Validazione e certificazione" wird durch die Region Veneto finanziert. Dieses Projekt hat uns erlaubt, eine Reihe von Beobachtungen und Reflexionen zu Lehrmethoden und Instrumenten der Evaluierung und Zertifizierung bezüglich des Lernens im formalen als auch nicht-formalen Bereich zu reflektieren. (DIPF/Orig.)

Ritualization operated by analyzing macro-sectors in a city (e.g., neighborhoods) has concluded irreversibly for condemning some dilapidated areas instead of others. Taking its cue from the scenario of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 11—Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (United Nations)—the realized analysis links a sustainable urban design with the citizens’ role in the city in a particular urban landmark, the “local town market area” (LTMA), with a focus on developing the well-being of the local community, also referred to as the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development. Principal methods of inquiry used, along a geospatial Google-driven investigation, were self-observation and self-assessment, which reflect both the study of self-organizing systems in the context of complexity and systemic theory, choosing to detect the spatial state of a specific area, as it has neither official nor institutional boundaries. The approach to crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is therefore discussed through the maximizing of the LTMA functional urban unit in Enna, Sicily, to reach the idea of a community that is innovative and participatory.

The perceived potential for environmental restoration while at work can represent a job resource, given that restoration alleviates stress, which can free resources for both performance and extra-role activities. This study explores the association between perceived restorativeness (PR) and organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB - helpfulness, loyalty and voice). Further, this study tests the moderating effect of organisational justice (OJ - procedural, distributive and interactional) on the association between PR and OCB because a lack of OJ can be conceived as a job demand (following the job demands-resources model). Employees (n = 146) from different organisations responded to a questionnaire. Regression analysis with 1,000 bootstrap samples indicated a moderating effect of OJ (for low levels and the mean value of interactional justice - an OJ sub-dimension) on the PR and OCB (voice) relationship. Generally, the restorative quality of the work environment may play a pivotal part in promoting extra-role behaviour.

In this chapter, the socio-emotional wealth perspective is used to understand how, during phases of economic recession, a company’s family nature can influence its decision-making processes and the implementation of an ambidextrous strategy, as well as its effectiveness. A qualitative analysis based on a case study is presented in this chapter. The analyzed case involves an Italian family-owned small business that faced the recent economic crisis adopting a mix of defensive and offensive strategies. Thanks to this balanced—ambidextrous—strategy, the company was able to limit the impact of the crisis and then to recover positive profit margins. This study contributes to the extant literature by shedding light on how the aim of preserving the socio-emotional wealth can influence small family firms’ ability to adopt ambidextrous strategies in order to face an economic recession.

The emphasis on competences as capturing key aspects of entrepreneurship is relatively recent and quite distinct from research on entrepreneurial traits or cognitive styles in that competences represent observable and measurable knowledge, behaviour, attitudes and skills. Many competency taxonomies and models have been proposed by scholars, as frameworks organized into tiers of competences including descriptions of the activities and behaviours associated with that competency (Chouhan and Srivastava, IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 16(1): 14–22, 2014). However, no comprehensive set of entrepreneurial competences has emerged from these distinctions and no or little empirical evidence has been provided to validate these categorizations (Morris et al., Journal of Small Business Management 51(3): 352–369, 2013). This study compares and contrasts three traditional models (Morris et al., Journal of Small Business Management 51(3): 352–369, 2013; Bartram’s, Journal of Applied Psychology 90(6): 1185–1203, 2005, with the EU Entrepreneurship Competence Framework; Bacigalupo et al., EntreComp: the entrepreneurship competence framework, EUR 27939 EN, Publication Office of the European Union, 2016) previously empirically validated by the authors.

The purpose of this empirical study is to study women entrepreneurs’ psychological well being as supported by their family members in terms of support network so that effect of role overload and dependent care could be minimized. In any society, women receive relatively less support in order to fulfill their career aspirations. In a study on south Indian women entrepreneurs, researchers have examined the factors of work life balance for women entrepreneurs. These factors are termed as, role overload, dependent care, quality of health, time management and support network.

The present work explores gender stereotypes and perception of entrepreneurship in the island of Sardinia, an Italian region characterized by unfavourable socio-economic conditions. Exploring the relation between entrepreneurial aptitude, competences, and social environment is of primary importance for developing entrepreneurship and understanding the evolution of regional human capital. Results of a questionnaire administered to a sample of aspiring, actual, and attempted Sardinian entrepreneurs, suggest that gender stereotypes and perceived inequalities endanger entrepreneurial networks, in spite of pre-existing feminine norms, and gender equality of education, aptitude, competences and regional opportunities. The findings suggest that a pervasive masculine discourse on entrepreneurship can hinder entrepreneurial perception and outcomes, and supplement the extant literature on the importance of a multiple culture perspective. It is suggested that policy-makers should pay attention to gender-related stereotypes and to entrepreneurial aptitude in order to convert detrimental regional and social networks into innovation systems. Practises for future investigations and recommendations to develop knowledge competences are also discussed.

Family-owned enterprises go through various stages of growth and development over time once the second and subsequent generations enter the business. They present a unique set of challenges and problems, mostly due to generational transition, role confusion, different vision of the business, qualification and skills. This quantitative study aims at increasing the understanding of which competencies are relevant to family business success and how they significantly influence both organizational behavior and family dynamics. Findings highlight the importance of family business as a unique context to study organizational behavior and confirmed how family enterprises are influenced by family culture and kinship ties.

In Ticino, the Italian speaking canton of Switzerland, in past years a reform of the secondary school system has been implemented. This reform originates from some preliminary reflection started during the ‘90ies. During the academic year 2004/2005 started the first visible transformation in school. Using a multi-focus research design a study on this process of change has been conducted during the years 2006 - 2012. This project has several aims: define a theoretical framework to study future innovations; give some feedback to stakeholders; implement a monitoring process. Different sources of information have been used: public documents; interviews to stakeholders; four case studies and data from a questionnaire administered to the teachers. This paper is mainly devoted to explore the theoretical implication and to make a general reflection on evaluation and monitoring processes. This research process has been used to reflect on the different role of researchers in evaluation and monitoring processes. The data collected make possible to validate and up-date the initial theoretical framework based mainly on the work of Fullan (1993, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003) and Huberman & Miles (1984), to demonstrate that in an organizational change the energy spent in the consolidation phase need to be proportional to the depth of the changes.

Este artigo apresenta os primeiros passos de um projeto internacional financiado pelo Erasmus plus –Programa que trabalha com quatro países na realização de uma plataforma comum de desenvolvimento de competências empreendedoras. Aqui, nós relatamos as reflexões que estão conduzindo os idealizadores do projeto na construção de um processo não somente educacional mas também de avaliação e validação compartilhada por vários países para assegurar um processo de crescimento real, com normas comuns de formação e de avaliação. Por conseguinte, pretende-se trabalhar com um sumário das atuais orientações da Comunidade Europeia relativas à validação de competências, ao desenvolvimento de competências empreendedoras, ao mapeamento de competências empresariais na Europa e ao estabelecimento de programas de desenvolvimento dessas competências. Por fim, apresenta-se o projeto europeu House of Brain e as atividades que levaram os autores a questionar as ferramentas mais úteis para uma avaliação correta das competências para uma aprendizagem ao longo da vida.

The adequate development of the numeracy skills is a target of the fourth of the Sustainable Development Goals and is considered the basis for a financial literacy: both are competences needed for successful social and professional inclusion. Building on these goals, we carried out a unidimensional Mathematical Competence Scale (MCS) for primary school. The aim of this study was to present the psychometric properties and the validation process of MCS, designed basing on Item Response Theory. The final version of the scale, which measures different domains of mathematical knowledge (Data Analysis and Relationships, Geometry, Dimensions and Measurements, Numbers and Calculations), was validated on the entire population of 2935 fourth graders in Ticino Canton, Switzerland. The results reveal the high level of correlation between the six mathematical dimensions and confirm the assumption of a latent &ldquo, mathematical construct&rdquo, However, even the multidimensional model could be considered a good model because it fitted the data significantly better than the one-dimensional model. In particular, the differences of the deviance between the two models are significant (&chi, 2 (20) = 642.66, p &lt, 0.001). Moreover, findings show a significant gender effect and a positive correlation between students&rsquo, actual school performance during the same academic year and MCS scores. MCS allows a reading of the learning and teaching process in the perspective of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development and helps a teacher to sustain student talent through the development of numeracy skills, in fact, the scale is intended both as an assessment tool and an innovative approach for shaping the development of curriculum, and therefore has potential to serve as a bridge between empirical research, classroom practice and a positive (school and professional) career development.

Satisfaction of those needs which are fundamental to life-quality often depends on availability of opportunities related to human and social capital, which in their turn are favoured by education. As in financial and social crises young people with low qualifications are one of the weakest segments in the labour market as they are exposed to work exclusion, long-term scar effects, and vulnerable market position, public institutions must reinforce policies and practices to foster school-to-work transition. European Union indeed advocates the enhancement of entrepreneurial education related policies and practices. As entrepreneurship is however strongly interlinked with formal and informal institutions, socio-cultural and economic contexts, a similar interplay exists between regional context, enterprise education and vocational training. The present work explores characteristics and aptitude towards entrepreneurship possessed by students of vocational education and training centres in the Italian Veneto region as a case study to explore the degree to which low qualified young students, in contact with an entrepreneurial formal or informal environment, show higher level of knowledge, propensity, self-efficacy and aptitude towards entrepreneurship. Some implications for entrepreneurial education and policies are provided.

An observational study has been carried out to analyse differences in performance between students of different undergraduate curricula in the same written business administration examination, focusing particularly on possible effects of “integrated” or “multi-modular” examinations, a recently widespread format in Italian assessment. In three out of six cohorts, the written tests were indeed parts or modules of a multiple integrated examination, while in the other three, they were single and independent examinations. At the same time, four of the cohorts were assessed only by means of a written examination, while the remaining two were assessed by a combination of written and oral examinations. The written part of every examination was a multiple-choice test randomly drawn from the same item pool. Performances have been analysed in the light of linear and generalized mixed-effect models. As a result, the presence of an integrated examination appears to affect students’ performances on the multiple-choice test. Mixed models also estimate a gender effect, with females performing better than males, while there seems to be no effect due to the type of examination.

The theme of this study can be justified by the importance that European Union gives in promoting the culture of Entrepreneurship among young people, so that they can deal with more awareness and attitude to future educational and career choices. Set this as a premise, this research aims to give an answer to this question: is the Italian university system really meeting the European expectations in terms of developing sense of initiative and entrepreneurship among Italian university students. This article focuses on describing and analyzing the perception that Italian university students have about entrepreneurship in Higher Education. A quantitative research method was used (a questionnaire structured and applied to a sample of 1918 university students). The most significant results are: 71% of the students do not work; 7% are entrepreneurs and out of 71% students who do not work, 39% never had a work experience. However, most of the respondents show interest to start a business and this perception decreases over the years. Moreover, 58.4% do not believe that the university can help a student find a job and 57.6% believe that the university can help an entrepreneur, but only 12.8% actually. A Supranational Policy of Education indicates that Higher Education should develop competencies in students, especially those ones that are considered as key competencies for a student such as initiative, Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, but how effective these indications are in reality if, as percentages show, only a few students opt for an entrepreneurial career. Index Terms—Entrepreneurship, Europa, Italy, key competencies, new venture, policy, university education.

Population ageing is not only linked to social or health problems, but it also concerns economic and HRM strategies and policies in work organizations. Elderly and retired workers are often still active and recent literature in social sciences has indeed focused on the management and motivation of ageing workforce. The present work aims to explore the relationships between reasons to stay active and the work values of elderly workers, by examining how value orientations affect the reasons behind post-retirement activity. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 480 north-Italian elderly, retired from different jobs who continued to work. Part of questionnaire adopted the Work Important Study/Work Values Scale (WIS/SVP) to explore the work values of aging workforce. As a result, people in retirement appear to be moved mainly by reasons of social connections and usefulness. More personal dimensions related to the need of being appreciated, self-realized, or the need of keep themselves active and busy are considered less important. Interestingly, financial reasons and work continuity are considered not important. In addition, work values and value orientations influence to various degrees these motivations to stay in activity after formal retirement. These findings suggest that HRM practices and policies, capable of motivating older workers to continue to work, should address social and relational issues rather than financial related aspects or continuous career development.

The paper reports the results of the qualitative actions and the quantitative operations carried out in order to construct and validate a psychological test specifically developed for the assessment and selection of aspiring volunteer rescuers in an Italian health association. The qualitative actions consisted of 4 focus groups with volunteer rescuers (from 10 to 12 people each, 45 in total) and 2 group discussions with the leaders of the association (6 leaders in total). They have led to a 20-item test measuring such psychological constructs as Attitude (9 items) and Reasoning (11 items). The quantitative operations involved a pilot sample of 54 volunteer rescuers and have been run at the moment by involving a test sample of 481 candidates volunteer rescuers. Descriptive statistical analyses, principal component analyses with Cronbach’s alphas and item–total correlations have shown good indexes of fit in relation to the theoretical model that generated the 20 items and the test on the whole, even if improvements can be achieved. The test will be continually administered over the years (at least two administrations per year) in order to meet the needs for assessment and selection of the association, so other samples will be involved, validity and reliability will be continually monitored and the test will be modified if necessary.

The present article aims to illustrate metric characteristics and selected research applications of an instrument that can be used to define aptitude for an entrepreneurial profile (created in the 1990s). TAI 'test di attitudine imprenditoriale - entrepreneurial aptitude test' describes entrepreneurial potential with regards to eight factors. The entrepreneurial aptitude test has acceptable metric characteristics and sufficient criteria reliability; the instrument presents significant correlations with career development and entrepreneurial jobs. The analysis highlights that the TAI and its specific items can be used to discriminate between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. The paper presents research carried out in different fields of applications: seniors and juniors in generational transition and small business management, and analysis of entrepreneurial success and career guidance.

The role played by small business in economic growth and development in the world is officially recognized, in both the economic literature and in official documents (e.g., Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, European Commission, U.S. Department of State). Information and communication technology connectivity are widespread in all sized businesses, but small businesses seem slower than larger ones to adopt and use ICT and electronic commerce. SMEs (small- to medium-sized enterprises) are independent firms that employ less than 10 (micro), 50 (small), and 250 (medium) employees (European Commission, 2003); the United States includes firms with fewer than 500 employees in the definition of an SME (OECD, 2000a). In Europe, SMEs contribute up to 80% of employment in some industrial sectors (e.g., textiles, construction, furniture), and they are defined as “a major source of entrepreneurial skills, innovation and contribute to economic and social cohesion” (European Commission, 2005, p. 3); in the U.S. economy, small businesses represent 99.7% of all employers and “broaden a base of participation in society, create jobs, decentralize economic power and give people a stake in the future” (U.S. Department of State, 2006, p. 2). To synthesize: more than 95% of OECD enterprises are SMEs, accounting for 60-70% of employment in most countries (OECD, 2000a). The same proportion is indicated by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; in fact, SMEs account for 60-70% of all employment in developing countries (UNCTAD, 2002).

Relazioni tra generazioni: "Padri e figli" in impresa - Intergenerational cohabitation is an organizational and relational phenomenon that many Italian enterprises have experienced in the last years. Our research investigates the dynamics of the relationships between Senior and Junior. For instance, we have found that there appears to be a lack of balance in mutual perceptions (Seniors give themselves more competencies than Juniors attribute to them), in cohabitation satisfaction (the first generation thinks the relationships are more positive than the second generation), and in values (Juniors appears more characterized by self orientation than Seniors).

The purposes of this study are: to analyze the differences between owners and managers of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) concerning perception of stress levels, coping strategies and work values; and to identify necessary guidance instruments to help these enterprises in decision-making during a crisis. The research also had the objective of analyzing these differences in diverse (stable and unstable) relational contexts so as to identify salient characteristics and potential paths of development. The method uses qualitative (in-depth interviews) and quantitative instruments (a standardized questionnaire to measure stress - Occupational Stress Indicator - and the values related to work - Work Importance Study/Work Values Scale: Sirigatti, Stefanile, 2002; Trentini et al., 1999 ). The final output is a guidance method that permits business consultants to help management in SMEs.