Ermanno Tortia

Worker Motivations, Job Satisfaction, and Loyalty in Public and Nonprofit Social Services:

Exploiting a unique data set created in 1999 on a sample of 228 public, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations operating in the social service sector, and on 2,066 workers, the article tests whether workers’ satisfaction and loyalty to the organization is influenced by workers’ motivations and by the incentive mixes offered by different organizational forms. As for satisfaction, intrinsic and relational attitudes toward work exert the greatest influence, whereas workers motivated by economic interests are less satisfied. As for loyalty to the organization, satisfaction with economic and process-related aspects of the job appear to have the greatest impact. The behavior of nonprofit organizations, which form the largest part of the sample, is consistent with these results. The specific strength of their incentive mix is represented by worker involvement and other process-related aspects of the job. By contrast, workers in public bodies are the least satisfied, higher monetary incentives notwithstanding.

The Role of Cooperative and Social Enterprises: A Multifaceted Approach for an Economic Pluralism

he role of cooperative and social enterprises in contemporary market economies has been downplayed and marginalised to date by the dominant economic approaches. This insufficient attention (Kalmi, 2008 su Cambridge Journal of Economics) derives from the limited applicability of the main assumptions of microeconomic to the case of cooperative and social enterprises. We mainly refer to models. the assumption of self-seeking individuals and of profit maximisation as the only possible firm objective. The mismatch between theoretical assumptions and empirical evidence has led to the underestimation of the growth potential, weight and role of cooperative and social enterprises. We maintain that the improvement of the scientific understanding of cooperative and social enterprises requires to enlarge and deepen the assumption of the relevant theoretical models. Individuals cannot be characterised any more as purely self-interested. Instead, the importance of motivational complexity, and the diverse nature of preferences needs to be introduced in the model as suggested by the behavioural approach. Furthermore, firms cannot be interpreted any more in an exclusive way as profit maximizers. They are instead coordination mechanisms of the economic activity, as suggested by the evolutionary approach. To this end they develop specific organisational routines, and their objectives can be diverse, ranging from purely private appropriation, to mutual benefit based on reciprocity, to public benefit aim supported by other-regarding preferences. (Le teorie economiche dominanti, ed in particolare li?½approccio ortodosso e quello neo-istituzionalista, hanno sottostimato e marginalizzato il ruolo delle cooperative e delle imprese sociali nei mercati economici contemporanei. Li?½insufficiente attenzione a queste organizzazioni deriva principalmente dalli?½impossibiliti?½ di applicare ad esse le assunzioni principali della teoria microeconomica ortodossa, ossia la presenza di individui auto-interessati e di organizzazioni che puntino solo alla massimizzazione del profitto. Anche la teoria neo-istituzionalista non riesce a spiegare la presenza e la crescita del ruolo ricoperto da cooperative e imprese sociali. Per questa ragione, il presente paper i?½ volto a dimostrare come, per spiegare il ruolo di cooperative ed imprese sociali da un punto di vista scientifico, i principali modelli teorici economici debbano essere estesi. Innanzitutto, tanto gli individui quanto le istituzioni non possono essere pii?½ assunti come soggetti meramente egoistici, ma ne vanno studiate la complessiti?½ motivazionale e le strutture di preferenze, cosi?½ come proposto dalla teoria comportamentale (behavioural economics). Inoltre, le imprese devono essere concepite come meccanismi di coordinamento delle attiviti?½ economiche, come suggerito dalli?½approccio evoluzionista, e devono quindi esserne analizzate le specifiche routine organizzative sviluppate al loro interno e gli obiettivi organizzativi, i quali possono variare tra gli interessi di appropriazione privata dei profitti ed obiettivi pro-sociali sostenuti da preferenze altruistiche.

Incentives, Job Satisfaction and Performance: Empirical Evidence in Italian Social Enterprises

The paper offers a contribution to the understanding of the relations between incentives, satisfaction and performance of employees in social enterprises. It starts by criticizing the general hypotheses of the principal-agent theory and especially that employee satisfaction is determined exclusively by the level of salary received. These criticisms are explained both by looking to the organizational definition of job satisfaction by Locke and by taking a behavioural economics perspective. Job satisfaction is thus assumed to derive from a composed mix of incentives received on the job, equity perceived and employee motivations. It is no longer possible to assume that the wage is the sole (not even the most important) variable influencing worker performance. This claim is especially valid in social enterprises, where worker performance is difficult to monitor and evaluate, while high intrinsic motivations can better explain job satisfaction. The empirical analysis helps to shed light on the determinants of job satisfaction and individual performance. Data was collected on 4,134 employees working in 320 Italian social cooperatives. The paper introduces the methodologies of categorical principal components analysis, factor analysis, and Rasch models to group the items of intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction, motivations and fairness. The data was then analysed by means of linear regression where the dependent variables are not only the stated degree of job satisfaction, but also satisfaction with extrinsic and intrinsic aspects of the job. The models come to demonstrate the particular relevance of employee motivations and fairness perceived in explaining job satisfaction and its sub-dimensions. Furthermore, organizational perceptions and the work environment are found to be significant as are individual perceptions and motivations.

The Growth of Organizational Variety in Market Economies: The Case of Social Enterprises

Institutional and organizational variety is increasingly characterising advanced economic systems. While traditional economic theories have focussed almost exclusively on profit-maximizing (i.e. for-profit) enterprises and on publicly-owned organizations, the increasing relevance of non-profit organizations, and especially of social enterprises, requires scientists to reflect on a new comprehensive economic approach for explaining this organizational variety. The paper examines the main limitations of the orthodox and institutional theories and comes to assert the need for creating and testing a new theoretical framework, which considers the way in which diverse enterprises pursue their goals, the diverse motivations driving actors and organizations, and the different learning patterns and routines within organizations. The new framework of analysis proposed in the paper draws upon recent developments in the theories of the firm, institutional evolution, and motivational complexity to explain the presence of diverse types of organizations on a continuum ranging from purely for-profit and commercial forms to socially-oriented entrepreneurial ones.

Testing the Distributive Effects of Social Enterprises: The Case of Italy

The debate on social enterprises has been stimulated by their spontaneous and haphazard emergence in many niches of activity and in various countries. Their initial appearance was driven by initiatives undertaken within civil society by social activists. The specialized literature has accordingly studied this new category of firms in a rather narrow way, whereas it may be more important to determine its general economic features. Different streams of analysis underline different advantages and disadvantages of social enterprises, mainly linking them to the literature on non-profit organizations. But they do so haphazardly, without a clear and comprehensive framework. The main contributions (Anheier and Ben-Ner 2003; Borzaga and Defourny 2001) have been based on industry studies, and on some specific features and types of social enterprises. Legislation has followed the same route by focusing on specific activities and organizational types. An example is the law on social cooperatives in Italy aimed at the regulation of social services and work integration, as well as the regulation of fair trade and micro-finance in various countries, etc.1

Perceived Fairness and Worker Well-Being in Public, For-Profit and NonProfit Firms: Evidence from the Italian Social Service Sector

This essay analyses the links between workers’ fairness concerns and job satisfaction in different ownership and organizational forms of the Italian social service sector. Social cooperatives emerge as the organizational form that sustains best the perception of procedural fairness. On the other hand, the public sector shows the most serious weaknesses. A clear difference emerges between the public and the private sector in general, with the former at a disadvantage. Given the very significant role of procedural fairness in influencing job satisfaction, social cooperatives turn out as an innovative and successful organizational form, at least as far as labour relations are concerned, the difficulties in retaining their more educated and skilled workforce notwithstanding.

The Social Value of Multi-stakeholder Co-operatives: The Case of the CEFF System in Italy

The scope of this chapter is to provide an illustration of how social co-operatives can consistently pursue their social mission whilst retaining economic sustainability. We rely on case study analysis of an Italian social co-operative. Since 1991 social co-operatives have been conceived in the Italian legislation as mutual-benefit entrepreneurial organisations with a social character. The social objective was nested into the mutualistic structure, while the multi-stakeholder governance and the accumulation of socialized assets made the social co-operative similar to more traditional non-profit forms.

Do Cooperative Enterprises Create Social Trust

This paper contributes to the literature by carrying out the first empirical investigation into the role of different types of enterprises in the creation of social trust. Drawing on a unique dataset collected through the administration of a questionnaire to a representative sample of the population of the Italian Province of Trento in March 2011, we find that cooperatives are the only type of enterprise where the work environment fosters the social trust of workers.

Self-financing in Labor-managed Firms (LMFs): Individual Capital Accounts and Bonds

The literature on labor-managed firms identifies the source of under-capitalization in the Furubotn–Pejovich effect. Appropriable capital accounts can counteract the horizon problem, but they engender little-examined problems connected with the distribution, reinvestment, and reimbursement of net surpluses. This paper proposes that the introduction of cooperative bonds would provide a better match between the horizons of members and their firms. However, bonds generate risks of their own due to capital variability, thus requiring the imposition of various constraints and the retention of appropriate levels of collective reserves. Finally, a hierarchy of liabilities is proposed to protect parties who undergo information disadvantages.

Creativity and Institution Building: The Case of Italian Social Cooperatives

This innovative book offers a critical perspective on the state of the current global economy, making sense of knowledge-related issues by critically assessing existing institutional choices, as well as pointing to new ways forward.