Marco Guerci

Training Evaluation in Italian Corporate Universities: A Stakeholder-Based Analysis

Corporate universities have emerged as a mechanism for providing companies with a wide variety of training and development activities. They are a recent but under-researched phenomenon, and given their substantial budgets, it might be expected that they would wish to evaluate what they do. The authors explore the evaluation practices of six Italian corporate universities, paying particular attention to the means by which these practices are tailored to the needs of the various stakeholders. Stakeholder-based evaluation provides the theoretical framework for the study. The literature suggests that much evaluation of training focuses on a single stakeholder, the shareholder, and that practice draws heavily on Kirkpatricks hierarchical model. In the context of the corporate university, however, the authors find that multi-stakeholder evaluation is used in practice. Moreover, various aspects of corporate university performance were evaluated, and data were supplied to stakeholders depending on the nature of their involvement. Stakeholder-based evaluation is argued to be a useful framework where there are a number of stakeholders, but training evaluation models other than the hierarchical one are needed if all relevant training factors are to be evaluated. The implications for research and practice are discussed.

Talent management practices in Italy – implications for human resource development

Many companies have implemented talent management systems in recent years, and the issue has lately been subject to the attention of scientific literature, from different theoretical perspectives. In particular, HRD literature advanced few critical perspectives on talent management, discussing its real impact on HRD practices. This article reports the results from case studies on four Italian companies, focusing the managerial practices they implemented for managing talent. The results show that, in the Italian context, talent is managed for very different organizational objectives, with the general aim to foster a segmented approach to the workforce and to commit top and line managers to HRD activities. The results are compared with existing literature, and both implications for HRD practice and HRD theory are highlighted.

A paradox view on green human resource management: insights from the Italian context

Paradox – understood as a set of contradictory and incompatible poles all supported by apparently sound arguments – is considered to be a key element in modern organizations. As a result, paradox scholars argue that successful managers are those able to accept the tensions arising from the paradox and able to pursue all its constitutive poles simultaneously instead of choosing only one of them. Paradox theory has been recently applied to corporate sustainability, and it is a theoretical approach that has been endorsed by influential authors also in the human resource management (HRM) field. In this context, this paper takes the still unexplored opportunity to apply paradox theory to green HRM. In particular, it explores the HRM-related paradoxes perceived by organizations developing environmental sustainability via HRM. Adopting a comparative multiple case study approach, semi-structured interviews and document analysis were conducted in six Italian companies explicitly pursuing an environmental strategy. The findings encompass the main characteristics of the green HRM systems of the organizations analyzed, and a list is provided of eight HRM-related paradoxes perceived by those organizations. For each paradox, we present and discuss its contrasting poles and the components of the HRM system that it affects. The implications of the findings for both green HRM research and practice are presented and discussed.

Organizational learning mechanisms and creative climate : insights from an Italian fashion design company

This paper investigates the relationship between different types of organizational learning mechanisms and creative climate. In the context of an action research study, this paper focuses on insights from a survey that was administered to all the employees of the Product Design and Development unit of the company. The results demonstrate that the three different types of organizational learning mechanisms considered in the study (cognitive, structural and procedural mechanisms) are associated with creative climate. The study generates new scientific knowledge about the role of organizational learning mechanisms and provides specific recommendations for organizations that aim to enhance creative climate.

Leading transformation in a family-owned business: insights from an Italian company

The increasing volatility of the global economy, coupled with the pace of technological innovation, presents new challenges for family-owned businesses. The complex business dynamics and business inertia of family-owned business require a comprehensive perspective when developing the capability to manage transformations in the face of a business context such as this. This article draws on literature from the field of organisational change and development, organisational behaviour and family business, and proposes an integrative framework. The study is embedded in a collaborative research project with an Italian fashion design company, and portrays a five-year transformation process, starting with the familys decision to hire an external CEO for the first time in its hundred-year history. What has been learned from the case serves as the foundation for a further advancement of the proposed process-model for the management of a transformation in a family-owned business. The implications for research and practice are discussed.

Green and nongreen recruitment practices for attracting job applicants: exploring independent and interactive effects

The study is based on the reactions of a sample of Italian graduate students to the websites of seven companies operating in Italy. It addresses two specific issues in the literature about green recruiting practices, namely (1) the distinct and direct effects of green recruiting practices on attracting applicants, and (2) the interactive effect of ‘green’ and ‘nongreen’ recruitment practices on attracting applicants. With regard to the first issue, the study compares the effects on attracting applicants of two green recruitment practices, that is, the green reputation of a company, and the amount of information provided on the recruitment website about the companys environmental policies and practices. With regard to the second issue, the study examines the substitution effect on attracting applicants between the two green recruitment practices, and additive effects on attracting applicants between them and two nongreen recruitment practices (i.e., company reputation, and the amount of company and job information provided by the company recruitment website). In terms of direct effects, the findings support the impact of a green reputation on attracting applicants, but no impact of information on the recruitment website about company environmental policies and practices. In terms of interactive effects, the findings do not confirm the substitution effects between green recruitment practices, but indicate additive effects between green and nongreen recruitment practices. Overall, the article extends knowledge on green recruitment by contributing to the literature on organizational reputation, and the literature on interactive effects among human resource practices. The implications of these two extensions of knowledge for human resource management research and practice are discussed.

Stakeholder involvement in Human Resource Management practices: Evidence from Italy **

The increasing reference to stakeholder theory in the Human Resource Management (HRM) literature advocates the integration of a wide set of stakeholders for managerial, ethical and analytical reasons. This paper contributes to the advancement of stakeholder-oriented HRM by exploring how Italian human resource (HR) managers perceive the actual involvement levels of eleven internal and external stakeholders, and their views on how to improve them. Data were collected from a survey and ensuing focus group discussions. The survey gauged the extent to which different stakeholders are involved in designing various HR processes, while the focus groups explored what actions can be taken to foster a stakeholder orientation in HRM. The two phases of the study involved 30 HR managers from Italian companies with the highest capitalization on the Milan stock exchange; in total, the companies involved had more than 750,000 employees. The discussion of the findings is followed by identification of specific directions for future research.

A Stakeholder Perspective for Sustainable HRM

Sustainability and stakeholder theory and management are two interrelated topics, because stakeholder’s claims impact on the social, environmental, and economic performances of the organization. Indeed, a cooperative relation between the company and its stakeholders can trigger the development of the company sustainability. Within this perspective, the chapter explores Sustainable HRM from a stakeholder perspective. As a result, some knowledge gaps are highlighted and a research agenda composed of theoretical, managerial and methodological dimensions is advanced and discussed.

Between continuity and change: CSR managers’ occupational rhetorics

Purpose Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is often depicted as a major challenge to current business practices, and CSR managers have recently been indicated as prime examples of change agents. The purpose of this paper is to take an occupational perspective to consider these managers. It focuses in particular on their occupational rhetorics, which correspond to idealized images that CSR managers use to represent their work. These rhetorics are analyzed in order to shed light on CSR managers’ change potential in organizations. Design/methodology/approach The study, which benefits from collaboration with the Italian CSR Manager Network, draws on a multi-method research approach which included interviews, observations at public events and meetings, as well as focus groups with CSR managers. Findings Five broad rhetorical repertoires were identified: “the motor of change,” “the business-oriented,” “the fatalist,” “the idealist” and “the CSR bookkeeper” rhetorics. The primacy of the first two repertoires lead to the conclusion that CSR managers are more likely to foster continuity instead of change in current business practices. Research limitations/implications The study is mainly based on interview data and could therefore be extended by ethnographic investigations of CSR managers’ work or by observations of CSR managers’ language use in their everyday work. Originality/value The study is part of a growing empirical literature that investigates the role of individual actors in developing and implementing CSR in organizations and, in particular, the role of CSR practitioners. It contributes to the development of the literature on CSR-driven change within business organizations.

How are professionals recruited by external agents in misconduct projects? The infiltration of organized crime in a university:

Private firms, crime organizations or states may successfully recruit professionals in misconduct projects. How they do so remains, however, under-investigated. Past studies mostly take professionals’ perspective, or limit the organizational initiative of external agents to perverse incentives and threats. Our study shows instead how external agents may penetrate governance bodies and professional events to recruit and control professionals, who are both aware of and reluctant toward misconduct. Our longitudinal case study used judicial and non-judicial sources to analyse how a mafia clan infiltrated Troy University, and controlled the trade of exams and admissions for decades. The clan selected Troy University because of the presence of professors pre-disposed toward misconduct. The clan infiltrated the pre-disposed professors inside governance bodies and students inside academic events to recruit the reluctant professors with peer pressures, situated threats and administrative controls. It then exploited a generalized code of silence to control professionals for years. Overall, the study highlights the combination of perverse and pervasive mechanisms to recruit professionals; the role of corrupt professionals as linchpin between external agents and reluctant peers; and the perverse exploitation of normal professional practices of autonomy, trusteeship and multiple embeddedness.