Piero Mella

Corporate Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A necessary choice

The study aims to show how assuming corporate social responsibility should not be considered a cost to bear as an economic social actor but an investment that will contribute to the competitiveness and growth of the firm.The work is based on two models:- the first, by Mella (Mella, 1997 Ch. 2; 2002), provides the conceptual framework that brings together the functional, vital, instrumental and cognitive processes of the firm conceived of as a permanent organization that developed these processes in an environment that conditions or favours its long-term vitality;- the second, by Molteni (2004) – which has a similar framework as Mella (2004) – involves an exercise of System Thinking that presents a structural map of the system of variables that show how investments in CSR produce long-term positive economic performance.The synergy between social responsibility and economic efficiency is not automatic; rather it is the result of efforts that combine managerial professionalism and business creativity for the purpose of business growth that also takes into account the social groups. In this sense it is important to consider the conditions for the effectiveness of CSR actions in creating a positive feedback that can produce ever greater economic and social-environmental results.

From Values to "Value" From the Creation of the Value of Firms to Sustainable Growth

[Mella, par. 1-4] Strictly speaking, firms are considered as systems for the creation of economic and financial value for their shareholders, and their performance – profit and the value of capital – is measured by a coherent system of monetary values. Nevertheless, if we do not limit our view to simply the shareholders but consider instead a vast group of stakeholders, we must then also broaden our notion of the production of sustainable value in order to include both the social value and the environmental value. Thus a firm must set a system of objectives for itself which is centered on its sustainable growth, and must therefore tend toward a multi-dimensional growth that encompasses the economic, social and environmental dimensions. [Gazzola, par. 5-10] This implies an intense social action based on transparency, the management of its reputation, a dialogue with the stakeholders, research and development, and knowledge management, all of which require adequate communication instruments. On the basis of this, our work takes up the traditional idea of the social balance as an instrument for social interaction and social cost/benefit analysis in order to show that such an instrument can describe, comment on and sum up the firm’s own behaviour aimed at sustainable growth. In this sense the social balance, as far as it certifies the ethical profile of the firm, legitimizes the latter’s social and environmental role, not only in structural terms but above all moral ones, in the eyes of the community of reference, emphasizes the link between firm and territory, and affirms the concept of the firm as an entity that, by pursuing its own prevailing interests, contributes to improving the quality of life of the members of the society in which it operates and that can, in all respects, represent a means for the creation of sustainable value.

Business and non-Business Value Creating Organizations in the “Information and Internet Age”.

This study seeks to present a theoretical framework to analyse the influence of Web-Based Information Technologies (WBITs) on the efficiency of the production organization, as revealed by the latter’s economic and financial performance. Accepting the assumption that the activity for the production of value is carried out by permanent organizations, I propose several basic definitions to show how production organizations can be considered as autopoietic systems which are coupled to the environment, as well as teleonomic systems that can continue to exist only as long as their performance as systems for the production of value is appreciated by the environment. The preceding definitions and models permit us to examine how the Web-Based Information Technologies (WBITs) can integrate the structure of the production-oriented organizations, considered as cognitive systems, by strengthening the forms by which they realize their structural coupling with the environment by developing their Learning Management Capabilities and their autopoiesis.In particular, the WBITs influence the structural coupling of the organization as well as its cognitive activity. To develop knowledge, the organization and its management – with the use of groupware technologies, business intelligence and analytical applications – must undertake a process of collective learning, thereby transforming itself into a learning organization and a learning management.On the basis of the previous considerations we can make some general comments about the process of change that is so vast and sudden as that produced by the spread of the WBITs.

The Production Kosmos

It does indeed seem there is a Ghost in the “Production” Machine, whose invisible hand produces growing levels of productivity and quality, increases the quality and quantity of satisfied needs and aspirations and reduces the burden of work, thus producing increasingly higher levels of progress in the entire Kosmos.

Endogenous Innovation. When Inner Organizational Dynamics Afford and Constrain Change

Abstract We live in a world of inexorable change, where the network of economic, political and social processes that form the social and economic system is continually being redesigned. Not only do the cultural bases of the individuals and the cultures of the organizations change, but the organizations also evolve through modification and innovation of their structures, processes and output, in the attempt to loosen the old restraints while setting new objectives and rewriting the programmes for their achievement. Innovating for change represents the natural approach for dealing with such a dynamic environment made of individuals, social systems and organizations.This paper addresses the endogenous underpinnings of innovation, studying organizational routines as they account for a large share of organizational work and as such provide a relevant source for stability and change.Major stream of literature, while applying a practice perspective, focus on the internal dynamic of one organizational routine. It is argued that routines are conceived as constituted of an ostensive and a performativedimension whose mutual constitutive influence is a source of stability andchange, giving rise to variation (innovation from the inner part) or selective retention of the organizational routine. This paper aims to extend the available existing theory, embracing a typical systemic approach, and proposes that innovation involves accounts for stability and change of an organization, as made of more than the sum of the single organizational internal dynamics of routines.Particularly, the paper develops the idea of systems of organizational interconnected routines in order to explore how the participation of the same actor and/or action in the iteration of more than one organizational routine determines an interconnection, and dynamisms, among the respective organizational routines. The provided analysis reveals that actors inside organizations engage in continuous performance (action) and interpretation of actions. We discuss the propagation of an internal dynamic generated in one organizational routine into the iteration of another, interconnected organizational routine. The results highlight the importance of understanding the interconnection of organizational routines for studying and explaining endogenous sources of innovation in organizations. Overall the paper not only intends to create awareness for the explanatory potential involved in the idea of extending the theory of organizational routines from focusing on one organizational routine to considering whole systems of interconnected organizational routines and particularly the dynamics therein, but also to generate novelty in the field of innovation and change management.

Systems Thinking Applied to Problem Solving: System Levers

Systems Thinking warns us that a problem must not be identified with the evident symptoms, proposing the following general rule: we must not limit ourselves to viewing problems as undesired symptoms of immediate causes to discover and eliminate (symptomatic solution) but as the undesired effects of the functioning of some system that must be recognized, specified and controlled (definitive solution).

The Capitalistic Firm as a System that Produces Economic and Social Values

The aim of the paper is to analyse the capitalistic firm, not only as systems for the creation of economic and financial value for their shareholders, but also that is evaluated for the social values. The financial performance and the value of capital, is measured by a coherent system of monetary values. Nevertheless, if we do not limit our view to simply the shareholders but consider instead the stakeholders, we must then also broaden our notion of the production of sustainable value to include both the social and the environmental values. This implies an intense social action based on transparency, reputation and the dialogue with the stakeholders that need to be communicates. The sustainability report is the instrument to inform the stakeholders how the firm, by pursuing its own prevailing interests, contributes to improving the quality of life of the members of the society in which it operates and that can, in all respects, represent a means for the creation of sustainable value.

Improving Managers' Intelligence Through Systems Thinking

Accepting the assumption that our intelligence depends on the ability to construct models which may allow us to acquire, update and transmit our knowledge, this paper aims to highlight the role of Systems Thinking in developing the “intelligence” of managers for all types and sizes of organization.,Four relevant contributions for improving the “intelligence” of managers will be examined: the ability to understand and model dynamic systems, the structure of Control Systems, the rules of the decision-making process and the identification of systems archetypes.,The paper will show that Systems Thinking, through the logic of Control Systems, offers managers a comprehensive representation of the problem-solving and decision-making processes, teaching them how to distinguish problems from symptoms and to acquire a leverage effect. Additionally, Senge’s system archetypes will be presented and new archetypes will be added to Senge’s list.,The viability of every organization and its effective resilience and survival make it more than ever necessary for managers to adopt Systems Thinking, not only as a technique but also primarily as a discipline for efficient and effective thinking, learning, communication and explanation with regard to the dynamics of the world.,The message of the paper is that by continually applying the rules and language of Systems Thinking, managers develop the capability to continually adapt their models to the dynamics of the world, increase their learning capacity and better gauge their consequent judgments, decisions and behavior, thereby removing the mental impediments to intelligence (inappropriate mental models, defensive routines, judgmental biases, rules, etc.).

Corporate social responsibility through stakeholder engagement and entrepreneurial communication processes

The present work, after having built a model for understanding how multinational corporations act and behave both at the national and international level in the fields of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development, will then present how large multinational enterprises react to the increasing pressures from stakeholders to report their corporate social responsibility at the global level. This paper will then draw conclusions about how enterprises integrate ethical values and stakeholder engagement in the strategy. The article is divided into two sections: the first entails a critical review of the literature on shareholder and stakeholder management, corporate social responsibility and stakeholder engagement; the second presents a critical analysis of the corporate social responsibility reporting of five big multinational competitors in the challenging business of adhesive tapes.

The Theory of Combinatory Systems

We often observe phenomena, connected to the actions of collectivities or populations of individuals of some species, that seem to be caused by an invisible hand that guides the analogous actions of similar individuals in order to produce an emerging phenomenon that cannot be reduced to the simple sum of the effects deriving from individual behavior. These phenomena can be tied to a single interpretative scheme. In particular, the observable phenomena will be shown to be the result of the “combination” of individual micro actions that conform to a collective behavior that itself conditions individual behavior. The awareness of the existence of traits common to all the collective phenomena leads to the formulation of the Combinatory System Theory to explain the genesis and maintenance of these phenomena.