Primiano Di Nauta

Viable Service Systems and Decision Making in Service Management

This paper addresses decision making in the management of complex service systems, highlighting the contribution of the viable systems approach as an interpretative and governance methodology based on systems thinking. In the last few decades, business management has undergone significant changes due to rapid developments in markets. New competitive strategies and technologies have stimulated global discussion about business models and tools (Ghoshal, 2005). The role of relationships has become increasingly relevant in businesses, and researchers as well as industries are shifting their focus to a service-oriented approach, moving from a paradigm of product to one of service (IfM-IBM Cambridge SSME Report, 2008).

S-D Logic Research Directions and Opportunities: The Perspective of Systems, Complexity and Engineering

The need for a systems approach to modelling and understanding service is now well established (Barile, 2009; Barile and Polese, 2009; Golinelli, 2010; Ng et.al.,2011a). Following the construction of Maglio et al. (2009), we view a service system as a network of agents and interactions that integrate resources for value co-creation.To date, several disciplines have broached the systems view of service and the engineering of service systems. However, the agents of the system are usually people whose activities may not easily be controlled by predictable processes and yet are critical aspects of the value-creating system (Ng et al., 2011b). There is need for a new combinative paradigm, such as third-generation activity theory, in which two or more activity systems come into contact, to explore dialogue, exchanging perspectives of multiple actors, resulting in networks or groups of activity systems that are constantly interacting (Marken, 2006; Nardi, 1996; Oliveros et al., 2010).

Il rapporto impresa-territorio tra efficienza locale, efficacia di contesto e sostenibilità ambientale

Obiettivo del paper : Il paper propone un modello di rappresentazione del territorio come sistema dinamico di relazioni intersoggettive capace di garantire non solo l’efficienza dei processi interni all’organizzazione sviluppata, ma anche risultati efficaci nel contesto complessivo e un impatto sostenibile nell’ambiente piu esteso. Metodologia : Il contributo e sviluppato sulla base dell’Approccio Sistemico Vitale (ASV) sia come metodologia di indagine dei fenomeni sociali sia come metodologia di governo delle organizzazioni. Risultati : Attraverso l’impiego di concetti quali ‘rilevanza’, ‘consonanza’ e ‘risonanza’, l’approccio proposto conduce alla rappresentazione di un sistema territoriale vitale, capace di sopravvivere nel proprio contesto creando valore per i sovrasistemi di riferimento e determinando le condizioni per un equilibrio sostenibile. Limiti della ricerca : Il paper offre un framework teorico-concettuale che potra essere oggetto di studio e di ulteriori sviluppi anche attraverso l’analisi di casi reali e verifiche empiriche. Implicazioni pratiche : Lo schema generale proposto e adottabile, congiuntamente ai modelli manageriali consolidati, tanto dall’attore istituzionale, che vede il territorio nel suo complesso come sistema vitale, quanto dall’attore imprenditoriale, che vede nel territorio un fertile contesto di azione dal quale trarre e al quale offrire opportunita di sviluppo in un intreccio armonico di finalita e in un’ottica condivisa di sostenibilita. Originalita del lavoro : L’originalita del paper risiede nel proporre un modello di sintesi per uno sviluppo sinergico del territorio che catalizzi istanze aziendali, di contesto e ambientali, promuovendo la sostenibilita nei rapporti impresa-territorio. Parole chiave: rapporto impresa-territorio; approccio sistemico vitale; efficienza; efficacia; sostenibilita

Professionalization and Dissemination Processes for Project Management Practices: A Situationist Perspective

The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative interpretation for professionalization and dissemination processes for project management among those prevailing in literature. The considered perspective is that of the situationist, an epistemological option which moves from a critical conceptual framework to the hypothesis of strong rationality for individual and organizational choices. The perspective is enriched, on the one hand, thanks to the contributions of the neo-institutionalist strand and, on the other hand, by the theoretical tools developed in the rich array of cognitive study and phenomenological action and social life, as well as the analysis of the concept of power. The integration of these approaches allows the re-reading, the formation, the structuring, the change and the reconfiguration contexts of organized action (such as that of project management) as the product of two forces, complementary and mutually antagonistic action and institutionalization. Through the proposed lens, it is possible to frame the processes of professionalization and dissemination of project management practices focusing on the skein of both the material and symbolic constraints that the institutions have on human behavior [1]. The thesis is that, starting from the mid 1950s, originating from the Anglo-Saxon world, and due to the action of some institutional entrepreneurs, the construction of an organizational field, as the result of which the ‘practice’ project management began to be institutionalized, was undertaken. Subsequently, it has been spread triggering a process called ‘contagion of legitimacy’. In other words, according to the approach in question, the dynamics of professionalization and dissemination of project management practices, rather than being understood through the analysis of elements of technical rationality, should be somehow relocated to intrinsic processes of social legitimation and institutional processes known as isomorphism. The processes of professionalization and dissemination of project management practices, therefore, appear not so much and not only as an implementation technique, but as a complex web of interaction ritual, held together and stabilized not by sharing cultural values to which individuals have joined, but by way of reducing the uncertainty arising from practical knowledge of behavior deemed appropriate, pro tempore, in a context of organized action.