Roberto Albano

Social Capital, Welfare State, and Political Legitimacy

In this article, the authors use the concept of negative social capital to address the contextual impact of micro mechanisms explaining political legitimacy. They first illustrate the effect of social capital with regard to its negative consequences. Then they select four countries, each one a case study of a different welfare regime, and measure the distribution of “time given helping others.” The helping behavior is interpreted as a credit slip in social capital vocabulary, and its effect on the confidence in democracy in different welfare regimes is measured. The research findings suggest that helping behavior in weaker welfare regimes has detrimental consequences for political legitimacy. The results are consistent both in a cross-country and in a within-country comparison.

DigitAgile: The Office in a Mobile Device. Threats and Opportunities for Workers and Companies

This chapter focuses on “smart working”, also known as “agile work”, which is work based on the intensive use of digital devices and increasing spatial and temporal “disembedding” from the formal organization. The chapter first examines the spread of the phenomenon at the international and national levels. Through a meta-analysis of existing qualitative and quantitative research, it then addresses the following research questions: Organizational autonomy, discretion, and control in the regulation of work. The relationship between digitalization, employment, and individual and organizational productivity. The reconciliation of work with extra-work life.

Handicap e inclusione sociale. Un esame della normativa italiana

The ideal of individual self-realisation, which has become one of the fundamental values of Western societies, is likely to generate a non-inclusive vision of the social system, if not coupled with a strong idea of social integration. An inclusive welfare state protects against this risk of a social-darwinistic vision of the social system. The critical examination of the Italian Law 104/1992 (and subsequent modifications), often referred to as a good example of inclusive normative, shows a latent conception of the social system as an entity demanding a “functional” adaptation of individuals with disabilities: e.g. people with disabilities have to prove their capabilities or acquire skills to enter tasks in “normal” work situations. Instead, the authors contend that work situations, as well as other life-situations, are always adaptable to the needs of well-being of the individuals.

Quanto è innovativa l’impresa virtuale?

Virtual Corporation means a network of independent enterprises that, by using ICT, temporarily share their distinctive capabilities, until they have reached a well-defined goal. Most of the theories on V.C. consider this configuration as congruent with the progressive erosion of traditional organizational boundaries, which today is due in large part to globalization; it must be admitted, nevertheless, that actually, after more than 15 years from the first theorization, V.C. remain only a prototypal object of expensive research projects, but irrelevant at an economic level, also in the field of the new economy. In the book which is object of this critical note, F.M. Barbini – a young researcher in Management Science – analyzes V.C. from an original point of view, adopting the categories of the “Teoria dell’Agire Organizzativo” (Theory of Organizational Action), developed by B. Maggi in the paradigm of the Simonian Bounded Rationality. Barbini offers a lot of useful reflections not only on the V.C. but on the organizations in general; reflections that are of great interest for the sociology too, e.g.: on inter-organizational cooperation and its regulation; relationship between organizational structure and technology; role of the social capital for the development of the enterprises. The main thesis is that V.C. is a potentially innovative configuration; compared with other forms of organizational network it is more dynamic and flexible: therefore, it could fit better situations of high variability and uncertainty. However, the potential of innovation is not automatically derived from the adoption of new management techniques or ICT: it is fundamental that the partners manage and exchange information in a developed way. To this end, it is important the construction of a trustworthy climate among the partners: Barbini considers of fundamental importance to resort to prearranged trade agreements, to guarantee the certainty of the sanctions against unreliable behaviors. From a sociological point of view, this argument seems to be a weak point in his analysis. We suggest that trade agreements are necessary but not sufficient to create trustworthiness; it could be useful to enact formal reputation systems, based on indicators of activity and partners, certifications, circle of trust and other means developed and used, for example, in attesting CSR

È possibile una concezione antropocentrica dei grandi sistemi tecnici

1. Capita talvolta di fronte alla semplice vista di un aereo in volo, di provare un senso di stupore per la complessita e l’eleganza di questo grande oggetto costruito dall’uomo. Alcuni poi, i piu inclini alla speculazione, non fermano solo l’attenzione sull’aereo in se, ma provano ad immaginare il quadro, dai contorni molto imprecisi, dell’intero sistema che permette non ad uno ma a migliaia di quegli oggetti di percorrere quotidianamente uno spazio che costo caro ad Icaro e Dedalo. Lo stess...

Atteggiamenti dei giovani verso gli stranieri nella Germania riunificata

Since a long time, the public debate about xenophobia in Germany is supported by a lot of empirical researches and theoretical reflections. This debate has gained a renewed interest just after the reunification, because of the escalation of violence against foreigners, whose protagonists are mostly young people. In the present article, through a secondary analysis of survey data, some dimensions of xenophobic attitudes of young German people are described; a typology is used to compare young people of East and West Germany. It emerges from the analysis that hostility against foreigners is not an exclusive of right-wing extremists in both sides of the Country. The higher level of hostility against foreigners in East Germany is probably contingent, bounded to the widespread climate of uncertainty among the population in the first years after the reunification. Nevertheless, some symptoms of a nationalistic revival are present, especially in East Germany, where it seems to be a response to the speedy dissolution of old social identities