Stefano Solari

The good company

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the argument that in principle any company can become a good company by adopting certain characteristics which define the good in enterprise affairs and affirm and reinforce everyone with a stake in the company – managers, workers, suppliers, customers, and communities where it operates – in addition to its owners.Design/methodology/approach – To identify the characteristics of the good company the paper turns to Catholic social teaching, with its traditional emphasis on the importance of practising virtue in worldly affairs. In this regard, the paper relies heavily on the writings and public statements of Pope John Paul II, who addressed these matters with great clarity and insight.Findings – In its research the paper finds eight characteristics by which the good company can be identified and which, if embraced by the leadership of a willing and committed enterprise, can help to transform it into a good company. Each of the eight is addressed in some deta...

Banks as Continuous Reinvention

While one can sympathise with . . . (the bank branch) manager who realised some time around the year 1980 that his world was disappearing, his position was not sustainable in a business which was increasingly driven by sales targets and capital returns. Things had to change. Banking had to rediscover itself: how it worked, the sort of people it needed to employ, how it intended to serve its customers.

The peripheralization of Southern European capitalism within the EMU

ABSTRACT The paper discusses the problem of the Southern European (SE) capitalism and its difficult path into the EMU (European Monetary Union), looking at the remote causes of the crisis that hit these economies. For this reason, we consider European countries as a set of asymmetrically integrated variety of capitalism. The institutional configuration chosen by Europe to aggregate the many varieties of capitalism not only reduced the political autonomy of the single states, but effectively hindered the specific coordination mechanism of Southern European (SE) capitalism which was importantly based on state intervention as a structural element and on inflationary policies. Despite the deep market-oriented reforms this change caused both structural and macroeconomic unbalances. The aim of the paper is to integrate some principles of the variety of capitalism and the dynamics of institutional change with some insights inspired by the work of Arrighi to supply a synthetic and ‘alternative’ perspective on the difficult role that Southern countries are experiencing in Europe.

Behavioural rules in industrial districts: loyalty, trust, and reputation

The already wide literature on local systems and, in particular, that on industrial districts, has highlighted the role of reputation and trust in the competitiveness of these organizational forms compared to Fordist organization. The work of Becattini (1990), Bellandi (1987), Dei Ottati (1994a, 1994b) can be interpreted in this sense and a similar point is made by Sako (1998; p. 23). Reputation and trust are important parts of what Storper (1997) callsuntraded interdependenciesand of the relational factors of local competitive advantage considered by Amin (1998). Many sociologists and economists utilize the term “trust” in an intuitive way. The common-sense semantics of this term let us conceive a positive relational attitude opposed to distrust. We believe that the concept of trust should be defined in an operational way, as an expectation concerning the convergence between the promised and effective behaviour of an agent. In this paper, the interaction of behavioural rules, reputation, loyalty, and trust will be examined as being framed by a system of norms in the context of industrial districts. Once we have outlined the features of the Marshallian industrial district, we will define the main interacting concepts showing their interdependency.

Flexible Specialisation 20 Years On: How the 'Good' Industrial Districts in Italy Have Lost Their Momentum

Twenty-two years ago, Piore and Sabel (1984) identified a ‘second industrial divide’. The aim of this paper is to propose some reflections, starting from that work, on the interaction between industrial organisation and institutional configurations as it has evolved in Italy in the form of ‘industrial districts’ or ‘regional clusters’. Given that Piore and Sabel proposed a necessary change in institutions, our concern is whether the flexible specialisation model, characterising industrial districts and regional clusters, really requires institutions to have less of a stabilising effect. Contrary to Piore and Sabel, we suggest that such systems do not benefit from a general deregulation and from a substantial rise in uncertainty due to the demise of stabilising institutions.

From the Southern-European model to nowhere: the evolution of Italian capitalism, 1976–2011

Before the 1980s Italy had the typical institutional configuration of Southern European capitalism: an important role for the state in controlling production activities and markets; limited social security; and high employment protection. In the last 30 years, Italian capitalism underwent a process of institutional change moving away from this configuration. The deepest reforms occurred in the 1990s and aimed to achieve a more market-oriented economy to cope with European market integration. Reforms, however, did not succeed in moving the economy towards a ‘liberal market economy’: they simply increased laissez-faire without achieving better co-ordination through markets, leaving Italy with an inefficient model.

The corporative third way in Social Catholicism (1830 to 1918)

Abstract Social Catholicism opposed individualistic conceptions of society in favour of an order of associative institutions fostering a communality of interests between those involved in production processes. As a consequence, guilds were idealised and their model transposed in different ways to the industrial society of the nineteenth century. This paper discusses the different streams of Social Catholicism and the theoretical roots of corporatism in natural law. It will discuss how the idea of a ‘corporative order’ is more grounded in German corporative law than in Neo-Thomism.

Decentralisation of Competencies and Local Development Agencies in North-Eastern Italy

Despite the economic success of north-eastern Italy, some of its areas, such as those closest to the Adriatic coast, are still experiencing difficulties in industrialisation. Since the 1960s, some development policies have been implemented to stimulate economic restructuring. After the disappointing performance of centrally planned initiatives, most development policies are now the responsibility of local authorities. In fact, institutional and constitutional reforms have increased the competencies and the autonomy of lower levels of government, which have also been allowed greater responsibility in development initiatives. The establishment of development agencies is therefore increasingly left to local collective action.1 This paper examines the effectiveness of such bottom-up initiatives driven by local institutions, and attempts to identify the best forms and the best regulatory framework for such activities.

Territorial Rooting as an Element of Well-Being

The paper discusses the relevance of the idea of rooting as proposed by Simone Weil and builds a social economic framework to study its role in our life. Rooting is connected to the need of belonging and to have an identity. These elements are identified in some different areas of research—social psychology and social economy—to analyze how this need of the person is taken into account. Then, a theoretical framework to study rooting is presented developing the concept of plural utility and capabilities. The end is to discuss one of the neglected dimensions of human needs in the context of modern society. Finally, some conclusion concerning both individual choices related to rooting and well-being will be proposed.

Natural law as inspiration to Adolph Wagner's theory of public intervention

Abstract Adolph Wagner is best known for his principle regarding the increase of state intervention into the economy. Such a principle is characterised by an ‘ethical economy’ perspective, incorporating some original ideas based on the relationship between the law and political economy. Wagners theory sought to legitimise state intervention and progressive taxation by referring to both a broad Aristotelianism and a specific philosophy of law derived from Krausian natural law. This paper analyses and compares how this idea of the law affects Wagners theorisation of state–economy interaction and his insights into public economics.