SEARCH RESULTS

After the reforms that involved the local public transport at the end of 90’s, a very important role - in terms of governance and performance rules - is played by local authorities (regions and municipalities), who define the efficiency tools to monitor the results (in a wide sense) of Local Public Transport (LPT) firms. Starting from the legal framework, this paper aims to analyse the performance measurement systems adopted in the investigated companies (LPT firms operating in Lombardy and Abruzzi) and to compare these systems with the set of performance indicators proposed both by academics and practitioners, according to an international perspective, of business management for the organizations operating in the sector. The results obtained suggests the presence of an ongoing reform process in which Italian LPT firms seem too far to able to "manage the performance". Even the same concept of performance seem vague, not adequately considered, and partially unknown. Hence, after the "legislative reform" we are still waiting for the "cultural reform".

In 1946, after five years as a prisoner of war - first as a Soviet Union in Nazi concentration camps, then as a deportee (falsely accused of treason) in Russia’s Arctic Gulag - 29-years-old Lev Miscenko unexpectedly received a letter from Sveta, the sweetheart he had hardly dared hope was still alive. Amazingly, over the next eight years the lovers managed to exchange more than 1200 letters, and even to smuggle Sveta herself into the camp for secret meetings. Their recently discovered correspondence is the only known real-time record of life in Stalin’s Gulag, unmediated and almost uncensored. In Just send me word the historian Orlando Figes took on the task of deciphering and editing it, discovering an impressive record not only of daily "routine" inside a Soviet labour camp, but also (through Sveta’s letters) a rare sense of Moscow everyday life in the hardest times of post-war Soviet reconstruction.

In recent years, thanks especially to historians close to the Institut d’histoire de la Revolution francaise and the Societe des etudes robespierristes, a new historiography on the French Revolution has emerged. It totally rejects the assumption, derived from the revisionism of François Furet and widespread at the academic level and in the media, that the Revolution is now a "cold object" that has nothing to say to the men of the twentieth and twenty-first century. On the contrary, globalization, with its contradictions, has rendered relevant again the term "revolution" and the need to reflect on how the revolutionaries of the late eighteenth century thought and acted. This takes place by promoting research attentive to global dynamics, and the long duration of the Revolution, and by expanding the topics analysed. Moreover, these historians are personally engaged in spreading the results of their research in schools and in society in general, using old and new media in order to influence the civic education of citizens.

Explores the relations between the black freedom struggle and the Cold War in American historiography. The essay proposes a reading of the so-called "cold war/civil rights" studies through two major currents. The first one examines the connections between Cold war politics and civil rights reforms in the United States during the Cold war; the second one analyzes the political interactions and the mutual ideological influence between several African-American activists and the Third world anti-colonial movements.

Is the portrait of an atypical intellectual. After a long career as a judge, and a spokesman of the Partito d’Azione in the Piedmontese Liberation Committee during the Resistance, Alessandro Galante Garrone became a university professor only at an advanced age. His is the best expression of a political culture - that of the Partito d’Azione - which took shape along with antifascism and remained alive in post-war Italy, transforming itself into an original historiographical approach. All Galante Garrone’s historical works are inspired by a strong civil passion, and devoted to personalities (Buonarroti, Romme, Cavallotti, Salvemini, Calamandrei) or those aspects of Italian and European history (Italian radicals, political exiles) that are notable for their spirit of freedom and independence.

One of the great sages of our times. An economist and a theorist of development, whose highly influential work in economics and politics in developing countries had a profound impact on international economic thought and practice, he was also a renowned social scientist whose studies of the intellectual underpinnings of economic policies and political democracy crossed disciplinary boundaries. Last but not least, he was a great letterato whose whole work, in the words of his biographer Jeremy Adelman, was «the practice of social science as literature». In this essay, the author who was a close friend of the Maestro, offers a combination of personal recollections and a "reading" of Hirschman’s life and thought through a prism of his persistent "beaming" optimism and his capacity for "trespassing" and "self-subversion".

In the past fifteen years, the fatal accident of 1956 in the Marcinelle mine has played a key role in the development of the public history and memories of Italian migrations. Promoted by the Italian government, the anniversary of August 8 became a national "patriotic" commemoration. The old mine became a memorial dedicated to Italian immigration in Belgium, to national manufacturing history and to occupational safety issues. Both the memorial and the hall specifically devoted to the tragedy of August 8 face the complexity and the contradictions of the related collective memories, affected by mass media representations, political activism and more in general the relationship between past and present.

One of the largest Catholic women’s organizations in the nineteenth century. Founded in 1850 in Lille by Louise Josson, the group quickly developed in Europe and all over the world, with its headquarters in Paris and Rome. The study sheds light on women’s crucial role in two different forms of Catholic counter-revolution: in Italy, the struggle against unification; in France, opposition to the secularization process. Key words: Catholic women, motherhood, counter-revolution, Theodore Ratisbonne, conversion

In the past two decades, much has been written about China’s status as the new «factory of the world». In particular, much emphasis has been placed on how global capitalism, with the connivance of the Chinese authorities, was able to exploit China’s workers, unleashing a global "race to the bottom" in labour standards. In such a context, the Chinese workers have usually been described as passive victims "under assault" by the forces of globalization. Recently, this narrative about Chinese labour has started to shift, replaced by a new discourse that focuses on the agency of migrant workers, allegedly undergoing a process of "rights awakening". Such a change in attitude was triggered by different contingent events: new macro-economic priorities of the central State, now trying to boost domestic consumption by improving workers’ salaries and welfare; a significant decrease in the pool of available migrant labour; the effect on workers’ consciousness of a series of strikes, mainly in foreign owned enterprises, which received wide press coverage. These developments call for a renewed reflection on the meaning of Chinese labour in the world after the global financial crisis. With such a goal in mind, Ivan Franceschini and Luigi Tomba have organized a discussion with four well-known experts and activists (Anita Chan, Pun Ngai, Jack Linchuan Qiu and Sun Wanning) with a deep knowledge of the Chinese labour movements, of its strategies and situation.

The death of Mandela consecrated his myth already created while he was alive. To think back over his life makes it possible to see the deep adhesion to the historical contexts and changes of his political strategies. The transition to democracy and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission still last as his major legacy. He wanted to build a collective memory where the entire society could mirror itself, but his successors have distorted his vision.

Le imprese grazie ai social media dispongono di nuovi strumenti - digitali e interattivi - per raggiungere il pubblico; i consumatori li utilizzano per condividere contenuti di vario genere, tra i quali: esperienze personali, opinioni e consigli che hanno per oggetto anche brand e prodotti. Non sorprende che il loro impiego nell’ambito della politica di marca sia sempre più diffuso. Tuttavia non è stato ancora adeguatamente investigato il modo attraverso il quale le molteplici "anime" dei social media (blog, forum, social network, ecc.) contribuiscono al successo delle marche emergenti o incrementano il valore di quelle già affermate. Questo lavoro, dopo una riflessione sul ruolo dei social media nella politica di marca, presenta alcune considerazioni basate sui risultati di un’impresa calzaturiera toscana che per promuovere i propri brand, accanto agli strumenti tradizionali, utilizza Facebook.

Il bambino rappresenta un soggetto sempre più coinvolto nelle scelte di acquisto delle famiglie. Il presente studio è stato sviluppato con l’obiettivo di esplorare quali elementi del prodotto influenzano maggiormente le preferenze dei più piccoli. A tal proposito è stato progettato uno studio sperimentale che ha coinvolto 173 bambini dai 7 agli 11 anni, divisi in 7 gruppi. I bambini dovevano selezionare alcune immagini di alimenti, diverse per confezione e marca, esprimendo le proprie preferenze; successivamente è stato chiesto loro di disegnare il loro packaging ideale di ortofrutta. È emerso che, in generale, i bambini sono influenzati più dalla marca che dalle caratteristiche estetiche del packaging, inoltre la confezione e i character non si sono mostrati determinanti per far apprezzare di più l’ortofrutta ai bambini.

Sebbene esista una ricchissima letteratura sulle piccole e medie imprese (PMI), pochi sono gli studi riguardanti gli aspetti di marketing e comunicazione di tale tipologia di imprese. Inoltre, quasi tutti questi contributi sono di natura teorica e concordi nel ritenere le PMI caratterizzate da una gestione del marketing mix quasi inesistente. Partendo da queste considerazioni iniziali, il presente paper intende: 1) contribuire ad arricchire la letteratura in materia con una ricerca cross-country Italia-Inghilterra; 2) evidenziare un’inversione di tendenza in atto. Da una visione d’insieme, infatti, emerge che le PMI intervistate, rispetto al passato, tendono ad utilizzare un più ampio spettro di attività di marketing e comunicazione, investendo molto di più in tale ambito. Tali attività risultano essere entrate nelle routine aziendali, con una crescente predisposizione agli investimenti nei riguardi dei new media e di internet. Esistono, comunque, delle differenziazioni evidenziate nella ricerca che riguardano i due campioni di imprese. A differenza dei precedenti studi, il paper si avvale di un’analisi comparativa tra imprese di nazionalità diversa e pertanto rappresenta una novità rispetto al passato e alle tradizionali metodologie adottate in precedenti studi in materia.

Il presente studio propone un’indagine qualitativa esplorativa, tramite 18 interviste in profondità, sul fenomeno della contraffazione allo scopo di indagarne gli effetti e di valutare le scelte strategiche, operative e organizzative adottate dalle imprese operanti nei settori dei fashion goods impegnate a contrastare il fenomeno a livello globale. Da un’attenta analisi della letteratura e dalle interviste condotte si riscontrano, nelle imprese, quattro fondamentali direttrici strategiche ed operative (in termini di protezione, cooperazione, prosecuzione ed in-formazione) e specifici assetti organizzativi (in termini di inquadramento della brand protection). La minaccia della contraffazione online, la questione cinese e l’enforcement legislativo risultano essere le principali sfide che queste affrontano, e dovranno affrontare, oggi e nel prossimo futuro.