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Article
Publication date: 11 May 2015

Rocco Scolozzi and Roberto Poli

– This paper aims to present an overview of deep issues flanking the ideas of system and complexity, and an overview of the mentioned course as a proposal for systems thinking.

1800

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present an overview of deep issues flanking the ideas of system and complexity, and an overview of the mentioned course as a proposal for systems thinking.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a discursive overview of systems and philosophical concepts related to the described course.

Findings

The review offers a perspective of a super-system that includes the students, the lecturers and the context of their interaction, in which one may recognize a relational framework for social learning of a systemic sustainability.

Research limitations/implications

The overview concerns only the actual intervention in the University of Trento.

Practical implications

The described concepts and related philosophical discussion may contribute to the integration of system thinking in the future studies.

Originality/value

The described intervention is a new Italian context and the integration of systems concepts with futures studies seems not to be commonly established.

Details

On the Horizon, vol. 23 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1074-8121

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Article
Publication date: 30 September 2014

Evelien B. Plijter, Theo J.M. van der Voordt and Roberto Rocco

– The purpose of this study is to provide a better insight into the role of national cultures on the management and design of workplaces of multinationals in different countries.

4612

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to provide a better insight into the role of national cultures on the management and design of workplaces of multinationals in different countries.

Design/methodology/approach

This explorative study is based on an extensive literature review of dimensions of a national culture in connection to corporate real estate management, interviews with ten representatives of multinationals on corporate real estate strategies and workplace characteristics and a multiple case study of two multinational firms with site visits and observations at offices in The Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain.

Findings

Whereas all interviewed companies had their real estate portfolio to some extent aligned to the local national culture, none had a strict central policy about this issue. Differences in workplace characteristics were mainly caused by the involvement of local people in workplace design. Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, the case studies showed relationships between masculinity of a culture and the expression of status and between uncertainty avoidance and openness to innovation; however, no relationships were found related to differences in power distance and short-/long-term orientation.

Research limitations/implications

The case studies were conducted in three European Union countries. Due to practical reasons, most interviewees were Dutch. Additional empirical research including more different national cultures is needed to advance more unequivocal conclusions and to develop a clear set of guidelines for decision-making.

Practical implications

The findings stress the importance of finding a balance between aligning facilities to business purposes and meeting the needs of different (groups of) employees in multinational environments.

Originality/value

Although much has been written about national culture, not much research is yet available in connection to facilities management and corporate real estate management.

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Article
Publication date: 1 December 2001

Martha Zarate

Looks at the first 100 years of Italian cinema examining its role in Italy’s recent history. Provides a bibliography of major film directors, Italian cinema sources, reference…

2928

Abstract

Looks at the first 100 years of Italian cinema examining its role in Italy’s recent history. Provides a bibliography of major film directors, Italian cinema sources, reference works, histories, themes, theory and criticism and articles in journals.

Details

Collection Building, vol. 20 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0160-4953

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Article
Publication date: 14 March 2016

Shervin Shahvi, Enrico Orsi, Roberto Canziani, Enrico Larcan and Gianfranco Becciu

The purpose of this paper is to study the transformation of some macropollutants including hydrocarbons, surfactants and metals in Milan west sewer basin. The study is part of a…

309

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the transformation of some macropollutants including hydrocarbons, surfactants and metals in Milan west sewer basin. The study is part of a wider research (named SWARMNET and proposed by Politecnico di Milano and Metropolitana Milanese S.p.A and has been classified as fundable by the Ministry of Education, University and Research of Italy), aiming at installing a monitoring system for measurement of accidental discharge of pollutants from industrial activities and real-time protection of the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) by avoiding dangerous discharges entering the sewers. Good effluent and waste sludge quality allow safe agricultural reuse of both streams. Other objectives include food safety, lower treatment costs and reduction of pollution of soil, surface and groundwater.

Design/methodology/approach

The west basin of Milan sewer network, discharging to San Rocco WWTP was considered. Among 700 industries, 16 have been selected for their specific characteristics and/or high industrial pollution load. A quality model was coupled with a hydraulic model to evaluate the effect of pollutants transport in the network.

Findings

Heavy metals, surfactants and hydrocarbons have different behavior from biodegradable domestic sewage and can be modeled as conservative matter conveyed by advection only. Results show that the concentration values of these macropollutants at the inlet of the WWTP are below the Italian standard values with the exception of Cadmium and Mercury. These heavy metals should be considered in the planned sampling campaign.

Originality/value

This study will estimate environmental benefits and both methodology and monitoring techniques can be extended to other cities in Italy and Europe.

Details

Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, vol. 27 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7835

Keywords

Abstract

This essay aims at retracing the intellectual and biographical events of the economist Gino Arias (1879–1940), examining more in detail the two seasons at the opposite ends of his life: the early one that saw him considerably committed to the Zionist cause and the one that, thirty years later, would force him to confront the racial laws of the Fascist regime.

Despite the seeming tragic continuity of these two phases, Arias’s case is a real historiographical paradox since, over the long span between the opposite ends of his biography, not only did he distance himself from the Zionist movement, but he also gradually laid the foundations for his upcoming and immediate dedication to Fascism; indeed, within the Fascist regime he would stand out as an authoritative and influential theorist of corporatism, the institutional solution Mussolini tried to exploit to organize the national economic life.

After carefully examining Arias’s early contributions to the Zionist cause (that include the establishment of the Florentine Zionist Group and that led him toward strongly nationalistic stances), this essay sums up Arias’s intellectual biography during the next years and then, thanks to unprecedented documents from the Italian Ministry of Interior, closely looks into his fate after his conversion to Catholicism in 1932 and up against the racial laws of 1938, as well as into his attempts to escape persecution. A few final observations will then try to highlight the dramatic exemplarity of his case.

Details

A Research Annual
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-154-1

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Book part
Publication date: 25 November 2016

Alexander-Stamatios Antoniou and Ioanna-Io Theodoritsi

Abstract

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The Aging Workforce Handbook
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-448-8

Available. Content available
Book part
Publication date: 23 January 2020

Matthew Conner and Leah Plocharczyk

Free Access. Free Access

Abstract

Details

Libraries and Reading
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-385-3

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Book part
Publication date: 9 November 2020

Paola Cillo, Joseph C. Nunes, Emanuela Prandelli and Irene Scopelliti

Mastering aesthetics is a precious source of competitive advantage in creative industries. In fashion, innovation is reflected by how and how much styles change. Elite designers…

Abstract

Mastering aesthetics is a precious source of competitive advantage in creative industries. In fashion, innovation is reflected by how and how much styles change. Elite designers claim to be the only endogenous force shaping fashion innovation season by season. Yet, each season, fashion critics vet the new collections these designers introduce, assessing what is original as opposed to reworked and uninspired, in this way playing a fundamental role as gatekeepers in setting taste within the industry. In this research, we document how stylistic innovation, vis-à-vis the styles premier design houses introduced each season, is impacted, among the others, by the specific exogenous force of critics' assessments of designers' past work. Our data, which include 61 measures detailing the styles introduced by 38 prestigious Italian and French design houses over a nine-year period, suggest designers move further away from styles reviewed less favourably while adhering more closely to styles reviewed more positively. Additionally, the styles a designer introduces are shown to depend on critical assessments of competing designers' styles, revealing how design houses attend to each other's work. This work documents the strong correlation between style dynamics and critics' feedback. It also has important implications for any company trying to find a balance between independence and conformity in setting its own unique positioning into the market.

Details

Aesthetics and Style in Strategy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-236-9

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Book part
Publication date: 30 November 2018

Heloisa Pait

This chapter introduces the important connections between media, democracy, and development in Brazil. Brazilian thought has relied heavily on conceptual oppositions in attempts…

Abstract

This chapter introduces the important connections between media, democracy, and development in Brazil. Brazilian thought has relied heavily on conceptual oppositions in attempts to understand the country, as if there were something mysteriously contradictory in our culture and history, forever set on a rift between modernity and tradition. However convincingly described, the origin of such oppositions has never been fully explained. Introducing media history and theory into this discussion, we present a material dichotomy that illuminates the more abstract and cultural explanations of our particular history. We look at the region of Minas Geraes, where a sophisticated and diverse culture developed after the gold rush in the eighteenth century, in the Americas, and contrast such cultural achievements with the insurmountable difficulties in establishing a compatible written culture, primarily due to the prohibition of printing in the colony. We take note of the particular experience of the Conversos in Brazil, Jews who adopted Christianity in the shadow of the Portuguese Inquisition, as key to understand our ambivalent relationship to the written word and to knowledge. We describe commercial and cultural networks and contrast them with the paucity of media networks, including those of books and mail, domestic and international. This material disconnect, constitutive of colonial times in general, was particularly important during the formative years of a national market and identity and continues to resonate in the present.

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Book part
Publication date: 28 March 2024

Aline Maia

This chapter presents a methodological discussion about ethnographic practice from a feminist perspective that contributes to the field of communication studies methodology and…

Abstract

This chapter presents a methodological discussion about ethnographic practice from a feminist perspective that contributes to the field of communication studies methodology and theory. The ethnography engages Black (Afro-Brasileiro and African-American) and economically disadvantaged youth from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and New Orleans (USA) regarding their strategies of social and media visibility. This multi-sited ethnography proposes to improve the objectives of ethnography through theoretical flexibility, liberation from a priori assumptions, greater representation of the voices of community members, disavowal of the imperatives of positivist work, and abiding respect for the “other.”

Details

Geo Spaces of Communication Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-606-3

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