Innovating the role of business organizations by Sara Cirone.
On December 7th 2017, in Bologna, at the Golinelli Mill, the Confindustria Pre-Meeting was held. This meeting is in preparation of the Confindustria National Assembly taking place in Verona on 16th February 2018. On that occasion, the Emilia-Romagna entrepreneurs will be invited to report to the Confindustria President Vincenzo Boccia all the needs, suggestions and contributions of the industrial and economic development of our Country, thus contributing to the Economic Agenda that will be presented to our political forces. As Vice-President of the Metal Industries Group of Romagna Confindustria, during my intervention, I explained my own reflections on the role of business organizations.
The new role of business organizations and their citizens
The crisis has swept away the basic certainties of our economic system. The crisis has also changed the role of business organizations and their entrepreneurs. This change is irreversible and, above all, it has diffused a new awareness. In fact, the crisis made evident that the life of business organizations was inseparably and necessarily related to their specific contexts. The scenario where every business organization performs its actions is by now much more extended than the context of reference for its business. Therefore, the environmental impact, the relation with the community, the welfare systems that compensate the reduction of the public intervention and the attention to people’s difficulties are all new themes to consider. Such are the new themes for a shared and essential confrontation in the world of business organizations. Today the entrepreneur is involved in the role of the corporate stakeholders as well as in concrete projects addressed to communities and based on such values as integrity, responsibility, legality. At present, every business organization is a community acted by men and addressed to men and citizens of an entire country.
A new model of development
Nowadays we are confronted with a completely different scenario, where the system has simply stopped functioning. 5 billion people out of 7 live in poor conditions, wealth is concentrated in very few hands, the middle-class has decreased and collapsed, the economic recovery is hard because consumptions do not restart or restart slowly. The observation that this is an irreversible phenomenon is widespread: the economic boom is definitely a closed chapter. Therefore, we should stop nostalgically regretting the past and start to reason about a different model of development. Different results cannot be obtained by always doing the same things!This is the reason why the environmental, social and economic sustainability become strategic in our national industrial politics. Therefore, social innovation is a strategic key element bringing to those shared values that today represent a resource for the Italian competitiveness. Business organizations are made of citizens and are communities of people that operate to build products and services for the quality of man’s life.
Creating new social value
Starting from this assumption, we should rethink the new role of the business organizations: in this perspective, Confindustria represents a great opportunity to participate in the dialogue involving all the community and all the country.We believe that the sustainable approach to territories and to their business organizations can inaugurate a new economic paradigm to prevent the social disintegration and to relaunch the Italian competitiveness. The business organizations should promote the process of social value creation because the market, the people, the community, the environment and the future generations request it with insistency.
A new, innovative, sustainable, interconnected business and corporate culture is necessary. A new role for the business organization is necessary. A possible development is what we have in our minds.