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editorial
The Current Challenge of Business Culture in Italy
by Alessandro Lombardo and Giuseppe Paletta
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Since 1980, when the first historical business archives of Ansaldo (Genoa) was created, numerous companies have taken steps to preserve and valorize the heritage of their records, especially in regions where the earliest examples of industrialization took place. These initiatives can be found throughout the entire Italian territory. Many companies have established cultural institutes, each one with a distinct identity based on its patrimony, the type of activity it generates and the relationship that the cultural institute has developed with the ongoing business activity of its parent company.
This trend has great relevance for Italy because it brings the concept of the “company as a cultural institution” to the foreground. In the past, the work of a few enlightened entrepreneurs or the experiences of such renowned journals as “Civiltà delle macchine”, while admirable, were merely isolated examples.
Over the same period, new independent cultural research institutes have started up, who analyze society and its evolution through the study of enterprise. Thanks to the work of these new institutes, the fields of industrial archaeology, museology, business archives, design history and even industrial production have benefited from a theoretical development that has led to new and more complex instruments of analysis. This, in turn, has contributed to the creation of a community that cooperates from within the companies and meets during important events such as Archiexpò and Business Culture Week.
However, the last thirty years has also shed light on a few critical areas. Business museums and archives are still prisoners of the discontinuity and utilitarianism that hinder the development of a cultural movement of good quality. Commitment on the part of enterprise is subject to shifts in the company’s fortunes or perhaps, a change of management. This often results in temporary shutdowns or second thoughts about a cultural project, which can eventually lead to its termination.. What is more, the functional link between a company and its cultural initiative does not always create a ‘virtuous circle’; and so it happens that cultural aims are set aside or merely utilized for short-run promotional objectives.
Business museums and archives are rarely entrusted to people with the necessary specific skills. This is because most companies prefer not to employ fixed human resources in fields that are not profit-making. Furthermore, specialists are not always easy to find. The specificity of the knowledge (liberal arts, communication and economic studies) is not reflected in current available training programs.
In three decades of experience, the public sector has failed to lead this innovative process towards the achievement of continuity and high quality objectives. The lack of intervention of the central public administration and local institutions (regional and municipal) – whose expertise in this field has progressively widened – is directly responsible for the lagging development of this aspect of Italian culture.
The time has come to curb the negative conditions that prevent business culture from making its specific contribution to Italian and European society. Urgent action is required, given Italy’s current adverse economic climate; otherwise this first demonstration of cultural responsibility by Italian entrepreneurs may stagnate, with the result that positive outcomes are jeopardized in the future.
It is necessary that institutes and organizations join together and use the expertise they have acquired over the last thirty years to promote business culture. They need to sensitize private and public systems about the urgency of preserving business heritage, and to offer solutions and strategies to optimize economic resources that are growing increasingly scarce.
The best response to the growing discontinuity and uncertainty is the enduring action of intellectuals and cultural organizers. This means to provide more annual events and reinforce interaction among practitioners; to offer political and cultural proposals.
In the past, this task was carried out by the magazine “Archivi e imprese” edited by Duccio Bigazzi. This publication served as a primary point of reference, providing cohesion within the field of business archives and maintaining a sense of working together in a cooperative effort. At present, the magazine “Culture e Impresa”, created by the Centro per la Cultura d’Impresa and the Ansaldo Foundation as a common forum, is pleased to offer its virtual space to all those who wish to further the discussion and comparison of ideas.

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