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Italian trade unions have long since promoted the defense and inclusion of immigrant workers through the promotion, within their organizations, of specific services for immigrants providing information, guidance, and bureaucratic assistance, thus enhancing the growth of immigrant members within the unions. However, only recently unions have started to promote the direct participation of immigrants in their organization. This chapter focuses on the chances of mobility and career of immigrant workers offered by unions, starting from the role of union delegate. The analysis is based on empirical research, conducted in Lombardy between 2011 and 2013, on Cgil and Cisl, the two major Italian unions. The attention to the active participation of foreign workers within the organization is still low and not widespread, but mostly limited to categories with higher presence of immigrant workers and where the board is ready to grab the opportunities offered by the appointment of immigrant unionists and to guarantee them equal chances of union career. This situation, in our opinion, promotes immigrants’ acquisition of union roles and credibility, thus paving the way of internal mobility and career opportunities in the union.

This paper aims to investigate the role that Italian third sector organizations have in the process of social and administrative categorization of newly arrived migrants living with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/Aids) or hepatitis b. In Italy, free access to health is provided to all migrants and residence permits for medical treatment is granted for migrants living with a “serious illness” since the 1990s. The case of HIV/Aids and hepatitis b shows how this political openness, however, clashes with the tightening of migration policies.

The study is based on ethnographic research conducted between 2014 and 2016 within an associative centre that deals with the socio-health care of newly arrived migrants in Rome. In addition to the participant observations, the study is based in semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 health-care providers (nurses, health-care assistants and socio-cultural mediators) and doctors and with 22 migrants coming from Sub-Saharan Africa and living with HIV/AIDS (10) and hepatitis b (12).

In Italy, the two infections have been identified as top diseases among migrant populations in the country but if HIV/Aids is always considered as a “serious illness”, hepatitis b is considered as a public health priority only in the case of a treatment prescription. These aspects have an important impact on the interactions between medical and social professionals and migrants affected by HIV/AIDS and hepatitis b, contributing differently to the creation of legal categories assigned to migrants.

The case of HIV/Aids and hepatitis b shows how the political openness of the public health system, clashes with the tightening of migration policies and analyse the role of the third sector has in this issue.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the process that occurs within public employment offices (PEOs) and its consequences for unemployed people. Specifically, it analysed some practices needed to implement activation programmes developed in some PEO in Lombardy (Italy) and the role of front-line officers, promoting a dialogue between the literature on activation policies on one hand and the literature on street-level bureaucracy on the other.

The fieldwork has been conducted in Lombardy, which is one of most economically developed areas both in Italy and in Europe. The empirical research integrated quantitative and qualitative research tools; specifically a CATI survey of 994 persons; participant and non-participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and an analysis of documents in four PEOs.

The paper describes and analyses both practices needed to implement activation programmes and the perceptions of the social actors (unemployed people and front-line officers) who build and address these practices daily. Specifically, the attention is focussed on the different forms of discretion used by PEOs’ front-line officers and a mix of technical, relational and psychological support received in the PEOs. Moreover, the authors noticed that the front-line officers’ discretion seemed to be more limited in those parts of the activation process in which it should be more relevant, that is, the identification of training courses aimed at increasing unemployed workers’ skills. Notwithstanding these limits, many users expressed positive opinions of these courses, which could be explained by secondary functions of training courses.

The qualitative portion of the fieldwork has limited generalisability because it focussed on few PEOs.

The findings are relevant to policy makers who deal with activation policies and to public and private organisations that implement those policies.

Many studies have analysed the implementation of the welfare-to-work model that has oriented the reforms of labour market activation policies in most countries, focussing on the more tangible outcomes (essentially their efficacy in terms of re-employment rates). A growing stream of recent literature has begun to place more attention on the non-economic consequences of activation programmes, focussing mainly on countries with quite a long tradition of activation policies while remaining scant in countries where the implementation of activation programmes is still fragmented and more recent (like Italy). This paper aims to begin filling this gap by improving the knowledge on some non-economic consequences of activation programmes, focussing on user-officer relations and on daily practices in PEOs.

This paper aims to analyse “how”, “why” and “where” authors use citations of Robert Yin’s classic text, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, to determine the application of methodological transparency in published case study research.

The analysis is conducted using a structured literature review methodology.

The results reveal problems of obliteration by incorporation, miscitations, appeals to ethos, rhetorical convenience and a shadow effect, also known as adumbration. The authors argue that case study research relying, either in full or in part, on Yin’s methodology should transparently describe how and which parts of the methodology have been applied. Thus, the conclusions signal some opportunities for improving transparency in the use of citations in case study research.

The analysis highlights behaviours that may lead researchers to questionable findings due to a lack of methodological transparency in developing case study research, along with some recommendations for avoiding such problems. Improving transparency is useful for readers to understand what was done, for reviewers and editors to evaluate the research, and to guide other researchers who wish to conduct case study research.

This research compares citation practices in case study research in accounting and management with a focus on citations of Robert Yin. The results build on previous studies that analyse how scholars apply case study methodology that encourages researchers to adopt greater transparency.

The purpose of this study is to explore how luxury companies can use knowledge embedded in tradition to set up effective business models.

Given the limited coverage in previous literature regarding the manner in which tradition can be leveraged by companies to create and capture value, this paper adopts a qualitative approach, i.e. the exploratory analysis of a single case study, namely, that of the high-end Italian hotel Borgo Egnazia.

Within a focus on luxury firms, this paper conceptualizes the tradition-driven business model highlighting activities aimed at creating and capturing value by using knowledge embedded in tradition. Combining value creation and value capture with tacit and codified knowledge, the authors are able to highlight the components of a business model that uses tradition as its main distinctive resource.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore how companies use tradition to create and capture value.