AI & Soc (2004) 18: 175207

DOI 10.1007/s00146-003-0275-9
OPEN FORUM

Giulia Mancini Francesca Sbordone

The history of an Italian action research experience

Received: 23 September 2002 / Accepted: 22 January 2003

Published online: 14 November 2003
Springer-Verlag London Limited 2003

Abstract The paper describes a highly specic Italian action research experience,
connected with the trade unions, going through dierent phases from the 1970s to
the present day. The journey is not only a journey through time but also through
dierent approaches. It ranges from the initial experience focusing on health and
safety problems at the workplace involving the workers as co-designers of new
working environments to today
s search conference experience. For each phase
there is a full description and comment on the methods utilised by the research
group. The main methodological shift described in the paper is the one from
discussion groups, based on Bion
s thinking, to the search conferences, based on
Emery
s line of thinking. Both are oriented to the subjectivity of the people in-
volved, although in the discussion group experience the research groups consid-
ered the subjectivity of the people involved as the subject of the observation. The
researchers
aim of was to acquire a reliable knowledge of what was at stake and to
pass it on to the union that organised the research in order to promote actions.
Hence, the action-research circuit is based upon dierent actors and the process is
integrated only from the point of view of the union. In the search conference
experience the researchers are involved in a co-design process and so the action-
research circuit is really integrated from the researchers
perspective; there are, of
course, multiple perspectives in this case and this opens up epistemological
problems that are not discussed in the paper.

Keywords Discussion group Search conference Shared generative

concepts Stakeholders Worker
s subjectivity

1 The history

1.1 The 1970s

Back in the 1970s the workers
struggle for health safeguards, performed
with the support of experts and powers given by the local bodies, which in

G. Mancini (&) F. Sbordone

IPL Foundation, via Marconi 8, 40122 Bologna, Italy
E-mail: info@ipielle.emr.it
176

the Province of Bologna had given birth to the Interdisciplinary Workers

Collective for Preventive Medicine, had given workers
subjectivity a
leading role, with their direct knowledge of the environment, their way of
working and the identication of the health hazards in 18 companies from
various sectors: metal-working, chemicals, clothing, agriculture and others.
Homogenous groups of workers from various divisions, together with the
technicians (doctors, chemists, sociologists, etc.) of the Occupational Health
Collective, analysed working conditions and drafted proposals for changes,
which almost always became the points forming the basis of the bargaining
platform.
From the very beginning of the intervention the workers were thus the
leading subjects as well as the protagonists; the technicians made available
the specic skills for a proper understanding and evaluation of the rela-
tionship existing between their personal conditions of health and their
working situation.
These experiences, carried out in numerous factories of the province of
Bologna, with the related platforms and agreements for modifying the hazards
in the environments and the working conditions, have been collected in a
book written by the experts of the Collective of Preventive Medicine of the
City Council and the Province of Bologna, published by the Editori Riuniti in
1973, entitled: Rapporto delle fabbriche: organizzazione del lavoro e lotta
per la salute nella Provincia di Bologna (Factory report: labour organisa-
tion and the ght for health in the province of Bologna).
By the end of the 1970s, following the modications in industrial organisation
and the introduction of new technologies, the employment problem started to
become a priority and within a short time the trade unions reduced their interest
in the working conditions inside companies.
At the same time, the local area health authorities were setting up the
Workplace Health Services, whose tasks increasingly involved implementing the
laws of the state.

1.2 The 1980s

At the beginning of the 1980s, in a signicant, albeit minority, part of Italian

industrial trade unionism the perception of a union crisis began to grow, the
gravity of which was described this way using the words of those days:
(...) the most serious crisis of the post-war years, not only and not so much
because of the deep laceration that is crossing the union, but because of a
contemporary crisis of ideas, of consensus, of eectiveness of the union
action (...) the union culture I am referring to (...) has relegated the issue of
labour conditions in the company, and thus the issue of subjectivity
(Garibaldo 1986)
Thus, the workers
subjectivity, both male and female, was perceived as an
authentic resource of every union movement that aspires to become a union
action, i.e., a course of union action that is a process of radical social trans-
formation of the enterprise and society, founded upon a specic project design
and thus imbued with meaningfulness (Garibaldo 1986).
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The accent was thus on subjectivity as the cornerstone for an action informed
with meaningfulness and thus being purposeful; indeed it was believed that that
was the root of personal and collective autonomy and that the union should be an
instrument of autonomy. In short, for that part of the union, the words of Kant
were still valid: minority is the incapacity to avail oneself of one
s own intellect
without the guidance of someone else.
How can one get in touch with the workers
subjectivity? We realised that the
union
s traditional instrumentsthe assembly and the meetingare essential
elements in a democratic relationship, and thus decision-making tools, but
wholly inadequate in grasping elements of subjectivity.
The union turned to a group of psychiatrists-psychoanalysts meeting at the
time at the P. Ottonello Psychiatric Institute of the University of Bologna. The
opportunity arouse from the nascent and widespread use of information tech-
nology in the workplace.
How did the researchers give an answer to the union question? Through the use
of the discussion groups based on the lines of Bion
s thinking.

1.2.1 The other side of the moon: research into the introduction of the new
technologies in nine companies in Bologna and Reggio Emilia

The rst research was performed in 1984 in nine companies in Bologna and
Reggio Emilia where the introduction of the new information technologies led to
broad-ranging modications in labour organisation and to contrasting reactions
among the workers.
In L
altra faccia della Luna (The other side of the moon) published by
Clueb, Bologna in 1986, the results of this rst piece of research were collected:
We think it is worthwhile reporting the unabridged version of the leaet
distributed by the trade union to the workers of the companies involved, con-
taining the motivations, the aims and the methods of investigation: the Feder-
ation of Metalworkers (FLM).
In the industrial companies and therefore within our situation, as we are
rst and foremost mechanical companies, a radical and profound trans-
formation is taking shape; this is especially true for the medium and large-
sized companies.
The transformation revolves around the extension of automation pro-
cesses through the implementation of information technologies.
The trade union is having some diculty in wholly grasping the nature
and the consequences of these transformations and in particular their eects
in relation to the working conditions.
The routine trade union instruments, such as meetings and assemblies,
do not always allow for a deeper analysis of these issues from all the
points of view, particularly the ones most tied to the direct experience
of work. Hence, the need for the trade union to start up dierent
processes of knowledge that are not merely those of mundane
administration.
Along with the research addressed to understanding the technical,
economic and organisational aspects, we are aware of the need to dispose of
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instruments that allow us to get to know the phenomenon also from the
standpoint of the people who are directly involved in such processes.
Actually it is a matter of attempting to provide a location and some
scientically established instruments to express the workers
subjectivity.
For these reasons, the Secretariat of the FLM of Bologna, in agree-
ment with the research institutes of the CGIL-CISL-UIL Federation that
deal with environmental research and prevention (CPR), has asked the
P. Ottonello Psychiatric Institute of the University of Bologna, through
Professor Alberto Merini and Professor Emilio Rebecchi to start up,
purely for purposes of understanding (thus excluding any aims of a
therapeutic kind or any attempt to substitute the union
s autonomous
initiative) several discussion groups on this topic: What do you think
about work automation in the factory?
The groups of workers, with voluntary participation, will be no more
than eight spread out over four companies.
The four companies chosen by the FLM are: GD, IBM. The reason
for this choice lies in the wish to have a representative sample of the
metalworking situation in Bologna. Indeed, these are companies involved
in precision mechanics and mass production, as well as electronics, both
large and small, and in general aected to diering extents by processes
of production computerisation, both among the blue collar workers and
the white collar employees.
More in detail, the processes of computerisation intervene signicantly,
and to dierent extents, both as regards the production area and the design
and management areas.
These discussion groups are not made exclusively or prevalently for
union delegates, but generally for the metalworkers whether enrolled in the
union or not.
The task is to analyse the union
s knowledge about issues of crucial
importance for the workers, and so we shall ask all the workers for their
utmost collaboration in achieving a successful outcome, particularly those
workers who are more directly involved in these processes.
The same leaet was also distributed to ve companies in the area of Reggio
Emilia, where an analogous research was being carried out. This kind of leaet
became the standard leaet we utilised in many other types of research in the
1980s.
Overall, nine companies were involved: ve from the metalworking sector,
one from clothing, two from services and one from the food industry.
The analysis of the material which emerged from the discussion groups, from
the verbal contents and from other non-verbal elements (such as the actions,
the emotional climate, the involvement, the kind of language, etc.) has formed
the core of the report delivered by the researchers to the trade union, together
with the comments and more subjective evaluations of the researchers them-
selves.
Here we shall report several of the nal remarks made about the research
results:
If we consider the formal data as a whole, we may notice how the
groups
emotional climate was initially euphoric or excited, tending later
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to become depressed. Furthermore, it can be seen how the actions of the

participants started increasing, together with the denitive abandonment
of the experience and the progressive diminution in the frequency of
participation, aspects that reached a height by around the fth/sixth
meeting.
On the grounds of these data we can reasonably deduce growing
diculties in performing the experience up until the fth-sixth encounter.
More specically it can be supposed that the initial euphoria was a
defensive attitude of a maniacal kind towards the subsequent depression, an
attitude progressively anked by the acting out (slight: the actions
accomplished by the group; serious: the temporary or denitive interrup-
tion of participation in the group) which can also be referred to a defensive
modality.
If we take into consideration the contents, the general picture assumes
more precise connotations.
Indeed, on the descriptive level, the contents express the existence of
strong feelings of loss (of health, employment, one
s own professionalism,
one
s own identity as a worker, one
s own capacity to think, the sense of
one
s own job, the trade union, etc.) accompanied by fear (of the war, non-
human control, submission to the machine, etc.) and impotence (incapacity
to place oneself as subject in the current transformation), feelings that come
to be congured as real situation of mourning.
Deepening the analysis further we can notice that the losses undergone
aect dierent levels. As a matter of fact, it regards:
objective losses (e.g., the job that also involves the components of one
s
own identity linked to the object (e.g., being a worker);
loss of the constitutive aspects of one
s identity as a worker (e.g. pro-
fessionalism);
loss of the organised mass (Freud, 1921) (the trade union);
loss of adaptation mechanisms (the identication with the worker
s role);
losses regarding the ego functions (e.g., the capacity to think).
This complexity bears witness to the gravity and the depth of the losses
and supports the diculties in dealing with them, in accepting mourning
and its processing. Furthermore, the latter is made even more dicult by
the fact that reciprocal identication has been lost. Through the trade
union, going from organised group to disorganised mass or, more precisely,
as we shall see, to a set of individuals and from the fact that the ego, having
lost one of its main mechanisms of adaptation, the identication with the
role (of worker), is in a condition of weakness.
In essence, it seems legitimate to state that the elaboration of mourning,
understood as the acceptance of the loss and the re-adaptation of the ego
before the reality, is still in progress, prevailing over the present fear and
sense of impotence, painful incapacity to start or maintain an organised
behaviour..
We do not know how the situation may evolve: we shall go back to this
question later. We think it is useful to stress how it was possible to abandon
the defences at a certain stage (the maniacal negation and the acting out) in
order to face up to pain and depression.
180

1.2.2 An investigation at the Comau factory of Turin

In the following years, from 1986 to 1993, analogous research was performed in
large metalworking companies in Piedmont, the Comau factory in Turin (1986)
and the Olivetti factory of Ivrea (1987), where profound transformations were
taking place.
From some notes of the nal considerations it can be seen that workers

subjectivity expressed in very diverse groups, all complex and tiring, actually
reected and grasped the diculties and the uncertainties of the company
transformations:
(..) As nal considerations we shall limit ourselves to pointing out just a
few aspects that have particularly struck us. As a matter of fact, we
believe that the meaning of research such as ours does not consist in
drawing conclusions, but in providing suciently systematic and compre-
hensible data with the objective of broadening the discussion as well as our
knowledge.
A rst point is the dierent behaviour or the dierent evolution of the
groups. (..) We know that every group tells its own story: from this
perspective the dierent components that we have observed should only
depend on intrinsic factors for each group. We could also say that, with
little propriety but with some ecacy, that the dierent behaviour is due
to chance.
But there could also be some likelihood that the diversity is also in
relation to other factors, such as the kind of organisation of work, the
latter
s characteristics, etc.. Furthermore, of particular interest seems to be
the existence of protective external factors assuring a group identity, not in
relation to actually belonging to the company.
A second fact regards the spread of the aggressive components that are
scarcely elaborated and integrated. We feel it is useful to underline their
presence and the risk of putting them down as generically psychological
facts (characteristics of the groups in general, for example) or referring
them to the composition of our groups made up of voluntary unionised
subjects, thus being well-disposed to lodge complaints. In our opinion, such
components have a worrying intensity.
Previously we had formulated some hypotheses about their origins:
probably dierent factors intervene, but the ones we feel are most inter-
esting and perhaps, at least partially identiable, seem to be the ones
inherent to the organisation of work, as we shall try to demonstrate in the
subsequent point.
What emerged overall in the groups makes it possible to formulate a
hypothesis on what has happened and is happening to Comau in terms of
labour organisation and the repercussions of these events on workers

subjectivity.
The most signicant changes in the organisation of work can be referred to:
a) the introduction of machines,
b) the shifting of the production from Comau to the so-called dependent

industries.
 181

(..) The worker expropriated from work, which has moved to the machines
and the dependent industries, no longer recognised as a worker on the basis
of the capacity to work, but attened out in the role of the person who has
just to obeyan extremely passive roleand thus always replaceable by
the rst one to come
, obedient, tending to react with insecurity, but also
with much anger.
In their turn, the latter (insecurity and rage) seem to give rise to two more
articulated mental constellations: the good purposeful attitude and
Formula I (there is also a third possibility, as we shall see, but denitely a
minority one).
The good purposeful attitude is a complex attitude in which the idealising
components are denitely present, as well as nostalgia, trust, the desire to
identify in one
s work again, in the company, even in the chiefs, all of which
are aspects that do not seem to possess a merely regressive-defensive
meaning.
A worker said: The job is like being in Formula 1. In here everyone is on
his own, we are all freelance, lots of rms in one. But nobody is happy
because what you do, you do to defend yourself, not to work or to create
something good.
(..) The Formula 1 analogy is very thought-provoking: it evokes images like
that of individual competition, but also the risk of accidents and death,
spectacle, machine-dependency and having to adapt to it, even physically
(and thus the tendency towards the homogeneity of physical constitu-
tions)(...)
But this constellation is not principally dened through phrases such
as the ones reported (which undoubtedly express a high level of awareness),
but above all through such verbal and non-verbal behaviour that we have
dened as being of diuse aggressiveness, unelaborated and not integrated.
As we have already mentioned, this aspect is the most worrying among the
ones observed in the research.
Finally, the last constellation lays the stress on group work:
Let
s reorganise ourselves sector by sector, let
s meet one another more
often; this is fundamental in order to be able to change something and
become stronger as a group.
The pyramids of power are only convenient for the owners, we have to
aim at the work group where the chief will just be the coordinator of a
group of specialised workers who will be able to rotate among the various
divisions, so as to acquire more and more knowledge by experiencing the
various production and sales phases. However, we think that this pro-
posal still belongs to the domain of wishful thinking.

1.2.3 An investigation at the Olivetti factories of Ivrea and Crema

In the winter of 1987 the Controll observatory of the National Fiom Cgil and
the rm of Piedmont and Lombardy organised an information-gathering
investigation, analogous to the one performed at the Comau factory, in some
Olivetti factories in Piedmont and Lombardy. The factory at Crema and the
182

Piedmontese factories of Scarmagno, San Bernardo, Ivrea (Olivetti 1C0) were

identied. All together nine groups were set up: ve in Piedmont (composed
of four worker groups and one designer) and four in Lombardy (composed of
three worker groups and one oce worker group). In each factory the aims
and the methods of the investigation itself were made public, through a leaet
distributed in the workplaces, partially lled in by the commissioning party
(which made explicit the reasons for the research), and partially by the
researchers (who laid down the methods with which the experience was per-
formed).
The Olivetti research, published in La fattoria dei Computer: soggettivita
operaia e automazione all
Olivetti (The computer factory: worker subjectivity
and automation at Olivetti) edited by Rosemberg and published in 1990, sheds
light, amongst other things, on (..) issues constantly regarding situations of
technological innovation (such as the loss of professionalism, control, the loss of
the meaning of work, etc.)(..)new aspects apparently contrasting(..) with the
previous ones.
It is precisely the coexistence of a great variety of experiences (which has a
correspondence in the multiplicity of issues dealt with in the discussion and
the dynamics occurring in the groups) that we think is the most charac-
teristic and original element in the Olivetti situation.
The several thousands of discussions we collected in the nine groups
depict some highly dierentiated working situations, in the same way as the
dynamics inside the discussion groups show us a relationship with work
(methods and contents) and between the workers that varies enormously in
the contexts considered. The result of a comprehensive picture of Olivetti
which at times can appear to be shaken and out of focus (we have,
amongst other things, had diculty focusing on the issues under which to
systematically group together the interventions), but it is precisely for this
reason that we think to a mobile situation inside which micro-universes
seem (still?) to co-exist heterogeneously.
In this light, Olivetti could represent one aspect of what is taking place in
the working reality of our country as a consequence of technological
innovation.
Briey, we could hypothesise the following at Olivetti:
1. Technological innovation was not introduced simultaneously and
homogeneously in all the working areas, allowing for traditional
working activities to continue to exist) such as the assembly isles)
whose modication came about within a short time and by following
diversied patterns from situation to situation.
2. The introduction of the new technologies has produced changes in
the contents and the patterns of work such as to have profound con-
sequences in the workers
experiences. Akin to what has emerged in all
the other research projects we have undertaken, such changes have
indeed overturned the values upon which the workers
identity has
traditionally been based.
3. The void which has appeared as a result of the fall in the values induced
by the transformations of work has not given rise to univocal or
 183

dogmatic responses by the company.1 However, this void produces a

great amount of tension in all of the workers, a tension that becomes
a suffering manifest in those micro-universes where the crisis in the
traditional values is most intense.
4. The decline in professionalism and solidarity between the workers (and
thus the criteria and the bonds that underpinned the sense of belonging
to a single working class) are experienced as losses and bereavement in
those situations, such as Crema and San Bernardo, where the more
senior workers operate in a productive context that maintains many
of the characteristics of the traditional manufacturing. Vice-versa,
where, as in the factories at Scarmagno, there are mainly newly-hired
workers, in a system that is more highly automated, we are faced with a
sense of extraneousness and void that seems to be referred to the inca-
pacity to recognise oneself in a past that they have not experienced, as in
a present that does not appear to offer any elements for reciprocal
identication. In this context we witness, for the rst time during our
research, attempts to give back a new sense and a meaning to one
s own
work and the fact of being a worker: the attention no longer seems to be
focused on the division or the factory, but is shifted towards more
general issues, such as the production and marketing choices of Olivetti,
the role of the state and its laws in governing industrial relations, the
social services, etc.
Of course, we do not know if the variety observed in the dierent
situations at Olivetti is the result of a company policy capable of toler-
ating its inner dierences, or the company
s diculty in nding out and
imposing a single value (because of the internal power relationships,
manufacturing requirements, etc.).
Another phenomenon that characterises the results emerging from our
research is the presence, virtually constant in all the groups, of interventions
that underline a separation or a contrasting between two or more groups of
people.
(..) The participants in our groups reported attempts made by the company
to create divisions between the workers. It may be that this experience
determined, at least in part, the phenomenon of separation and contrast be-
tween the groups. In our opinion, however, the situation previously described,
with the crisis in values and the consequent loss of identity, can play an
important role in that it pushes us towards a search for a sense of
belonging that can be based on old as well as new stereotypes (the young
and the old, the manual workers and the ofce workers, women and men,
etc.). Moreover, it is evident that such stereotypes gather strength from the
real differences and discriminations present (and/or experienced) inside Oliv-
etti.2

1
For example, unlike what has been observed at Comau, where the company management
shows that it wants to substitute all the lost values and criteria with the sole value of obedience,
in the perspective of building an identity of obedient-worker upon which to found the evalu-
ation and recognition criteria.
2
For anyone wishing to read about the crisis at Olivetti from a dierence standpoint, see the
interesting chapter written by Francesco Novara.
184

2 Subjectivity as the object of the observation

In short, what follow are the methods articulated then, in their most explicit
version dating back to the 1988 Olivetti research:
Subjectivity is the battleeld of psychoanalysis, but it is a subjectivity un-
known by the subject. The task of psychoanalytic therapy is to make the
subject aware of his/her own subjectivity, as it emerges and takes shape in
the relationship with the therapist.
Dora, an 18-year-old girl that Freud had been analysing for three -
months, from October until the 31st of December 1900, in what was to be
her last session, started out by saying: You know, Doctor, that today is the
last time I shall come here? Freud, so to speak, was taken aback, and tries
to understand what had happened, he made many brilliant remarks, yet...:
Dora had been listening to me without contradicting me, as she would
usually do. She seemed moved; in the politest tone of voice, she took her
leave, wishing me a happy new year and...would never return again.
Freud took several years (the case was published in 1905) to understand
what had happenedeven this is a reection of his greatness: not boasting
of his successes, but reecting on them.
In the postscript to the clinical case of Dora, Freud denes translation,
that is, subjectivity as it appears in analysis: What are transferences?
They are re-editions, copies of impulses and fantasies that have to be re-
awoken and made conscious during the progress of the analysis, where
howeverand this is their peculiar characteristicone person from the
previous history is substituted by the doctor
s persona. In other words, a
great number of previous psychic experiences come back to life, not
however as it was in the past, but as a current relationship with the
doctor
s persona (Freud, 1901).
Freud did not recognise the transference, Dora
s subjectivity: The
transference was thus able to take me by surprise; owing to an unknown
factor by which I reminded her of Mr. K., the patient avenged herself on me
as she would have liked to avenge herself on him and left me just as he, in
her opinion, had deceived and left her. I would have liked...to say to her:
Now you have performed a transference from Mr. K. to me...
. (Freud,
1901).
Freud believed he was considered to be the doctor, the analyst and Dora
thought so, too. In actual fact, Freud was Mr. K for Dora. So Dora leaves
Freud (thinking consciously that the therapy had nothing more to oer her,
and so on) but unconsciously Dora leaves Freud/K out of vengeance.
Psychoanalysis is based on the discovery of transference, of unconscious
subjectivity. The concept of transference is today more complex than its
initial formulation, it addresses desires, etc., but remains the cornerstone of
psychoanalysis.
One last remark. Subjectivity becomes dramatic in the serious, psychotic
patient, in that it transforms seriously and against him the whole of the
external reality: a gigantic conspiracy is taking place towards him, there is
an attempt to poison him, everyone wants to steal his face; an ordinary
 185

road sign becomes a signal of death, an unknown passer-by, a persecutor...

Undoubtedly, the latter is an extreme position of subjectivity. Moreover,
it is an eective example of how we mean it.
Now let
s turn to our groups.
In the work with the groups we try to understand what there is behind
what is said and acted out and what relationship there is between con-
sciousness and the unconsciousness. Butand this is the important
pointwe are not interested in all the conscious and unconscious fantasies
of individuals; rather we are interested in the fantasies referred to a specic
object that is dened by the question: the organisation of work [in the
specic case of research, editor
s note]. We could also say that everything
that happens is considered by us in relation to the reason for which the
group has come together.
Several questions arise which I (we) do not know how to answer, but only
underline that they exist and need to be kept in mind.
The rst one concerns objects and the second the collective memory. The
object, a question which is still open for psychoanalysis; even this does not
escape the subject/object debate launched by Descartes. Psychoanalysis is
born from the hypothesis that a traumatic external event (a real sexual
trauma) aects the mind determining its awed functioning. In this case
there is a distinct object and subject.
Subsequently, Freud retraces his steps: the trauma is imagined by the
subject. In this case the traumatic object is produced by the subject. This
position of Freud is taken to its extreme consequences by an analyst,
Melanie Klein, for whom the external objects are dened good and bad by
the new-born depending on whether they become containers for its fanta-
sies of love or death. (The psychotic patient I had mentioned earlier is
believed to function like a new-born child).
In the 1950s, while in England Jacques was publishing his observations
on the Glacier Metal Company and the article Social Systems as a Defence
against Persecutory and Depressive Anxiety, in the United States another
analyst, Hartmann, was stating that Society is not a projection of un-
conscious fantasies ... it should be accepted as an element that imposes itself
with full and autonomous rights..., and a few years later he reiterated:
The social structures in the rst place act upon individual development
like an external reality ....
There is no doubt that psychoanalysis and our methodology cannot
grasp external reality: the only reality we are able to grasp is the partici-
pants
subjectivity (i.e., the external reality as it is described by the group
participants). In this perspective we are not interested in knowing how and
where the group participants actually work. It can be stated that even the
opportunity to observe subjectivity is accompanied by a minimum visibility
in real life: and here begins the problem of a comparison between the
dierent observation points.
Yet it is clear that, as a mental attitude, we are close to the position of the
early Freud, we are led to believe in the existence of a traumatic external
event (e.g., work organisation) that acts upon subjectivity. We are led to
think more like Hartmann that like Jacques, in the sense of an autonomous
object in relation to the subject.
186

Moreover, the risk is ending up thinking in simplistic, linear terms, of

cause and eect, of a diastaltic curve. For example, some of us, very few of
us actually, in 1968 argued that in a socialist (and, therefore, fair) society
there would be no mental illness. In actual fact, we knew that, in one
s mind
things are more complex than that, and that in any case, the subject elab-
orates and modies the object, that the relationship between subject and
object is always dynamic.

2.1 Collective memory as shared subjectivity

Along with Halbwachs we could say that our memories live in us like col-
lective memories ... even when it is a question of events in which only we are
involved and of objects that only we have seen. The fact is that, in reality, we
are never alone. It isn
t necessary for other people to be present: because each
one of us always has with him and inside himself a number of distinct
people.
This vision may be radical, but it seems plausible to us that every group
limited in time and space has its own collective memory in which the memories
are connected to experiences, thoughts, emotions, conscious and unconscious. If
this is true we may be in agreement with Halbwachs when he states that each
individual memory is a point of view of the collective memory.
When we pose the question towards work organisation, we pose it to people
who work in the same place, to a micro-society limited in time and space
that, presumably, possesses a collective memory inherent to its own working
conditions.
Each participant will thus be a part of that collective memory (as well as that
of other collective memories regarding other groups). The group works on these
specic, collectively built up memories, both conscious and unconscious: it is
what we possess that we can dene as shared subjectivity. If and when the
collective memory were destroyed each person would have his own memories.
Our group-based method of investigation would then have no purpose and
another one would have to be found.

2.2 A summary of comments on the methodology

1. We consider, in accordance with other authors, (W. R. Bion, D. Anzieu,

E. Pichon-Riviere and A. J. Bauleo, amongst others), the group as a
new entity, something other than a mere aggregate of individuals. All of
what happens in the group, then, can in our opinion be traced back to
the group
s specicity and not to the personal history of the single par-
ticipants.
2. In particular, as the people to whom the question is posed are gathered
together in that group in that they belong to a given working context
(for example, not only in that they are Olivetti employees, but that they
work in that specic Olivetti manufacturing unit [again a specic piece
of research is referred to, editor
s note]), we feel that what emerges
from the discussion group and what can be observed with our methodol-
ogy concerns the fact that its members also belong to another group
 187

temporally, spatially and formally dened by the methods and the

contents of the work performed in that given context. Equally schemati-
cally, we may believe that, in the trend of the discussion group, it will be
possible to observe the emergence of verbalised thoughts that are
always are part of the specic collective memory or points of view
concerning it (what we call the contents), but at the same time we
shall also observe the dynamic ones, the groups ones, mainly unconscious,
that underlie the construction or the cancellation of the thoughts referred
to that given working activity (always understood as a set of modes
and contents). In other words, the group
s relationship with its own task is
also a transferral relationship in which the history of group
s rela-
tionship with its own work is repeated.3We thus consider the relationship
of group with its own work as primary in that that specic work
has primarily constituted (on the spatial, temporal and formal levels)
the group of those who perform it. Other experiences of the members
(both working or of any other kind) evidently belong to other groups, to
other collective memories, the individual may be a part of, but
that are not explorable in the context of the discussion group
s specic
experience.
3. The coordinator and the observer are, within the discussion group, the
representatives of the task. All the movements and the feelings directed
towards them must not be understood as directed towards their actual
selves, but towards their function and, therefore, towards the task.
4. The groups we formed are discussion groups activated for research purposes.
They meet to talk about a topic that, in the specic case, is a question posed by
the union about the work performed by the participants. To put it better, the
question regards the representation that the workers have of their jobs (what
do you think about the way you work?) and their wishes about it (how would
you like to work?). We can thus state that these groups are a particular form
of subjective research.
5. The task of the group, in our case, is to supply (to the union and the rest
of the group) information about one
s own representations and the wishes
expressed about something (the organisation of work) that profoundly
concerns everyone (oneself and the other participants). Actually, it is
something that is related to (provides) the identity at that given moment
in time: the participants are there, at that time, in that group (so they
exist as a group) in that they are members of the work organisation. In
our opinion, this can trigger anguish relating to the threat of confusion
between the self (group) and non-self (task, the organisation of the work
you are part of and that you have to talk about).
6. The particular situation can mean for the group that talking, in our case,
about the organisation of the work that denes it also means talking about
oneself. Feelings, aggression, seduction, etc., directed towards the former
will thus, at least in part, be experienced as also directed towards the

3
The interventions in relation to the question: here they are considered not just from the
ideational standpoint, but also from the emotive one.
188

group-self. It can be hypothesised that this comes about more markedly

when the identication of the workers (and the group) with the company
(and the organisation of the work) is greater.
7. Participation is voluntary: people enrolling and taking part in these groups
volunteer to do so in order to respond to a question, in this case, posed by
the union. Our participants come (and our groups exist) so as to provide
information. A rst tier of information (that which is conscious to the
group) is supplied through the language of the comments made by the
participants during the discussion. At this level it is interesting to observe
how much and what the two operators learn from the group discussion:
the participants are informed that the coordinator and the observer are
medical psychologists and/or psychiatrists. The language that the group will
use (discursive, technical, dry, etc.) will thus convey the information that
may be recorded depending on the congruousness of the language itself with
the scope for understanding of the two operators and with the information
to be exchanged.
8. The language will be inuenced by the kind of representation that the group
has of the operators: they can indeed be experienced as gures who already
know and the communication in this case can be very technical or take for
granted a certain amount of knowledge concerning the real situation being
discussed. Otherwise they may be perceived of as persecutorsas mes-
sengers of a bad forceand the communication in the group may, con-
sequently, be reticent or suspicious, or else they may be perceived as strong,
protective gures that can depend on (the group will thus expect the
information to come from the two operators and not vice-versa), etc. From
this point of view, the quantity of information that the operators retrieve
from the participants
discussion can provide some judgements on the rep-
resentations and the fantasies that the latter have regarding the former.
Now, it is evident that a great number of elements come to make up those
fantasies, but, as we have seen, we think that the coordinator and the ob-
server are the representatives of the task: the fantasies that concern them,
then, will be related to the group
s fantasies in regard to the task.
9. Another element capable of inuencing language is the dynamics present in
the group at the time of the discussion. Verbal communication is a function
of the work group. As the exchange of information is an activity belonging
to the rational part of the group, the more the group is based on emotive
and irrational premises (Bion calls them basic assumptions) the less use
it will make of verbal communication. In this situation words serve for the
communication of sound (..) the language of the basic group is (..) degraded.
Instead of developing a language as a thinking method, the group uses the
language already present as a mode of action. This simplied
method of
communication has none of the vitality of the primitive language or of that
of the early years of life. Its simplicity is degenerate and degraded (...). The
group
s language based on a basic assumption lacks the precision and the
wealth that derive from the capacity to form and be able to use symbols
(ibidem). (In our context, particularly interesting is the idea that language
can be utilised in a group as an instrument for acting out
).
10. In our discussion groups, as underlined several times, the participants talk
about something to someone. The thing they talk about, though, is a
 189

situation that from the dynamic standpoint has some characteristics in

common with the one in which it is told to someone. Indeed, in both
cases there is a complex network of the following: objective reality, indi-
vidual representations and expectations and interpersonal relations.
Without going into the complex problems and the various theories of
communication, we are keen to underline how language and the exchange
of information inside a group are, as seen previously, both in relation to
the situation in which the exchange occurs, and the topic-object of the
discussion.
11. All the authors who have dealt with the problem of group dynamics have
underlined the fact that in the groups intense and archaic emotions are
triggered. Even the experiences we have had with the discussion groups
activated for research purposes seem to conrm that the emotions most
frequently at play in the groups have aggressive connotations. The dynamics
of groups we have studied are generally in relation to the defence or the
elaboration of such aggressiveness.
12. Although some of the characteristics of the groups are constant (amongst
which. as said above, the presence of a strong aggression) their evolution is
not constant. The different pathways of the different groups could be put
down to chance, but in our opinion, it is possible to attempt a correlation
between the attitude of the coordinator and the observer, the task and the
context in which the group is set, on the one hand, and the evolution of
the group dynamics on the other. By keeping unchanged the functions of
the two operators in the various observation groups, we could thus hy-
pothesise that the group
s development is related to the task and the
context.
13. Bion states: I do not know of any other experience that more clearly than
the experience of the group demonstrates the fear with which an inter-
rogative attitude is considered. This anxiety is not only directed towards
the person posing the question, but also towards the object of the question
and is, I think, subordinated to the latter. It is the group itself that, nding
itself being the object of the questions, releases some fears of an extremely
primitive kind. It seems we can state that in a group a particularly
difcult task, which poses strong doubts, can foster the onset of par-
ticularly profound feelings of distress and more markedly aggressive re-
sponses.
14. Given the tried and tested quality of the group emotions, we think we have
to pose the problem of their quantity as well. In other words: how intense are
they? How many are the functions of the rational group that are altered by
these emotions? Which are the tools that the group has at its disposal to defend
itself from them, rather than act them out? Schematically, we can state that
when the aggression is too much it cannot be integrated and elaborated. By
keeping the task constant it can be believed that the different trends of the
studied groups can be referred to the group context: in the specic case of this
researchas we referred to previously, at the Olivetti plantto the work
(modalities and contents carried out by the participants. (Merini and Rebecchi
1990)
As can well be seen, it is a methodology that lies wholly in the specic dis-
ciplinary eld of psychoanalysis and that presents itself as a purely cognitive
190

instrument. In the meantime the group of psychoanalysts who had started the
collaboration with the trade union gave birth to an association called Mente e
Tecnologia, whose acronym was MET, which welcomed sociology-trained
unionists to its encounters.
2.3 The 1990s

2.3.1 Split time

At the end of this period we started a new research that was for us and the
unions important because of a shift of interest on a new kind of social phe-
nomenon that we called split time, the focus of research was on part-time
work and exibility.
The research into the Bolognese and Reggio Emilia companies, at Comau and
Olivetti, had focused on the great transformations brought about by techno-
logical innovation from the standpoint of the workers, their serious feelings of
loss (of the sense of work, professionalism, cohesion, identity) the divisions
between workers and the increase in competitiveness and obedience.
With split time the research has moved around another of the critical
themes of work organisation today, that of exibility and working time.
The groups are all successfully conducted, even if with greater diculty than
in other situations, and some of them are performed part-time.
We shall report some of the remarks spinning o from this research, quoting
from the introduction by Emilio Rebecchi:
When we presented a part of this research for the rst time, at the Congress
Centre on 3rd4th October 1991, we called it: Lost Time.
As a matter of fact, we were above all struck by the strong impact that
part-time work had on the worker
s life as a whole, and by how it was
connoted with an experience of loss: Working four hours a day you spoil
your whole day, you can
t do anything else even though you do have the
time in practice. I
m looking for a way to rest. As soon as I get home, I
sleep, I slump down and sleep, to see whether in the afternoon (...); only
thing is that I dream that I
m working (...); I
m always at work. In the
evening you don
t go out (...), in the morning you have to get up at 5, you
afraid you won
t hear the alarm go o because if you arrive late that
annoys you (...). I
m not too worried about the time because by 9
o
clock you
re free, but the problem is that after that I don
t do anything
for the rest of the day.
At the same time we had reected on the reasons brought up by the
female workers to explain their diculty in changing work: It
s better to
work as little as possible; it
s better to earn little and work little rather than
work more and earn nothing. We have chosen to work part-time because
if we don
t work at all you have to get on your bike.
All of this strongly contrasts with some ideas debated and shared in that
era, and that it might be preferable to have a exible job, possibly short (there
is certainly the problem of reduced pay), not very demanding for the worker,
andwhy not?part-time. The workers would then be able to seek realisa-
tion outside of work, in his/her free time. He or she would have overcome the
constraints and the misery of work in the vast sea of life. Amongst these
 191

thoughts, if you want stereotypes, and the weak but clear voices, that surfaced
from our research groups, there did emerge a break.
This space could be concealed or, vice-versa, it could be illuminated and
cleared up by a dierent understanding. The female workers
subjectivity
brought us a reality of suering, discrimination and pain: Those on part-
time can
t follow the division properly. The customers trample all over
you. Part-time also means you are put aside by colleagues, and
undermined our opinions, triggered our subjectivity and pushed us towards
a knowledge that was removed from the common place, that brought them
towards reality.
But how was it possible for some voices, some opinions, not even statis-
tically founded, to be able to increase an understanding, and even allow us to
grasp the reality from a new angle? As Merini writes in the chapter dedicated
to methodology in this volume, (...) There is no doubt that psychoanalysis
and our methodology cannot grasp external reality: the only reality that we
are able to grasp is the participants
subjectivity (the external reality just as it
is described by the group participants). From this perspective we are not
interested to know how and where the group participants actually work. It
can be said that the possibility to observe the subjectivity is accompanied to
a minimum visibility of real life: and here the problem opens up about the
confrontation between the dierent observation points.
It was thus sucient for there to be a minimum of visibility of real life to
cast doubts upon deep-seated opinions. Could an argument be founded on
this visibility without considering the degree of depth and its limits?
Degree of depth and limits could certainly be determined more accurately
by conciliating the parallel and contrasting opinions of the female (and male)
workers working full-time in the same companies. The latter, generally sat-
ised by their working time or worried about some of its aspects (the rigidity
of the holidays, the problem of the third shift, special leave, etc.) no longer see
part-time work, they do not talk about it, they do not even consider it.
In order to remain within the space metaphor, a thick fog is descending,
which prevents us from seeing what there is beyond. But this fog also blurs
our memory, the space and time deposited in our memory. These female
workers have nearly all done part-time work in the past as well! So where
does knowledge come from? How is it possible to disperse memory in the fog
(which in our case blinds the full-time female workers) or the consolidated
stereotypes (that are deposited in our mind)?
Only the voices of the part-time female workers, which are reected in
their own experience, can bring a ash of enlightenment, and can rearrange
the boundaries of reality. But these workers know and yet do not know.
Socrates says to Teeteto: I want to ask you the most outlandish of ques-
tions, which I think is this: is it possible for the same person who knows one
thing, not to know the one thing he knows? (..).
The part-time female workers are in the same condition as the one hy-
pothesised by Socrates; placed at the basis of every possibility: they know
and know not: talking together among each other, and to we who do not
know, they can know they know and know not to know.
In that way the ash of enlightenment comes on for them and for us. This
understanding leadsI must repeattowards a problematic situation,
192

towards experiences of impotence and loss, towards a sense of resignation

about the inevitability of a partial realisation of one
s own life, a utilisation
of time profoundly conditioned by external events, hetero-directed, often
unfair.
We thus learn that our creativity is limited, that if we do not work we can
only get on our bikes, but that even if we work for most of the time of
our lives, perhaps everything may be lost.
The questions and the answers that these workers try to give are dis-
turbing, and perhaps distressing as well; they are questions and answers
that are born from experience and from the daily experience and that for
this reason penetrate us and distress us. Even our time is mostly lost, per-
haps through the fault of others. Even our work is mostly hetero-directed.
(..)
The reading of this research arouses problems, it paves the way for
hypotheses, it worries us a lot and perhaps even provokes us.

2.3.2 The Ulysses project

According to the analysts who set up MET, the consequences, in terms of action, of
what emerges from the research wholly belongs to the union that commissioned it.
For that part of the union that had commissioned them, the research constituted a
cultural turning point that was translated into various initiatives, the most
important of which were of a training kind: a handbook for union trainingThe
workers inside the technological innovations4 and a new training methodology:
the project known as the Ulysses project. How can the unions take the initiative to
stimulate and encourage the innovative process? What are the instruments and
their disposal for the preventive and anticipatory bargaining? If the unions
establish the principle of preventive consultation on issues of technological
change, how can they assure the application of this principle? So far the unions
have tried to limit the damage to workers from technological changes, and in some
cases they have negotiated the distribution of the prots resulting from innovation.
They have played an essentially defensive role, leaving the active role in initiating
innovative technologies to the employers. Now, in order to take a more active role
in the processes of technological change, the unions must develop an autonomous
strategy for change. Such a strategy requires the skill to negotiate and apply
agreements which recognise the right of the unions to prior consultation on
technological questions. But, this skill itself presupposes the ability to manipulate
the concepts which inform innovative change. This ability can only develop as the
result of research, training and experienceas in the handbook and in the Ulysses
project.
In the Ulysses project the specic methodology was based on a dual level. On
the one hand, informative/formative lessons on individual and group dynamics
were conducted, while on the other hand specic dynamic exercises, beginning
with the discussion of the theoretical lessons, were also conducted. This alter-
nating between theoretical and practical training has contributed to providing
good rst-level training. Subsequently, the unionists who had done the training
participated as observers in group discussions, and then they talked about their
4
Published by Rosenberg & Sellier, Turin, 1986.
 193

experience with the experts. Lastly, they led discussion groups with the help of
supervision from expert psychoanalysts.

3 Moving from research to action-research

The situation changed at the beginning of the 1990s. For reasons that were
interwoven with the biographical elements of some of the members of the MET
and the increasing liberal transformations occurring in Italian politics, while the
role of the MET remained substantially unchanged, even if it became an associ-
ation and later a company with a multidisciplinary make-up, some of the mem-
bers of the MET, amongst whom were the authors of this paper, decided to take
part, individually, in action-research initiatives that required a methodology that
was not that of pure research. The roles remained distinct: on the one hand there
was the MET that had built up a research methodology, on the other there was
interest in the action that has required the elaboration of a specic operative
methodology. We, rst at IRESthe Research Institute of the General Workers

Union CGILthen at IpLthe Research and Development Foundation, which
sees the involvement of the unions, workers and companies, set up by the Emilia-
Romagna Regionhave developed a strand of action research. The formal
elaboration of the operative protocol took place at the time of the IpL was
founded.
The operative protocol of IpL is based on the model of the search conferences,
renewed and modied. Let
s rst illustrate the traditional model of the search
conference, then the one elaborated by IpL.

3.1 The classical search conference

The so-called search conferences originate from a 1970s article by Fred and
Evelyn Emery, later revised several times, for instance, by David Morley and Eric
Trist in 1981.

3.1.1 Aims

Search conferences are used to determine the conditions that allow the members of
multiple groups, groups often having divergent interests, to co-operatively deal
with the dimensions of a complex problem (more exhaustively than is usual). The
aim of the search conference is to obtain a new perspective on a problem in such a
way as to generate new options and, by such means, create new possibilities for a
more cohesive relationship between the many who had not till then been able to
cooperate owing to evident incompatibility. They are based upon several
hypotheses, developing through stages and rules, and envisage a certain kind of
outcome.

3.1.2 The hypotheses

The future can largely be inuenced by human intervention; there is not just one
future, but rather there are many possible futures. The performance of the
194

conferences is thus future-oriented and generally not related to the immediate

future. The scenarios are in the 1015 year range in order to then build up an
hypothesis beginning from the present.

3.2 The rules

1. All the parties interested in the problem need to be identied (stakeholders); it

has to be ascertained whether the minimum conditions of reciprocal trust
exist in order to begin the conference;
2. All the interested parties must participate as individuals or as representatives;
3. The role of the outsiders are as facilitators; they must not interfere in any way
with the discussion contents;
4. Each participant is considered, within the conference, equal to the others;
working can be of a plenary kind when there are fewer than 20 members;
5. Otherwise, plenary moments are alternated with groupwork sessions;
although the conference are very longat least two and a half daysthe
participants must be present the whole time and without interference
from the working activity. In general, this solution is achieved with
residential solutions, in places that are isolated from the participants
daily
activities.

3.2.1 The stages or phases (for one or more units)

1. Introduction. Someone with representativeness or authoritativeness outlines

the aims. The participants are presented in such a way that each one singles
out the interests of the others and can identify the subsequent interventions.
The moderators explain the envisaged programme and the resources at the
disposal of the conference.
2. Prospects sessions. Once again in the plenary session, the participants are
asked for their opinion on what is happening, which may have a signicant
impact on the future. Each opinion is recorded concisely on ip charts by the
management staff. The charts are then hung on the walls, where they are
visible to everyone.
3. The most important prospects trends. Three groups formed at random
examine the ip charts and try to single out ve or six of the most important
trends indicated by the data. Each group prepares a ip chart with their own
opinions.
4. Comparison of the trend evaluations. In the plenary session, the groups
present and compare their analyses. The aim is to get the participants to
accept that they are all in the same open, objectively, orderly world. If it
turns out that they are not, they can try to identify what it is that divides
them and whether it is actually worth pressing ahead.
5. Future likelihoods and desirables. In the context that they have created for
themselves, the participants are asked what would happen to their common
goal if they allowed things to proceed as they are (the likely future) and, if
everything should go well in the current situation, what could be accom-
plished (the desirable future). A group chosen at random works on the rst
point while another one works on the second.
 195

6. Identication of the programming challenge. In the plenary session the two

action plans are presented. If the difference is negligible, that is, if the desirable
future is also the most likely future, there is no need to plan ahead. In this rare
case, the conference could repeat the preceding phase, with groups set up
differently. If the results are conrmed, then the conference would be dis-
solved. Someone should then wonder which misunderstandings had led to this
useless conference. Obviously the divergence between the likely scenario and
the desirable one usually lies at the basis of the agenda for the rest of the
conference.
7. Constraints. At this point, a research conference temporarily sets aside the
question of the future and calculates where the organisation started from
and where it nds itself at the moment. The strong and weak points inherited
amount to a starting point for the future changes. This is done in the plenary
session with one or two individuals who give the biggest contribution.
8. Idealised projects for the future. Working in parallel, different groups
formed at random try to dene an organisational project that can realise the
desirable future scenario. They are called idealised projects, because the
participants are asked to design the necessary skills without considering
where they may come from. Since this phase follows from phase 7, abso-
lutely unreal expectations do not usually enter these design projects.
9. Harmonisation of the idealised projects. This is done in a plenary session,
calculating that the process continues until a single project is reached. Again
in the plenary session, the participants share the job of drafting the operative
programmes and choose the groups that will work in each part. It is sup-
posed that at this stage the conference has enough units and identities to
allow the groups to accept to work as operative units of the conference,
independently of the other bonds of belonging.
10. The work of the operative units. The operative units set their own work
programmes, within the limits of time and space of the conference, and it is
expected that they will present their proposals on ip charts in the plenary
session.
11. Plenary session on the proposals of the operative units. The plenary session
allows for the presentation, the critique and the co-ordination of the pro-
posals made by the operative units and should eventually agree upon and
assign the job of presenting the end report.

3.2.2 The results

From the point of view of the action, the stages that are elaborated are for-
mulated in terms of long-term general strategies rather than full-blown short-
term courses of action, even if that is not excluded when it is deemed necessary.
3.3 The revisitation eected by IpL

IpL has split the problem of the search conferences, as mentioned in point 1, into
two separate ideas:
1. The diagnosis, obtained via the discussion groups, a well-dened research
technique designed by Bion (1948), which can be supported by individual
interviews.
196

2. The development of shared generative concepts obtained via the search con-
ferences.

3.3.1 The diagnosis/the discussion groups

The methodology was illustrated before in a previous section.

3.3.2 The diagnosis/the free-form interviews

The unstructured interviews are the instrument by means of which one

intends, in the diagnosis phase, to collect information on the theme relevant
to the analysis, such as an organisation, a labour process and some organisa-
tional patterns. The procedure of analysis which utilises the interviews does
not start from predened assumptions and does not propose solutions or
models, the objective of the analysis, at that precise moment in time, is to
acquire the broadest possible knowledge about the actual situation and the
labour processes in order to construct the subsequent phase, that of organisa-
tional planning.
The analysis performed by means of interviews is based on several premises:
1. the direct involvement of players who are in contact with the actual working
processes. The objective of the analysis is not so much to manage to represent
and describe the formal organisational set-up, but to reconstruct the processes
and the actual organisational models utilising the accounts, the information
and the images conjured up by the players;
2. the gathering of data, materials, communications that are relevant towards
reconstructing the actual labour processes;
3. the voluntary decision to give an interview.
From our point of view, the involvement of the players cannot be required
by construction. Hence, a fundamental moment is when information is given
on the premises, on the reasons leading to the taking shape of a process of
involvement and participation of the actors and on the interview methodol-
ogy. The starting point (the objective) must be clear right from the beginning
and will act as the leitmotif for the analysis. This does not prevent the
attention, during the interview, from moving onto other factors. A similar
occurrence can indicate that the initial problem is not the fundamental one,
but is rather linked to the analysis of other factors, and in any case highlights
the subjectivity that each one expresses in giving a sense to his/her own
account.
The interview sets itself the aim of getting the informal aspects of the object
of the investigation, compared to how things should be (formal), to emerge
from the accounts of the players. At times the greatest diculty lies in getting
the dierence between formal and informal to emerge, and for the interviewee
to recognise and relate his/her own informal actions, i.e., the unplanned ones.
The interview, by means of the relationship between the researcher and the
interviewer, can help to get the dierence between formal and informal to
transpire.
 197

During the interview dierent areas of personal and working experience are
dealt with. The material gathered is summarised by the researcher who will, if
necessary, utilise passages from the interviews, assuring the condentiality of
the sources, in order to integrate his/her own analyses with the witness reports.
The researcher
s summary in this phase does not introduce interpretative ele-
ments, but is limited to supplying a descriptive analysis of the situation being
examined.
Some organisation criteria of the interview materials:
1. Conicts
2. Connection-interaction integration Informal networks
3. Control and process regulation (formal/informal)
4. Co-operation
5. Co-ordination
6. Creativity problem, solution, learning processes,
7. Culture
8. Discretion autonomy, responsibility, decisionmaking
9. Division of labour (man/woman), manual/intellectual,
10. Execution/control
11. Expropriation
12. Hierarchical authority, competence
13. Rules
14. Training process
15. Variances events, stories, metaphors, effect/cause
16. Work experience, knowledge, learning

3.3.3 The development of the shared generative concepts/the search conferences

3.3.3.1 The hypothesis The future can largely be inuenced by human inter-
vention; the future does not exist but there do exist possible futures. Thus, the
unfolding of the conferences is oriented to the three to ve year future. More-
over, it is hypothesised that the result to be achieved, if possible, should be a
shared set of concepts of a generative kind; that is, concepts capable of generating
a short-term course of action. It is hypothesised that the topic or relevant issues
had already been selected at the diagnostic moment.

3.3.3.2 The rules

1. All the parties affected by the problem have to be singled out (stakeholders);
it has to be ascertained whether the minimum conditions of reciprocal trust
exist in order to start up the conference;
2. all the interested parties must participate, and can participate as individuals
or as representatives;
3. the group is co-ordinated by two people. One has the task of being the
custodian of the rules, i.e., he or she must guarantee the absolute equality
of the participants in the discussion and their freedom to decide whether to
agree to the prevalent pints of view. The second co-ordinates the discussion
with the task of intervening vis-a-vis the merits of the points, above all in the
second phase of the process (see later), according to the rigidly dened rules.
198

The mode of intervention are out of mere technical support, in the elabora-
tion phases, by means of concept tool boxes that help the participants to
conceptualise, on the grounds of their publicly available cultural and tech-
nical/scientic knowledge, the formulated hypotheses;
4. each participant is considered equal to the others within the conference;
5. the work is only conducted in a plenary session, so the group normally does
not exceed 20, in exceptional cases 25, members;
6. the conferences take place over two days, the participants must be present
throughout and with no interference from the working activity;
7. the conference results must be written down and delivered, between the sec-
ond and the third phase, to all the participants who may amend them. The
texts can be disseminated only if on condition that all the participants agree to
it, otherwise the conference is deemed to beinconclusive.

3.3.3.3 The stages or phases

1. The rst meeting lasts three hours. It is necessary for the participants,
beginning from what had been diagnosed through the discussion groups, to
dene the starting point of their reasoning on how to try to inuence their
future on the selected themes. Everything is reported on the ip charts
hung on the walls and visible to all the participants. Generally speaking,
the result is a list of logical successive actions, of their determinants and
their possible consequences. The pictorial representation is the classical
herring-bone pattern. On the dorsal spine the actions are recorded, on the
left side the determinants and on the right side the consequences. All this is
hardly formalised and deliberately left threadbare.
2. The second meeting lasts two hours and is needed to reorganise the ipcharts
of phase 1, going deeper into the merits of the problems and trying to get
everyone to voice their opinions.
3. The third meeting lasts two hours, and is based upon the text drafted by the
two coordinators. It is essential that the text should sum up, even by con-
ceptualising, faithfully what had been said by the participants and/or, if
necessary, what had been said by the coordinators but clearly stressing that
the statements had been made by one of the coordinators. The discussion is
aimed at delivering, if possible, a written text which expresses what the par-
ticipants have agreed to share in terms of concepts that are sufciently
accurate as to be considered generative concepts and, if they believe it to be
useful, they can also add some full-blown detailed courses of action. If the
time allowance were deemed to be insufcient, a further two-hour catch-up
phase can be added, to be allocated to another day.

3.3.3.4 The results The production of shared generative concepts instantly

implemented by the participants.

3.4 Some examples of the search conference experience

The motivations that have led the tendering parties to undertake and realise
organisational action projects imply the need to intervene with structured
 199

analyses based on people
s involvement in the process of re-thinking the

organisation of work. In particular, in situations of growing complexity there
is a search for solutions to the problems of the present and to the uncer-
tainties represented by the future, drawing on the subjective contributions,
and the competencies and knowledge of both male and female workers.
Why does the future appear to be uncertain? Why is there a need for new
solutions?
For the public sector in general, the need derives from an awareness of the
spaces for organisational autonomy that have been created, at a general level,
as several competencies (decentralisation, federalism) have been decentralised
and, at the specic level, with the change in the system of professional status
and labour contracts (increasingly of a private-law nature) and the armation
of the pivotal nature of the relationship with the external context and with the
user.
As concerns the private sector, the question of the tendering party has
developed along two lines: organisational company models that foster individual
and group motivation towards productivity, quality and success, and on an
autonomous and responsible basis, the industrial relations systems.5
The need to adopt participation-based working methodologies is also dictated
by the awareness that the top-down solutions, in situations where there is an
important impact of the exogenous variables on the organisational contexts
(modications in the normative framework, market situations, inter-partite
conicts, process innovation, etc.), have generally produced very little choice-
sharing, a growing divide between senior management, clerical sta and worker
levels, and, often, the failure of the models or the solutions identied owing to
the fact that they poorly reect actual needs. The use of research techniques
based on people
s participation and contribution to the realisation of the study
(through the discussion groups and the in-depth qualitative interviews), the
methods for returning the results of the analyses6 and the planning of the or-
ganisational solutions, are fundamental stages in the search for participation in
the articulation of shared, bottom-up, rather than top-down, work proposals.
These methodologies make it possible for the workers and tendering parties to
participate and invest in the actions to be undertaken.
Among the results achieved by the eldwork and recognised by the parties
involved is the fact of having sustained (and valorised) the collective contribu-
tion in the re-evaluation of the working activities and the work organisation,
and having made the individuals accountable (at all the levels and in all the
organisational roles) in terms of the organisational and strategic choices.

5
On this specic topic several projects have been performed, in particular an analysis on the
participative Zanussi system, an analysis on the industrial relations system at Seabo and at
AGAC, both public utilities services companies, based in Bologna and Reggio Emilia,
respectively.
6
The research reports are delivered to all the participants, they are given the time to read them
and specic opportunities for discussion are created with the participation of all the organi-
sational levels that are important for the researchers to receive a validation of the performed
analysis. Moreover, the reports relate nearly the whole thinking of the interviewees and the
discussions occurring within the groups (the phrases and the literal expressions used are re-
ported). This technique allows the group or the individual to clearly recognise him/herself and
to clearly identify the contribution provided to the analysis.
200

3.4.1 The changes in work and the proposals for re-organisation

From an analysis of the eld experiences performed, it can be observed that the
important changes in the organisation of work call into question the issue of
time and its employment, and the integration of competencies. More specically:

1. changes in the production methods and the organisation of work introduce a

different way of measuring and organising working time;
2. organisational change would require a group- and relation-based working
organisation, but groupwork cannot always be accomplished.

3.4.1.1 Time According to the analytical notion of time introduced by Fordism, a

temporal section is indistinctly divided into homogeneous phases that do not leave
any scope for uncertainty and variance. This notion of time is changing in relation
to the currently ongoing work transformations; the emergence of new production
modes introduces the personalisation and heterogeneity of the time-patterns that
were not even considered possible in the past. Previously, a type of qualitative and
quantitative performance may have corresponded to a set time (the standard
salary model), but now the equilibrium in the time dimension has been altered.
Keeping a standard measurement unit does not allow us to appreciate the con-
stantly rising number of dierent ways of participating in work.7
Our studies have necessarily dealt with the problem of the dierent time-
dimensions. Indeed, it is very common to nd that the organisational models
and the forms of production introduce new forms of temporal organisation
which give rise to a variety of time-patterns, within a circumscribed period,
within a week, between one working hour and the next and, as a whole, during
the course of a whole life. This variety inevitably has consequences upon the
organisational and subjective aspects of the working performance.
For example, we know that in the agricultural and agro-industrial sector
there are no set working times as the work is closely linked to the agricultural
operations and procedures necessary for the output, and to the seasonal cy-
cles. In this sector, internal exibility8 is determined by the production pro-
cesses based on increasingly advanced technologies that require the non-stop
use of the plant and shiftwork, as well as working patterns that require an
increase in activities during harvesting, when delivering the produce, servicing
the machinery, warehousing etc. Consequently, there follow the many other
types of contract and working hours (opened-ended length, payment per hour,
alongside the company variations that contemplate dierent models of exible
time). This is also valid for other sectors, for example, in the textile sector,
where the organisation of production is gauged to satisfying increasingly

7
A sociological and economic analysis of the new working relations and the new modes of
labour organisation increasing shows a multiplicity of time-management practices that, while
not existing even in the period when there predominated the Fordist productive and time
organisation model, they are now more diuse, sometimes the subject of regulation and
sometimes left to informality.
8
We mean the exibility deriving from the interventions on the organisational structure and on
the workers, and which thus originates from an elastic organisation that allows for continuous
adaptations to the external variances.
 201

irregular and discontinuous production requirements. The sector has to cope

with an internal labour market that is required to supply extremely exible
work: just think that most companies do not have stably-employed workers,
and that to face the demand for productive exibility they resort to pro-
duction outsourcing; moreover, even in the outsourced companies the number
of stable workers is rather low.
But besides that, another aspect should be underlined: in sectors like the ones
cited, labour organisation patterns are widespread that are constructed on the
need to give a rapid response, to guarantee an ever-shorter series and to remedy
the diculties in planning and the increase in the variances. The textile sector,
owing to the very nature of its production, has for some time pitched itself
against these elements and has organised its production in such a way as to
limit the damage caused by the compression of the market reaction time.9
However, there is the problem of the timing and pace of production that is
undoubtedly faster than in the past.10 On the one hand, this production man-
agement modies the aspects internal to the working time, while, on the other,
it juxtaposes a rigid organisation with clearly dened working tasks around a
measurement unit of regular time. Indeed, when they have to satisfy the cus-
tomer
s demands the companies rely on the mobilisation of the labour force in
regard to the production objectives (quantity, quality, exibility, polyvalence).
In other words, when the production rhythm is high there is a exibilisation of
time in order to be able to respond to market demand within the scope of the
already established set hours, which surpasses the conventional and regulated
practices of temporal organisation. In several crucial moments of production
the rule is: everyone can get mobilised for the sake of achieving a result. The
deconstructing of the roles and the traditional operations that derive from this
organisation generates tension vis-a-vis the ultimate goal that puts the subject
s
psychological willingness to the test. This is what is meant by the expression
Just-in-time of subjectivity in terms of result achievement.11
In this sector, recourse to overtime hours is widespread and with the new
sectoral bargaining agreements, subcontractors are starting to apply forms of
time-schedule exibility that, even if insucient, allow the overtime hours
worked to be paid for with a reduction in the hours in the periods when activity
is lower.
Apart from what is determined by a particular productive model, in most of
the organisational contexts studied there is a signicant increase in the quali-
tative characteristics of the work, which translates very concretely into the theme
of time and its exible use. The increase in the qualitative aspects of the work
(valorisation and utilisation of the transverse competencies, the increase in the
9
Among the most exhaustive studies we can cite the one edited by Belussi, Nuovi modelli di
impresa, gerarchie organizzative ed impresa a rete, (New company models, organisational
hierarchies and network companies).
10
These considerations derive from a study performed by the University of Modena entitled Il
settore tessile abbigliamento in Emilia Romagna. Cambiamento strutturale e strategie del-
l
Impresa e del mercato del lavoro, (The textile-clothing sector in Emilia Romagna. Structural
change, company strategies and the labour market
) available at IpL and from Ansaloni and
Ballotta, Innovazione nelle forme e nell
organizzazione del lavoro in agricoltura e nell
indu-
stria agroalimentare in Emilia Romagna, (Innovation in the forms and in the organisation of
work in agriculture and in the food industry in Emilia Romagna).
11
Y. Clot, JY. Rochez Y. Shwartz, cited in Jacquot, 1999.
202

job relations and integrations, communication and involvement of the worker
s

subjective characteristics) if they do not accompany an organisational redeni-
tion require a growth in the total time dedicated to a particular task. Indeed, as
we could observe during our studies, such an enrichment in the work performed
is not always matched by a rethinking of the overall organisation of time, nor by
a redenition of the working task.
An increasing number of organisations have tended to demand worker avail-
ability outside the standard working hours with no legal or juridical recognition,
and without this availability being in some way either controlled or measured.12
There is thus a mismatch between the trend towards a broadening and an
enrichment of the work performed and the presence of organisational con-
straints that hamper a fully-edged, recognised form of exibility: the increase in
bureaucracy and in the organisational tiers, the reduced opportunities for
information and participation in the denition of work and its organisation.
In particular, there is a qualitative intensication of the work that in most
cases is translated into an increase in the workload, because there is no re-
designing of the means for realising the task and the time dedicated to it
assimilating the new elements.
Indeed, it is acknowledged that these modalities present numerous advantages
from the point of view of ecacy and the individual, the group and the orga-
nisation
s productivity, although it often happens that there is no concession to
autonomous space and visibility to the cooperatively-performed work, with the
consequent squeezing of overall working time and an intensied workload
(Helmrich et al. 1994). Besides that, evidently, frustration is produced in the
actors due to the non-recognition and visibility of the organisation in regard to
these forms of work.
A study performed by IpL in the context of the public administration has
borne out what is being argued. The study analysed the relationship between the
work organisation models that were being established in that specic situation
and the characteristics and the competencies of the labour force, both male and
female, introducing a reading of the organisational dynamics within the gender
perspective.
In this case, the gender theme has been very concretely translated into the
issue of time and exibility of its use. Taken abstractly, the topic regards both
men and women, but certainly since women entered the labour market and have
started to work with considerable professional commitment and career expec-
tations this variable has taken on a greater importance for them. Indeed, while
men can make use of a repertoire of roles and ways of utilising time that is more
articulated and less bound to pre-set hours, for women time is regulated more
restrictively. Work and professional development have determined the time
dedicated to the working sphere with the consequent slimming down of the
overall hours dedicated to personal welfare.
In the face of this exibility, as requested or implied in the labour organisation
models, what is coming into being is the formal recognition of a form of work
called totalising because it takes up so many hours of the day, based on the
12
As demonstrated by a study of the French Labour Inspectorate of the Rhone-Alpes region,
La ruee vers l
heure des nouveaux temps modernes, cited in the report Trasformazioni del
Lavoro e cambiamenti del diritto del lavoro in Europa, (Transformations in work and changes
in labour law in Europe) Rif. DGV/98/776 DGV
 203

qualitative aspects of the work done and on the availability a person is willing to
oer. The organisations, on their part, often operate leaving a free course to
these work patterns and evaluation of the work, aware of the fact that their
functioning is not guaranteed by the formal procedures alone, but is mainly
entrusted to informal mechanisms.

3.4.1.2 The integration of the competencies and the group work A survey based
on the quantitative analysis of about 100 questionnaires was delivered to
companies in Emilia-Romagna, belonging to dierent productive and service
sectors and aiming to investigate organisational and industrial relations issues,
highlights the univocal tendency for the organisations to adopt forms of labour
organisation based on the dimensions that valorise human resources (Capecchi
and Carbone 2000). Albeit with signicant dierences between the manufac-
turing and the services sector, the measurement of the variables that make up
this dimension (training, delegating of decision-making at the operative level,
accountability, participation, etc.) indicates that the organisations are increas-
ingly oriented towards a working pattern based on autonomy, proxy,
accountability and groupwork. An analysis of how the organisational models
are declined and interpreted in the working situations should also be entrusted
to empirical and case studies; remaining exclusively on the theoretical level there
is indeed a risk of confusing some concepts as often we use the same denitions
that in practice are declined and applied very dierently. For example, when we
say groupwork we mean the polyvalence of the workers such as to allow then
to be substituted and rotate in those same tasks, or the responsibility for a work
process that implies complex tasks and the ability of each group member to plan
the work and the procedures so that continuous improvement comes to be part
of the tasks of that group of people as a daily working activity (Rebecchi 1996).
Confusion of this kind is frequent.
Specic in-depth eld analysis bears witness to a growing resort to groupwork,
motivated by the complexity of some aspects of work that requires the integration
of dierent professional competencies and disciplines. Frequently, there are
experiments with various forms of collaboration, from the institutionalised one
(deriving from ad hoc management actions and decisions, recognised through a
system of incentives created for the specic case) to the more informal ones. In the
manufacturing sector, our analyses indicate that the relations between the workers
and their versatility are mainly used to facilitate and accelerate the processes of
problem-solving and the market response. The use of the workgroup in this case
seems more similar to the demand for polyvalence from the operators needing to
deal with peaks in demand and to oer rapid responses to the market (Bertini and
Ventura 2000). For some time the manufacturing sector, in respect to the public
sector and that of the services, has been measuring itself against the concepts of the
Japanese and North American tradition as, for example, the production isles,
teamwork, job enrichment and job enlargement adapting them to the dierent
national and local peculiarities.13 Instead, in the public sector and that of the

13
As observed by Belussi and Garibaldo (1996) there is no single organisational model and a
modality that can be applied tout court, but the best experiences are built up through a mix with
original and creative elements of the local culture.
204

services, a re-designing of the workows of the public administration has inter-

vened in the historically fossilised set-ups in which the public apparata have
implemented general programmes and actions, together with the presence of tools
and elements for control and regulation. This setup has encouraged the creation of
bureaucratic structures based on the presence of denitely recognised roles of
authority, the division of labour and specialisation, and on a system of denite
rules and procedures for the realisation and achievement of objectives and tasks.
Now, the shifting of the public system
s task from control and regulation towards a
more relevant function of performance, both from the qualitative and quantitative
standpoint, has demonstrated the need to overcome a divisional and bureaucratic
model of labour organisation, and to introduce modalities more based on trans-
versal relations, communication and an interdependence between work and peo-
ple processes.
In spite of that many studies and interventions on the reorganisation of the
public service, these have tended to privilege the juridical and legal terms of the
reform and the study of the formal and specialist aspects, such as procedures
analysis, control criteria, etc. Even the training policy addressed to the workers of
the public sectorin particular the councils and the provinces at the national
levelpreserves the focus on the juridical-normative and technical-specialist
thematic elds, while the themes of organisation, internal and institutional com-
munication and work organisation appear to have been neglected. Yet there has
been a growing demand from the administrations for training activities on issues of
organisation, evaluation and control, and working processes, in relation to those
performed on questions of information technology and telematics (Formez 2000).
Moreover, it should be stressed that in the public sector the concept of the
pivotal nature of the relationship with the external context and the user has only
recently started to take root. In point to fact, the public organisations have
increasingly resorted to organisational working methods for horizontal pro-
cesses of activities specically addressed to satisfying the user
s demands and the
production of a good/service. This setup is gradually replacing a sectoral and
vertical form of work organisation. A radical change in perspective, then: the
objective has identied a working process around which a structure of relations
and competencies is created necessary for the achievement of that aim.
This approach widely justies the tendency of moving towards boundary-less
organisations, in which the organisation of work is a long structure, as in a ow
(Helmrich, Janbrink and Edeback 1994). At the micro level there is a change in
the organisational structure, that is to say, in the systems of relations between
the sectors, departments and areas of the same organisation. Some case studies
performed at the city councils of the small and medium-sized regions have
shown a converging tendency for these bodies to implement signicant actions
upon the structure with the aim of responding to a general simplication of the
work processes (Sbordone 2000).
The organisation towards which the reorganisational eort of these adminis-
trations is directed should allow for a transversal management of the adminis-
trative processes and functions based more, compared with the past, on social
functional relations towards the productive process and on the socialisation of
knowledge and skills. The analysis has found that in these situations there have for
some time been reviews of the organisational structures driven by the idea of
performing work processes with the involvement of the competencies and skills
 205

present in the dierent areas of the organisation. In these circumstances, in par-

ticular, the divisional structure has been superseded and working models have
been provided allow sectors or services to be combined into functional areas and
with homogeneous skills, so as to facilitate the transverse nature and integration of
work.
In these cases the transformational actions on the organisation of work have
brought about a reduction in the number of interfaces, thus allowing for the
mobilisation of functions and skills around the objective, introducing working
patterns that give the groups complex tasks and/or tasks that can be traced back
to a meaningful unit.

3.4.2 The answers and the reorganisation hypotheses

Our investigation into the organisation of work and, in particular, the projects
for the development and support to organisational innovation have constantly
dealt with the theme of the intensication of the work patterns, time manage-
ment and groupwork. Irrespective of the situation studied during the organi-
sational development phase, there has been a frequent demand for redesigning
the working activities according to the workgroup modality in order to deal with
complex work problems, to identify shared solutions, to lessen the workload and
to participate and relate to one
s work. Nonetheless, groupworking still struggles
to take root as the normal working modality; generally speaking, specic pro-
jects are realised through the workgroup, of an experimental and special kind.
Often then, the group work is not seen as a normal working modality, but rather
work added on to the traditional work. Consequently, participation in the group
activity is put on a par with participation in a training course and is often linked
to an economic bonus, often individual, or to a form of certication valid to-
wards career advancement. According to this interpretation, work group par-
ticipation is translated into longer working hours. That is, the group work is an
activity that is added on to the traditional work, it takes away time from other
activities, because there has been is no re-elaboration of working time.
The link with questions of an organisational nature is evident; if we indeed
choose a working model for complex objectives we have to review the working
organisation based on fragmented and divided tasks, the denition of respon-
sibilities and the concept of proxy among the various organisational tiers. It is
thus necessary to review the way of conceiving of and organising work.
Alongside this, however, as the premise for the cooperation is the willingness of
the organisation and the individuals, the qualifying elements of this re-designing
are the accessibility to information, participation in the organisational and
strategic choices, and training (Dankbaar et al. 1997)
Furthermore, an adequate time and recognition of the group work requires a
series of instruments and notions. For example, being able to work in groups
requires a knowledge of specic methodologies and having notions regarding the
dynamic and relational aspects that the group work modality introduces.
Equally important is having adequate spaces. Often, conversely, the work places
do not have the physical spaces and a proper layout to allow for the realisation
of collective work or a work that is based upon the relations and dialogue
between people, rather than on individual work in isolation. From the point of
view of information technologies, they partly manage to get around the problem
206

of the lack of adequate spaces and resolve the limit of distance between people,
but they are insucient and, in any case, the use of information and telematic
technologies has only recently started to spread in Italy, and new forms of work
organisation linked to these innovations have been tried out (teleworking,
telematic networks between companies, etc.) (Sbordone 1999).

4 Conclusions

It is possible to give support to people willing to shape their future either on

their own or through social research deeply rooted in their subjectivity, as we did
in the discussion group phase. Furthermore, it is possible to reach the same goal
through action research, i.e., by aiming at a status of people involved in the
process as co-designers, as we did in the phase of the worker
s collective for
preventive medicine and in the search conferences, in the classical design. We are
still working with both methodologies.
What is new in our experience is the attempt to connect the two methods into
a single process, that is as steps of a unied process, as we are doing through the
revised version of the search conferences.
This new phase is vulnerable to many possible hazards that should be anal-
ysed from a epistemological perspective as well as analysed continuously
through a careful analysis of the empirical material of our action research
activities. The outcomes in terms of people involvement and of the mobilisation
of people
s potential are very impressive.

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