Dalla crisi allo sviluppo. Scritti per la riorganizzazione delle filiali Comit, 1934-1935

The volume confirms the decisive contribution made by ‘banker’ Malagodi to the relaunch of Banca Commerciale Italiana following its bailout in the early 1930s. Inspired by the strategy of devolving operations and decision-making honed with Raffaele Mattioli in 1933-1934, Malagodi drew up an original, cohesive organisational plan to reconvert the bank to ordinary credit, revitalising its peripheries by introducing a new architecture for branch work. Just as important was establishing a system for assessing ‘creditworthiness’ at all levels with what became a famous form (Form 253), reproduced in the Appendix.

Modern-day readers gain a close insight to Malagodi’s strict organisational logic; he began by identifying the failures of the old system and then developed a series of reforms for the new branch services, defining corresponding management roles at local level. The picture was completed with innovative, well thought-out ideas for training and assessing management staff.

The appeal of these unpublished texts also lies in Malagodi’s philosophical and humanistic background, which emerges from the encyclopaedic indexes and is confirmed by his elegant reasoning and the command of his language.