DIRIGENTE D'IMPRESA. – He is like the intermediary between the employer and the worker. In reality, he too is a worker, insofar as he is not bound to the enterprise by a property relationship, but only by employment. His bond, however, given the importance and responsibility of his office, is such as to place him in a category of his own, which employees, as a rule, do not distinguish from that of employers. The d. d. is like the pivot around which the manifold activity of the various productive factors revolves, hence his prominent importance in ensuring the enterprise’s full efficiency.
The figure of the d. d'i. who is neither owner nor entrepreneur appears, on the one hand—especially in large publicly held companies—as the product of the disastrous separation between capital and labor; on the other hand, however, it is an example of what even a capable ordinary worker might become, independently of the availability of capital, with suitable training. Pio XII therefore quite appropriately, in his Christmas message of 1942 (AAS, 35 [1943], p. 9 ff.), called for the implementation of social measures that would give the children of workers endowed with particular intelligence the possibility of higher education.
Much has been written in recent times about the duties of the d. d'i., and the laws according to which he must attend to the management of the enterprise have been set out in a more or less lengthy catalogue. Among the most celebrated names, it is enough to recall those of Emerson, Taylor, Alford, Fayol, Vilbois, La Vallière, Raymond, Le Chatelier, Landauer, etc. (cf. F. Mauro, Il capo nell'azienda industriale, 4ª ed., Milano 1946). Almost all of them, however, have focused predominantly on the technical and artistic aspects of enterprise management. Yet one must not underestimate its ethical aspect, which is of the utmost importance for someone who, like the director of an enterprise, has dealings with a highly varied human world, characterized by different and often conflicting tendencies and mentalities.
It is true that in an enterprise in which the levers of command are operated by anonymous capital or by an entrepreneur exclusively concerned with his own profit, the possibilities of the d. d'i. are very limited and restricted; nevertheless, even solely because of the importance of his office, he always has a fairly broad sphere of influence. His duties, therefore, are manifold, both with regard to the enterprise and to its personnel and the common good.
With regard to the enterprise, he has the duty of ensuring its proper functioning; and this not only out of an obligation of strict justice toward the employers, but also out of a debt of justice, at least social justice, toward the employees. Pio XI observes, in Quadragesimo anno, that at times an enterprise is unable to pay its workers a just wage because of indolence, incapacity, and disregard for technical and economic progress (cf. I. Giordani, op. cit. in bibl., p. 328, n. 33).
Responsibility for this may also fall upon the d. d'i.; and it falls upon him all the more if he has a predominant role in its administration. This occurs with considerable frequency today, since, especially in large enterprises, ownership is often divided and even dispersed among many and very many shareholders who are strangers to the life of the enterprise and are in fact invested only with the power to appoint its administrators. The d. d'i. is therefore required to keep abreast of technical progress and fluctuating market conditions. Moreover, as is obvious, he is required to be objective in drawing up balance sheets, impartial in selecting personnel and assigning tasks, actively vigilant in ensuring hygiene and moral health in the workplace, solicitous that the religious and family needs of his employees receive due satisfaction, and guided by human understanding in dealing with their needs and legitimate aspirations. Today more than ever, the enterprise, while remaining an economic combination of the factors of wealth, takes on the character and value of a community of work; consequently, the moral commitment of the d. d'i. assumes ever greater importance and, because of his intermediary position between holders of capital and workers, he may be a determining element in the progressive establishment of an economic and social order founded on human solidarity and active cooperation.