Abstract

This article deals with a little known aspect of the biography of Felice Balbo, i.e. his activity as a management training expert at the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI) at the turn of the nineteen fifties and sixties. Through a cross-analysis of the Turinese philosopher's personal papers and of the IRI archives, an organic thinking emerges about the theory of corporate management and the main issues related to the teaching of managerial sciences then coming into being, from how they were taught to more strictly epistemological aspects. Parallel to philosophical reflection, Balbo's contribution to conceiving the first courses for IRI executives responded to the need to jointly conceive the linkage between technical and social progress, so forcefully established by the industrial society of Italy's «economic miracle».