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This chapter deals with labour conditions and discrimination of migrant workers in Italy, with a particular focus on the agricultural sector in two Southern Italian areas: Northern Basilicata and Western Sicily. The first part of the chapter describes the history of migration to Italy and the most relevant transformations occurred over the last years, as well as an overview of the relevant legislation on migration and racial discrimination at work. The second part, on the basis of two ethnographic studies realized by the two authors, analyses the complex intertwinement of structural and symbolic violence in determining the conditions of exploitation and discrimination of migrant seasonal labourers in the two areas. The study focuses on three topics: piecework payment; the ghettoization and segregation of seasonal labourers; the system of informal and illegal labour intermediation called caporalato. It is argued that that the main source of symbolic violence is represented by the brokers called caporali, who are usually of the same nationality of the labourers. If, on a certain extent, migrant workers perceive their ghettoization, discrimination and exploitation as ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’, this is due to the communitarian relationships built and manipulated by the caporali. On the contrary, the State and the local administrations seem to act exclusively as a source of structural violence. The national legislation on migration, as well as the lack of public policies concerning labour intermediation, transport and accommodation for seasonal labourers, appears as the main reason of the vulnerability of migrant workers in the considered areas.

As the implementation and acceptance of utility analyses are afflicted by several problems, this paper sets out to describe how to circumvent these problems by implementing a new framework for utility analysis.

The HC BRidge™ model, developed by Boudreau and Ramstad, was implemented to determine the utility of assessment centers within a call center company.

The results demonstrate the utility of the assessment centers and the usefulness of the HC BRidge™ model.

Future research should clarify under which conditions human resource specialists can communicate effectively and reach an optimal decision within the HC BRidge™ model of utility analysis.

It is highlighted how human resource experts can assist in using utility analyses (as a component of HR strategy) for decision‐making processes concerning limited organizational resources.

To demonstrate the usefulness and value of the HC BRidge™ model for both researchers and practitioners.