Brunetta’s reform swan song? An assessment of its success in local governments through the analysis of its tools

The work aims at assessing the success of Brunetta’s reform (Legislative Decree n. 150/2009), a far-reaching reform that aimed at improving both organizational and individual performance in Italian public administration through a specific planning and control process (the performance cycle) and most of all through two new tools, Performance Plan and Performance Report. The success of the reform is assessed, with particular emphasis on local governments, analyzing the diffusion and use of these new tools. The study has been conducted using a deductive-inductive methodology. Thus, after a study of managerial reforms in Italy and performance measurement literature, a possible model (PerformEL Model) local governments could follow to draw up Performance Plan and Report as effective tools for performance measurement has been designed (deductive phase). Performance Plans 2011-2013 and Performance Report 2011 downloaded from Italian big sized municipalities’ websites have been analyzed in the light of PerformEL Model, to assess the diffusion of the documents and their coherence with legal requirements and suggestions from literature (inductive phase). Data arising from the empirical analysis have been studied to evaluate the diffusion and the effectiveness of big sized municipalities’ Performance Plans and Reports as performance measurement tools and thus to assess the success of the reform (feedback phase). The study shows a scarce diffusion of the documents; they are mostly drew up because of their compulsoriness or to gain legitimization. The results testify the failure of Brunetta’s reform, at least with regard to local governments

The efficiency of the top Mega yacht builders across the world: a financial ratio-based data envelopment analysis

This research provides an application of a non-parametric analytic technique (Data Envelopment Analysis, DEA) in measuring the performance of the mega yacht sector. It analyses the efficiency of the top mega yacht companies across the world in 2005-2013 by offering a model useful for comparing inefficient shipbuilders with the efficient ones. This paper adopts an output-oriented version of DEA based on financial ratios where inputs are not utilised. In order to handle missing data, we test and compare two different techniques: the deletion one and the multiple linear regression analysis (MLRA). We find that DEA can be a complement or alternative tool to ratio analysis to evaluate corporates’ performance. We also find that the most efficient shipbuilders are those based in the most prosperous countries. Finally, the MLRA efficiency scores are more reliable and consistent with the firms’ annual reports and financial ratios

Inversion of EM38 electrical conductivity data

In geophysical prospecting and environmental monitoring, the frequency domain electromagnetic induction technique has been developed for measuring the apparent soil electrical conductivity. A linear model can be formulated to described the response of the EM38, a ground conductivity meter. To image the subsurface conductivity profile from recorded data, the model has been inverted defining a Least Squares problem with Tikhonov approach improves the conditioning of the resulting linear systems, profile reconstruction can be surprisingly far from the expected conductivity behaviour

A meteo-hydrological forecasting chain: performance of the downscaling and rainfall-runoff steps in a small catchment

Forecasting ground effects of severe meteorological events with an adequate lead time is fundamental for civil protection scopes and is therefore an important challenge for the scientific community. The paper focuses on the performance of some steps of a meteo-hydrological forecasting chain that can be applied in small watersheds to assess hydrological risk deriving by an intense storm predicted at the large meteorological scale. The proposed procedure integrates large-scale rainfall fields, as those produced by numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, with statistical rainfall downscaling and hydrological modelling. More in details, assuming a large scale rain rate as the input of the process, the forecasting chain produces an ensemble of hydrographs that are post-processed in order to give a probabilistic representation of mean streamflow maxima for different time windows. The outcome of this procedure can be thus applied to assess the risk that some critical streamflow thresholds may be exceeded. The procedure has been tested on more than one thousand recorded events in the Araxisi catchment in Sardinia, Italy. Results and performances are presented and discussed

Popular Culture and Totalitarianism: Accounting for Propaganda in Italy under the Fascist Regime (1934-1945)

Throughout history both democratic and totalitarian States have sought to take advantage of the possible political contributions of art and culture. This study presents the first in-depth historical study of the relationship between accounting and culture in a totalitarian State; the Fascist State in Italy between 1934 and 1945. Accounting documents in the form of budgets and reports provided by the Fascist government, along with other accounts prepared by the Fascists, were used to build a narrative that identified the ways in which the Fascist regime sought to win the committed allegiance of the Italian people in unseen ways. Accounting documents and the cultural activities to which they relate show the ways in which the Fascists developed their own conception of popular culture and sought control of cultural organisations and intellectuals in spreading their values and beliefs through cultural artefacts. The study documents the importance of accounting records as a less obvious, often underscored source for social history. It also adds to the growing literature that has explored the place of accounting in totalitarian regimes by focusing on the unexplored context of Fascist popular culture and identifying the contributions of accounting to the management of propaganda activities

Accounting and raison d’État in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany: Reopening the University of Pisa (1543–1609)

The University of Pisa in the 16th and early 17th centuries was essential to the governmental plan of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany to strengthen their State. Consistent with the rationality of Foucault’s concept of raison d’État, the Grand Dukes sought to constantly mould the conduct of students and professors through a multitude of interventions. These often contradicted the law in the form of the Statute under which the University was reopened that promised to protect the freedom and independence of students and professors. Detailed control by the Grand Dukes was enabled by an extensive use of written information, most notably in the form of accounting reports, which made it possible for the rulers to govern the University in a detailed and thorough way

Measuring public value: a conceptual and applied contribution to the debate

Countries facing austerity measures need to create public value. Academics and practitioners have been discussing the ways in which public value can be created, managed and measured. This paper contributes to this conversation by proposing a public value measurement model. An Italian case study is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the model and the organizational implications when public value measures are available to public sector managers, politicians and the public

Measuring public value: a conceptual and applied contribution to the debate

Countries facing austerity measures need to create public value. Academics and practitioners have been discussing the ways in which public value can be created, managed and measured. This paper contributes to this conversation by proposing a public value measurement model. An Italian case study is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the model and the organizational implications when public value measures are available to public sector managers, politicians and the public

Public value and public sector accounting research: a structured literature review

Purpose – The paper investigates the role of accounting within the fragmented development of public value literature by reviewing the corpus of scholarly contributions that aims to address the relevance and impact of accounting studies within the public value theory. Findings – The lack of empirical research and the limited number of papers on how to account for the creation of public value means that much effort and work is required from accounting scholars to contrast the “theoretical stagnation” on the topic that could endanger the possibility to achieve a deeper understanding of how to govern the public value creation process. Practical implications – Existing knowledge on public value will be reinforced by new contributions on the topic that consider how to measure value, which would enable politicians and managers to govern the value-creation process more effectively. Social Implications – Decisions made by policy makers at a macro level and public managers at a micro level can be influenced by making “visible” the public value created by a public administration, which would be an important aid in the achievement of desirable societal outcomes. Originality/value – The paper develops the first wide-ranging Structured Literature Review on public value accounting and can be a starting point to develop new research avenues, both in the fields of accountability/external reporting and management accounting and performance management