Modernizing public services:Subtle interplays of politics and management

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the trajectory of public management reforms in Italy. This experience indicates the complexity of managerialism in countries with a legalistic system and where public administration cultures have been, and continue to be, embedded in politics. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis of managerial reforms in Italy was carried out with a documentary analysis. In addition to official reports and acts of parliament, the analysis was based on monitoring the government websites and innovative channels (e.g. Facebook) which communicated the progress of the later reforms. Findings - The paper shows how modernization of public services has been a continuous priority in the agenda of the Italian Government across four phases: An early attempt in the late 1970s; a lively, phase for Italian managerial reforms in the 1990s; a later advocacy in the 2000s of a specific new public management (NPM) element - performance management; an after-crises reform aimed at reducing public expenditure. Originality/value - The paper takes a historical and long-Term perspective to analyse the success and failure of NPM reforms implementation in Italy. Differently from previous studies, this papers analyses NPMreforms in a longitudinal perspective, to show how the legalistic culture of Italy continues to affect the implementation of NPM reforms

A grid approach to managing sustainability: evidence from a multiple Italian case study

none2noPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the coherence between sustainability conceptualization (the “what”) and its implementation (the “how”) in terms of implemented actions and stakeholders’ interactions. The paper proposes a grid approach for the simultaneous evaluation of sustainability conceptualization and implementation. Design/methodology/approach: This research is based on a multiple case study conducted in ten Italian Universities. In-depth interviews with general directors and administrative staff responsible for sustainable activities have been conducted together with documents and websites analysis. Findings: The coherence between sustainability conceptualization and its implementation showed heterogeneity of practice. Results propose a grid approach, which highlights six different approaches to explain the connection between the “what” and the “how” of sustainability. Research limitations/implications: The research is focused on Italian universities and may have overlooked approaches to campus sustainability specific of other countries. Practical implications: Understanding the coherence between the “what” and the “how” of sustainability can provide university managers with a practical tool of analysis when approaching and evaluating the sustainable campus. Originality/value: While higher education scholars are widely exploring the conceptualization of a sustainable campus and its implementation, little is known about the coherence between these two realms, despite their importance to facilitate the transition of sustainability vision into real practice. This study contributes to this area by proposing a grid approach to evaluate the coherence between sustainability conceptualization and implementation.Agostino, Deborah; Dal Molin, MartinaAgostino, Deborah; DAL MOLIN, Martin

From Fragmentation to Comprehensiveness in Network Governance

Public networks are increasingly implemented at different government levels and across policy areas to increase coordination of services, decision-making and services delivery. Network governance is one promising theoretical perspective through which networks have been studied by different scholars and schools of thought. However, the literature on network governance is still fragmented, sectorial and issues-based. An overarching framework for the comprehensive analysis of the accumulate knowledge is missing. To address this limitation, we propose a comprehensive framework for analyzing the development of the findings in the field. The framework includes four building blocks that reflect the main issues debated in literature: the conditions affecting the choice of a mode of network governance, the modes of network governance, the dimensions of meta-governance and the outcome evaluation. The framework would support academics and policy makers who deal with network governance in different policy domains. The article concludes with a discussion of the proposed framework and its applications in future research

The implementation of PMS in Italian universities : a longitudinal analysis.

Starting from the 1990s, the New Public Management (NPM) has been the most inspiring principle of public sector reforms in Europe. The Higher Education (HE) sector is among the different fields in which the implementation of NPM reforms have been controversial. Based on the NPM framework, most HE reforms have focused on enhancing universities' accountability and transparency through performance measurement and performance management (Rabovsky, 2014; Rebora and Turri, 2011). The effects of the implementation of this calculative technologies is, however, still under investigated (Arnaboldi et al, 2016). Using documentary analysis as research methodology, this paper investigates implementation trajectories of performance management system (PMS) in Italian universities (Marchi, 2015). Specifically, this is a longitudinal documentary analysis and it offers the results from a content analysis of the Performance Plan (PP) and the Performance Report (PR) of 66 Italian Universities in two periods, i.e. 2016 and 2018. Furthermore, the longitudinal documentary analysis adopts the matrix from a previous study (Dal Molin et al., 2017), which matches the "quality of PMS" and the "expected use of PMS". The main objective of this study is to investigate if the "implementation gap" (Ongaro and Valotti, 2008) highlighted in previous studies (e.g. Dal Molin et al., 2017) has been fulfilled and in which elements it is possible to observe such improvement. As main result, the study shows that the implementation gap is still strongly present, from 2012 until now, and a formal compliance with the law still persists (Allini et al., 2020). There are areas of improvement related to external accountability and compliance, however, this is not supported by an internal use based on internal accountability (Tieghi et al., 2018

Critical crossroads to explain network change: evidence from a goal-directed network

Purpose: Public networks studies have widely diffused in recent years, but scant attention has been devoted to network change. By endorsing the notion of critical crossroads to describe a crucial turning point for the network survival, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why a goal-directed network changes, considering both the benefits and the constraints of the change. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a longitudinal case study based upon an interventionist research approach (Jönsson and Lukka, 2006), with the researchers being immersed in the network life of a group of Italian public universities over a period of 17 years. Findings: This paper proposes an empirical derived framework about network evolution that identifies two different types of crossroads (i.e. resource-driven crossroads and management driven) as drivers for network evolution. The main determinant behind these crisis situation were found in the heterogeneity of the network actors and, while overcoming the crossroads, informal sub-networks were found emerging. Originality/value: This study enlarges current public network literature by focusing specifically on how and why networks change, an aspect underinvestigated by current literature

New Public Management Reforms in the Italian Universities: Managerial Tools, Accountability Mechanisms or Simply Compliance?

Since 2009, a cross-sectorial reform based on the New Public Management (NPM) principles introduced a performance management system in Italian universities. On the basis of the analysis of the documents regarding the performance management system produced by 60 public Italian universities as a result of the reform implementation, the paper investigates the performance management tools in relation to both completeness and use of them. The analysis highlights that the universities have implemented performance management tools in an unstructured and nonhomogeneous way. This allows formulation of hypotheses on the main determinants of this unsatisfactory result

Collaboration industries-research centres: what value(s) for companies?

3-6 July 201