Innovative communication trends in the Public Administration – a democratic marketing tool or just another fallacy

2009 - 2010Institutional communication has been a controversial issue for many years now in Italy; at least as concerns the difficult challenge of putting effective communication on a national scale between the citizenship and the State in place. Most likely what is lacking is a well defined policy of strategic planning to rectify in part what Rolando (1998) sees as "institutional communication activities conceived as random initiatives rarely destined for structured balance sheets or as part of constituted professional nuclei" and which Faccioli considers "no longer the exception but still not the rule" (F. Faccioli, 2001). We are not yet verge on the verge of a communicational revolution although over ten years have passed since Italian Legislation (the so-called Bassanini, Law no.59/97, Law no.241/1990 and Law no.150/2000 which specifically regulates Public Communication and is considered both the point of arrival and at the same time, departure point of the transformation process.) was passed with the aim of putting communication at the core of the evolution in act in the public administration (PA), communinication considered as "a strategic resource capable of drastically redirecting the pathway in evolution of the PA in order to build a tight network of relations with the community of reference, based above all on trust and consensus" (Cuomo et al, in Metallo et Al, 2009)...[a cura dell'Autore]IX n.s

INNOVATION NETWORKS AND SOCIAL ENTERPRISES. A social network analysis of the third sector in Italy

In recent years both studies and corporate practice highlight the relevance of innovation networking enabling social enterprises to create knowledge, skills and technology sharing systems for innovation. Paying attention to the for-benefit economy, the aim of the research is to verify whether in social enterprises rela-tional attitudes and cooperation influence the propensity for innovation, from an ‘innovation network’ perspective. By means of a Social Network Analysis, com-bined with an Organizational Network Analysis and a Sentiment Analysis the sur-vey is based on a sample of 200 italian social enterprises, out of 910 members of a really relevant non-profit Association in Italy. Preliminary findings show an emerging model, termed in fieri centric innovation network, in which the diffusion of knowledge throughout the network − crucial in order to create innovation − has to constitute a priority in its development policies