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This study investigates the reactions of public sector organisations to the accountability pressures of online dashboards and the impact of this reactivity on reporting systems. This study explores the concept of “reactivity,” which explains changes in organisational behaviours in reaction to being evaluated, observed or measured.

This study adopts a case study methodology to investigate organisations’ reactivity to an online dashboard within the Italian system of state museums. Data were gathered through a real-time dashboard initiated in 2019, complemented by interviews, participant observations and secondary sources collected over a period of three years.

The results indicate that online dashboards provoke a divergent but coexistent response: competitive reactivity when museums modify their behaviours to improve performance disclosed in the online dashboard, and polyphonic reactivity when museums question the algorithm’s validity and accuracy on the basis of the online dashboard. This finding reveals the emergence of layered accountability, with organisations balancing public expectations and hierarchical standards through manipulation and boycott, thereby giving rise to a decoupled system of measures.

This research contributes to the literature on public sector accountability by highlighting the dual nature of reactivity, both conforming to and resisting the imposed metrics. This study enhances our understanding of the interplay between digital accountability mechanisms and organisational responses, offering insights into the complexities of adapting to real-time, data-driven environments in the public sector.

The purpose of the present study is to explore multimodal, i.e. verbal and nonverbal, gendered communication patterns of female physicians in senior management positions (governmental and health authorities) during a crisis.

Using a mixed multi-variable design, repeated ANOVA tests, and planned contrasts, the authors analyzed television appearances of 20 female physicians in senior management positions during the COVID-19 crisis (March/2020-April/2021).

The findings revealed patterns of mixed-gendered communication structures. Verbally, female physicians primarily displayed a masculine/agentic communication style of assertiveness, control, confidence and rationality. Nonverbally, however, they expressed a feminine/communal communication style of emotional attention, interpersonal sensitivity, responsiveness, kindness and empathy. Moreover, the analysis delineated integrated multimodal constructive vs. inhibitive communication strategies for crisis communication of female physicians in senior management positions.

In the current research the authors did not compare females to males in health management positions, which is their follow-up project, but the authors did examine studies of males and females in management positions in the political sphere, which supported their findings. Therefore, the authors were able to demonstrate theoretical implications of multimodal gendered communication frameworks of feminine leadership.

Delineating verbal and nonverbal gendered communicative structures of effective management in health sectors can help female physicians assume positions of leadership, serve as guide models for other female physicians and contribute to improving effective communication skills during a crisis.

This study contributes to the attempts of promoting gender equity in medicine and management by presenting effective communication strategies in medical crises that can help to promote female physicians’ messages development, social influence, leadership and management success in the future.

This article presents constructive, multimodal gendered communication frameworks of female physicians in senior management positions used in television appearances during the global COVID-19 crisis. Most previous studies in this area have examined either verbal or nonverbal communication mode. The value of this multimodal examination provides insights that may enhance constructive communication of female physicians in senior management positions during a crisis.