Search results

It is generally recognized that network management is a critical factor for network success. It is also acknowledged that different managerial behaviors are necessary in different network settings. Scholars have explored the relationships between network characteristics and managerial behaviors, but the role of network culture in influencing network managers’ activities remains under-investigated. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap.

The analysis is developed through a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 18 country-based networks involved in the same EU-funded project.

The results shed light on two different combinations of network culture types and management practices simultaneously leading to high network performance.

The paper confirms the existence of a relationship between network management and certain characteristics of the networks, in particular network culture.

The purpose of this paper is to build a working definition of public administration's management capacity (PA‐MANCAP) aiming at empirically testing the existence and size of an implementation gap in public management reforms in Italy.

A confirmatory factor analysis is developed to assess the validity of the proposed operational measure. Data are taken from a survey administered on 204 local governments in Italy.

The validity of the measure is assessed for all the attributes that conceptualize PA‐MANCAP except for the information and communication technology dimension. Findings from a survey of 102 major Italian municipalities indicate a situation with areas of light and shadow with regard to the implementation of public management reforms in Italy.

The paper presents a valuable insight for both academics and practitioners in order to benchmark the managerial capacity of various local governments and to develop additional quantitative research into the determinants of the implementation gap of public management reforms in Italy and abroad.

This paper aims to explore the behaviour of city managers in the ongoing context of city leadership in Italy where there are high levels of political, economic and social turbulence.

A survey was administered to 140 Italian city managers, with a response rate of 56%. The main research questions were the following: Who are the Italian city managers? How do they spend their time? Are their actions influenced by political, administrative, management and/or governance-related pressures?

The results depicted Italian city managers as caged leaders. They feel like they are capable of soaring to great heights outside the boundaries of their organisations, but they are constrained by their day-to-day organisational activities.

This paper offers new empirical insights into the different leadership activities carried out by Italian city managers discussing the differences between the time devoted to some activities and the perception of their leadership style.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms adopted by cities to control the provision of externalized public services and to explore the determinants of such control choices.

The paper presents the results of a multiple case study based on the experiences of three cities and three public services (transport, solid waste collection and home care services for the elderly), where control mechanisms and their possible antecedents were analyzed.

The results show that the control models found in the cases analyzed do not correspond to the “pure” patterns described in the private sector literature and that the factors identified by management control contributions do not seem to be exhaustive in explaining the configuration of control systems in the public sector. While environmental and task characteristics only partially explain the adoption of certain configurations of control, the features of the control systems seem to be rather influenced by variables that are related to party characteristics.

The paper shows that the combinations of control mechanisms are more multifaceted than those presented in the literature, and that the factors identified in the private sector literature do not seem to explain comprehensively the configuration of control systems in the public sector.