Tommaso Agasisti, Francesca Bonomi and Piergiacomo Sibiano
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of governance and managerial characteristics of schools. More specifically, the aim is to individuate the factors that are…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of governance and managerial characteristics of schools. More specifically, the aim is to individuate the factors that are associated to higher schools’ performances, as measured through student achievement.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is conducted by means of a survey in the private junior‐secondary schools in one Italian region (Lombardy).
Findings
The results show that some features characterize the group of “high‐performing” schools: the presence of structured tests to measure student’ achievement; specific services for disabled and foreign students; a high level of principal's autonomy in strategic decision making; the use of assessment for defining strategies; and a high collaborative attitude among teachers.
Research limitations/implications
The present paper focused only on the private sector, because non‐public schools benefit from a substantial autonomy in their organizational and managerial profile. Some of the indicators collected in this study could be included in the Italian standardized tests’ protocol, by creating an ad hoc school's questionnaire.
Originality/value
This paper answers to the call by educational research, applied economic research and present institutional assessment activities for a renewed desire to build reliable indicators about schools’ performance in Italy. In this paper an analytical framework is developed to collect relevant information about schools’ characteristics.
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Tommaso Agasisti, Francesca Bonomi and Piergiacomo Sibiano
The purpose of this paper is to suggest a methodology to calculate efficiency scores for a sample of Italian primary and middle schools. The main aim is to relate these measures…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to suggest a methodology to calculate efficiency scores for a sample of Italian primary and middle schools. The main aim is to relate these measures of efficiency to a set of “external” factors that can affect schools’ performance, such as the average socio-economic background of their students, their location in an urban/non urban setting, etc. After presenting this analysis, the paper proposes a procedure to calculate “adjusted” efficiency measures – which take in the role of external variables – in order to assess the “pure” management efficiency of each school, and so to avoid confusing the institution's performance with the aspects relating to its background.
Design/methodology/approach
Efficiency is defined in its technical sense that is, the ability to transform inputs (financial and human resources) into outputs (results achieved by students in standardized test scores). A two-stage quantitative procedure was used to investigate “managerial” efficiency, so that the impact of external variables on educational efficiency could be suitably taken into account.
Findings
The results show that the average efficiency score is quite high in the sample of schools considered, but potential savings can still be made: overall, with the schools’ available resources, achievement scores could be increased by about 20 percent. Efficiency and educational equity are complementary in primary public (state) schools, and the most efficient schools are those with the lowest internal variance between the students’ achievement scores; the same does not hold for middle school students’ results in mathematics. Lastly, several schools appeared to be efficient when the external variables were not taken into consideration, while their background actually favored them, and they are not efficient from a purely managerial perspective.
Originality/value
The most important piece of innovation is the investigation of managerial efficiency and its implications on policies. This study confirms and suggests that there could be an inverse relationship between apparent (baseline) and true (managerial) efficiency, that is, between the efficiency scores achieved before and after the “correction” made for external variables.
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Sabrina Bonomi, Francesca Ricciardi, Cecilia Rossignoli and Alessandro Zardini
This study investigates (1) the processes through which social enterprises develop resilient organizational logics and (2) the key resilience factors in the organizational logics…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates (1) the processes through which social enterprises develop resilient organizational logics and (2) the key resilience factors in the organizational logics of successful social enterprises. The organizational logic is conceptualized here as the dynamic system of roles, rules and social expectations that result from the organization's business model, impact model and organizational form.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts an inductive approach to identify emerging resilience factors and processes in an exemplary case of social entrepreneurship (a work integration venture). The longitudinal data collection on this case took place from 2011 to 2016, based on approximately 440 h of participant observation and 10 semi-structured interviews.
Findings
The inductive analysis suggests that social enterprises develop resilient organizational logics through multi-level recursive processes of bridging institutional work. These processes enable the development of an organizational logic that is internally robust while linking distant practices, needs and expectations. The authors conceptualize these characteristics into a novel construct, the organizational logic's bridging power, which is operationalizable through two dimensions (hybridity-based and cocreation-based bridging power) and five sub-dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
Like in all inductive studies, further research is needed to validate the proposed model. The new proposed construct “organizational logic's bridging power” is, interestingly, a meta-theoretical concept encouraging cross-fertilization between the literature on institutional logics and that on value cocreation.
Originality/value
The process development model proposed by this study highlights the importance of network-level institutional work for developing cocreation-based resilience. Furthermore, this study shows how institutional theories could be complemented with other bodies of knowledge in order to understand social enterprise resilience.
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Value-based healthcare suggested using patient-reported information to complement the information available in the medical records and administrative healthcare data to provide…
Abstract
Purpose
Value-based healthcare suggested using patient-reported information to complement the information available in the medical records and administrative healthcare data to provide insights into patients' perceptions of satisfaction, experience and self-reported outcomes. However, little attention has been devoted to questions about factors fostering the use of patient-reported information to create value at the system level.
Design/methodology/approach
Action research design is carried out to elicit possible triggers using the case of patient-reported experience and outcome data for breast cancer women along their clinical pathway in the clinical breast network of Tuscany (Italy).
Findings
The case shows that communication and engagement of multi-stakeholder representation are needed for making information actionable in a multi-level, multispecialty care pathway organized in a clinical network; moreover, political and managerial support from higher level governance is a stimulus for legitimizing the use for quality improvement. At the organizational level, an external facilitator disclosing and discussing real-world uses of collected data is a trigger to link measures to action. Also, clinical champion(s) and clear goals are key success factors. Nonetheless, resource munificent and dedicated information support tools together with education and learning routines are enabling factors.
Originality/value
Current literature focuses on key factors that impact performance information use often considering unidimensional performance and internal sources of information. The use of patient/user-reported information is not yet well-studied especially in supporting quality improvement in multi-stakeholder governance. The work appears relevant for the implications it carries, especially for policymakers and public sector managers when confronting the gap in patient-reported measures for quality improvement.
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Danielle da Costa Leite Borges and Caterina Francesca Guidi
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the levels of access to healthcare available to undocumented migrants in the Italian and British health systems through a comparative…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the levels of access to healthcare available to undocumented migrants in the Italian and British health systems through a comparative analysis of health policies for this population in these two national health systems.
Design/methodology/approach
It builds on textual and legal analysis to explore the different meanings that the principle of universal access to healthcare might have according to literature and legal documents in the field, especially those from the human rights domain. Then, the concept of universal access, in theory, is contrasted with actual health policies in each of the selected countries to establish its meaning in practice and according to the social context. The analysis relies on policy papers, data on health expenditure, legal statutes and administrative regulations and is informed by one research question: What background conditions better explain more universal and comprehensive health systems for undocumented migrants?
Findings
By answering this research question the paper concludes that the Italian health system is more comprehensive than the British health system insofar it guarantees access free of charge to different levels of care, including primary, emergency, preventive and maternity care, while the rule in the British health system is the recovering of charges for the provision of services, with few exceptions. One possible legal explanation for the differences in access between Italy and UK is the fact that the right to health is not recognised as a fundamental constitutional right in the latter as it is in the former.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to ongoing debates on Universal Health Coverage and migration, and dialogues with recent discussions on social justice and welfare state typologies.
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Davide Comunale and Fabrizio Ferreri
The rediscovery of the medieval routes of Norman origin in Sicily readvocates a system of interconnection between small villages, towns and cities which can be compared to the…
Abstract
The rediscovery of the medieval routes of Norman origin in Sicily readvocates a system of interconnection between small villages, towns and cities which can be compared to the circulation system: ancient paths and roads are like veins and arteries which are ready to reanimate a body in need of resilience and exciting experiences. The slow tourism of historical routes in a new ecology of tourism currently contributes with increasing significance to the creation of green sustainable tourism, compatible with the territory and respectful of local identities.
This chapter aims to highlight the potential of the slow tourism of the historical routes in order to revive the internal areas from an economic and social point of view. The analysis is focused in particular on the Magna Via Francigena: this route links Palermo and Agrigento through the rural heart of Sicily touching 18 small towns inland. The creation of this route has rewoven broken territorial wefts, restoring dialogue and collaboration between the towns involved. It has revitalized the place consciousness of the territories. It has also encouraged place-based production chains and micro-economies, boosting new income. This route makes a definite contribution to placing marginalized area, towns and territories on the geographical map again.
Therefore the historical routes outline new ways of endogenous development based on the recovery and enhancement of identity assets and local resources.
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Fahimeh Khatami, Francesca Ricciardi, Angelo Cavallo and Valter Cantino
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of globalization convergence (GC) and its components (social, economic, political, technological and ecological) on food…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of globalization convergence (GC) and its components (social, economic, political, technological and ecological) on food production (FP).
Design/methodology/approach
The methodological approach adopted is based on a quantitative approach, using a static panel data analysis with relevant data from five European countries within five time intervals (2013–2017).
Findings
The results indicated that three components of globalization (social, technological and ecological) could significantly contribute to the food industry, while two other components of globalization (economic and political) are negatively correlated with FP.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the theoretical recognition of the role of globalization in influencing FP in multidisciplinary interactions. Meanwhile, this study's main limitation lies in the statistical method of panel data analysis, since temporal and spatial changes have not been investigated.
Originality/value
Despite the literature on globalization's effect on FP, each globalization component's effect has not been investigated appropriately within cross-countries studies. Hence, the present study addresses a gap in the extant literature by examining the globalization effects on the food industry to promote globalized food security, opportunities and solutions in the study areas.
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Francesca Grippa, John Bucuvalas, Andrea Booth, Evaline Alessandrini, Andrea Fronzetti Colladon and Lisa M. Wade
The purpose of this paper is to explore possible factors impacting team performance in healthcare, by focusing on information exchange within and across hospital’s boundaries.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore possible factors impacting team performance in healthcare, by focusing on information exchange within and across hospital’s boundaries.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a web-survey and group interviews, the authors collected data on the communication networks of 31 members of four interdisciplinary healthcare teams involved in a system redesign initiative within a large US children’s hospital. The authors mapped their internal and external social networks based on management advice, technical support and knowledge dissemination within and across departments, studying interaction patterns that involved more than 700 actors. The authors then compared team performance and social network metrics such as degree, closeness and betweenness centrality, and computed cross ties and constraint levels for each team.
Findings
The results indicate that highly effective teams were more inwardly focused and less connected to outside members. Moreover, highly recognized teams communicated frequently but, overall, less intensely than the others.
Originality/value
Mapping knowledge flows and balancing internal focus and outward connectivity of interdisciplinary teams may help healthcare decision makers in their attempt to achieve high value for patients, families and employees.
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Andrea Celone, Antonello Cammarano, Mauro Caputo and Francesca Michelino
The purpose of this paper is to investigate possible improvements in the pursuit of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by multinational enterprises (MNEs) through an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate possible improvements in the pursuit of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by multinational enterprises (MNEs) through an analysis of the literature.
Design/methodology/approach
A critical framework based on Gleicher’s formula for change is provided after conducting a systematic literature review.
Findings
The best way to pursue the SDGs is through an integrated approach that recognises the importance of MNEs in terms of possibilities and power of action. Working towards the SDGs appears to be largely limited by three aspects of the problem: its complexity and wickedness, the genuine interest in reaching some SDGs, at the expense of profit and low foresight.
Research limitations/implications
A fundamental limitation of the study concerns, as in most of the literature on the matter, the impossibility of providing an optimal solution to the problem of meeting the SDGs, given their nature. However, formulating the best definition of the problem and its characteristics can contribute to making its management better.
Social implications
This study has social implications due to the extreme importance that many SDGs have with regard to democracy and social equity, beyond their environmental and economic aspects.
Originality/value
The claimed contribution is the value brought by the synthesis of several points of view, through the interdisciplinary analysis of the research question. The novelty consists in organising the literature according to the formula for change.