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Further investigation is needed of network effectiveness in healthcare and how it is influenced by unpredictable events like COVID-19. Based on Provan and Milward’s (2001) framework, this study investigates the effectiveness criteria of healthcare networks and their potential contribution to network effectiveness during the pandemic’s challenges.

This research employs an explanatory case study in a local area of Italy’s Lombardy Region and analyzes network effectiveness at the network level based on network member perceptions.

Network effectiveness refers to the network’s ability to address patient needs, guaranteeing services through network members' coordinated efforts and a central coordinator that facilitates their interaction. Members’ capacity to strengthen their roles played a crucial part in sustaining network effectiveness when COVID-19 revised other members’ priorities and threatened achievement of network goals.

This study’s findings equip healthcare managers and policymakers with knowledge about network effectiveness criteria at the network level, offering suggestions for managerial practices and network design to address exogenous shocks.

This study identifies factors that influence network effectiveness criteria and provides insight into how network members can contribute to sustaining effectiveness during crises.

The European university context reveals a high degree of gender inequality. In Italy, the overall female employment rate is significantly lower than in the rest of Europe; nevertheless, gender equality in universities is consistent with the European average. In 2006, the Italian Government required public organisations (thus state universities) to formulate positive action plans (PAPs) and disclose the positive actions planned for the following three years to promote gender equality. However, the law does not provide any guideline for the contents of the PAPs. The purpose of this paper is to analyse gender equality disclosure in PAPs to investigate whether and how Italian State Universities (ISUs) are taking a role in promoting gender equality.

The paper uses content analysis to investigate contents of gender disclosure in 28 PAPs. The authors developed a coding instrument based on the Guidelines for Gender Equality Programmes in Science.

The paper found that most PAPs are focused on creating a favourable environment for women inside the organisation, while little attention has been paid to creating gender awareness in research and teaching activities, as well as in supporting women’s leadership. The paper concludes that ISUs are failing as key players in the cultural change of the society toward gender equality.

First, the paper contributes to the accounting literature by providing an analysis of accounting for gender by universities. Second, it adds to the debate on positive actions for gender equality in the university sector.

Purpose – This paper focuses on efficiency as a central theme of the Italian health care reforms, combining macrolevel policies with microlevel (i.e., operating room) perceptions of the concept.

Design/Methodology/Approach – According to the phenomenographic approach, this analysis investigates how the components of a surgical team (22 semistructured interviews) experience efficiency in their daily workflows.

Findings – The main findings show that the concept of efficiency is multidimensional. According to participants’ perspective, several categories of efficiency collected in an outcome space emphasize an holistic view of efficiency driving health policies and strategies.

Social implications – The suggestion of further relationships between perspectives and other constructs (i.e., quality, safety, patient focus, process) at micro and macro level could enhance the impact of health reforms.

Originality/Value – A qualitative approach conducted at microlevel help to recognize the phenomenon (of efficiency), engaging the individual conception that practitioners have of the health efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the gender composition of the board of directors affects the sensitivity to gender issues in defining university strategies and therefore strategic plans.

The authors conducted an ordinary least square regression to test the relationship between gender sensitivity approach and board composition in Italian state universities (ISUs). The authors measured the gender sensitivity approach of each university by an index (gender sensitivity approach index) determined based on content analysis. Gender board composition is, instead, analyzed by heterogeneity (homogeneity) index (Herfindahl–Hirschman Index) of the board.

The finding suggests that, if the board has a certain level of heterogeneity, then university strategic plan (USP) is a more gender-sensitive approach.

The study analyses only the 2018 USPs of ISUs and considers the presence of women within the board, and not their actual role and their position in the university hierarchy.

The practical implication of this study is that if universities want to guarantee gender equality, they should open their boards more widely to women.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work that analyzes the relationships between board composition and sensitivity to gender issues within the USPs. The paper therefore contributes to the literature on governance in the public sector, particularly in universities. Moreover, it stimulates the accounting debate on gender issue and highlights that gender issues cannot be taken up by decision-making bodies that are not heterogeneous enough.