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Communication and job satisfaction are two key factors for the success of public organisations. The study aims, firstly, to examine the effects of training activities and internal meetings on the perceived quality of communication processes; secondly, to explore the nuanced relationship between communication and job satisfaction.

This is a cross-sectional study based on results from organisational climate surveys conducted between 2019 and 2020 in six Italian Regional Healthcare Systems, involving a total of 58,888 employees. Linear regression models were performed.

Results highlight that employee satisfaction is positively influenced by high-quality internal communication. The organisation of frequent internal meetings and the offer of ad hoc training sessions on communication were found to be antecedents of good communication.

The study offers practical implications for healthcare organisations, highlighting specific strategies that can be employed to enhance internal communication and, subsequently, job satisfaction. The emphasis on training programmes and internal meetings provides actionable insights for organisational improvement.

The originality and value of this study lie in its unique large datasets, which significantly strengthen the reliability of the findings and make them more applicable to a wider range of contexts. Also, the exploration of the relationship between internal communication processes and job satisfaction within public healthcare organisations contributes to the growing body of knowledge in organisational studies.

As subjects irrationally perceive probability changes as more impactful when shifting an event from impossible to possible or from possible to certain, compared to increasing the likelihood of an already possible event, this study examines how workers process success probabilities and whether their resource allocation decisions are distorted by bounded subadditivity.

We conduct an online randomized experiment with 3,980 employees.

We detect a certainty effect (upper subadditivity), whereby professionals are willing to devote a disproportionate number of hours to a project when their contribution transforms the success of the initiative from possible to certain rather than increasing the likelihood of success by the same percentage points. We find no evidence of the possibility effect (lower subadditivity), whereby workers would devote a disproportionate effort when their contribution turns a sure failure into a possible success rather than simply increasing the likelihood of success by the same percentage points. We observe a rational tendency to try harder for a greater increase in the probability of success, but only far from the limits of the probability spectrum and not close to the limits.

Attempts to understand bounded subadditivity in management decisions have been incomplete. We disentangle two real-world variables and offer a more refined operationalization.

User experience is key for measuring and improving the quality of services, especially in high personal and relation-intensive sectors, such as healthcare. However, evidence on whether and how the organizational model of healthcare service delivery can affect the patient experience is at an early stage. This study investigates the relationship between healthcare service provision models and patient experience by focusing on the nursing care delivery.

65 nurses' coordinators were involved to map the nursing models adopted in the healthcare organizations of in an Italian region, Tuscany. This dataset was merged with patient experience measures reported by 9,393 individuals discharged by the same organizations and collected through a Patient-Reported Experience Measures Observatory. The authors run a series of logistic regression models to test the relationships among variables.

Patients appreciate those characteristics of care delivery related to a specific professional nurse. Having someone who is in charge of the patient, both the reference nurse and the supervisor, makes a real difference. Purely organizational features, for instance those referring to the team working, do not significantly predict an excellent experience with healthcare services.

Different features referring to different nursing models make the difference in producing an excellent user experience with the service.

These findings can support managers and practitioners in taking decisions on the service delivery models to adopt. Instead of applying monolithic pure models, mixing features of different models into a hybrid one seems more effective in meeting users' expectations.

This is one of the first studies on the relationship between provision models of high-contact and relational-intensive services (the healthcare services) and users' experience. This research contributes to the literature on healthcare service management suggesting to acknowledge the importance of hybridization of features from different, purely theoretical service delivery models, in order to fit with providers' practice and users' expectations.

• This is one of the first studies on the relationship between provision models of nursing care and patient experience.

• Healthcare services' users appreciate service delivery characteristics identified with “be cared by,” or in other words with having a reference nurse.

• Nursing models' features that relate to the organizations and that providers tend to judge as professionalizing and evolutive, such as team working, appear not key in relation to patient experience.

• Pure models of service delivery are theoretically useful, but hybrid models can better meet users' expectations.

This is one of the first studies on the relationship between provision models of nursing care and patient experience.

Healthcare services' users appreciate service delivery characteristics identified with “be cared by,” or in other words with having a reference nurse.

Nursing models' features that relate to the organizations and that providers tend to judge as professionalizing and evolutive, such as team working, appear not key in relation to patient experience.

Pure models of service delivery are theoretically useful, but hybrid models can better meet users' expectations.

The chapter furnishes empirical evidence about the extent and profiles of autonomy of EU agencies, the modalities whereby they are steered and controlled, and the interactions they have in EU policy networks. It thus provides the bases for a more complete picture of the EU multi-level administration.

The research is a survey-based design. A questionnaire was administered between July 2009 and April 2010 to 30 EU agencies included in the study population. The questionnaire was sent to the executive director of all the agencies included in the study. Questions were closed-ended, either in the form of multiple choices – with one answer or with check-all-that-apply and an option for ‘other’ to be filled – or in scale format. The resulting data set included ratio, interval, ordinal, and nominal scales. The reference model employed for the investigation relies on the analytical model developed within the framework of the research project COST Action IS0651 CRIPO (Comparative Research into Current Trends in Public Sector Organization – see also ‘Acknowledgements’) for the study of public agencies in Europe (Verhoest, Van Thiel, Bouckaert, & Lægreid, 2012).

EU agencies display a rather low level of managerial, especially financial, autonomy; conversely, they enjoy relatively high policy autonomy. As to the way in which multiple ‘parent’ administration steer EU agencies, it emerges a composite picture, in which the crossroads of steering and control by the parent administrations and accountability by the agency lies in the executive director. In terms of interactions within policy networks, EU agencies interact in a significant way with the European Commission, with national-level agencies in the pertinent policy field, and with specific technical bodies where they are part of the configuration of the policy sector, whilst interactions with national ministries as well as with other EU agencies are rare. No single model can capture in full the overall features of EU agencies, although the ‘community level institution’ model seems to capture a number of the profiles of these agencies.

Both the literature on EU multi-level administration and research agendas in public management can benefit from inclusion of – and in-depth empirical knowledge about – EU agencies. The chapter provides important empirical evidence to these purposes.

EU agencies are actors in European public policy-making, albeit to a varied extent depending on the sector. The extent of autonomy and the way in which they are held to account are crucial aspects for an enhanced understanding of their influence on European public policy-making, as is their location in European policy networks.

Research presented in this chapter is the first systematic empirical investigation of EU agencies encompassing networking, steering and control and autonomy of EU agencies, based on primary data.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the values in the public sector in Italy using the tri-axial model and explore the reasons why these values are important for the Italian public sector.

An online questionnaire was prepared in Italian and sent to the public sector employees all over Italy.

The findings demonstrate that Italian public sector is 100 percent economic-pragmatic according to the tri-axial model. One of the reasons of this result is the reforms made in the public sector which have stressed the importance of values like efficiency and professionalism.

The main limitation of the study is the sample size. Further research should focus on increasing the number of the sample as well as compare the regions in Italy.

The conclusions derived from this research suggest that Italian public sector employees perceive themselves as economic-pragmatic.

This study is the first study that maps the values in the public sector in Italy using tri-axial model.

The explanatory power of Multi-Level Governance (MLG) has been and is being questioned. Two main criticisms have been raised: first, that MLG is ultimately descriptive, not explanatory; second, that MLG is a case of concept stretching, that it is ultimately an umbrella notion rather than a theory. This chapter outlines what ripostes may be provided to such critiques and argues that the progress of the study of MLG and its usage in political science and public policy and management may lie to an important extent in fostering the dialogue with other streams of research (thus filling the gap of some ‘missing linkages’ in the extant MLG literature), like network governance; policy learning; the analysis of policy tools and the tools of government in complex systems; models in strategic management like stakeholder analysis and others.

This volume is a collective contribution by authors from different disciplinary backgrounds who all address, from different angles and by using a variety of research methods, the key question of how to bring into the MLG research agenda a range of disciplines and applied fields of inquiry that have so far only limitedly been used in the MLG stream of research and literature more systematically.

It arises from the volume that theoretical frames like network governance; policy learning; policy tools analysis; stakeholder analysis and others have important potential to further the MLG research agenda. A number of contributions address the transformation of MLG in the European Union (EU), the polity where MLG arrangements where first detected and labelled as such (Marks, 1993). Others apply MLG frames to other institutional settings, including non-democratic regimes.

This volume is a collective attempt to suggest ‘cross-fertilisations’ from other disciplines or applied fields that may lead to unleash more of the potential and promises of the MLG agenda. It is hoped that this work lays some of the foundations for building bridges between the MLG literature and disciplines and theoretical frames that may be effectively brought into the MLG research agenda.

MLG has long gone beyond the academic debate, to become an analytical lens employed by EU and other institutions across the globe. MLG informs the practice of policy-making. By addressing some key gaps in the extant literature and furnishing perspectives to link MLG to disciplines that may provide theories and models to further its analytical potential, this volume aims at contributing to improving the practice of MLG.

The volume is – to our knowledge – the first systematic attempt to bring into the MLG literature a whole range of theories and models that may provide ways forward to the understanding and usage of MLG.

This paper aims to examine the emergence of passion-driven entrepreneurship within the context of small and medium-sized towns (SMSTs). SMSTs are seen as peripheral areas lacking the resources to support autonomous economic development and renewal. The paper explores the relationship between entrepreneurship and the context of SMSTs through the concepts of entrepreneurial passion (EP) and domain passion (DP). Industrial marketing and purchasing approach is adopted as a theoretical foundation to conduct the analysis through the actors–activities–resource framework.

This paper adopts a multiple case-study methodology. Two passion-driven entrepreneurial ventures (PDEVs) have been traced from the conception of the initial idea until the new ventures establishment.

EP and DP emerge as key resources in transforming the initial idea into a real entrepreneurial venture in resource-scarce settings as SMSTs. Shared passion fosters the involvement of local actors and the propensity to overcome relevant hurdles in the entrepreneurial process.

This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship through the analysis of the role of PDEVs in SMSTs’ contexts. It highlights the role of “passion for place” as a new dimension of passion in entrepreneurial studies. From a managerial perspective, it emphasizes the role of passion as a key resource for networking and marketing. From a policy perspective, it calls for monitoring and support for training, funding and networking.