Maurizio Decastri

Purpose Involving employees in making management decisions is a powerful way to enhance organizational performance. However, employee involvement (EI) might exacerbate psychosocial stress at work. This paper aims to investigate this issue, illuminating the implications of EI on work-related stress. Design/methodology/approach Secondary data were collected from the third wave of the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks. A conditional process analysis based on ordinary least square regression and bootstrap sampling was accomplished to obtain evidence of the implications of EI on psychosocial risks (PSR) at work, taking into consideration the mediating role of organizational health promotion initiatives (HPI). Findings EI increased the sources of psychosocial stress at work, adding to individual job demands. Involving employees was positively related to a greater organizational concern for HPI, which, in turn, lessened psychosocial strain. Practical implications Alt...

This chapter is inspired by the observation that new trends—in the cultural, economic, and political global scenario—are changing how public organizations are organized, making them increasingly complex and effective in challenging critical problems, such as poverty, unemployment, and environmental sustainability. These changes are aimed at influencing the behavior of public employees through the introduction of managerial and professional logics from the private sector. Efficiency, flexibility, creativity, and problem-solving have emerged as new standards for employees working in public organizations, who are now in search of new means of anchoring their identity and motivation.

The book aims to study public administrations with a focus on the Italian context. In particular, the work revise the most important areas that characterize public organizations: strategic planning and governance, the operative systems (such as internal controls, etc.) and finally the organizational structures. Concerning this last point the Author investigates the basic characteristics, the principles and the constraints which characterized the bureaucratic configuration of public organizations. Both dysfunctions and weaknesses of the bureaucratic model are discussed in order to: a) provide some recommendations about the “use” of the administrative-bureaucratic model and, b) propose and support an evolution of the bureaucratic model.

Political system in Italy has known over the years frequent government turnovers, making the gov-ernment average institutional life very short (Mele & Ongaro, 2014). Horovitz, Hoff and Milanovic (2009) define political instability as “a basic source of variation in institutions and practices (… whose) frequency and character depend on voter preferences, political institutions, and salient events and issues” (p. 107). In our study, we propose an organizational behavioral perspective that could provide useful analysis tools to understand the behavior and the competencies of public leaders work-ing in changeable and uncertain contexts – like the Italian one (Ongaro, Ferré, Galli & Longo, 2013). We draw from the literature on change uncertainty (Bordia et al., 2004a; Milliken, 1987) with the aim of investigating how government instability generates perceived environmental uncertainty affecting the behaviour and the competencies of individuals who work more in touch with the high spheres of public policy, i.e. public top managers. Our study counts because it deepens the knowledge on the subject by providing a review of the literature on the issue of perceived uncertainty and by identifying how political instability and organizational change show consequences on public management knowledge

In this chapter we investigate the evolution of training in public administration in a given historical and local context, that is the Italian public administration undergoing a wave of reforms since the early 1990s. We will focus this investigation on three main questions: first, what kind of “change” is taking place both in the wider panorama of Italian public administrations and as far as every single administration is concerned; second, around what kind of training conceptions the current public debate on the role of the training function within public administrations is focused; third, what kind of evolution can we identify when looking at the higher education offer (Masters degrees) to support the changes derived from the various public administration reforms. The paradox we wish to explore refers to institutional actors (legislator, administrations, higher education institutions) that are trapped in what we can call an “optimization of inefficacy” in order to respond to the e...

Using the literary works, and not only the business theory, in order to explain a concept of management is much more pleasant and fun. Particularly, the subject of leadership is widely discussed in the literature of art as well as in the managerial literature. Leadership is, at the same time, both an ancient and a modern concept: it is present in the novels and the poems of all time. Leadership is an old concept because, in the history, some people have driven the innovation both working as “the agents of the change” and developing projects and ideas. Leadership is also a “new” concept because, in recent decades, both managers and researchers have focude the attention on this topic: the analysis of the team (including the company) cannot do without a careful analysis of the management of the group. Leadership is an idea, an emotion. Marco Bollesan, the former captain and coach of the Italian rugby team, said: “Do you know a flock of birds going south? In front of the flock there is ...

The phase of the mythical bulb that accompanies Archimedes Pythagorean seems to be outdated. Both the search for a creative idea and the need to know the process of innovation remains a desire for many people. Probably, in the future, this need will be satisfied. However, in these years, an important change is appeared: people do not just want to find something, they would like to built new things. A shift from creativity to productivity is also required: both the research and the production of ideas should be controlled, people should be able to use innovations. Unfortunately, we must leave the fashionable figure of the romantic lone inventor, today the is more complex and detailed. Leonardo was both inventor and innovator: during the decades of his life, people knew and studied multiple disciplines. Today, science no longer allows this approach. As suggested by a researcher of the twentieth century, innovation is “ten per cent of inspiration, ninety per cent of perspiration."...

Over the last twenty years the Italian Public Administration was at the core of a deep and continuous process of modernization, looking for introducing the more efficient and effective management models of private enterprises. Administrations were called upon to implement human resource management systems characterized both by mobility and a salary based on merit and professional incentives linked to results. Effective human resource management practices could became essential to develop a skilled workforce, to favour the growth and development of the competence of the personnel, to guarantee the organizational flexibility and to address public sector productivity and efficiency. In order to realize this innovation a qualitative leap is required touching the technical competencies but also the cultural aspects that characterize the Italian public administrations. However, there are different problems related to the performance appraisal system: people are often afraid of the apprais...

The chapter aims to study public administrations with a focus on their organizational structures. Concerning this last point the Author investigates the basic characteristics, the principles and the constraints which characterized the bureaucratic configuration of public organizations. Both dysfunctions and weaknesses of the bureaucratic model are discussed in order to: a) provide some recommendations about the “use” of the administrative-bureaucratic model and, b) propose and support an evolution of the bureaucratic model.

While there is no consensus in terms of what “smart government” includes and how it is related to emergent technologies and innovation in the public sector, in this paper smart working (SW) is regarded as one of the most important initiatives for building smart government. In the Italian public sector—according to the Law n. 81/2017—SW has emerged as a “new” way to define what is considered as an innovative approach to work organisation and human resource management. Analysing the Presidency of the Council of Ministers case study the paper aims to investigate to answer to the following questions: (i) to what extent is the interface between organisational model for working and new technology contextually bound? (ii) what are the combination of the different elements affecting the configuration of SW? (iii) what are the outcomes of SW likely to be for smar-workers, organisations and society?