Public Administration In Italy Research Articles

Digital transition and public administration in Italy: the experience of the Italian National Social Security Institution − INPS

The innovation and modernization processes of national public administrations feature prominently in the process of digital transition that the whole Europe is going through. In Italy, the National Institute of Social Security (Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale, INPS) has historically always been at the forefront in terms of digital skills and the use of Information Technology for the provision of social security services, constituting a model of excellence in the landscape of public administrations both in Italy and Europe. INPS is currently facing a strategic challenge: that of constituting the driving force for the digital transition of the Italian public sector. To meet this challenge, the Italian Social Security Institute has equipped itself with an ICT Plan that represents a marked discontinuity with respect to past plans and which deserves, as a result of its innovative character, to be analyzed in detail. In particular, the ICT Strategic Plan of INPS for the three-year period of 2020−2022 aims to introduce a paradigm shift towards the digitization of the public services that the Social Security Institute offers to the whole country, planning a radical technological, organizational and cultural innovation, an enabling prerequisite for creating a new model service for citizens, businesses and other public administrations.

An empirical analysis of the relationship between university investments in Technology Transfer Offices and academic spin‐offs

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in contributing to the creation and the performance of academic spin‐offs (ASOs). More specifically, it investigates the relationship between resources invested in TTOs in term of employees and the creation and growth of ASOs. The empirical analysis refers to Italy, where since 1999 academicians have been allowed to be actively involved in setting up companies for the ‘industrial use of research’. We used data on ASOs and resources invested by Italian universities in TTOs during the 2002–2011 period to investigate if and to what extent such investments contributed to the birth and growth of ASOs. We also controlled the results using information on university and on local context, in which university is located. The results of the empirical analysis show that in a first phase academicians reacted more promptly than universities to the opportunities offered by the new legislation, which may in part be due to the organizational rigidity that characterizes Public Administration in Italy. However, the empirical analysis also shows that after this initial phase the size of the TTOs (in terms of employees) has had a positive influence on the number of new ASOs (i.e. birth), but not on the performance of ASOs (i.e. growth), which is influenced by both long‐term investments in research (i.e. the quality of research results) and other variables linked to the regional and national contexts, such as the presence of incubators or the level of economic development. Our results regard a widely studied topic and should provide incremental findings for the community of entrepreneurship scholars and relevant implications for policy makers and TTO managers.

L’uso delle nuove tecnologie: dal virtuale al pragmatico, l’esperienza della biblioteca Luca Pacioli

New technologies have transformed the organization of Public Administration in Italy. Innovations include online services and improved communication with users. Concurrently the concept of formation has changed. Today continuing professional development is vital to ensure that the sector’s human capital remains abreast of innovative work practices and technologies. Libraries are adapting their services to an ever evolving environment, taking on the challenges of the information revolution. The Luca Pacioli Library derwent radical change, eliminating open shelving in 2006. Its adaptive strategies have succeeded in inspiring reading and knowledge creation, and its continuing growth demonstrates its importance in this context. Despite the space reduction and loss of open shelving, thanks to the automated robotic retrieval system, interactive catalog, e-learning platform and elegant space, readers’ information seeking journeys pass from the tangible to the virtual and vice versa. Users have participated enthusiastically in the initiative which asks them to write a review of the book they have borrowed. Published on the e-learning platform, these reviews demonstrate continual commitment to and appreciation of language use.

What Shall We Expect from Big Data in Public Administration? An Investigation in a Community of Public Service Innovators in Italy

During the last years, Big Data attracted considerable attention as a potential source of innovation in public administration. What role Big Data can play in the redefinition of public services, however, has not been clarified yet. This study aims to investigate the views on the use of Big Data in public administration held within a particular policy community of innovators in public administration in Italy. Using Q methodology, the analysis shows three distinctive views on this topic, that can be understood as bearing a “pragmatist”, “sceptical”, and “cautious” stance, respectively. The results of this study suggest that the emergence of Big Data triggers reactionary positions within the policy community of innovators, but it also stimulates some ways to consider how to introduce and experiment with the new source of technological change.

Assessment of software developed by a third-party: A case study and comparison

Most of the research effort in the area of software analysis is focused on the perspective of the developer (as in “software developing company”) and the ways how the software development process could be improved. However, that is not the only type of software assessment common in the industry. There are also assessments that are commissioned by other parties, such as the primary recipients of the software solutions or courts dealing with legal cases that are related to software products or services. This work presents one such case-study that was performed for a public administration in Italy. The paper describes the assessment itself and also points out the need for more focused research by providing a comparison between developer-oriented and customer-oriented assessment types.

Compliance with open government data policies: An empirical assessment of Italian local public administrations

Open government is emerging as a core issue for increasing, on the one hand, participation of citizens, and, on the other hand, accountability, transparency, and the capability of delivering digital services by Public Administrations, with a consequent interest into public and social va lue as final outcomes. However, most of the open government initiatives actually concern the provision of public data under an open license and in an open and accessible format. From a policy as well as from a research point of view, open government raises a set of questions about how to manage and evaluate their quality, also considering the compliance with enforced legal frameworks, if any available focused specifically on open government issues. Thus, the paper discusses a quality-based framework for open government data compliance assessment, made up of quality dimensions and a set of criteria contributing to the measurement of a compliance index. The framework is then applied for the evaluation of the open government data initiatives of a sample of local public administration in Italy.

The pre-conditions, principles and attributes of political and technocratic governance in Italy: history and modernity

The article is devoted to analyzing the stages and peculiarities of the formation of a politically and party determined system of governance and public administration in Italy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In parallel, it is argued that the system of governance and public administration in Italy is historically determined by a technocratic component. On this basis, the parameters of pre-conditions, principles and attributes of political and technocratic governance in Italy (for which both political or party governments are inherent characteristic of parliamentary democracy and republic) were revealed. The author has proved that the technocratic component of party and politically determined public administration in Italy overcomes the ideological polarization of inter-party competition and the party component of governance, thus stabilizing and increasing the efficiency of governance in general. Thus, it has been recorded that the synthesis of political and technocratic components of public administration does not always undermine democratic character of the latter, although it affects the nature of the delegation of powers and responsibilities, but generates somewhat different (from the classical one) model of parliamentary democracy.

The Authorising Function of Budgets in Public Administration. Applicability of IPSAS 24 in Italy

This paper begins with the assumption that in many public administrations, budgets are not limited to the role of mere statements to provide additional information; they are authorisations with a legal value that make them autonomous documents. Our aim was therefore to analyse the relations between politicians and managers, focusing in particular on the governance models in use within public administration in Italy and the role of budgeting in these cases. We have also looked at the contents and constraints of IPSAS 24, from which the difficulties of its application in Italy have emerged. Our research has led to a firm belief that IPSAS 24 needs to be supplemented by an international standard specifically dedicated to budgeting. Moreover, this should include a European version which takes into account SEC 95 and the COFOG classification.

FOSS in the Italian public administration: fundamental law principles

We take a first reading of the recent modification to the fundamental law that governs the digital aspects of the Public Administration in Italy. Said modifications require Public Administrations to prefer internally made solutions and FOSS solutions over proprietary ones, mandate an increased degree of interoperability and strengthen open data.

Liability of Public Administration in Italy: Considerations on Recent Changes

In the last two decades the liability of Public Administration in Italy has been the centre of radical transformations promoted by the European system. From a situation of broad immunities, the formal equalization was achieved of Public Administration's liability to that of private citizens. Nevertheless, the full liability of the Administration is having a difficult time being asserted in the courts' decisions, which are actually creating new areas of immunity, the most important of which concerns discretionary power. Recent legal literature is looking for alternative options based on the principles of risk, solidarity, and equality.

La difficile rationalisation de l'administration sous la quatrième République

<titre>The reform that never took place&#160;: projects and administrative reforms in Italy and France 1943-48 </titre> Our intention here is to analyse a few main themes of the reform in public administration in Italy and France after the Second World War, in particular its primary goal &#8211; to democratise the administration &#8211;, its far-reaching effects and its protagonists, The reorganisation of the new political regimes was necessary, all the more so as they had to be a symbolic and legal demarcation from those preceding. It proved to be a decisive period for republican Italy, one that would influence its institutional history for many years to come. The prosopographical study of the members of various reform commissions (with their different profiles and socio-biographical experiences) reveals facts that could explain certain differences between the political and judiciary culture of the Italians and that of the French.

European public administration, information technology and management: implications for Italian public administration

This work starts from research concerning European Public Administration (EPA) and the implications of competition for Italian Public Administration. For this reason, the data is from 16 countries, focused mainly on the analysis of the degree of evolution of information and communication technology. In this research, we take into account the role of Public Administration in Italy and the relations between information and communication technology (IC b) the ability to face uncertainty; c) the modalities of management and control.