Organizational Development in Public Administration: The Italian Way [1st ed.] 9783030437985, 9783030437992

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxvii
Front Matter ....Pages 1-1
Organizing Public Administration (Maurizio Decastri, Filomena Buonocore)....Pages 3-36
Rethinking the Concept of Competencies for Public Managers (Ernesto De Nito, Mario Pezzillo Iacono)....Pages 37-60
Human Resource Management in the Public Administration (Rocco Reina, Danila Scarozza)....Pages 61-101
Front Matter ....Pages 103-103
Public Management Reform in Italy (Alessandro Hinna, Federico Ceschel)....Pages 105-137
The Key Role of the SNA in Promoting Organizational Change and Competencies Development (Sonia Moi, Anna Maria Massa)....Pages 139-176
A Project for Assessing Public Management Competencies (Francesca Gagliarducci, Davide de Gennaro)....Pages 177-212
Front Matter ....Pages 213-213
Conclusions and Implications for the Italian Public Sector (Stefano Battini, Gianluigi Mangia, Angelo Mari)....Pages 215-231
Back Matter ....Pages 233-237

Citation preview

Organizational Development in Public Administration The Italian Way Edited by Maurizio Decastri · Stefano Battini Filomena Buonocore · Francesca Gagliarducci

Organizational Development in Public Administration “This book tackles face up a major challenge met by public leaders and managers all over the world: the management of people and competences in the public sector. By providing insights into the Italian experience in improving human resources management over the past years and decades, and highlighting the key role of the national school of administration in it, this book offers a vast range of ideas and experiences greatly valuable to everybody with an interest in these topics. A key reader in public management for scholars and practitioners alike.” —Edoardo Ongaro, Full Professor of Public Management, The Open University, UK “This book provides an insightful journey from theory to practice from international to national, from intrinsic public motivation to explicit performance evaluation, from reform to change process, from competences development to actual behaviour. A terrific challenge for intellectual curiosity.” —Elio Borgonovi, Distinguished Professor of Public Management, Bocconi University, Italy

Maurizio Decastri Stefano Battini Filomena Buonocore Francesca Gagliarducci Editors

Organizational Development in Public Administration The Italian Way

Editors Maurizio Decastri University of Rome Tor Vergata Rome, Italy Filomena Buonocore Parthenope University of Naples Naples, Italy

Stefano Battini Tuscia University Viterbo, Italy Francesca Gagliarducci Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers Rome, Italy

ISBN 978-3-030-43798-5    ISBN 978-3-030-43799-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43799-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © Marina Lohrbach_shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

Over recent years there have been significant changes in the cultural, economic, and political global environment, leading to a new contextual framework for public managers and contributing to the sense of needing new managerial competencies for public governance and administration. Information technology, in particular, has deeply affected the way we work and organizational practices, contributing to new models of flatter organizations, based on teamwork and project management. At a level of macro analysis, the fluidity of the communication processes allowed by technologies has increased the interdependence among public organizations, making structures more permeable and creating more opportunities to interact and cooperate across organizational boundaries (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Koppell, 2010; Lindsay, Pearson, Batty, Cullen, & Eadson, 2017). Other relevant changes concern the globalization that has deeply affected the nature of work, in the public as in the private sector. As organizations operate more globally, they face an environment that is less predictable and as a result they need to be able to respond much more quickly to environmental changes (Lawler III, 1994). On the other hand, globalization increases integration in the world, allowing people to interact easily across the globe and between different governments and economies, all integrated into a “global community” (Farazmand, 2009). As a consequence, immigration, terrorism, international finance, and reforms, the latter rapidly migrating around the world and all too frequently being adopted even where not wholly suitable, have become common issues v

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among countries requiring a particular effort from governments in finding global solutions (Van Wart, 2013). The effects of these changes on the way we work are evident. In public organizations traditional administrative capacities are not going to disappear, but awareness is spreading that they are not enough to meet the new challenges ahead. There is an increasing need for new sets of knowledge, skills, cultures, and designs in public organization and management that can meet the challenge of this historical period and its rapid changes (Farazmand, 2009; Handy, 1990; Morgan, 2006). Moreover, as is commonly pointed out in both the management and leadership literatures (Van Wart, 2013), the effects of these changes on public employees are more significant when they carry out managerial roles, which require leaders to take the tasks of teaching, coaching, and mentoring seriously. The expectation of new roles and competencies for public managers is a recurring issue in Public Administration research and a central theme in the ideas of contemporary reformers on enhancing and modernizing administrative capacities. These changes and their related needs are captured in the literature on “soft skills” to inform and empower managers and staff to deal with changes, to encourage people in continuously learning, and to support learning organizations to foster continuous improvement (Beard, Schwieger, & Surendran, 2008). Communication, problem-solving, team-­ working, and the ability to improve professional (e.g., learning attitude and performance, motivation, judgement, and leadership) and personal (e.g., flexibility, resilience, and creativity) traits (Hennessey & Amabile, 1998) nowadays represent relevant competences in public management, in line with Grugulis and Vincent (2009), who explained how in recent years there has been a dramatic shift from technical to soft skills, especially in the Public Sector. The increased focus on individual capabilities calls for different approaches to organizational design, work design, and human resource management. Because organizations need to be much more adaptable and to compete on the basis of their competences and skills, it is evident that the old scientific management and bureaucratic approach to organization was not effective. The development of a more competency-focused approach, in which the capabilities of individuals are the primary focus, may turn out to be a key breakthrough in allowing new and more flexible approaches to organizing, leading to improved performance (Lawler III, 1994).

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Relevant implications of moving to a competencies-based approach to management also concerns human resources management, in the areas of selection, training and career development, and competency assessment. Traditional recruitment and selection activities focus on finding individuals who fit particular job openings, while selection according to a competencies-­based approach will include an assessment of whether individuals will fit the culture of an organization and learn the types of skills needed by the organization. Relevant effects are also evident for training and development. Particularly, training is much discussed in public management because of its key role in facilitating the implementation of new policies and reform by providing information about the policies, justifying why they are needed, and giving employees the capacity to put the new policies in place (Kroll & Moynihan, 2015). Effective training in public organizations requires an understanding of the specific capacities needed and how to create them. This means that organizations need to have a well-developed system for providing training to individuals and to make time available, so that individuals can take advantages of the training. Perhaps the most relevant implications of a competencies approach to management in public organizations concern assessment methods. Public management literature is not familiar with the concept of job assessment, evaluation, and appraisal and few techniques have been investigated so far. However, assessment methodologies also raise a number of issues. According to McMullan and colleagues (2003), assessment contributes to the maintenance of professional standards (Rowntree, 2015) and “facilitates judgements about employees’ qualities, abilities and knowledge against predetermined criteria” (p. 167). Despite the acknowledged relevance of the skills assessment process, there is still no agreement on the most effective methodologies. Competences are an integrated construct, resulting from the combination of many dimensions; although professional psychology does have tools for evaluating knowledge and skills, there are currently no available methods to readily or reliably assess the integration of knowledge, skills, and attitudes within the domain of competence. Competency frameworks, designed to improve the capabilities and skills of public managers, have been applied in the US since 1979 and have more recently appeared in several other developed countries, including Japan, the UK, Germany, Sweden, and Italy. Since then there has been a need for rethinking skills and competencies for public managers in order to improve their performance at all levels (Gunz, 1983). One of the main

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reasons that led to the adoption of a model based on skills was the introduction of New Public Management Principles and Values (Horton, 2006) and its related managerial innovations, such as performance management, the focus on human resource strategies, and the need to keep public expenditure down without having a negative impact on efficiency, effectiveness, and performance. Driven by these needs, Italy has made several attempts to reform work in the Public Sector over the last few years. In 2009 with Legislative Decree N. 150 (27/10/2009), the concept of performance in Public Administration was introduced into the Italian legislative system. Subsequently, other amendments (Legislative Decree N. 150/2009, law N. 124/2015) took measures aimed at valorizing meritocracy in the Public Sector and rationalizing management evaluation systems. These amendments pursue the general objective of improving performance in the Public Sector and ensuring efficiency and transparency in the civil service. This book is structured as follows. Chapter 1 is inspired by the observation that new trends are changing how public organizations are organized, making them increasingly complex and effective in challenging problems that cannot be successfully addressed through traditional bureaucracies. These changes are aimed at influencing the behaviour of public employees through the introduction of managerial and professional logics and other tools from the private sector. Efficiency, flexibility, 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 main goal of Chap. 2 is to analyse the managerial competencies in the Public Sector. The reform process in Western countries has profoundly affected the way Public Administrations are managed, in terms of governance, responsibility, and culture. Reforms in recent years have established a “management culture”, emphasizing the primacy of management above all other activities and the key role of managers above all other employees in the organizations. In many Western countries public organizations are trying to identify the core competencies for being a public manager, moving from leadership competencies, to managing people or achieving results. At the same time, a more recent literature has shown how competencies are changing, so while managers in public organizations are increasingly concerned with performance, they are also influenced by unique factors such as their need to be accountable to elected officials, the public at large, and special interest groups. In coherence with this picture,

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we will present the main contributions on the competency model in the Public Sector. Through their knowledge, know-how, and skills, people are at the heart of the reform processes in Public Sector, since it is people who provide services, promote innovation, and carry out reforms. As a consequence, in recent years people management has received increasing prominence and there have been many calls for the Human Resource (HR) function to play a strategic role. Developing Human Resource Management (HRM) facilitates the recruitment and retention of valued staff, enhancing organizational effectiveness and promulgating a performance-driven culture. Starting from these premises, Chap. 3 aims to answer some relevant questions within the research of Public Administration: Why and how does HRM matter to good government? Why is HRM in public organizations central to achieving effectiveness? HRM is widely recognized as a key function contributing to democracy, transparency, meritocracy, and performance in Public Administration. However, a number of characteristics make the Public Sector particularly distinctive with respect to HRM. In the Public Sector, activities are regulated by laws, regulations, and procedures; decisions are influenced by political and informal procedures; objectives are often multiple, vague, and politicized and, consequently, difficult to measure; the employment process, specifically in the case of top managers, is based on appointment rather than selection; the organizational structure is often centralized. All these variables have hampered the development of HRM in the Public Sector, raising an intense debate among Public Sector scholars. First, a prominent question is to what extent public managers can influence employee performance given the constraints on managerial autonomy and the prevalence of red tape, which has fostered a compliance culture with managers viewed as “guardians” of established rules and procedures. Second, a related question is what mechanisms link HRM practices with organizational performance? Finally, empirical evidence shows that not all HR practices are suitable for application in Public Sector organizations, given the nature of services provided, the characteristics of Public Sector employees, and the fact that public organizations are accountable for the ways in which they spend public funds. Chapter 4 investigates the evolution of the public manager role in a given historical and local context: the Italian Public Administration undergoing a wave of reforms since the early 1990s. Italy represents an illustrative case of organizational development. In line with the major trends in other European countries, the reform path started in the early ’90s is

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recognized as the moment of a strong break with the past, leading to a complete redesign of the organizational structure of central and local government, a re-organization of managerial planning and control systems, and an emphasis on transparency. In other words, the last 20–30 years of administrative reforms put a stronger emphasis on the improvement of the efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability of Public Administrations, creating the conditions for the development and consolidation of a performance and risk management model in the Italian Public Administration. Political agendas were inspired by the “New Public Management” (NPM) model from the early 1990s to the late 2000s. Although no comprehensive evaluation has ever been conducted, the literature agrees that reforms have been generally unsuccessful. Organizational change has been cosmetic, failing to produce quality or reduced costs, while managerial techniques and tools have been adopted only formally. From a theoretical prospective it is perhaps more appropriate refer to “New Weberian” model that identifies a coexistence between the basic rules of the classic bureaucratic model with measures aimed at increasing the capacity for managing complexity. An additional element of criticality is given by the fact that the political system in Italy has been subject over the years to frequent government turnovers, making the average government institutional life very short. Consequently, this evolution has also affected the hierarchical stratification in public management, in which the development of the role and the related competencies and professional skills of the top management has had trajectories (and attentions) different from that of mid-level management. Developing an effective, competent, and forward-looking public service is one of the greatest challenges public organizations face today. Chapter 5 explains the role that central administrations play in promoting organizational and skills development. Particularly, we focus on the education and research institutions with a key role in leading to a relevant organizational change and we propose the case of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA) as a representative example. Over the last few years, the SNA has supported the Italian Public Administration in successfully tackling the organizational change resulting from recent reforms, contributing to the development and dissemination of a competency approach for public employees. Its mission is to carry out training activities of excellence for civil servants, with the support of research activities, in order to promote effectiveness and a culture of efficiency in Public Administration, to disseminate methods of management control and

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economic accounting, to implement technological and innovation processes in services provided by the central Public Administration. The SNA ensures a constant and highly competitive channel of recruitment for public management and pays attention to the development of training methods that are increasingly adequate both for the context and for people. Chapter 6 describes an experimental project jointly launched by the Italian Prime Minister’s Office and the Italian SNA, with the aim to propose and test a competency approach for the Italian public organization system. It is an action-research project entitled “Analysis, Evaluation and Strengthening of Managerial Skills” that involved 51 volunteer senior managers of the Presidency of Council of Ministers (PCM). The PCM is an important administrative structure which supports the Italian President of the Council of Ministers, who makes use of it for the exercise of both the functions of political orientation and coordination regarding other administrations (Legislative Decree 303/1999), both for the definition and for the implementation of determined public policies. The establishment of the PCM is quite recent (Law N. 400/1988): it is a singular branch of the Public Administration regulated by specific legislation regarding its organization and functioning. The goal of this project is threefold: (a) to identify the job descriptions and the role profiles of public managers in order to represent and describe the intellectual, professional, and human capital of PCM public management, (b) to create the conditions for differentiated and targeted career and training paths, and (c) to promote a process of constant development of managerial skills in a strategic perspective. Therefore, the project has been aimed at identifying the role profile of top management levels of the PCM, by assessing the skills and defining a learning environment suitable for strengthening the “weaker” competencies. Finally, Chap. 7 summarizes the contents of the various chapters of the book and provides a complete overview of new training delivery strategies implemented by national schools for Public Administrations. The peculiarity and characteristics of the Public Sector suggest a necessary focus on the reforms that are generating a constant organizational change. The role of public managers, above all, has changed considerably over the years— from a bureaucratic model to that of New Public Management and beyond—and, within this framework, the competencies and managerial skills required for working in the Public Sector have changed. In Italy, more than in other countries, the reform of Public Administration has been a distinctive and constant feature of every government, since the

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foundation of its state in 1861. Personnel management, evaluation, and, above all, human resource development are factors that should not be underestimated and that need to be redesigned in light of the peculiarities of the Public Sector and the constant changes which, particularly over the last few years, are conditioning and affecting it. Rome, Italy Viterbo, Italy  Naples, Italy  Rome, Italy 

Maurizio Decastri Stefano Battini Filomena Buonocore Francesca Gagliarducci

References Agranoff, R., & McGuire, M. (2003). Collaborative public management: New strategies for local governments. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2tt2nq. Beard, D., Schwieger, D., & Surendran, K. (2008). Integrating soft skills assessment through university, college, and programmatic efforts at an AACSB accredited institution. Journal of Information Systems Education, 19(2), 229–240. Farazmand, A. (2009). Building administrative capacity for the age of rapid globalization: A modest prescription for the twenty-first century. Public Administration Review, 69(6), 1007–1020. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02054.x. Grugulis, I., & Vincent, S. (2009). Whose skill is it anyway? Soft skills and polarization. Work, Employment and Society, 23(4), 597–615. https://doi. org/10.1177/0950017009344862. Gunz, H. (1983). The competent manager: A model for effective performance. Strategic Management Journal, 4(4), 385–387. https://doi.org/10.1002/ smj.4250040413. Handy, C. (1990). The age of unreason. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Hennessey, B.  A., & Amabile, T.  M. (1998). Reality, intrinsic motivation, and creativity. American Psychologist, 53(6), 674–675. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0003-066X.53.6.674. Horton, S. (2006). New public management: Its impact on public servant’s identity: An introduction to this symposium. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 19(6), 533–542. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513550610685970.

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Koppell, J.  G. (2010). Administration without borders. Public Administration Review, 70(s1), 46–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02245.x. Kroll, A., & Moynihan, D. P. (2015). Does training matter? Evidence from performance management reforms. Public Administration Review, 75(3), 411–420. Lawler, E. E., III. (1994). From job-based to competency-based organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15(1), 3–15. Lindsay, C., Pearson, S., Batty, E., Cullen, A. M., & Eadson, W. (2017). Streetlevel practice and the co-production of third sector-led employability services. Policy & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1332/030557317X15120417452025. McMullan, M., Endacott, R., Gray, M. A., Jasper, M., Miller, C. M., Scholes, J., & Webb, C. (2003). Portfolios and assessment of competence: A review of the literature. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 41(3), 283–294. https://doi. org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.2003.02528.x. Morgan, G. (2006). Unfolding logics of change: Organization as flux and transformation. In Images of organization (pp.  241–290). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing. Rowntree, D. (2015). Assessing students: How shall we know them? Routledge. Van Wart, M. (2013). Lessons from leadership theory and the contemporary challenges of leaders. Public Administration Review, 73(4), 553–565. https://doi. org/10.1111/puar.12069.

Contents

Part I Rethinking Organization and Human Resource Management in Public Sector   1 1 Organizing Public Administration  3 Maurizio Decastri and Filomena Buonocore 1.1 Introduction  3 1.2 Reforms and Organizational Change  6 1.2.1 NPM and post-NPM Reforms 11 1.3 A New Complexity for Public Administration: Organizing According to the post-NPM Reforms 16 1.4 The Crisis of the Bureaucratic Model 22 1.5 Conclusions 25 References 26 2 Rethinking the Concept of Competencies for Public Managers 37 Ernesto De Nito and Mario Pezzillo Iacono 2.1 Introduction 37 2.2 The Concept of Competence in a Managerial Perspective 39 2.2.1 The Entity-based Perspective 40 2.2.2 The Situationalist Approach 41 2.3 Competencies for Public Managers 42 2.3.1 Competency-based Public Administration Research 43 2.3.2 Behavioral Competencies of Italian Public Managers and Employees 45 xv

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2.4 HRM Practices and Managerial Competencies in the Public Context 47 2.5 Competency Model and HRM: Italian Practices 50 2.5.1 The Competency Portfolio Developed by the Campania Region 50 2.5.2 Competency Mapping and Learning Process: The INPS Case 52 2.5.3 The Dictionary of Behavioral Competency of the Sardinia Region 53 2.6 The Competency Model: The Other Side of the Coin 55 References 57 3 Human Resource Management in the Public Administration 61 Rocco Reina and Danila Scarozza 3.1 HRM in Public Organizations: Main Problems and Challenges 61 3.2 The Concept of Public Motivation: Levers and Constraints 65 3.3 Recruitment and Training Systems 69 3.4 Evaluation Systems 74 3.5 Flexibility in Worker Relationships: New Challenges in HRM 78 3.6 Technology and New Modes of Working in Public Administration 83 3.7 Considerations and Conclusions 94 References 95 Part II The Italian Case Study 103 4 Public Management Reform in Italy105 Alessandro Hinna and Federico Ceschel 4.1 The Conceptual Framework for the Reformist Season105 4.2 The Administrative Reforms of the 1990s107 4.2.1 Assumptions and Dimensions of Radicalism of the Administrative Reforms107 4.2.2 The Legislative Interventions of the 1990s: Some Cardinal Points108 4.2.3 Linkages Between the Administrative Reforms of the 1990s, NPM, and Post-NPM110

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4.3 Determinants and Complexity of the Administrative Change: The Answers of the Italian Legislator112 4.3.1 The Determinants and the Dimensions of Complexity112 4.3.2 The Implications of Complexity116 4.3.3 The Reforms of the Italian Legislator118 4.4 Current Challenges130 References134 5 The Key Role of the SNA in Promoting Organizational Change and Competencies Development139 Sonia Moi and Anna Maria Massa 5.1 Introduction139 5.2 How Public Entities Lead to Organizational Development141 5.3 New Training Methodologies for Competencies Development146 5.4 The Key Role of Schools of Government in Public Employee Training151 5.5 A Comparative Analysis with Other European National Schools of Administration155 5.5.1 A Brief Description of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA)155 5.5.2 A Brief Description of the French “École nationale d’administration”156 5.5.3 A Brief Description of the German Federal Academy of Public Administration157 5.5.4 A Brief Description of the Spanish National Institute of Public Administration158 5.5.5 Some General Considerations159 5.5.6 Institutional Framework of Government Schools161 5.5.7 Relationships with Non-Governmental Institutions162 5.6 The Case of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA)163 References174 6 A Project for Assessing Public Management Competencies177 Francesca Gagliarducci and Davide de Gennaro 6.1 Introduction177 6.2 The Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers178

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6.3 The Need for Assessing Competencies for PCM Managers182 6.4 Aims and Method185 6.4.1 Semi-Structured Interviews187 6.4.2 Assessment Centre190 6.4.3 Analysis193 6.5 Results: The Key Dimensions of Managerial Competence Domain193 6.6 Implications for Organizational Design and Human Resource Management197 6.7 Conclusions203 References207 Part III Learning from the Italian Way 213 7 Conclusions and Implications for the Italian Public Sector215 Stefano Battini, Gianluigi Mangia, and Angelo Mari 7.1 Italy and Political Instability215 7.2 How Instability Affects Managerial Behaviour217 7.3 The Need for a Cultural Change in Public Management219 7.4 Conclusions: Looking Ahead223 References226 Index

233

Notes on Contributors

Stefano Battini  is Full Professor of Administrative Law in the Department of Political Sciences at the Tuscia University. Since February 2017 he is also President of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). He is the author of numerous publications, mainly in the field of public work, global administrative law, and administrative procedure. Filomena  Buonocore  is Full Professor of Organization Studies at the Parthenope  University of Naples  and professor at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). Her research interests include issues of diversity management, work-life enrichment, public management, job crafting and organizational design. Her research has been published in several academic journals, including Journal of Management, Human Resource Management Journal, Journal of Managerial Psychology  and Tourism Management. Federico Ceschel  is temporary professor at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA), where he deals with corruption risk management systems and public management. He has provided consulting and strategic analysis services in the field of risk management and anti-corruption to various international institutions, including the World Bank, the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Maurizio  Decastri is Full Professor of Organization Studies at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He is Professor of Public Management at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). He is chairman of xix

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assessment unit at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and he is also member of the faculty of the Police High School. Among the various fields of activity, he mainly deals with Italian Public Administration, human resource management, organization design, and change management. Davide de Gennaro  is Assistant Professor of Organization Studies at the University of Salerno  and temporary professor at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). He received his PhD in Business Administration and Organizational Behaviour at Parthenope  University of Naples and held a visiting position at Kedge Business School of Bordeaux. He also works as contract researcher at SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan. Mario Pezzillo Iacono  is Associate Professor of Organization Studies at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, where he teaches Human Resource Management. He holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Molise and he was visiting researcher at the Cardiff Business School. Ernesto  De  Nito  is Associate Professor of Organization Studies at the University of Salerno, where he teaches organization theory and design, and human resource management in the Public Sector. He holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Naples Federico II.  He was visiting researcher at the Gothenburg University, Viktoria Institute. Francesca  Gagliarducci is General Deputy Secretary at the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM). In the past, she has served as Head of the Department of Personnel at PCM and as professor at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). Alessandro Hinna  is Associate Professor of Organization Studies at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, where he teaches Organization Theory and People Management. He is also professor of Public Management at the Italian  National School of Administration  (SNA). He is editor of Studies in Public and Non-Profit Governance (Book Series) for Emerald Group Publishing Limited. His current research interests include change management, risk management and human resource management in public organizations. Gianluigi  Mangia is Full Professor of Organizational Studies at the University of Naples Federico II and Head of the Department of

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Management at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). He is a board member of European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS). His research interests are around public organizations, power and resistance in organizations and organizational research methods. Angelo  Mari is Chief Administrative Officer of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). He has been a lecturer in several masters on Public Administrations and professor of SNA. As an effective member, he was part of three Italian national observatories of family, disability, and childhood and adolescence. He was also a member of the Government Commission for the reform of family law and of the Interministerial Committee for Human Rights. Anna Maria Massa  is integrative professor at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). Over the years she has carried out support activities for teaching in the context of training courses for new managers, specialized training courses, management practices, conflict management, and training activities on anti-corruption matters. Sonia  Moi is temporary professor at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA), where she deals with corruption risk management systems and public management. She is also a research fellow at the University of Rome  Tor Vergata, where she deals with issues related to organizational models for anti-corruption. Rocco Reina  is Full Professor of Organization Studies at the University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, in Italy, where he teaches organization theory and design, and human resource management in the Public Sector. He is temporary professor at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). Danila  Scarozza  is Research Fellow at the  International Telematic University UNINETTUNO and at University of Rome Tor Vergata. She is also temporary professor at the Italian National School of Administration (SNA).

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 6.1

Uncertainty and organizational planning: The problem of decision-­making capacity. (Source: Adapted from Hinna, 2009) The conceptual framework adopted: Analysis perspectives and objects of investigation. (Source: Adapted from Hinna, 2009) PCM structures established by the Italian Prime Ministerial Decree 01/10/2012 (organization chart updated to May 2016). (Adapted from Esposito et al., 2016)

112 113 180

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Comparing perspectives: Old Public Administration, New Public Management, and New Public Service (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000, p. 554) 15 Table 3.1 Smart workers involved in the project 89 Table 4.1 Public employment reforms 121 Table 4.2 Planning, programming, and control reforms in Italy 124 Table 6.1 Characteristics of the sample 187

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List of Boxes

Box 1.1 Box 1.2 Box 1.3 Box 1.4 Box 1.5 Box 6.1

Managerial reform of Italian Public Administration (Source: Gualmini, 2008) Managing successful organizational change (Source: Fernández & Rainey, 2006) The case of the reform of the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (Source: Fossestøl, Breit, Andreassen, & Klemsdal, 2015) Theoretical perspectives for studying hybridity (Source: Denis et al., 2015) Bureaucracy as instrument, institution, or ideal-type (Source: Olsen, 2006) The Structure and Areas of Interest of the Interview

7 9 16 20 23 189

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PART I

Rethinking Organization and Human Resource Management in Public Sector

CHAPTER 1

Organizing Public Administration Maurizio Decastri and Filomena Buonocore

1.1   Introduction Reforms possibly represent the most important driver in the process of change in public organizations. The trend of administrative reforms involving European bureaucracies in the last decades mainly concerned the civil service sectors through the adoption of company-like management styles (Emery, 2019). An increased flexibility in public service employment contracts, a greater mobility both within and outside the administration, a strengthening of political appointments, a decentralization of recruitment and training, and an extension of collective bargaining represented the common traits of the reform trends in the UK, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany during the 1980s and 1990s (Gualmini, 2008). Consequently, public employees have begun to face managerial logics based on efficiency, quality of service, openness, flexibility, and speed of execution. All these changes have produced two relevant effects on the Public Sector.

M. Decastri University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] F. Buonocore (*) Parthenope University of Naples, Naples, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. Decastri et al. (eds.), Organizational Development in Public Administration, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43799-2_1

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Firstly, public organizations have become more complex in organizational terms, because of new logics that have not ousted the traditional logics of the Public Administration, based on the criterion of compliance with the law and administrative rules for public officials, but have been added to them. This is congruent with the view of Olsen (2008), who talks about a sedimentation process of reforms, that implies that new reforms complement or supplement, rather than replace, old ones, leading to the coexistence of old and new institutions, even if founded on partly inconsistent principles (Christensen & Lægreid, 2011). In contrast to the either-or reform approaches, assuming a linear or cyclic development where one reform replaces the previous one (Verhoest & Lægreid, 2010), Olsen (2008) proposed that reforms are conceived as a compound, based on the idea that previous reforms are modified through the addition of new, different reform measures, leaving certain elements of the structure and culture relatively stable, but strengthening some and weakening others (Christensen & Lægreid, 2011; Røvik, 1996). Verhoest and Lægreid (2010) talk about a combination of “robustness and flexibility” in the way public organizations change, where robustness is associated with the concepts of stability, continuity, reliability, predictability, low variance, and regularity, while flexibility is associated with change, variation, adaptability, new knowledge, flexibility, and innovation (Farjoun, 2010).1 Secondly, public and private organizations are minimizing their gaps and overcoming their traditional structural differences in terms of values, culture, and organizational asset. The New Public Management (NPM) movement (Barzelay, 2001; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992) significantly influenced the new trend, assuming that public and private sectors are convergent, according to the principle that management is management, regardless of sector (Lyons, Duxbury, & Higgins, 2006). The primary objective of NPM is to give Public Sector organizations a new orientation by changing the way of working, focusing on performance, effectiveness, and productivity. Consequently, after a long period when much scientific 1  As a recurring theme in organizational studies, this dualistic view has inspired numerous models of learning, design, and organizational change that implicitly recognize that stability and change jointly contribute to organizational effectiveness. The common theoretical principle is represented by the model of March (1991) and Levinthal and March (1993), which explains how the success of an organization depends on the delicate balance between exploitation and exploration, that is, the ability to explore new roads through change and experimentation and, at the same time, the ability to exploit existing resources and knowledge consolidated in the organization.

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debate has been centered on a number of organizational distinctions between public and private organizations (Perry & Rainey, 1988; Savas, 1982; Spann, 1977),2 such distinctions have been downplayed because most practices and organizational assets become similar in both public and private organizations. At the individual level, sectorial distinctions between public and private are becoming increasingly irrelevant, following a long period when the attitudes and behaviors of employees of public and private organizations were contrasted. The NPM movement is considered as the “age of management” based on a new idea of leadership and a new corporate culture. According to this view, various initiatives of HR-based reforms have been undertaken in most European countries, aimed at the renewal of human resources policies in public organizations, taking inspiration from the practices commonly adopted in private organizations. Starting from these premises, the objective of this chapter is to provide a general overview of the reform processes that have affected the Public Sector over the years. To this end, the chapter is structured as follows. Section 1.2 tries to conceptualize the administrative reforms as a multidimensional phenomenon, resulting from a combination of competing, inconsistent, and contradictory organizational principles and structures, that coexist and balance different interests and values. The succession of reforms is associated to a constant organizational change process involving the Public Sector, with different consequences for organizational assets and administrative apparatus. NPM and post-NPM reforms are analyzed, while in Sect. 1.3 the main organizational consequences resulting from the post-NPM reforms are examined in depth. Section 1.4 deals with a series of reflections on the crisis of the bureaucratic model, traditionally recognized as the typical organizational form of Public Administration. Finally, the Conclusions section summarizes the main issues dealt within this chapter, offering suggestions for the development of future research and for managerial implications.  Kelman (2007) talks about a “ghetto” for Public Sector research to explain the push by Public Sector scholars to emphasize how they differ from the scholars in other disciplines. The most distinctive features between public and private organizations are as follows: public organizations are exposed to much greater influence by external political and governmental institutions; they are subject to more external scrutiny and accountability and their goals are intangible and often conflicting; they have more elaborate formal rules and reporting requirements and more rigid hierarchical arrangements; public organizations are also often characterized by a lower operating efficiency compared to other types of organizations; the actions public managers take are often dictated by political necessities and they have limited decision-making autonomy due to constraints such as civil service rules. 2

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1.2   Reforms and Organizational Change Pollitt and Bouckaert (2004) define the term “reform” as a deliberate and intentional change, marking a distinction from all those changes that suddenly occur and are not predictable. Public Sector organizations are constantly changing due to the continuous succession of administrative reforms acting on the administrative apparatuses and organizational patterns (Verhoest & Lægreid, 2010), although reforms do not always produce total innovation. A variety of theoretical perspectives have been provided to study the organizational change in Public Administration and, in particular, to focus on its nature and main drivers. The most common frameworks are the Institutional Theory and the Change Management Theories. According to the institutionalists, change is not intentionally implemented to improve efficiency and the organizations pursue their legitimacy by conforming themselves to environmental pressures (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Evidently, the institutional perspective promotes a deterministic explanation of change and focuses on the level of analysis of the organizational field rather than of individual organizations. In contrast, Change Management Theories follow a rational-adaptive perspective to highlight the intentionality of the organizational change process, that results from choices made by the actors involved in the change process (Abramson & Lawrence, 2001; Fernández & Rainey, 2006; Kotter, 1995). Kuipers et al. (2014) identify three orders of change, depending on the depth of reform. First-order changes are limited to a part or subsystem of an organization, and generally they occur as an incremental process. These changes concern, for example, the introduction of managerial innovations related to information technology or new accounting systems. Second-­ order changes involve radical processes of transformation that impact on the organizational level. These are often labeled as reorganizations (Boyne, 2006), or agency turnarounds (Borins, 2002), with a focus on behavioral factors that make possible and support organizational change, such as organizational culture, climate, values, and beliefs. The study on public leadership of Parry and Proctor-Thomson (2003) provides an interesting example of second-order change, highlighting the key role of decisionmakers in establishing the values and beliefs among employees that make it possible for decisions to be translated into actions. Finally, a third-order change spans specific organizational boundaries and widely affects many organizations/sectors. Public service reforms provide significant examples leading to a radical transformation of values and ideologies in a society and to the creation of various collaborations and partnerships (Box 1.1).

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Box 1.1  Managerial reform of Italian Public Administration (Source: Gualmini, 2008)

The Italian experience, in particular, has been particularly relevant as a sign of a break with the past. The urgent need to reduce public debt in order to enter the European Monetary Union, the reform of the electoral system, and the support of trade unions for some of the innovations introduced, especially the extension of collective bargaining, contributed to make the Italian reform cycle of the 1990s much more radical than in other countries. From a structural point of view, the 1999 reform established administrative agencies, which were granted powers by central government on the basis of negotiated budget and framework agreements and were headed by general managers. As in other European countries, these agencies were to be an answer to state overload. However, the subordination of the agencies to the ministries and the maintenance of directorates general in certain ministries meant that the degree of decentralization of state bureaucracy was much weaker than in other countries. From the personnel policy point of view, the Italian government had aimed to dismantle the system of public law regulation. Legislative decree 29/1993 introduced the private regulation of civil servants’ employment conditions and wages, based on centralized collective bargaining with the trade unions, as well as a newly established Agency for the Representation of the Civil Service. Direct entry from outside Public Administrations was actively promoted, as mobility within the Public Sector and the private sector and performance targets and goals were established for public employees. Finally, legislative decree 80/1998 completed the reform process by extending collective bargaining to top-grade civil servants and by introducing the spoils system for higher-level/senior civil servants who had to be confirmed or removed from their offices within the first three months of each new legislature. Subsequently, Berlusconi’s government strengthened the spoils system by abolishing the minimum term for senior civil servants’ contracts, allowing more people from outside the Public Sector to have a direct access to senior positions.

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Drawing on this organizational change research, relevant studies analyze the psychological consequences of change, explaining how organizations that frequently change due to reform processes create a sense of precariousness and uncertainty among organizational members (Andrews, 2008; Bordia, Hobman, Jones, Gallois, & Callan, 2004). Uncertainty is considered as “one of the most commonly reported psychological states in the context of organizational change” (Bordia et  al., 2004, p.  509). If employees are unable to make sense of their environment, because of lack of information or difficulty in predicting future outcomes, they tend to experience a higher level of uncertainty due to the difficulty in carefully predicting the impact the change will have on them (Daft, 2001; Lau & Woodman, 1995). Perceived uncertainty is positively associated with stress (Schweiger & Denisi, 1991) and turnover intentions (Johnson, Bernhagen, Miller, & Allen, 1996), and it is negatively associated with job satisfaction (Rafferty & Griffin, 2006), psychological well-being (Bordia et al., 2004), and trust in the organization (Schweiger & Denisi, 1991).3 According to Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson (2000), many Public Sector reforms can be interpreted as attempts at constructing organizations, which means that they try to adopt new management techniques and to change the modes of managing, controlling, and accounting for the production of public services. More specifically, organization theorists conceive organizations in the general sense of coordinating actors and activities possessing special characteristics, such as an identity, a certain degree of autonomy, collective resources to control, and clear boundaries between the organization and its environment. Reforms aimed at realizing these aspects can be interpreted as a way of constructing the organization and, if the reform was successful, the reformed entity is more likely to be perceived as a “real” organization, possessing the standard organizational attributes. NPM and post-NPM reforms 3  In the Public Sector research, Bordia et  al. (2004) introduce the distinction between strategic, structural, and job-related uncertainty. Strategic uncertainty refers to uncertainty regarding organization-level issues, such as the reasons for change, the future direction of the organization, or its sustainability. For example, a public manager perceives strategic uncertainty when, in a context of changing government and policies (e.g., privatization or funding cuts), s/he experiences a lack of clear vision and this will provide uncertainty regarding the impact of change on administration’s strategic direction. Structural uncertainty refers to the administrations’ organizational structure. An example is the merging of two different offices that is likely to produce changes in internal hierarchies: this type of change generates uncertainty about the chain of command and the responsibilities of the employees within the public offices. Finally, job-related uncertainty refers to job security, career opportunities, and changes in the role and tasks to be performed due, for example, to the introduction of new technologies or the downsizing of certain programs and activities.

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provide relevant examples of organizational reforms in the Public Sector assigning various aspects of the concept of organization to individual public services (Brunsson & Sahlin-­Andersson, 2000). The key feature in constructing organization processes is about “constructing management”, conceived as the authoritative center of an organization which is assumed to exert control and bear responsibility for the organization, its actions, and results. Reforms recognize the freedom of the chief executives to manage, removing them from the condition of civil servants following and implementing central directives. As managers have been allowed greater discretion, their leadership role in change management process has been emphasized (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). In the Public Sector context, leadership is discussed in terms of administrative or bureaucratic leadership, which can be contrasted with political leadership. Administrative leadership is regarded as an exclusive activity of managers at the head of an administrative apparatus; they have a relevant role as drivers of change, provided that it is credible, competent, and trained in the process of transforming organizations (Kavanagh & Ashkanasy, 2006; Ridder, Bruns, & Spier, 2005) (Box 1.2).

Box 1.2  Managing successful organizational change (Source: Fernández & Rainey, 2006)

In their study on organizational change in Public Sector, Fernández and Rainey (2006) illustrated eight relevant tasks from public managers as potentially contributing to the successful implementation of change. First, public managers must verify and communicate the need for change. The literature on public management has repeatedly stressed the need to disseminate information about the change and to convince civil servants about the urgency of change, also through efforts to take advantage of mandates, political windows of opportunity, and external influences to verify and communicate this need (Abramson & Lawrence, 2001; Harokopus, 2001; Lambright, 2001). Second, public managers must develop a course of action or strategy for implementing change. More specifically, they must design a road map for the administration, identifying the obstacles and proposing solutions to overcome them. It is also important that the objectives are clear and specific—therefore measurable, capable of being (continued)

Box 1.2  (continued)

improved, and unambiguous—and based on sound causal theory— eliminating inconsistent or conflicting directives that can undermine efforts to implement change (Bishop & Jones Jr, 1993; Grizzle & Pettijohn, 2002; Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1989; Rossotti, 2005). Third, managers are called to build internal support for change and to reduce the resistance to it through widespread participation in the change process. Participation can be guaranteed, for example, through continuous meetings with stakeholders in order to share information (Rossotti, 2005), also by promoting bottom-up initiatives granting frontline workers greater discretion to implement changes. Fourth, the success of change requires top-management support and commitment to change. In the Public Sector, top management support for change often requires the cooperation of top-level career civil servants in addition to politically appointed executives (Abramson & Lawrence, 2001; Berman & Wang, 2000; Harokopus, 2001; Thompson & Fulla, 2001); Aucoin (1990), for example, attributes the failure of reforms in Canada to a lack of support from cabinet ministers that were simply not interested in supporting those reforms. Fifth, external support is an important component of change. Therefore, public managers implementing change in their administrations must display skills in obtaining support from powerful external actors (e.g., Berman & Wang, 2000; Julnes & Holzer, 2001). It has been shown, for example, that the governor’s high level of commitment and support for some reforms in Florida lead to a strong influence on the implementation of change (Berry, Chackerian, & Wechsler, 1999). Sixth, change is not cheap or without trade-offs and reorganizations and redirections are often expensive and require sufficient resources to be effective (e.g., Nadler & Nadler, 1998). Seventh, the dynamics of change must be constantly monitored in order to assess their actual implementation (Judson, 1991): the evaluation and monitoring efforts represent a fundamental task of public managers and should continue even after the change is fully adopted to ensure members do not lapsing into old behavioral patterns. Finally, change must be structural, it is not enough to work on some subsystems as if they were separate and not interconnected boxes (e.g., Hannan, Polos, & Carroll, 2003; Meyers & Dillon, 1999; Nadler & Nadler, 1998). Public managers must develop an integrative approach to change achieving subsystem congruence. For example, Shareef (1994) found that an effort to implement a participative culture in the US Postal Service fell short because of management’s failure to modify organizational subsystems consistently.

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1.2.1  NPM and post-NPM Reforms NPM and post-NPM reforms provide relevant examples of organizational reforms in the Public Sector assigning various aspects of the concept of organization to individual public services (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). The NPM movement (Barzelay, 2001; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992) established itself as the dominant approach to Public Administration in the 1980s and 1990s. It was marked by Osborne and Gaebler’s best-selling book Reinventing Government (1992) and the Clinton Presidency administration’s National Performance Review (Bryson, Crosby, & Bloomberg, 2014; Gore, 1993). The new movement was supposed to represent a reaction to the logic of the old Public Administration, based on procedural controls and rules, and to the model of large and centralized government agencies. Globalization, neoliberal reforms, and technological revolution represent some of the most significant changes that inspired the NPM movement. The basic idea of NPM is to make Public Sector organizations and public employees much more “business-like” and “market-oriented” because of an increased pressure and competition of a much more challenging business environment. In the opinion of the proponents of NPM, although public organizations traditionally do not operate in a competitive market as private organizations and are largely chained by legal, economic, and political bindings, they can be improved by the importation of business concepts, techniques, and values. The primary objective of NPM is to give Public Sector organizations a new orientation by changing their way of working and by paying attention to performance, effectiveness, and productivity. A series of interventions concerned the organizational structures and processes: decentralization, in order to achieve more flexible structures and less hierarchy; intensification of internal cross-boundary collaboration; standardization and formalization of strategic and operational routines through management tools typical of private organizations, such as scenario planning, SWOT  (Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, and business and unit plans (Diefenbach, 2009). The goal of the reform was twofold: to increase the efficiency, productivity, and quality of public organizations, improving performance and strengthening employees’ motivation on the one hand and on the other, because of explicit targets, standards, and performance indicators, to promote accountability and fairness of public administrators and managers. Although NPM reforms are based on economic/business theories (neoliberalism, public choice theory, change management concepts), scholars emphasize many inconsistencies, providing evidence that NPM is based on partially or totally contrasting principles (Christensen, 2012; Christensen & Lægreid, 2011). For example, although flexibility and

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change are recognized as a relevant organizational capability, NPM proponents also strive for standardization and formalization of strategic and operational management, centralization of activities crucial for the organization, and an increase in bureaucracy and formal requirements, all features that stiffen the structure and hinder the ability to change. Furthermore, according to NPM, employees are expected to develop business-like, entrepreneurial attitudes. At the same time, a wide range of systems and processes of auditing, control, regulation, assessment, inspection, and evaluation were introduced in order to tightly control employees’ tasks, attitudes, and performances. Another important claim of NPM is a decrease of hierarchy, but in contrast more management layers were introduced with many negative consequences. In fact, there is empirical evidence suggesting that many managers adopt strategic initiatives of change primarily for their individual ambitions, for the advancement of their own interests, and for career prospects (Diefenbach, 2005).4 As a response to the criticisms of NPM, a new generation of reforms, labeled New Public Service (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2011), Public Value Management (Stoker, 2006), and New Public Governance (Osborne, 2010), was launched. According to an increasing number of scholars, the aim of these new post-NPM reforms—from this moment on, this will be the expression we will use to refer to the research lines born to supersede NPM theories—was to counteract the disintegration or fragmentation that occurred under NPM by improving a horizontal coordination of governmental organizations and among government and other actors (Christensen, 2012; Christensen & Lægreid, 2007; Lægreid & Verhoest, 2010). The central idea is that public policies and programs evolve and are delivered by more than one organization, operating in networks or in other forms of partnerships (Pollitt, 2009). Networks of different actors and other forms of interorganizational cooperation have spread to the Public Sector to make better use of scarce resources and to create synergies by involving different actors on a given problem. Scholars argue that post-NPM reforms center on how to “govern”, not just to “manage”, diverse and complex societies enhancing an inclusive 4  Other critical points highlighted on the NPM reforms concern the introduction of performance measurement and management systems: more specifically, these systems were aimed to capture only quantitative outputs of performance, related to the concepts of efficiency, productivity, and accountability, by excluding nonquantifiable parameters, such as skills and knowledge, cooperative behaviors, fairness, commitment, creativity, innovation, and loyalty. All these organizational behaviors are completely ignored by NPM and portrayed as being unimportant.

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dialogue and cooperation among different actors (Bryson et al., 2014; Kettl, 2002; Osborne, 2010; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011), in order to find innovative solutions to solve emerging problems. Poverty, sustainability, natural disaster, deepening inequality, all offer important examples of complex problems that governments face today and that touch each and every one of us. These types of problems, also labeled “wicked problems”, cannot be effectively addressed through traditional bureaucracies; rather, they require specialized knowledge and a large number of stakeholders that cooperate to produce innovative policy solutions (Lindsay, Osborne, & Bond, 2014; McGuire & Silvia, 2010; Sørensen & Torfing, 2011). The unique contributions of different actors—politicians, civil servants, experts, private firms, user groups, community-based associations, and social cooperatives—are likely to produce a better understanding of the problem at hand, promoting a process of mutual learning through which the different stakeholders can develop and test new and bold solutions while building a joint sense of ownership for the project (Sørensen & Torfing, 2018). Politicians and government officials at all levels agree on the importance of involving citizens and civil society organizations in collaborative efforts to find innovative solutions to such problems (Ansell & Torfing, 2014; Sørensen & Torfing, 2018; Tait & Lester, 2005) or to produce what is valued as “good” for society (de Souza Briggs, 2008). Gaventa (2002) captures the importance of an active involvement of citizens and civil society organizations in co-creation processes of public value through the concept of “active citizenship”. Citizens thus move beyond their roles of “social clients” (as perceived in the traditional Public Administration) or “customers” (as defined in the NPM reform program), becoming “active citizens”, that is, citizens as resourceful and empowered actors, with knowledge of public affairs, a sense of belonging and concern for their community, and a strong willingness to assume personal responsibility for what happens around them (Cruikshank, 1999; Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000; Sørensen & Torfing, 2016). Putnam (1993) talks about “civil society” as a context in which people need to work out their personal interests for the benefit of the community. Government, especially at a local level, plays a central role in this new vision in order to create, facilitate, and support the connections between citizens and their communities. According to the traditional approach, government directs the actions of the public through regulation and decree and establishes a set of rules and incentives to motivate and guide people. In the new perspective of post-NPM reforms, government becomes a player with the key role of facilitating the dialogue with all

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other players and of finding solutions. In doing this, government must ensure that the public interest predominates and that the solutions and the processes by which solutions are found are consistent with democratic norms of justice, fairness, and equity (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000; Ingraham & Ban, 1988; Ingraham, Rosenbloom, & Edlund, 1989). Public managers also gain a new role compared to that envisaged under the tenets of NPM, where their main task was to manage inputs and outputs in a way that ensures economy and responsiveness to customers. Post-NPM public managers are expected to create public value for society by guiding collaborative networks and enhancing the overall effectiveness, capacity, and accountability of public policies and programs. In doing this, managers have more discretion than they did in the past because theirs is more than a service delivery role, rather they play a conciliating, mediating, or even adjudicating role (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000). New challenges and complexities of work are recognized for public administrators (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000), who have the responsibility to serve citizens by acting as stewards of public resources (Kass, 1990) and to operate as facilitators of citizenship and democratic dialogues (Chapin & Denhardt, 1995; King, Stivers, & Box, 1998). Furthermore, administrators should share authority and reduce control and they should trust in the efficacy of collaboration, seeking greater responsiveness and corresponding increase in citizen trust (King et al., 1998). Moreover, the concept of accountability changes in the perspective of post-NPM reforms, becoming more complex than in the past. It differs from the classical vision of the old Public Administration, in which public managers must simply report to their superiors, elected officials, and senior administrators, and from the managerial logic of NPM, in which new public managers are called to account in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and responsiveness to market forces. In the new vision of post-NPM reform, public administrators are held accountable to numerous institutions and standards, including public interest, law, community values, political norms, professional standards, democratic norms, and citizen interests (Christensen, 2012; Iacovino, Barsanti, & Cinquini, 2017; Romzek, LeRoux, & Blackmar, 2012). Denhardt and Denhardt (2000) suggest that institutions and standards influence the work of public managers, but they can also be influenced from them. For example, public managers are obviously subject to legal restrictions in their work, but the way in which public managers apply the law influences its implementation and also influences lawmakers, who might decide to change that law (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1  Comparing perspectives: Old Public Administration, New Public Management, and New Public Service (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000, p. 554)

Primary theoretical and epistemological foundations

Old Public Administration

New Public Management

New Public Service

Political theory, social and political commentary augmented by naive social science

Economic theory, more sophisticated dialogue based on positivist social science

Democratic theory, varied approaches to knowledge including positive, interpretive, critical, and postmodern Strategic rationality, multiple tests of human of rationality (political, economic, organizational) Result of a dialogue about shared values

Prevailing Synoptic rationality, rationality and “administrative man” associated models behavior Conception of the public interest Who are public servants responsive to? Role of government

Mechanisms for achieving policy objectives

Technical and economic rationality, “economic man”, or the self- interested decision-maker Politically defined and Represents the expressed in law aggregation of individual interests Clients and Customers constituents Rowing (designing and implementing policies focusing on a single, politically defined objective) Administering programs through existing government agencies

Steering (acting as a catalyst to unleash market forces)

Creating mechanisms and incentive structures to achieve policy objectives through private and nonprofit agencies Approach to Hierarchical Market driven—the accountability administrators are accumulation of standards responsible to self-interests will result democratically elected in outcomes desired political leaders by broad groups of citizens (or customers) Administrative Limited discretion Wide latitude to meet discretion allowed administrative entrepreneurial goals officials Assumed Bureaucratic Decentralized public organizational organizations marked organizations with structure by top-down authority primary control within agencies and remaining within the control or regulation agency of clients Assumed Pay and benefits, civil Entrepreneurial spirit, motivational basis service protections ideological desire to of public servants reduce size of and administrator government

Citizens

Serving (negotiating and brokering interests among citizens and community groups, creating shared values) Building coalitions of public, nonprofit, and private agencies to meet mutually agreed upon needs Multifaceted—public servants must attend to law, community values, political norms, professional, and citizen interests Discretion needed but constrained and accountable Collaborative structures with leadership shared internally and externally Public service, desire to contribute to society

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1.3   A New Complexity for Public Administration: Organizing According to the post-NPM Reforms The significant changes introduced by the post-NPM reforms have made Public Sector organizations more complex and hybrid. The transition from NPM to post-NPM reforms has involved macro-transformations and shifting ideologies in contemporary societies, determining a high institutional complexity (Box 1.3). The most important changes concern the increasing interdependence among organizations and the spread of more interactive forms of governance, based on collaborative arrangements, which changed the jobs of public administrators, who must now build and maintain critical relationships with other organizations (McGuire, 2006). The central idea is that public policies and programs are not being run from within single organizations, but they are evolved and delivered by more than one of them (Pollitt, 2009). Box 1.3  The case of the reform of the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (Source: Fossestøl, Breit, Andreassen, & Klemsdal, 2015)

Collaborative arrangements are being used in order to face the growing dynamism of contemporary societies and the institutional complexity resulting from the succession of reforms. The case of the reform of the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV reform) helps to explain the organizational responses of Public Sector to institutional complexity (resulting from the transition from NPM to post-NPM reform). The reform led to the establishment of frontline service organizations, named local NAV offices, based on a partnership between the central government and local municipalities, which allowed to respond to the institutional complexity imposed by the coexistence of two contradictory political reform logics, NPM and post-NPM reform. More specifically, NAV offices developed new forms of holistic service provision in collaboration with other relevant local services, such as municipal partners, employers, and other relevant services in the field. At the same time, NAV offices dealt with the requirements of the Directorate of Labour and Welfare, which pressed to provide a uniform service and to maintain a national control through standardization, specialization, and hierarchical government. This reorganization was made possible thanks to the efforts of both employees, most of them learnt and integrated new tasks and became able to give their clients more comprehensive or holistic assistances, and managers, who played a role of “boundary spanners”, managing within an interorganizational context.

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A very common classification of interorganizational relationships in the Public Sector is based on vertical and horizontal collaborative relations. Vertical collaborative relationships represent a relevant arrangement furthered by post-NPM, in which tasks are carried out at different levels of government. This is the case of public agencies operating at different territorial—central, regional, and local—levels, which are involved in a complex system of overlapping jurisdictions (Bache & Flinders, 2004). Tasks can rarely be treated independently of each other, the different levels have to collaborate, and coordination between levels is an important precondition for coordination between sectors. The division of tasks between center and periphery can involve various phases of administrative process: the formulation and detailed deliberation of public policy, its implementation, the control of results. In this way, an administrative system is set up consisting of bodies with political orientation (parliaments, elective assemblies, governing bodies), on the one hand, and managerial and executive organizations, on the other (agencies, public companies, authority, offices peripheral, local autonomy, etc.) (Christensen & Lægreid, 2011). Horizontal collaborative relationships, spanning organizational boundaries, may be a simple interorganizational arrangement between two government agencies or a complex combination of organizations, groups, and individuals from a variety of sectors, government agencies, private firms, and nonprofit/community organizations (Hall & O’Toole Jr, 2004). From the organizational point of view, these horizontal forms of collaboration are configured as networks, that is forms of governing activities between multiple actors (organizations, but also groups or individuals) who decide to collaborate in a stable manner over time (Jones, Hesterly, & Borgatti, 1997). Networks provide flexible structures that are inclusive, rich in information, and prefer coordination based on cooperation between actors, minimizing the hierarchy, and bureaucratic control that represent the defining characteristics of a bureaucracy. Networks are considered innovative organizing hybrids, flexible, and efficient forms, which enable participants to understand and address complex tasks that could not be accomplished individually (Powell, 1998). Huxham and Vangen (2013) talk about “collaborative advantage”, highlighting how cooperative networks provide better conditions to find innovative solutions and to solve complex problems, because a wider network offers more insights but also because greater cooperation improves the prospect that different parties may reach an understanding about what to do.

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Interorganizational networks can be set up for different purposes when the public actor does not have the necessary resources and skills to act independently: the exchange of goods or services, the joint realization of a product or service, the sharing of information and knowledge, or the realization of a particular project. Formal or informal networks are distinguished in relation to the degree of formalization that characterizes the collaboration agreement between the actors. Formal networks are initiated by mandate or regulatory requirement, and they are supported by formal contractual partnering (Hall & O’Toole Jr, 2000, 2004; Klijn & Skelcher, 2007; Weber & Khademian, 1997). Informal networks are voluntarily activated by entrepreneurial managers to accomplish resource sharing and enhance program performance (Bardach, 1998); such collaborations are very informal, time-­ limited, voluntary, and include a strong private component. Different subcultures coexist within a network because of the high degree of differentiation among the actors, based on different technical specialties, cognitive orientations, and organizational forms. The cultural complexity, resulting from such variety of cultural norms and values, increases within intersectorial networks where public, private, and nonprofit actors are involved and face specific barriers, namely different legal status, behavioral models, and cognitive frames, which all make knowledge transfer and the interorganization cooperation more difficult and complex. Many theoretical perspectives have been used in the managerial literature to explain the interorganizational arrangements, such as policy network theory, resource dependency theory, exchange theory, and network analysis theory. Over the last 20 years, new governance network theories have developed with analytical focus on collaboration arrangements in the Public Sector (Sørensen & Torfing, 2007), which are examined as an alternative to the hierarchical and bureaucratic administrative systems in public policy development and delivery (Jennings Jr & Ewalt, 1998; Milward & Provan, 1998; Provan & Milward, 2010) and as a more democratic means of developing public policy (Kenis & Raab, 2003; Scharpf, 1999). According to this theoretical perspective, public managers operate as “boundary spanners”, as they are concerned with how to link the organizations together in a functioning network. Collaborative management skills are considered as the unique skills for a collaborative context (McGuire, 2006). They include communicating to create shared meaning,

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understanding, empathy, conflict resolution, networking, creativity, innovation, empowerment, and building trust. More specifically, according to many scholars the success of a cooperative relationship depends on the presence of trust, which means a positive expectation about the behavior of individual participants in a collaboration (Ferguson & Stoutland, 1999). The numerous new elements introduced by the post-NPM reforms have triggered a sedimentation process leading to the emergence of complex or hybrid organizations, for the combination of competing, inconsistent, and contradictory organizational principles and structures that coexist and balance different interests and values, which is not necessarily damaging but rather a new mode of working in Public Sector organizations, which have to learn to live in a context of hybridity, with partly conflicting principles, goals, structures, and cultural values in a new turbulent environment (Christensen & Lægreid, 2011). “Hybridity”, referring to a situation of “mixed origin or composition of elements” (Gittell & Douglass, 2012), is not a novel phenomenon in Public Sector. It has been predominantly understood as a “structural” concept, as it incorporates many organizational situations: for example, quasi-governmental organizations that exist at the interface between the public and the private sector (Lan and Rainey, 1992); the mixture of market and hierarchy or different structural forms inside the same organization, (Williamson, 1991); the combination of political advocacy and service provision (Minkoff, 2002). In some sectors, such as social policies, higher education, health systems, and secondary education, such hybridizations have been more intense, as public policies increasingly blur traditional boundaries between private, nonprofit, and public sectors (Bozeman, 2013; Denis, Ferlie, & Van Gestel, 2015; Newman, 2001). If we look at the “old Public Administration”, which existed in many countries up until the late 1970s, the system, based on bureaucracy and the key role of rules and procedures, was simple and integrated. Despite the many innovations introduced by NPM and post-NPM reforms and the underlying economic ideas, Weberian features from the old system were kept and blended with the new logics of the reforms. Public organizations tried to manage the institutional complexity through a reorganization process, incorporating elements from contradictory institutional logics in their organizational processes (Fossestøl et al., 2015).

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Building on the dimensions of structure (organizational and operational design), agency (activities and tasks), institutional context (environment and culture), and identities (workforce and personnel), Denis et al. (2015) identify four literature multilevel and multi-actor perspectives to define hybridity in Public Sector. These four theoretical perspectives, by considering different drivers of change, emphasize distinctive manifestations of hybridity at different levels of analysis and as a coherent and stable phenomenon (Box 1.4).

Box 1.4  Theoretical perspectives for studying hybridity (Source: Denis et al., 2015)

The first theoretical perspective for studying hybridity refers to governance theories: it is about how shifts in structures and governance (hierarchy, network, market) at the supra-organizational and systemic level affect organizational hybridity (Dent, Van Gestel, & Teelken, 2007; Moore & Hartley, 2010). According to this line of studies, hybridity can develop between hierarchies, markets, and networks/clans (Ouchi, 1979), including relational markets, managed markets, and managed networks (Ferlie, Fitzgerald, McGivern, Dopson, & Bennett, 2013). Hybrid governance models goes against others by suggesting a possible radical shift to a post-NPM paradigm (Moore & Hartley, 2010; Osborne, 2010). The second literature perspective refers to institutional theories, using organizational archetype theory and institutional logics (e.g., Greenwood & Hinings, 1988; Hinings & Greenwood, 1988). A critical assumption here is the coherence within an embedded archetype, specifically between the levels of structure, systems, and values and ideology, so that traditional and new archetypes clash but without breaking the continuum of change. In other words, “while one dominant logic may emerge, it does so only temporarily and one change is followed by another” (Van Gestel & Hillebrand, 2011, p. 233). Hybrids thus appear to be a viable organizational form over time, focusing on the process of “becoming” rather than of “being” (Bjerregaard & Jonasson, 2014). (continued)

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Box 1.4  (continued)

A third perspective concerns actor network theories, by considering hybrid agency and practices coming from sociological accounting theory and Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Bruni & Teli, 2007; Latour, 1987, 1993; Law, 1991). According to ANT, a complex actor network consists of clusters of human and nonhuman actors brought together in material semiotic networks; however, these networks prove to be fragile, diverse, and shifting, so it may not be easy to establish a central forum to bring all participants together (Law & Hassard, 1999). Through networks, hybrids in action are developed and interactions between diverse elements produce a mix of practices, processes, and knowledge—also thanks to tools like technology—in the multilevel perspectives of individuals, groups, and organizations (Noordegraaf, 2011). Finally, an identity perspective at individual level aims at understanding hybrid roles and identities. Hybridity may entail changes to, and the formation of, new and multiple work identities, and consequently it may generate new challenges and threats for the Public Sector setting (Fitzgerald, Ferlie, & Buchanan, 2006; Witman, Smid, Meurs, & Willems, 2011). As an example, a doctor in a hospital moving into a managerial role (e.g., clinical director) may develop new skills and competencies and this shift may trigger a changed work identity not necessarily appreciated (see Beech, MacIntosh, & McInnes, 2008; Iedema, Degeling, Braithwaite, & White, 2004; Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003). Therefore, the identity perspective on hybridity opens new ways to understand the consequences of macro- and meso-level changes in public services for individuals and groups, including their perceptions, adaption, and resistance to hybrid roles and demands.

Drawing on these theoretical perspectives, hybridity of organizational forms is related to multiple levels of analysis. That means that hybridity is embedded into the following: (a) individuals, who play more occupation roles and identities; (b) groups, which combine autonomy and managerial control; (c) organizations, because of the incorporation of heterogeneous values in governance, like profit and social support; and (d) broad networks or organizational fields, where private, public, and nonprofit organizations work together.

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There is no agreement in the scholarly community about the effects of increasingly complex and hybrid structures, where Weberian, NPM, and post-NPM features coexist (Christensen & Lægreid, 2011). Although many authors emphasize increasing conflicts, ambiguity, and the problems of achieving public goals, the most recent trend in the public management literature tends to adopt a more optimistic view, seeing hybrid structures as a response strategy to the complexity of institutional environment. More specifically, this response indicates the possibility of dealing with seemingly incompatible demands, providing holistic services even in contexts of strong hierarchical control and ensuring effectiveness in goal attainment and flexibility in catering to different interests.

1.4   The Crisis of the Bureaucratic Model Changes in Public Administration over recent decades have undermined the foundation of the bureaucratic model, traditionally recognized as the typical organizational form of Public Administration (Emery & Giauque, 2014; Polzer, Meyer, Höllerer, & Seiwald, 2016). These changes are aimed at influencing the motivation and the behavior of public employees through the introduction of managerial and professional logics and other tools from the private sector. Consequently, compliance with the law and administrative rules are no longer the only criteria by which the behavior of public employees is assessed; efficiency, quality of service, flexibility, 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. As a consequence, Public Sector scholars have recently become interested in the theme of the development of new organizational forms resulting from the crisis of the bureaucratic model and the transition to post-bureaucratic structures and processes (Decastri, 2005). The central hypothesis of this body of work is that bureaucracy represents an undesirable and nonviable form of administration that is incompatible with the new managerial logics of Public Administrations, and, therefore, it should be replaced by new—faster, more efficient, more flexible, more committed, and more outward-looking—organizational forms. Post-bureaucratic organizations have “been put in place as a conscious replacement for a traditional bureaucracy” (Pollitt, 2009, p.  200). This shift, which has been made possible by NPM and post-NPM reforms, involves relevant innovations, which provide the basis to market or network organizations (Box 1.5).

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Box 1.5  Bureaucracy as instrument, institution, or ideal-type (Source: Olsen, 2006)

Bureaucracy can be described according to three points of views: instrument, institution, or ideal-type (Olsen, 2006). As an instrument, bureaucracy represents a rational tool for executing the commands and realizing the goals of elected leaders and is assessed on the basis of its effectiveness and efficiency in achieving predetermined purposes. As an institution, bureaucracy is based on organizational and normative principles, and it is the expression of its own cultural values. Specifically, bureaucrats are supposed to be the guardians of constitutional principles, law, and professional standards, and they have autonomy in adapting the law to individual cases without the involvement of elected politicians. As an ideal-­ type, bureaucracy has clear characteristics, following the mainstream scholarship of Weber (Albrow, 1970; Meier & Hill, 2005; Pollitt, 2009): clear hierarchy of offices, officials are appointed on the basis of a contract and are selected on the basis of a transparent set of requirements for certain levels of education/training, career structure is based on seniority or merit defined by superior ranks, official is subject to unified control and a disciplinary system, the whole organization is rule-governed, and those rules are law or law-like.

In the light of these considerations, two types of criticisms have been made with regards to Public Administration over time (Olsen, 2006). First, Public Administration is criticized because it doesn’t meet the ideal public model, which is hierarchical, rule-based, and professionally staffed. Bureaucracy is considered merely a façade because bureaucrats are corrupt and unreliable, incompetent, inefficient, lazy, and unresponsive; further, they often misuse their power and do not always apply laws in a competent and fair manner. Second, bureaucracy is considered as a mistaken public model based on inappropriate ethos and codes of conduct. In this perspective, Public Administration is excessively bureaucratic, where rules and procedures are followed too slavishly and bureaucrats have a rigid behavior, as too many constraints prevent them from exercising autonomy and expressing professionalism. In recent decades, the second type of criticism has been predominant because, since the late 1970s, bureaucracy has been attacked for its inefficiency, costs, and rigid internal organization and

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operations (Easterly, 2002). Key arguments have been that bureaucracy represents a traditional way of administrating society that is no longer appropriate considering the complexity of tasks and circumstances of modern societies (Pinchot & Pinchot, 1994). Subsequently, and consequently, NPM and post-NPM reforms, based on a private managerial ideology, have activated a series of changes to supersede the bureaucratic model, such as the image of citizens as customers, or legitimacy based on performance and efficiency rather than on compliance with formal rules and procedures (Drechsler, 2005; O’Flynn, 2007; Olsen, 2006). Moreover, the increasing number and importance of networks has led to a loss of central authority and political steering and questioned the themes of power proposing a more democratic interpretation. More specifically, horizontal links and power sharing between government and society have been emphasized and hierarchy replaced by cooperation, participation, and trust among more actors (Newig, 2007). In contrast to these reforms predicting the necessary demise of a centrally organized and rule-bound Public Administration, we argue the need to reconsider the positive influences of bureaucratic organizations. Bureaucracy has a role of institutional custodian of democratic-­constitutive principles and procedural rationality, and it represents an effective tool for legislators in order to achieve substantive outcomes that are valued in contemporary democracies. Bureaucracy is based on respect for rules, which play a key role in managing complex systems, contributing to unity and coordination, precision and speed, impartiality and continuity across changes in government. Rules increase action capabilities and efficiency (March & Olsen, 2006), reduce uncertainty, enforce agreements, and avoid destructive conflicts. In contrast to the common opinion that rules imply rigidity and immobility, bureaucratic rules can also be positively related to change, as they can prescribe changing patterns of behavior and resource allocation (Decastri, 2005; Olsen, 2004). In line with Olsen (2006), we argue that the idea that bureaucratic organization is an obsolescent, undesirable, and nonviable form of administration is incorrect. Nor it is possible to think that bureaucracy is the answer to all the challenges or the only way to organize Public Administration, for all kinds of tasks and under all circumstances. In modern and pluralistic societies, an administration has to cope simultaneously with multiple and contradictory demands and standards and public employees also need to adopt multiple behavioral models, working as rule-­ driven bureaucrats as well as performance-oriented managers or

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problem-­solving servants and powerful managers. This means that more administrative forms and mechanisms of governing are necessary to challenge this type of complexity, including hierarchies and rules, competitive markets, and cooperative networks. Bureaucratic organization becomes part of a repertoire of competing organizational forms which coexist in contemporary democracies and all of which can be useful in relation to circumstances or opportunities. This means that bureaucracy represents an element of continuity in administrative development which perfectly combines with change and that “post-bureaucratic” arrangements can be compatible with bureaucracy (Höpfl, 2006). Administrative reforms and reorganization processes bring significant changes, but these changes are effective only if they remain anchored to a stable structure of basic rules of government. Bureaucracy allows balancing stability and flexibility, learning from experience and adaptation to changing circumstances.

1.5   Conclusions The issues addressed in this chapter suggest some reflections on how public organizations have changed over time, which can be summarized as follows. The progress of information and communication technologies, the globalization of markets, and the continuous succession of reforms has changed the face of public organizations today, since they are called on not only to guarantee routine administrative processes but also to propose innovative ideas for the resolution of complex and/or exceptional problems. The most recent reforms activated (and are constantly activating) a process of cumulative change, combining new cultural achievements and the successes of previous reforms. For example, if on one side public organizations need to be evaluated for their performance, efficacy, and efficiency, as NPM claimed, at the same time the public administrative system requires an unitary coordination among public and private organizations to challenge the complexity of increasingly pluralistic and less resourceful societies, as post-NPM doctrines maintain. Furthermore, in public organizations awareness is spreading that there is an increasing need of new sets of knowledge, skills, and designs which can meet the challenge of this historical period and its rapid changes (Farazmand, 2009; Henry, 1990; Morgan, 2006). The expectation of new roles and competencies for public managers is a recurring theme in Public Administration literature and in the ideas of contemporary reformers on enhancing and modernizing administrative capacities. This focus on

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individual capabilities calls for different approaches to organizational design, work design, and human resource management, in which the capabilities of individuals may turn out to be a key breakthrough in allowing new and more flexible approaches to lead organizations performing better (Lawler III, 1994). The relevant implications of moving to a competency-based approach to management also concerns human resources management in the areas of selection, training, and career development, pay, and competency assessment. This means that organizations need to have a well-developed system of human resources practices for providing new capabilities to individuals and enabling them to challenge the complexity of the new scenarios. Consistent with these arguments, we do however suggest the need for further research in order to open up new analytical perspectives and insights on public organizations. More specifically, we recognize that combining multiple theoretical angles from the two disciplines of Public Administration and organization studies may be fruitful in studying how public organizations have changed over time (Denis et al., 2015; Rhodes, 2007). Those interested in public management care little about research on structural forms and coordination, which represent critical issues of the change process; at the same time, organizational studies usually lack attention to the crucial role of politics in designing and implementing change. Bringing these two disciplines together can improve our understanding of hybridity in public organizations and help to overcome their respective limitations.

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CHAPTER 2

Rethinking the Concept of Competencies for Public Managers Ernesto De Nito and Mario Pezzillo Iacono

2.1   Introduction According to some scholars, the reason why the competency model was introduced at the beginning of 1980s was in an attempt to provide an answer to globalization, to complexity, and to changes in the economy. During that time management, scholars and practitioners reflected on the role of knowledge in the organizations and, in line with the resource-­ based approach, they suggested that the only way to be competitive was to manage knowledge and, in particular, the human resources of an organization successfully. From a more practical perspective, there was a need to define jobs and skills clearly in different domains: the United Kingdom introduced a

E. De Nito (*) University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy e-mail: [email protected] M. P. Iacono University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Naples, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. Decastri et al. (eds.), Organizational Development in Public Administration, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43799-2_2

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system to establish performance criteria for each of its sectors (National Vocational Qualification); the United States followed the British example by establishing in 1994 a similar system (National Skills Standards Board). The Public Sector in the United States and the United Kingdom also introduced this methodology during the 1980s. This choice was coherent with the introduction of New Public Management (NPM). A central element of the concept of NPM is that public organizations should import managerial processes and behavior from the private sector (Boyne & Meier, 2009; De Vries & Nemec, 2013; Esposito, De Nito, Pezzillo Iacono, & Silvestri, 2013). In particular, this approach emphasizes operational efficiency driven by the rationality of managerial systems, showing how practices from private companies can be used in the Public Sector (Chap. 1). This has led public management and management in the private sector to become increasingly similar (Cunningham, 2016). The competency model is used in many areas of human resource development—recruiting officials, remuneration process, design training, and development programs (Skorková, 2016). The competency framework proved to be no mere fashion and in the Public Sector, administrations are still intent on applying this method, with its tools and policies, in different ways and to diverse human resources practices. Despite the fact of the popularity of competences and competence-­based management, there is a difficulty in finding an unequivocal definition of the concept (Jałocha, Krane, Ekambaram, & Prawelska-Skrzypek, 2014). This chapter will go deeper in analyzing the concept of competency according to a managerial perspective, and will then clarify the relation with the Public Sector both from a theoretical and from a practical view. The remainder of the chapter is organized into four sections. The first section explores the concept of competency, distinguishing between the rationalist and positivist approach (entity-based perspective) and the more sociological background (social construction perspective) or situationalist approach. In the second section, we give a broader picture of public management competence, investigating the competency-based Public Administration research and describing the evidence related to the behavioral competences of Italian public employees. The third section analyzes the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and managerial competencies in an

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international and national public context. In this section, we illustrate the competences models developed by different Italian public organizations. In the fourth and final section, we analyze the competence model, discussing “the other side of the coin”: we argue that this model is also a powerful tool to make different individuals’ actions and objectives consistent. In fact, the model defines behavioral (and technical) skills in order to have similar responses in specific circumstances.

2.2   The Concept of Competence in a Managerial Perspective The competency model was introduced in private sectors during the late 1980s, even if the concept had originally been adopted by David McClelland (1973) a decade before. The author Richard Boyatzis (1982) developed a competency model that took into account nineteen generic characteristics, grouped into five groups: objectives and actions, human resources management, direction, attention to others, and relation to subordinates. His work had a major impact on thinking about management in the United States and was subsequently exported to Britain through management consultants, educational institutions, and US companies in the country. In the same way, his ideas have spread in Europe and around the world (Hondeghem, Horton, & Scheepers, 2005). Nowadays, even in the Public Sector many organizations are familiar with this concept, and in many cases they adopt the model for various human resource management policies (Horton, 2000). In the traditional management literature on competence, there are many different approaches and definitions, but basically two main research areas are defined. The first one refers to a rationalist and a positivist approach: competences are conceptualized as individual resources and an “attribute”, as something that people “have”, including motives, traits, skills, and bodies of knowledge that are applied during work and lead to performing better or worse (Boyatzis, 1982; Horton, 1999; Sanghi, 2016). The second one has a more sociological background and interprets competence according to a social construction perspective, arguing that competencies realized in socio-material relations are defined by a specific social relational system (Gherardi & Strati, 2017).

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2.2.1  The Entity-based Perspective Literature based on “entity-based perspective” highlights the importance of possessing a body of scientific knowledge together with tacit knowledge and other central attributes like attitudes and personal traits (Sandberg & Pinnington, 2009). McClelland (2001)—the founder of the modern competency movement—introduced the concept of competence to replace the more limited concept of “skill”, including additional behavioral aspects and technical capabilities. According to Boyatzis (1982, p.  97), competences are “the behavioral characteristics of an individual which is casually related to effective or superior performance in a job […] an individual’s set of competencies reflect their capability or what they can do”. Fletcher (1997) defines competences as “the ability to perform activities within an occupation to a prescribed standard” (in Horton, 1999: 3). Finally, Hartle (1995: 107) argues that competence is “a characteristic of an individual that has been shown to drive superior job performance […], it includes both visible knowledge and skills and underlying elements of like traits and motives”. Competency is a capability or ability, it is not something we can easily observe. As suggested by Boyatzis (2008: 6): “It (competency) is a set of related but different sets of behaviors organized around an underlying construct, which we call the intent. The behaviors are alternate manifestations of the intent, as appropriate in various situations or times.” Behavior is the key to understand if someone has a competency, and the way we define and measure different behaviors is the way to define and measure the competency. Many scholars adopt this approach suggesting the use of a single definition of competency to associate to a set of different behaviors. For example, to manage a meeting could imply different behaviors such as encouraging or stimulating the dialogue or, on the other hand, stalling the conversation. This is a universal approach, based on the idea that a competence is valid in different contexts and situations. So, on the one hand if someone has a specific competence, he/she will demonstrate it in different jobs, or, vice versa, similar jobs are based on the same competences. That is why many scholars in this perspective try to build up competency codebooks (see, for example, Spencer & Spencer, 1993). During the 1990s, the limits of this approach were outlined by the same scholars who introduced the universalistic view. Boyatzis (1998), for example, suggests limiting the use of standard codebooks and developing

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an in-depth qualitative analysis for eliciting competencies. McClelland is aware of the uniqueness of competence and state (2001: 482): “One problem with the BEI approach is that each competency study using this method tends to discover a set of competencies that appear unique to that particular job in that company in that organization.” 2.2.2  The Situationalist Approach The concept of competence is presented from a different perspective according to the interpretative and constructionist theories (Gherardi & Strati, 2017). According to a situationalist approach, competence assumes different meanings and senses in relation to the context. As stated by Capaldo, Iandoli, and Zollo (2006: 434): “Psychological aspects are relevant, but in a situated perspective based on Lewin’s field theory (1951), behavior is a function of both the person P and the situation S, and much of the competency movement has focused heavily on the P at the expense of the S.” This body of studies asserts that the entity-based approaches overlook central aspects of what constitutes competence by treating people and work contexts as separate entities (Velde, 1999). Two main approaches to competence within this interpretative perspective can be distinguished: (1) relational/processual approach and (2) practice-based discourse. The first stresses the relational and processual view of competence as an unstable and negotiated construct (Lindberg & Rantatalo, 2015). Velde (1999), for instance, conceptualizes competence as the relation between an individual and his/her context, rather than something that represents either end of a scale. Within the relational analysis, “knowing-in-action” becomes the fulcrum of the discourse on competence. Cook and Brown (1999: 387) point out: “If you want to understand the essentials of what accomplished engineers know, you need to look at what they do as well as what they possess.” In other words, competence consists of something additional to the knowledge possessed (Sandberg & Pinnington, 2009). A practice-based discourse on competence is based on the idea of practice as the site of competence and competence realized in socio-material relations (Gherardi & Strati, 2017). Advocates of practice-based approaches argue that competence is defined by a particular social relational system. This conceptualization involves artifacts and social relations embedded in a broader historical practice. Competence is a “way of being” embedded in a socio-material context (Sandberg & Pinnington, 2009)

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rather than an individual attribute. Lindberg and Rantatalo (2015: 5) define “evaluations of competence as inferences of suitable activity that define a given individual’s ability to carry out actions in a given professional practice”. While the literature interprets the concept of competence in very different meanings and with different frameworks, the diffusion of tools of the competence model denotes the pervasiveness of the entity-based perspective in both private and public organizational practices (Boyatzis, 2008). In this line of research, competences are typically considered as a tool to legitimize an organizational model oriented toward the empowerment, accountability, and autonomy of the jobholder.

2.3   Competencies for Public Managers Following the development of a set of political, socioeconomic, technological, and regulatory factors over the past few decades, public systems have undergone major changes to innovate and improve the efficiency of their equipment, or at least they tried. Indeed, as the context within which public organizations operate has changed, an overall need for transformation has risen to ensure the delivery of innovative and high-quality services to groups of users with varying and increasingly complex demands. The approach to productivity and efficiency in public action has thus grown alongside with the growing demand to effectively guarantee the rights of individuals and promote the development of communities with careful planning and regulation. At the same time, the recent economic and financial crises are increasing the complexity faced by public management and demand addressing both the approaches and action models for spending review and the change of organizational and human resource practices. Many OECD countries, following the NPM guidelines, introduced private principles and instruments in the public field to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and financial stability of state organizations. In the opinion of Cavalluzzo and Ittner (2004), the basic assumption of these initiatives is that the strategic performance indicators can improve public efficiency and effectiveness by increasing accountability and improving the decision-making of public administrators. The recent Italian public reform strategies rest on three pillars (Esposito et al., 2013): first, modernization of the Public Administration; second, innovation and digitalization within the Public Administration and the

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country more broadly; finally, improvement of the relationship between the Public Administration and citizens and businesses. In coherence with the New Public Management, the overall purpose of the reform is to ensure the highest level of accountability for the state toward its citizens and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Italian Public Sector work by raising the quality of public services and by boosting productivity factors. The reform emphasizes the need to reach these ambitious goals through a new management approach oriented toward a continuous improvement of performance, the adoption of the benchmarking method and the measurement of customer satisfaction. In the lawmaker’s opinion, this requires an integrated system of evaluation, incentives and reward based on results and practiced skills and competence. This view is consistent with the idea of competitive selection of the best individuals and organizational units, rewarding them in monetary and nonmonetary terms on the basis of innovative capability and excellence in performance. Competency management is an idea that was developed in the private sector and transposed to the Public Sector during the 1990s (Horton, 2000). In the Public Sector, competency management involved a new way of looking at careers and evaluations. Traditional Public Sector careers are based on qualifications, exams, and seniority, while the introduction of competencies puts an emphasis on the “assets” people have for the organization. A 2002 study of competency management in the Public Sector, however, revealed that at the end of the twentieth century it was by no means yet a universal practice even in those countries, such as the United Kingdom, which had led the competency movement (Horton, 2010). Nowadays, competency management is a real trend in the Public Sector (Gupta, Chopra, & Kakani, 2018). The truly essential resource in any change in management processing often proves to be managerial competence when managing “emerging” organizational models and practices (van der Voet, 2014). Under this view, managers’ competences are essential to interpret these patterns and to make a lasting impact on the running of administrations and, in tum, on their actual efficacy and efficiency. 2.3.1  Competency-based Public Administration Research In organizational literature, many studies have attempted to examine and document competencies needed by public administrators.

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Noordegraaf (2000) identifies three groups of key competences of public managers: interpretative competencies, institutional competencies, and textual competencies. The author underlines that the specificity of the competent Public Sector manager is his/her ability to operate effectively in an environment that is unstable due to the political situation. Virtanen (2000) identifies five competence areas of Public Sector managers: • Task competence, including all competences defined as skills or behavioral techniques (e.g., communication or data analysis); • Professional competence in the subject area: competences either in substantive field of the line organization (e.g., social security) or in the specific task field in the techno-structure of the organization (e.g., HRM); • Professional competences in the area of administration, related to execution of the policy given by politicians; • Political competences connected with values and power—the ideology and interests of a public manager set the value competences; • Ethical competences, referring to conforming to moral values and moral norms that prevail in the culture. Without ethical competence, public managers cannot use their professional or political competences correctly and to full effect. Bowman, West, Berman, and Van Wart (2004) argue that successful public managers must possess “skills triangle”, which comprises three different types of competences: technical, leadership, and ethical. A number of studies have also attempted to analyze Public Sector competencies in specific countries. The Australian Public Service Commission identified skills like leading people, leading change, strategic thinking, decision-making and judgment, and people and organizational development (Australian Public Service Commission, 2015; Gupta et al., 2018). The United States Office of Personnel Management developed the executive core qualifications for the senior executive service that include leading change, leading people, results driven, business acumen, and building coalitions (United States Office of Personnel Management, 2015). More recently, Darling and Cunningham (2016) suggested a range of distinct Public Sector competencies (very different from those identified as critical for the private sector environment), including managing competing interests, managing the political environment, communicating in a

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political environment, interpersonal motivational skills, adding value for clients, and impact assessment in decision-making. According to the authors, private sector competencies reflect private sector environments, where goals need to be specifically defined and implemented in a timely manner related to making a profit and surviving in a competitive environment. Public Sector competencies are driven by environments exhibiting more complex and unresolvable problems and the need to respond to conflicting publics and serving the public good while surviving in a political environment. Finally, Gupta et al. (2018) identify important competencies needed for public administrators. Based on focus group discussions and a survey of 218 Indian Administrative Service officers, the authors identified eight competencies: namely, people first; leading others; integrity; decision-­ making; planning, coordination, and implementation; problem-solving; self-awareness and self-control; and innovative thinking. 2.3.2  Behavioral Competencies of Italian Public Managers and Employees The spread of cross-cutting (or soft) competencies among Italian public managers and employees was analyzed in the project “Organisation, Learning and Competences in Public Administration” (Tronti, Della Rocca and Gawronski, 2015), carried out by the Department of Public Administration of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in 2014. The subject of the survey was the mapping of soft skills, particularly focusing on the skills that were useful in ensuring continuous improvement of processes and services in Public Administration. The survey interviewed some 2000 civil servants in all government levels and sectors (sample survey on public managers and employees, excluding judges, university professors, armed forces, diplomats etc.). The analysis considers the varied skills of managers and employees as combinations of elementary organizational behaviors developed by workers during their career: for example, “solving problems”, “performing their work despite considerable difficulties”, “joining a group effort”, and so on. On the one hand, the report highlighted positive signs in reference to the high diffusion of problem-solving, team working, and literacy skills. On the other hand, the insufficient spread of competences related to the care of others, interaction, analysis, and programming highlights possible problems in work relationships, with specific reference to the scarce diffusion of management styles based

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on coaching and the ability to effectively manage staff, time, and resources. Problem-solving, the most widespread behavioral competence, is more apparent among managers, graduate doctors, and nurses and teachers, while group work is significantly more widespread in the health professions. Finally, autonomy is confirmed as a characteristic competence of highly qualified professional groups (managers, doctors, and registered nurses). More recently, in 2018, at the PA Forum, a survey was presented by the same forum on the skills of Italian public managers, through the analysis of a sample of about 1350 people. Of these, 81%, or 1091, people were civil servants, of whom 31.8% were employed in regional governments and local autonomies and 14.8% in ministries and Presidency of the Council, while 10.4% were employed in universities and research centers. The analysis shows that 43.6% of workers in the various sectors of the Italian Public Administration claim to have “more than adequate skills” than those needed in their daily work and 34.5% consider their skills as “adequate”. The training received in the last year was judged useful by 80% of those who benefited from it, even though the workers claimed that the main reason for the growth of their skills was self-training (48.5%) and exercise of their respective roles (31.2%), rather than the training received (9.5%). Six out of ten managers received training in 2017. Updating as necessary is mainly linked to specialist knowledge related to one’s professional sector (29.4%), regulatory knowledge (27.2%), and technological skills (20.5%). Only 12.8% of public managers perceived an ad hoc training path focused on relational skills and 8.6% perceived training focused on managerial skills as necessary. In essence, the analysis shows that those who work in the public domain feel no need to acquire managerial, relational, communicative, or organizational skills. This situation, which does not seem to be perceived as critical by public managers, instead appears clear to those who find themselves interacting with the PA: according to citizens and companies involved in the FPA Panel, the gaps to be filled primarily in the Public Administration are precisely the organizational (30.6%) and managerial skills (23.4), skills which public employees do not believe require updating and those for which less training is provided.

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2.4   HRM Practices and Managerial Competencies in the Public Context The need to adopt the competence model in the Public Sector is no novelty in many countries, and many Public Administrations are implementing the model (in different ways). In general, their main aim is to build up a competence portfolio that could be applied in the different human resources practices: selection, education, evaluation, and so on. It is a model designed to encompass the whole organization, a widespread adoption of a material practice that influence people. As suggested by Bhatta (2001: 94): “There is a growing trend now for governments to employ the competency approach to anchor Public Sector management, including but not limited to leadership development, strategic human resource management, training and development, and succession planning.” The competency model could be applied in the selection process through a variety of candidate assessment techniques (e.g., structured interviews, online tests, and work sample assessments). To stress the competence approach in the selection phase is conceived as a way to select the right people for the right job, but even more important it is a way to introduce a strong change in the organizational culture. This is true especially in the Italian Public Administration where typically selection is based on tests and exams based on specific and technical knowledge. In training and development practices, the competency approach is designed to identify the gap and the learning needs assessment. The next step is to create a development plan for each employee (or for specific categories) listing the specific competencies the employee needs to develop for improved performance. In the performance management approach, competencies clarify what is expected from individuals. The competency model becomes a way to evaluate people and to define what are individuals’ aims in terms of specific behaviors, defining a roadmap for remuneration systems for employees based on the development and application of the competencies the organization has identified as important for success. Obviously, the evaluation system could be used also for supporting career development. The adoption of a competency model in the public sector is no novelty in the European region. As mentioned by Horton (2010: 11): “The British civil service embarked upon a competency approach to HRM during the early 1980s. It was one of the first civil services to do so. In 1987, influenced by the Management Charter Initiative and its National

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Vocational Qualification framework for managers and working with outside consultants, Price Waterhouse, the Civil Service College developed a competency-based training programme for the top seven grades of the service.” Since then many other European countries have followed this example, slowly introducing different strategies and tools related to the competency framework. In Belgium, for example, this modernization process began later (Hondeghem et al., 2005): it was only in the 1990s that the effects were observed. In 1999, the Belgian government introduced a competency model related to remuneration policy and based on five plus one competency (five groups of generic or managerial competencies and one group of technical skills). Nowadays, the model is adopted in many European countries and is considered as a relevant strategic choice in public human resource management. In 2016, the United Nation Evaluation Group (UNEG) revised the competency model. As suggested in the final report (UNEG, 2016: 2): “These revisions reflect the substantial consensus that evaluation competencies are important not only for evaluators and evaluation unit heads, but also for evaluation commissioners and users.” The 2016 Survey on Strategic Human Resources Management in Central/Federal Governments of OECD Countries shows how the competency framework is nowadays part of the public organizations. As stated in the Skills for a High Performing Civil Service final report (OECD, 2017: 8): “The use of competency framework is a clear trend in OECD countries, with a primary focus on leadership, behavioural and cognitive competencies.” The literature and a number of documents from European institutions show different experiences in terms of competency models in several European countries. A report published in 2014 shows clearly which are the main areas and human resource policies where the competency model is applied. The authors of this report addressed a survey to 36 countries and to the European Commission and obtained 26 responses, plus the European Union. The survey investigated (a) the institutional framework for regulating competency management in central governments, (b) how staff and managers are recruited and the role and methods of competency assessment, (c) national practices for managing competencies and, in particular, the methods of competency mapping and building, with respect to present and prospective population needs, (d) the diffusion of learning

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organization and/or high performance work organization (HPWO) practices, (e) the existence of national practices for performance assessment at various levels, and (f) the relation between competencies and labor mobility. The results confirm the widespread adoption of a competency approach in many countries. For example, in terms of recruiting, “the vast majority of respondent European countries (23 out of 26), as well as the Commission, declare that they use specific tools, other than direct recruitment, for selecting candidates for public employment.” Competency assessment is nonetheless mandatory for 19 countries out of 26 (B3.b), but only 18 report that they have standard procedures to assess candidates’ competencies, as does the Commission (Tronti, Della Rocca, & Tomassini, 2014: 8–9). Moreover, many countries adopt a process of job and competency mapping, which is more frequently updated every year (in Ireland, Sweden, Latvia, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, and Portugal), or every three years, while other countries update their repertoires only when needed. In particular, it is very interesting to quote the French experience: in the area of jobs and competencies repertoires, French introduced the RIME (Répertoire Interministériel des Métiers de l ‘État) in 2006 and updated it in 2010 and 2017. This tool identifies all civil service jobs, reflecting the great diversity of activities carried out by the Public Administration and public institutions. There are now 282 reference jobs (261 in the 2010 edition) divided into 28 functional areas (26 in 2010). It maps all the jobs in the state, occupied by permanent or contractual staff whether of civil or military status and the administrative position of the staff members in the organization (about two and a half million people involved). This has become a core tool for HR managers, whether to successfully recruit personnel, to increase professional training, or to facilitate mobility. The RIME is accompanied by the Dictionnaire interministériel des compétences de l ‘État (DICo), which lists the generic competencies (know-how, attitudes, and knowledge) expected in the different jobs of the state and offers them a shared definition. The new version of the DICo now has 151 competencies (127 savoir-faire, 24 savoir-être) and 36 areas of knowledge. With the aim of better supporting the construction of career paths in the public service, the new DICo proposes an identification of “transferable” competencies, which constitute a technical “base of competencies” common to several professions in the same functional area, as well as “cross” competencies, which are generic skills common to a set of occupations in several functional areas.

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2.5   Competency Model and HRM: Italian Practices As we pointed out, the competency model can be applied in the different human resources practices: selection, education, training, evaluation, and so on. In this paragraph, we illustrate some successful cases of application of the competency model in Italian Public Administrations. In particular, we explore three case studies: • The competency portfolio developed by the Campania Region linked to an ad hoc training program for its managers; • The competence mapping adopted by INPS1 to develop a learning process of the management: • The creation of a dictionary developed by the Region of Sardinia for the implementation of various actions: training courses, personnel assessment, and personnel recruitment. The collection of data was carried out using a heterogeneous plurality of instruments: institutional document analysis (Sardinia Region and INPS case studies), semi-structured interviews, and participant observation (Campania Region). In case of Campania Region, during their fieldwork, the two authors spent two to three days a week on the shop floor, designing the training program of the management. 2.5.1  The Competency Portfolio Developed by the Campania Region The main purpose of the competency portfolio developed by the Campania Region in 2014–2015 was to offer the regional management an opportunity to improve its professional skills and, at the same time, provide the region with a cognitive framework of the competencies most prevalent within the organization. In particular, from a manager’s perspective, the main benefits were in relation to the following:

1  National Institute of Social Security (INPS) is the main social security institution of the Italian public pension system, in which all public or private employees must be enrolled and most of the self-employed workers who do not have their own autonomous pension fund.

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• Recognizing and valuing what they know and can do thanks to behavioral skills gained through professional and extra-professional experiences. • Identifying strengths and improvements in their skills and any elements/areas to be developed. • Building and developing their own professional development project. • Identifying training needs. From the organization’s perspective, the main reasons for the adoption of this tool were the following: • To have a framework of the behavioral competencies most prevalent within the organization based on the indications that emerged from the competency profile. • To try out a human resources device based on enhancement and development of the organization’s managerial resource capital, through the use of the competency profile. • To define training plans aimed at developing strategic behavioral competencies. The entire process, implemented with the consultancy support of Formez PA,2 was divided into three phases: • The first phase, presentation, involved all actions aimed at disseminating the contents, strategy, and implementation methods of the process. A communication strategy was devised and implemented through information actions that allowed the involvement not only of the recipients of the competency profile but also the leaders of the regional administration. • The second phase, analysis, covered all the steps required for the effective mapping of the managers’ competencies. The goal of the activities associated with the second phase was to draft an effective “diagnosis” of the existing competencies of each manager, which could be improved in terms of the competence levels required for exercising the assigned roles to identify gaps, that is, existing 2  Formez is an Italian semiprivate institution based in Rome, with branches in Naples and Cagliari, which assists, among others, the Department of Public Administration in the coordination of training policies within the public sector.

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­ iscrepancies that can be amended through specific measures defined d after implementation of the process. The analysis activity was organized in two steps: a workshop, involving about seven hours of work, in which individual and group activities were examined (elements of assessment and comparison of oneself in situation and, in particular, of oneself in relation); a structured individual interview to reconstruct biographical elements and daily routines, analyze aspirations, and discuss what emerged in the workshop, focusing on any differences between the manager’s self-assessment and the hetero-­ evaluation by the profile consultant. • The third phase comprised all the activities to provide feedback to the people involved in the process and an overall view of the results that emerged from the region. In particular, feedback was provided for the individual managers, who were given all the results obtained in the previous phase and the regional administration through a report containing considerations on the activity conducted and the results that emerged. Following the drafting of the competency portfolio, the region designed an ad hoc training program for its managers (almost 200), in collaboration with the National Administration School, in order to develop and enhance behavioral competencies. The aim of the course was to provide the participants with the principal knowledge and skills required for the management, development, and enhancement of personnel, particularly in regard to the organizational behaviors involved in the development of leadership skills in work groups and the ability to manage organizational conflict through negotiation. In other words, the training course was aimed at supporting managers in the development of new and effective managerial and organizational practices for the enhancement of personnel in their specific work settings. 2.5.2   Competency Mapping and Learning Process: The INPS Case The current reorganization process in INPS has highlighted the need to identify the competency profiles required for the effective performance of the institute’s new functions, in accordance with a service model based on the services offered to users. The new competency profile was outlined during the INPS management conference, held on 23 January 2016, and

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is strongly geared toward an advanced and personalized consultancy model. Its innovative aspect is the multidisciplinary approach that the new professional figures (technical specialists/expert consultants/interfunctional specialists) should possess, namely a set of skills and abilities composed in relation to the specific needs of the various user segments, based on a logic of focusing on the service offered and timely response to individual customer needs. Therefore, the entire INPS operational know-how has been divided horizontally into processes, within which each operator can recognize their usual operations. The processes can in turn be divided vertically into levels (core/technical/professional level), which allow employees to measure the “weight” of their interaction with the system. With regard to the staff currently employed by the organization, although competency mapping is lacking as a management tool, a sample survey of the present staff competency system has been launched in connection with the new values, objectives, and organizational approaches. This survey has enabled the definition of evolutionary scenarios for each competency profile, the planning of training activities for overall staff development, and the preparation of a repertoire of operational knowledge and skills to be incorporated into a permanent knowledge management system. This has been implemented through the creation of a “Knowledge Portal”, namely a reference hypertext structure into which all aspects of corporate know-­ how can be channeled. Its primary task is to collect and maximize the existing information sources in a single categorized list of electronic resources (INPS informa, website, teaching materials, risk, and control manual, circulars and messages, legal texts, IT procedure manuals, and workflows and standardized process flows). Therefore, the main purpose of the competence mapping applied by INPS was to develop a learning process that linked the relationship between human resourse skills and the services provided. 2.5.3  The Dictionary of Behavioral Competency of the Sardinia Region The definition of the Dictionary of Behavioral Competency of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia was developed in two phases over the period 2017–2018. The first phase, aimed at identifying an initial map of the management’s competencies, was based on various sources:

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1. Research by Formez PA and the literature on the subject of competencies, particularly management skills; 2. Experiences of other Italian regions (Campania, Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, Tuscany) and some national Public Bodies; 3. The results of 24 interviews conducted with managers and senior figures in the Region of Sardinia, aimed in particular at outlining the features of the managerial role in the region, and the range of competencies that characterize it. In the second phase of the analysis, the competency map identified through interviews with managers, which initially included a total of 40 competencies, was simplified by identifying the 30 most relevant competencies. The management’s dictionary of competency was conceived of as a kind of compass for orientation and a work tool for personnel management, as well as for the managers themselves. In the perspective of the Region of Sardinia, the creation of the dictionary was necessary for the implementation of various actions/tools: • The analysis of training needs and the didactic planning of ad hoc training courses; • The creation of personnel assessment methods that place the assessment of competencies, and of progress in terms of increase in competencies, at the heart of the assessment system, • Personnel recruitment, providing a clear reference for the creation of transparent and objective selection tests, which can help in the recruitment of new personnel or in deciding career advancements through evaluation of the competencies possessed. The establishment of a work group or project unit, in particular for identification of the coordinator and/or facilitator, especially when persons from different departments or with different professional roles meet and operate in a coordinated manner to address and solve complex problems.

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2.6   The Competency Model: The Other Side of the Coin Competency-based human resource management is nowadays considered as a common practice since David McClelland (1973) first proposed it as a key to investigate performance. As suggested by Boyatzis (2008: 5): “Today, almost every organization with more than 300 people uses some form of competency-based human resource management. Major consulting companies, such as The Hay Group, Development Dimensions International, and Personnel Decisions Incorporated and thousands of small consulting firms and independent consultants have become worldwide practitioners of competency assessment and development.” What clearly emerges from practitioners and literature is the widespread adoption of the model according to the rationalistic view. As suggested by Horton (1999) in the managerial stand, the competency movement was focused to investigate the employment context seeking to understand the basis of excellence. As mentioned earlier, its contribution to determining a superior performance is what really identifies a competency. It is the classical approach of the one best way, moved forward: the main goal of the manager is to identify which are the main characteristics that make a performance superior. The idea is that if you cannot standardize the process, you have to identify the individual characteristics that could assure a best performance. This way of thinking is perfectly in line with the tayloristic approach: to determine by scientific method the best way to realize small parts of the production process. Nowadays the opportunity to define the best standard for the production process is not always considered a valuable concept (Ezzamel, Willmott, & Worthington, 2001; Spicer, Alvesson, & Kärreman, 2009). The complexity, the ambiguity and the uncertainty of the environment makes this organizational choice increasingly less efficient. As stated by Altmann, Kohler, and Meil (2017: 4): “Since the end of the 70s, empirical findings and analyses based on them have been produced for important areas of German industry. These have demonstrated that under certain technological, economic and social conditions, rationalization processes which are not directed toward the intensification of a division of labour and a deskilling of work, but on the contrary are based on professional competence in carrying out work, can be in the company’s interest. In other large industrial nations in which tayloristic strategies exhibiting a highly advanced division of labour and polarization of skills appeared fixed, similar developments have been documented.”

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The so-called post-tayloristic scholars (Hook, 2007; Morgan & Spicer, 2009; Piore & Sabel, 1984) sustain the need for more autonomy and responsibility in job design. The competency model appears to suit this aim perfectly: its main goal (and the general associated value, both in public and in private contexts) is to be able to put the right people in the right place. Human resources, who own specific competencies, will be able to manage uncertainty. In this sense the competency model is conceived (or presented) as a way to make the employee free. She/he will not be obliged to follow instructions and standardized rules but will find the right solution purely because she/he has the right competencies. Not only does the theoretical foundation of the competency model appear inspired by the tayloristic approach, but so, evidentially, does the way it is built up. Horton (1999) states that there are different ways of developing a competency framework that include analyzing past behavior of good performers, benchmarking competency against practice in similar organizations, and trying to predict what competencies the business will need in the future. The language is symptomatic, Horton (1999: 9), for example, states: “Among the most popular of the more scientific methods used are the critical incident technique, behavioural event interviews and the repertory grid.” All these techniques are proposed in a similar way, the tayloristic way as the one best way. Under this point of view, competency development becomes a lever for standardizing values, a representation of the organizational ideology seen, in terms of Kunda (1992), as an authoritarian system of meanings construed like a map by the power holder in order to decipher the reality and act accordingly. In this sense, managers try to build up a common culture based on the idea of competency, disseminating these values within the organization. For example, when McClelland (2001) implemented a competency framework for executives, he gave people feedback from their behavioural event interviews (BEIs), facilitating the idea that competences were a key asset to manage in order to improve performance and further careers. As stated by McClelland (2001: 482): “Such guidance has a powerful effect on behavior and performance. Detailed information of this sort has also provided a basis for career counselling and for explaining why a person should or should not be promoted.” It is quite clear how this model could influence people in terms of behavior. If you know, your career depends on your competency and on your behavior, you will align them to the best performers. In fact, the

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controlling mechanism tends to self-regulation and self-discipline rather than the traditional heterogeneous form. In line with a critical approach, while the rationale of organizational programming is apparently oriented toward the pursuit of flexibility, autonomy, and enhancement of personal qualities, in reality it operates as an attempt to extend and render more comprehensive the capacity for standardization and control. Management seeks to act on sense of responsibility and enhancement of individual (and group) competences in order to construe models of action for the organizational actors in a logic of self-discipline. In this view, the rationale of competency development was oriented toward the pursuit of flexibility, autonomy, and enhancement of empowerment; it operated to extend the capacity for standardization and self-­ regulation and make this more comprehensive. Using a control view of competency model, the “newness” of practices and organizational approaches designed and implemented by management to develop the individual competency is an “illusion”. These practices are only an apparent departure from standardization and the processes of change prove to be largely superficial. In a post-constructivist light, many of the so-called new practices and “new organizational approaches” associated directly or indirectly with competency development are merely illusions of empowerment, representing only an apparent departure from standardization. They reflect an organizational discourse which reiterates the idea of rhetoric as a tool of persuasion and manipulation, by means of announcements of processes of change which prove to be merely superficial. The emphasis on the duality of organizational rhetoric and action serves as a lens to identify the potential of real (or indeed false) innovation in human resources management, thereby reducing the risk of the illusions of novelty embedded in the concepts of empowerment and autonomy.

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c­ apabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise in organizations (pp. 103–124). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gupta, V., Chopra, S., & Kakani, R. K. (2018). Leadership competencies for effective Public Administration: A study of Indian Administrative Service officers. Journal of Asian Public Policy, 11(1), 98–120. https://doi.org/10.108 0/17516234.2017.1353942 Hartle, F. (1995). How to re-engineer your performance management process. London: Kogan Page. Hondeghem, A., Horton, S., & Scheepers, S. (2005). Modèles de gestion des compétences en Europe. Revue française d ‘administration publique, 4, 561–576. Hook, D. (2007). Foucault, psychology and the analytics of power. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Horton, S. (1999). The competency movement and its impact on the British civil service. Paper presented at Annual Conference of European Group of Public Administration, 1–4 September, Cape Sounion, Greece. Horton, S. (2000). Competency management in the British civil service. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 13(4), 354–368. https:// doi.org/10.1108/09513550010350508 Horton, S. (2010). Competency management in the British central government. Public Management Institute, University of Leuven. Retrieved from https:// soc.kuleuven.be/io/onderzoek/project/files/hrm27-country-report-uk Jałocha, B., Krane, H. P., Ekambaram, A., & Prawelska-Skrzypek, G. (2014). Key competences of Public Sector project managers. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 119, 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.029 Kunda, G. (1992). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Lindberg, O., & Rantatalo, O. (2015). Competence in professional practice: A practice theory analysis of police and doctors. Human Relations, 68(4), 561–582. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726714532666 McClelland, D. C. (1973). Testing for competence rather than for “intelligence”. American Psychologist, 28(1), 1–40. McClelland, D.  C. (2001). Where do we stand on assessing competencies? Counterpoints, 166(27), 479–489. Morgan, G., & Spicer, A. (2009). Critical approaches to organizational change. In The Oxford handbook of critical management studies (pp.  251–266). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Noordegraaf, M. (2000). Professional sense-makers: Managerial competencies amidst ambiguity. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 13(4), 319–332. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513550010350292 OECD. (2017). Skills for a high performing civil service. OECD Public Governance Reviews.

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Piore, M.  J., & Sabel, C.  F. (1984). The second industrial divide. New  York: Basic books. Sandberg, J., & Pinnington, A.  H. (2009). Professional competence as ways of being: An existential ontological perspective. Journal of Management Studies, 46(7), 1138–1170. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00845.x Sanghi, S. (2016). The handbook of competency mapping: Understanding, designing and implementing competency models in organizations. Sage. Skorková, Z. (2016). Competency models in Public Sector. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, 226–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. sbspro.2016.09.029 Spencer, L. M., & Spencer, P. S. M. (1993). Competence at work models for superior performance. John Wiley & Sons. Spicer, A., Alvesson, M., & Kärreman, D. (2009). Critical performativity: The unfinished business of critical management studies. Human Relations, 62(4), 537–560. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726708101984 Tronti, L., Della Rocca, G., & Tomassini, M. (2014). Managing competencies in European Public Administrations. Rome. Tronti, L., Della Rocca, G., & Gawronski, P. G. (2015). Le competenze dei dipendenti pubblici: i risultati della rilevazione Organizzazione, Apprendimento, Competenze nella pubblica amministrazione (OAC–PA), in Dipartimento della Funzione Pubblica, Scuola Nazionale dell’Amministrazione, 2015, 16° Rapporto sulla formazione nella pubblica amministrazione, SNA, Roma. United Nation Evaluation Group. (2016). Evaluation competency framework. New York: UNEG. United States Office of Personnel Management (2015). Senior executive service core qualifications. Retrieved from http://www.opm.gov/ Van der Voet, J. (2014). The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure. European Management Journal, 32(3), 373–382. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2013.10.001 Velde, C. (1999). An alternative conception of competence: Implications for vocational education. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 51(3), 437–447. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636829900200087 Virtanen, T. (2000). Changing competences of public managers: Tensions in commitment. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 13(4), 333–341. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513550010350300

CHAPTER 3

Human Resource Management in the Public Administration Rocco Reina and Danila Scarozza

3.1   HRM in Public Organizations: Main Problems and Challenges Developing an effective, competent, and forward-looking public service is one of the greatest challenges public organizations face today. The increasing complexity of both policy-making and administrative processes, as well as the erosion of human resources capacity to carry out those functions, is making it difficult for many Public Sector organizations to implement innovation (Ongaro & Van Thiel, 2018). Through their knowledge, know-how, and skills, people are at the heart of the reform processes in the Public Sector, since it is people who provide services, promote innovations, and carry out reforms (Bos-Nehles, Bondarouk, & Nijenhuis, 2017).

R. Reina (*) University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy e-mail: [email protected] D. Scarozza International Telematic University UNINETTUNO, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. Decastri et al. (eds.), Organizational Development in Public Administration, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43799-2_3

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The reform of structures, systems, and processes within public services over the past 30 years has been well documented at an international level (Massey & Pyper, 2005; Skålén, 2004). The domain of Human Resource Management (HRM) has received renewed attention under these reforms. Potentially, it has been argued, improved HRM could facilitate the recruitment and retention of valued staff, enhance organizational effectiveness, and serve to promulgate a performance-driven culture through the adoption of a more strategic HR role (Bach & Della Rocca, 2000; Covell, 2016; Ingraham & Rubaii, 2016; Knies, Boselie, Gould-Williams, & Vandenabeele, 2017; Knies & Leisink,  2014, 2017). Traditionally, the operationalization of HR policies and employee-facing roles are associated with administrative roles and routine tasks such as welfare and labor relations (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). On the other hand, strategic roles have generally been viewed as focused on activities that will have long-term implications, such as the development of integrated HR strategies, involvement in organizational strategic decision-making, and managing organizational change (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005). The consensus is that a move toward a more strategic role is desirable, if not essential, to the future of the HR function (Ulrich & Beatty, 2001). However, the contextual features of public organizations impact significantly on the role that the HR function may play. Firstly, the greater degree of openness to the environment, coupled with higher levels of public scrutiny and monitoring, give public organizations a much broader range of stakeholders than their private sector counterparts, bringing a multiplicity of objectives and priorities to their attention (Boxall & Purcell, 2011; Rainey, 2009). This creates a complex and qualitatively different working environment also for HR managers; in this context in fact, top-down, strategic, and linear planning processes may be less appropriate than more incremental and emergent approaches more adapt and able to manage the resulted discontinuity (Ring & Perry, 1985). Consequently, the isomorphism characterizes that HR functions in Public Sector organizations could compromise the opportunity to achieve the desired aim of shifting them toward a more strategic role. Moreover, historically, the HR function in the Public Sector has lacked credibility and been regarded as peripheral and relatively powerless compared with other more powerful groups vying for resources. However, Oswick and Grant (1996) go so far as to argue that ongoing Public Sector reforms are actually challenging the power of personnel specialists rather than strengthening it through a focus on cost control that reframes the HR function as an overhead to be cut. Klingner (1993)

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reflects that the HR function’s traditional role in the Public Sector of balancing the competing values of efficiency and responsiveness with individual rights and social equity is shifting toward a primary focus on cost and accountability under strategic HRM. However, it has also been argued that traditional Public Sector values continue to impact on the role and activities of the HR function and that demonstrable fairness in the treatment of employees and the notion of the “good employer” remain critical, alongside strategic pressures. Starting from these premises, this chapter aims to answer questions that are still fundamental well into the second century of the study of Public Administration. Why and how does HRM matter to good government? Why could HRM in public organizations be central to achieving effectiveness? These questions remain fundamental because several recurrent and interrelated problems underpin them. Firstly, a distinctive factor in Public Sector organizations is the suitability for application of all HR practices, given the characteristics of Public Sector employees. Previous evidence suggests that many public organizations have adopted bundles of ability and opportunity enhancing HR practices, but far fewer motivation-enhancing practices (Boyne, Poole, & Jenkins, 1999; Vermeeren, 2014). That is, HR practices that are compatible with the humanistic goals of public organizations, aimed at strengthening employees’ abilities and opportunities to participate in decision-making, are more prevalent in the Public Sector, whereas financial incentives are used to a lesser extent, because they may “crowd out” intrinsic motivation (Bellé, 2013; Georgellis, Iossa, & Tabvuma, 2010). A second factor inhibiting the progress of HRM as a field of study and professional practice is found in the structural and resource constraints that limit the ability of public organizations not only to recruit and hire the employees they need, but also to appropriately motivate and reward them once they are in the organization. Standardized compensation systems make it difficult to reward excellent individual performance and to send important signals to those who do not perform well. Until recently, the ability of public managers to reward employees for “going the extra mile” was limited (Selden & Jacobson, 2007). Third, the civil service label is inevitably linked to bureaucracy and bureaucratic structure and the rigid rules, processes, and systems that characterize bureaucracies. The reasons for this perception may be found in the graded hierarchies and standardization that typify bureaucracies accurately and describe many civil service systems. For a long term, the

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stability and the insularity that such structures provide guarantee citizens some predictability in the programs and organizations that serve them. Nevertheless, citizens today are becoming more demanding for high public service quality in their exchanges with public organizations (Trong Tuan, 2017). Public services can be improved if public employees can individually and collectively modify or “craft” the job designs in public service processes. Job crafting refers to the cognitive and physical changes that employees produce in the task or boundaries of their job to increase the job meaning for themselves and other stakeholders (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001), including citizens. A more effective public service requires the coordination in crafting the whole process as well as individual tasks in the process. Once again, due to limited external resources, public organizations should look internally to improve public services for citizens, such as through HRM practices (Trong Tuan, 2017). Human resource flexibility that consists of resource and coordination flexibility (Wright & Snell, 1998) can build new resources (i.e., knowledge and skills), with which members can develop higher adaptability and craft the jobs individually and collaboratively for the increased effectiveness of the administration (Mattarelli & Tagliaventi, 2015). Finally, in order to improve the effectiveness of public organizations, another important challenge is related to successful decision-making processes: having the right information at the right time is the right key. For this improvement, an important role is played also by the Information Management used for HRM transformation: it should be noted that the use of IT in HRM is not a matter of trends, but a real necessity. However, regardless of the technical characteristics of the IT system, its contribution depends on the people who use it and the ability of managers to get the right information. In this frame—assuming that HRM can be viewed as a core and strategic management function also in Public Sector organizations—the chapter focuses attention on the aforementioned problems/challenges discussing how the several subsystems of HRM and some change/innovation characterizing Public Administrations may help Public Sector organizations to accomplish their goals by ensuring professional and effective management of human resources. The shift from the traditional “personnel” perspective to a strategic role of HRM can be realized through a change both in the “role” of public employees (and their motivation) and in its subsystems: the recruitment and selection, training, and evaluation systems. Finally, in order to complete the shift toward an HRM development

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function, greater attention needs to be directed to preparing Public Sector human resources for greater flexibility and responsiveness to change, overcoming the most important challenges in HRM area. To ensure that the process of HRM transformation has the desired outcome, it is necessary to achieve the following objectives: HRM should be fully integrated into the work and development plan of each administration and—at the same time—HRM should base its credibility on the expertise and professionalism of those working in this field.

3.2   The Concept of Public Motivation: Levers and Constraints The process of change that has involved economies and society since the end of the last century has deeply involved the Public Administrations, which have had to suddenly pay attention to a whole series of factors not considered up to that point. From the mid-1980s, a reform movement— known as New Public Management (NPM)—has grown in many countries in order to change Public Sector management (Hood, 1995). This reform movement has given rise to that process of revisiting the operating and management methods in the Public Sector organizations which have led to new stimuli and new stress in the engaged human and professional resources. Following NPM principles and ideas, public organizations have introduced the management models typical of private organizations. The aim was to break traditional bureaucratic culture in favor of a competitive logic oriented to the criteria of efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity, with respect to particular connotations that the public system has regarding private system (objectives pursued, plurality and heterogeneity of interests, etc.). Critics of NPM underline that the primary or sole foundation for administrative reform is the imperative of political control: organizational reforms reflect which interests are victorious and what mechanisms are in place for these interests’ future dominance (Perry, 2014). Moreover, other scholars pointed out how the practical effects of reforms give way to a dangerous outcome, determining loss of individual and organizational performance and a significant reduction in both quality of service and work motivation. In Italy, two reform programs—performance budgeting and heavy cutback interventions—are currently producing a significant stress upon the Public Sector organizations and their employees. Another

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problem is the government’s position concerning the performance of public employees, who are often stereotyped as lazy, self-serving, and misguided. The implication is that the public employees’ level of efficiency and effectiveness does not warrant the constant request for salary increase, incentives, and better working conditions, while public employees on their part argue that the existing salary structure, benefits, and working conditions do not satisfy their basic needs. Therefore, it is disturbing to find that many public employees are dissatisfied with their jobs. The relevance of job satisfaction and motivation are crucial to the long-­ term growth of any Public Sector around the world. They probably rank alongside professional knowledge and skills, center competencies, resources, and strategies as the true determinants of public organizations’ performance. Professional knowledge, skills, and center competencies occur when one feels effective in one’s behavior. In other words, professional knowledge and competencies can be seen when one is taking on and mastering challenging tasks directed at individual and organizational performance. The above factors are closely similar to efficacy, and, of course, it is well known that many public employees lose or fail to develop self-­ efficacy within the setting of public organizations. In this frame, while resource availability and worker competencies are essential, they are not sufficient to ensure desired worker performance: Public Sector performance is critically dependent on its workforce and its work motivation. Consequently, worker performance is also dependent on the workers level of motivation. However, although many technical aspects of Public Sector reform in the international context have been researched, there has been a surprising lack of attention to the human elements of reforms. For these reasons, an emerging alternative to traditional foundation for administrative reform has its roots in research on altruism, psychology, behavior, and work motivation in public organizations. In order to realize the changes suggested by reforms scholars, Grant & Shields (2002) advocated a cultural modification of the management schemes adopted, calling for more attention on how to increase the motivation of public workers. The process of change in the Public Administration, in fact, can be considered as a steady flow change which, starting from new legislations introduced at the system level, should necessarily have an impact on each administration and, therefore, on the groups and individuals who work there. Also, in Public Sector organizations, a change or reform process requires a deeper

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understanding of the problem connected to the relationship between individual and organization. The process of change is a very risky path because it involves the core values of Public Administration and calls into question the psychological contract of public employees. The new strategic paradigm requires a strong commitment in the workplace, plus identification with organizational goals, as well as the opportunity of self-realization. Therefore, it appears necessary to use motivation as a lever on which to work in order to activate virtuous circles of continuous improvement to the benefit of community. In fact, motivation (and lack of it) is used by personnel involved in public organizational processes as a powerful lever capable of guiding and directing the efforts linked to performance. Nevertheless, talking about motivation in the public system means referring to a theme of deep impact, but strongly differentiated with respect to the same topic in the private sector; therefore, the theories and the constructs that should be considered are different. Some motivators, such as higher pay, job security, promotion, and helpfulness, may prove useful in improving motivation and performance (e.g., Pearce & Perry, 1983; Rainey, 1979, 1982, 2009; Rainey, Traut, & Blunt, 1986; Wittmer, 1991). Pay is often perceived as an important motivator in Public Sectors, though public employees have a different incentive structure compared to private employees (Kurland & Egan, 1999; Perry & Wise, 1990). It is undoubtedly correct to say that external incentives, as well as work characteristics (e.g., job autonomy and job meaningfulness), can play a significant role in generating and/or supporting an individual’s motivation, as widely recognized in the job design literature (Morgeson & Campion, 2003). Moreover, Latham and Pinder (2005) emphasized the role of the broader context in influencing an individual’s motivation. The national culture affects individuals’ motivation by shaping their self-concepts, education, and the shared norms about work. Similarly, the person–organization fit represents a positive match between an employee and an organization’s characteristics, especially in terms of value alignment. Following these arguments, a specific construct intended to measure work motivation in the Public Sector literature has been put forth and warrants mentioning. Perry and Wise (1990) advanced the construct of public service motivation (PSM). Whereas the concept of “work motivation” refers to motivation in general, PSM is defined in terms of altruistic motivation to serve the interests of a community of people, a state, a nation, or humankind (Crewson, 1997; Perry & Wise, 1990; Rainey, 1982). This

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definition emphasizes motives “grounded primarily or uniquely in public organizations” (Perry & Wise, 1990, p. 368), such as civic duty, compassion, and self-sacrifice that historically are associated with public service. The literature on PSM highlights that people are driven by different motives to perform public service (Brewer & Selden, 1998; Perry & Wise, 1990). Perry and Wise (1990) define PSM as a mixture of rational, normative, and affective motives, explaining how the combination of these motives will vary over time, partly depending on contextual factors. The emphasis on predisposition made PSM conceptually close to a trait that is relatively stable and hard to change. Subsequently, it was defined as “the belief, values, and attitudes that go beyond self-interest or organizational interest, that concern the interest of a larger political entity and that motivate individuals to act accordingly whenever appropriate” (Vandenabeele, 2007, p. 547). The latter conceptualization underlines the cognitive component of values and beliefs, and suggests that, as such, PSM is developed by individuals through their encounters with society and culture. In particular, the practical effects of reform lead to a dangerous outcome, determining loss of individual and organizational performance, and significant reduction in both quality of service and work motivation. Overall, there appears to be consensus in conceiving PSM as a motivational orientation, that is an “individual-difference” variable relatively stable over time. Although longitudinal data is seldom available, the extant empirical research supports the proposition that PSM is a critical factor in the Attraction-Selection-Attrition process (Perry, Hondeghem, & Wise, 2010), and is able to explain why certain individuals join and maintain their membership in the public versus the private sector. In fact, it is well established that motivational orientations guide individuals in their choice of specific activities (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Sullivan & Hansen, 2004). Literature about PSM is fairly coherent in indicating that it drives individuals in the choice of their job and sector of activity, whereas the evidence of its relationship with performance effectiveness has been underinvestigated. In addition, Perry and colleagues (2010) reported that inconsistent results emerge from literature, and that the relationship between PSM and job performance, with its likely mediating mechanisms, merits more attention in empirical research. Besides, they recognized that other motives and needs in addition to PSM may lead employees in their behaviors, and that several situational factors other than incentive systems may moderate the effect of PSM; therefore, they urged public

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management scholars to address these avenues in their research. Following these arguments, in the next part of the chapter it appears necessary to present both the selection processes and the performance system applied in a particular context like the Public Sector, in which all HRM practices assume specific value and impact.

3.3   Recruitment and Training Systems The ability of Public Administrations to effectively and efficiently provide services depends on competent and motivated civil servants. Good government requires good people. This has always been true, but its importance has probably never been more critical than it is today. The success of any public organization to respond effectively to the challenges—analyzed in the first part of the chapter—depends largely on its ability to recruit and retain a talented and motivated workforce. Nevertheless, Public Sector organizations—in a great part of the European countries and especially in Italy—are faced with several HRM dilemmas (Lavigna & Hays, 2004; United Nations, 2005), such as the following: 1. The aging of the civil service that pose the threat of high turnover and the lack of qualified replacements, 2. A lack of leadership skills among top civil servants, unable to assume critical roles in directing administrations, 3. The changing definition of career, which discourages workers from joining Public Sector service for any length of time, 4. Changes in technology, economic conditions, and the labor market, requiring a highly skilled workforce, 5. Increased competition from the private sector, 6. Budget limitations that reduce compensation and financial incentives and, last but not least, 7. A negative image of the public sector, which translates into the widespread perception that government is no longer the employer of choice. Compounding these problems are such recent developments as privatization and the outsourcing of many government jobs (a trend that reduces job security and blurs the line between public service and private enterprise), and an erosion of the benefit packages and job security that once were the most effective recruitment tools for Public Sector organizations.

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In addition, today’s pressures for greater efficiency in the Public Sector often make administration services less appealing to the workers whose contributions are needed most. In short, it is possible to state that many public organizations are facing a recruitment crisis: at the time when administrations need to be most able to attract talented workers to public service, their ability to do so has rarely been so constrained and complicated by economic, social, and organizational pressures. These premises underline the need to move beyond the traditional approach to HR planning and recruitment that might have been appropriate two or three decades ago, but that is entirely inadequate today. While in the past the practice of HR planning in Public Administrations was mainly focused on the aspect of quantity (i.e., maintaining a high level of staff), the new approach should be based on the strategic needs of the administration and must be linked to the human resource development function, in order to ensure a proactive role of public organizations in meeting the current (or future) requirements for certain skills and abilities. To attract talented workers, public organizations need to be thoughtful, aggressive, and innovative. Despite recruitment’s obvious importance to the success of any organization, public organizations have a poor track record as effective recruiters (Brewster, Mayrhofer, & Morley, 2004; Tišma & Ozimec, 2006). In contrast to the private sector, Public Sector recruitment activities are often carried out as a very complex and complicated procedure. In order to revitalize the Public Sector, major strengthening of the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and leadership abilities of human capital is required to reform the Public Administration system. Governments are generally the largest employer in the labor market: the challenge, therefore, is to develop a public service that is impartial and professional, but also responsive to civil society and business, while being neither populist nor captured with special interests. When it comes to HRM, Public Sector organizations should be aware of their role in society and promote measures such as optimizing conditions for staff to develop and ensuring that talents are effectively accrued. Public Sector organizations all around the world are getting acquainted with HRM terms and making plans and proposals for new recruitment processes. Every country will sooner or later have to face the implementation of HRM strategies in the Public Sector and the sooner they recognize the potential value of HRM the greater chance they have of raising staff effectiveness and retaining talented, educated, and motivated employees.

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However, there is still no common HRM policy in European Public Administrations. The modus operandi of the human resource recruitment and selection functions vary from country to country, from very strict bureaucratic procedures, to modern recruitment techniques (Stavrou-Costea, 2005). In some cases (e.g., Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom), the situation in public HRM is at a high level (Tišma & Ozimec, 2006). These countries started their Public Administration reform very early, recognizing need for managing public personnel. In these countries, each public organization is responsible for recruitment of its own staff but the conditions for recruitment are regulated by the law and usually some additional directives and regulations. In other cases, including Italy, public organizations are still in the phase of accepting HRM values and preparing effective reforms. Although these countries have a lot of work to do on reforming Public Administration and establishing efficient recruitment procedure, they have probably laid the important foundations: they are still in line with more classical approaches in recruitment procedures and selection criteria to find people with more analytical skills rather than management and leadership characteristics. Some ideas/tools for starting a renewal of recruitment procedures could be the replacement of the traditional procedures used for the public competition with job interviews designed in such a way that the selection committee can get an insight into the applicant’s ability to cope with the challenges of the job, as well as assess the level of his/her motivation to perform the job. However, a problem remains: selection committee members will not be able to do this unless they receive relevant training. Evaluation of candidates by means of job interviews should be based on preestablished standard criteria defined by the established competent institutions of the executive. In addition to the above, recruitment and selection based on the principle of merit require that there should be no discrimination on any grounds (gender, religion, nation, economic status, etc.), which means that it is necessary to provide equal opportunities for everyone and create quick and inexpensive application and testing procedures (Stavrou-Costea, 2005; Tišma & Ozimec, 2006). With respect to training, one of the key problems is the fact that development and training are often taken as meaning the same thing. This is erroneous, because although training aims to contribute to the professional development of an individual, there are many forms of professional development that are not training. Some of the ways in which individuals

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acquire new knowledge include self-study while working, mentoring, study visits, and so on, so training is only one aspect of professional development and as such should not have any exclusivity. However, public organizations must keep an accurate record of what training programs each employee has attended and how much time they annually spend trying to improve their personal knowledge and skills (Ingraham, 2005). This is important because there must be a positive correlation between participation in training initiatives and performance at work. Nevertheless, the main problem that public organizations face today is the promotion and the diffusion of general instead of specialized, professional, or technical training programs (Ingraham & Rubaii, 2016). In several countries, including Italy, training programs are often not tailored in accordance with employees’ needs (Haque, 1997), and public organizations have insufficient budgets for training. Thus, most of the training programs are tailored and implemented for specific and limited number of higher-tier employees and managers (Al-Mizjaji, 2001; Budhwar, 2000; Ghebregiorgis & Karsten, 2007). In other cases, training programs were developed as the opinions of top managers with insufficient employee feedback and engagement. The inadequate emphasis on training accompanied by lack of financial resources for training programs led to poor training systems (Budhwar, 2000). Also, training programs are often held during work hours and employees face difficulty to free their time from heavy workloads to attend. Thus, the necessity of designing efficient, merit-based, and professional HR systems is highly called for (Namazie, 2003; Namazie & Tayeb, 2006). In the matter of training, public organizations are moving in search of opportunities both to satisfy learning demands and to develop the training system itself, in order to improve individual knowledge and competencies in the necessary fields. A first opportunity could be the promotion of a discussion about the learning needs between public employees and their direct manager. The hypothesis is that staff who evaluate and determine their learning needs through a discussion with their direct manager perform considerably better than those whose learning needs are determined according to work evaluation results. The thinking being that discussions with the direct manager would encompass learning needs, their necessity, type, and the potential use of knowledge and skills, thus increasing learning effectiveness.

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A second important opportunity to improve the effectiveness of the training systems depends on the role played by the National Schools of Administration. Public employees, in fact, have the opportunity to improve in the necessary fields in the courses and training organized by the National School of Administration: the choice to take part to these training initiatives, sometimes, depends on their own initiative, and the hypothesis in these cases is that the participation to the courses is related to their career development. The experience on learning and career as well as personal observations allow considering active determination of learning needs and self-improvement as a positive factor to career development. For public workers’ investment in the organization to be more significant, learning needs should be evaluated on the basis of public employees’ education, previous job experience, age, and position, as well as according to job performance evaluation results and competence demands. Employees in public organizations who have acquired a master’s degree and/or who already hold manager positions are usually well informed about the administrations’ missions, goals, and work strategies. Their current position is mostly not their first position in a Public Administration. These persons are able to determine the fields in which they need improvement and they use knowledge, competencies, and abilities acquired through learning in their work. In order to increase loyalty and the effectiveness of these workers, it is necessary to motivate them by carrying out objective and development-­ oriented evaluation, as well as strengthening confidence in opportunities for further development in Public Administration. On the other hand, employees with a lower level of education show a poor awareness of administrations’ missions, goals, and work strategies, which is why it is often difficult for them to link personal goals with organizational goals. Explaining the organization mission and goals and discussing development will make the learning path of these workers more effective and will allow them to use the acquired knowledge, competencies, and abilities in their work; it will also give them a will both to develop and to understand that their work is significant for the organization and can promote their development. These suggestions are oriented toward assuring development opportunities and the achieving of personal goals while working in Public Administration (Sarnovičs, 2010). However, these efforts will not be effective in organizations with a traditional hierarchy and under the circumstances of a centralized HRM in Public Administration. In general,

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the goals of Public Administration concerning human resource development are often different from the corresponding goals in specific organizations, and the missing development strategies of Public Administration organizations are replaced with development strategies of the fields these organizations deal with. A real improvement in work effectiveness, motivation, and developmental processes of civil servants and workers in Public Administration can be reached by creating a strategic approach to human resource management in every organization of the Public Sector. Moreover, each of the planning, recruitment, and training systems is more likely to be efficient and successful if tailored to the particular specificities, complexities, and competencies of the jobs.

3.4   Evaluation Systems Effective human resource management practices became essential to develop a skilled workforce (Cascio & Bailey, 1995) and to address Public Sector productivity and efficiency (Kim, 2010). The claim for a broader discussion on the application of evaluation systems was always a relevant issue for Public Sector management, because in most of the different countries government organizations employ a substantial part the workforce (Daley, 1992). Furthermore, today Public Sector employees represent an important share of the public expenditure, and therefore citizens ask for transparency on their performances and behaviors, especially in those countries going through an economic critical period, as is happening just now in Italy and in other south European countries. In this frame, the evaluation system of public personnel is extremely important in transforming institutional strategies into results, becoming a strategic management tool also in Public Sector. Nevertheless, one of the most criticized aspects of “traditional” public organizations is that performance measurements of employees and the organization as a whole are neither sufficient nor have a particular standard. Traditionally, the evaluations were based on measurements that were unplanned and far from systematic. This situation may be considered as the result of bureaucratic organizations’ structure that needs no measurement because there is no clear idea about what is produced, how it is produced, who takes praise and blame, or who works better in such organizations (Wholey, 1999). Therefore, staff who implement orders are not important for a manager. Consequently, there is no need to measure performance of these orders. If

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there are no clear aims indeed, there can be no clear ideas about processes and targets, and thus evaluation of programs and people would accordingly be too rare and insufficient (Hughes, 2012). Performance management brings new concepts, principles, and values for public organizations adopting both a traditional structure and a traditional management system. Every concept, value, and principle related to performance management means substantial differentiation from the way things have been done up to now (Ertaş, 2014). Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to establish a performance management system that will help Public Administration organizations reach their visions and strategic targets. Employees will be able to understand what the targets and priorities are and what should be done at any given moment, and also how the work they do contributes to the performance of the institution through good performance management in the Public Sector. Employees will do their jobs well and do their best to reach goals when they are aware of what is expected from them and, more importantly, when they have a role in shaping their targets. Recently, the use of a citizen-centered public management mentality, increasing efficiency and performance in the public sector, increasing discussions over quality, the downsizing of central administration, and the delegation of some of its power to other units has made performance management a significant issue. As in other European countries since the 1990s, the evaluation of personnel has become an object of comparison and reflection in the Italian Public Administration, following changes in labor law regulations, the new role of public management, innovations in the nonmanagerial personnel sector, and new emerging management styles. Obviously, any new evaluation system within a public organization must necessarily start from the analysis of the cultural context in which the system will operate. Specifically, public organizations are characterized by a “management experience” mainly entrusted to the bureaucratic organizational model. The result was that the personnel management function in the modern exception of the term was conspicuous by its absence in public organizations, where personnel were managed purely from an administrative point of view. Thus, the activities connected to personnel management in the public context have remained over time entrusted to the regulatory logic of the bureaucratic organizational model. The consequence was the delegation of careers to automatic mechanisms and the development of personnel entrusted to random and/or individual logics. If this situation referred

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generically to the management of personnel in Public Administrations, the same fate concerned the evaluation process of people within public structures, disregarded for a long time. Only with the latest public reform processes—in Italy—has there been an acceleration of attention and tensions with respect to a real implementation of evaluation systems within the Public Administration. In fact, the same legislative Decree n. 150/2009— the so-called Brunetta Law after the minister responsible for the Italian civil service at the time, “Optimization of the productivity of public work and efficiency and transparency of Public Administrations”—reinvigorated the evaluation of public personnel. Although the evaluation of personnel is not new to the Italian Public Administration, before the enactment of Decree n. 150/2009 attention was focused on top-level managers and almost exclusively on the distribution of financial rewards. After Decree n. 150/2009, the Public Sector was called upon to implement individual performance appraisal systems for the entire staff, with the aim of favoring the growth and development of the competencies of the personnel (Art. 3). This, without doubt, represents a radical innovation for the Italian Public Administration, a qualitative leap as necessary as it is complex, which focuses on the cultural aspect even before touching on the technical competencies. It is obvious that the legislation adopts a concept of performance which cannot be reduced to the mere idea of “being present” or “to execute a task”, but implies that performance is understood to be the contribution (result plus manner of obtaining said result), which a subject (an organizational unit, a team, a single individual) brings about by means of their action to achieve the organization’s final aim and objectives. Moreover, and in line with what has already taken place in the rest of Europe (e.g., the United Kingdom, Cabinet Office, 2008; the British “Comprehensive Performance Assessment”, 2003; the French “Loi organique relative aux lois de finances LOLF”, 2001; the Portuguese act. n.66B/2006 “Integrated system for performance management and evaluation”, and the Spanish “Plan Moderniza”) the new law places public employees at the center of the process of reform as the driving force of the organizational change envisaged. The law posits the evaluation process as a management tool for public managers to encourage and motivate people to do more and better. It appears evident that the purpose of the organization can and must be pursued through the use of evaluation systems which should not be merely or exclusively remunerative but should also adhere to the correct

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management and development of the human resources employed. This requires the Italian Administration to activate a system of evaluation of the personnel not only with remunerative rewards, as happened in the past (at managerial level only), but with a more ample system of development of its staff. This last point refers to all the techniques which guarantee a reasonable quali-quantitative equilibrium between organizational evolution and the evolution of human resources, referring to the activities of recruitment and selection, personnel planning, training, and career policies. In this way, the traditional evaluation of position is replaced by the evaluation of performance and potential competencies. For a long time, the theory of job evaluation was preferred and so the systems were based on the object or based on a specific task or position of work; conversely, preference now goes to the concept that workers should be valued and paid not only in relation to the “place they occupy”, but also for “what he or she knows and can do”, as well as for “what he or she has done”: the so-called competencies evaluation. This different approach pushes for motivations and stimuli able to broaden the “know-how” of staff and make them more aware of their role in the organization and better prepared to be active in the processes of innovation and change. In a flexible economy, characterized by necessarily slender organizations, where new professions are constantly created and the continuous structural transformations change the positions, status, denomination, and role of professional figures, the evaluation of the positions shows its limits. In fact, the continuous evolution of competitive scenarios imposes greater dynamism on organizations and therefore implies, for the position holder, a higher degree of discretion to be exercised and therefore a broader “behavior” competence with more managerial skills and professional motivation. However, the failure at the central level to identify and allocate financial resources specifically dedicated to the rewards linked to the evaluation of personnel has in fact weakened the legislation referred to, leading it to be declared inapplicable. Nevertheless, in Italy assessment becomes one of the critical aspects to be addressed especially for the complete affirmation of the role of the management which represents the “public employer” in the field of integrative bargaining.

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3.5   Flexibility in Worker Relationships: New Challenges in HRM The concept of flexibility in any organization, and to an even greater extent in Public Administration, hinges principally around people; therefore, human resource management is a vital tool for guiding choices in terms of efficiency and operational effectiveness. Human resource management has always played a major role in improving the performance of organizations. If this holds true for private organizations, exposed to the changing tastes and preferences of consumers, it also holds true for public organizations. In fact, the growing expectations of the citizen-user represent a real push (thorn) for a review of the ways of offering value to the territory through the involvement of people. For these reasons there exists a strong relationship between organizational performance and human resource management, so much that many researchers in the past two decades have contributed to a better understanding of this type of relationship (Oswal & Narayanappa, 2015). At the beginning of the last century, the first concept of human resource management was established as scientific management by Taylor, which described workers as machines, leaving the social aspect of human behavior unnoticed. Then, with Hawthorne’s studies, social aspects emerged and defined new ways of regarding human resource management. But only with the focus on the individual has behavioral applied science formed the basis for today’s Human Resource and Organizational Behavior. Subsequently, it was understood that the professional and personal resources present in the organization represented those assets capable of making the difference in any comparison between companies, where the other resources such as capitals, technologies, and natural resources proved to be largely similar and in any case easily available and replicable. Since then the attention paid to people in organizations, including public organizations, has grown and the term “human resource management” has become widely used and understood by most. There are many ways through which human resource management contributes toward performance. First of all, it has to consider both the external and internal environment in which organizations operate. It has to plan out its strategies keeping in mind the desired outcomes for external and internal stakeholders. In fact, performance can be measured in terms of internal stakeholders and external stakeholders (owners/investors, customers, external partner organizations, and members of the

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society). Therefore, from what is shown, we understand how the process of change on organizations impacts on the people who are part of it and who may not accept it naturally, demonstrating inertia and resistance. So, it is necessary to act on people so that they can demonstrate and generate the flexibility that reverberates in working relationships and turns into that humus that allows organizations to ride change and achieve performance. Therefore, organizations should focus on developing effective and flexible human resource management systems which can easily adapt to dynamic changes occurring in the external environment, but in order to do this the organization need to be restructured. Thus, over time, some activities and tasks prove no longer adequate in providing answers to service users, while other activities and other needs are highlighted and appreciated by the served communities. With respect to this evolving situation, public organizations must be able to review and reorganize themselves in order to respond to emerging challenges. To do so it seems necessary to develop skills analysis and mapping activities and organizational redesign in line with the requirements of the users involved. Different people should be differently involved in organizational and administrative processes in order to create value for their business reality. The diversity of the context and the markets, in which public organizations operate, pushes and asks for different levels of offer, for which it seems necessary to rethink the processes of service delivery and the resulting organizational structures. The different requests coming from the external context can find satisfactory organizational response thanks to the enhancement of the professional diversities available in the administration. Diversity also exists within organizations, in internal professional resources, where characteristics, competences, and attitudes are differently distributed in people, asking for appropriate attention and management. Thus, diversity management in this perspective can be one of the tools through which administrations and their services are made more effective. Obviously, in order to be able to act on this lever, it appears necessary to carry out an organizational review over time, followed by restructuring processes. After the identification of the system of services provided, this should map the organizational positions and the available competences in order to adjust the professionalisms present in the various public organizational structures to new emerging needs in the community. Thus, the differences in context can be answered in the internal differentiation of personnel—as Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) suggest—and in the different

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valorization of the people involved in the complex rhythms of the Public Administration. In this situation of a dynamic changing environment, sustainability is one of the most desirable elements for all organizations, emerging as the new concept for twenty-first century and the future concept of the administrations. Referring to the nature of an unpredictable dynamic external environment, it is necessary for organizations to develop a sustainable model for the future (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). Sustainability can be defined as the organizational capability to seek its goals in terms of stakeholders in the long run by incorporating economic, environmental, and social perspectives with its performance strategies. A new dimension of organization sustainability has emerged in HRM, an element that will increasingly be required by all organizations in the near future. The changes in economies, culture, and societies are deeply influenced by rapid developments in digital technologies, which also impact and reshape the way of practicing different HR functions. There is a need to incorporate attention to the environment within the organization which leads to sustainability. All departments need to be integrated completely as it affects all in the organization. In order to achieve sustainability, it needs to be central to organizational strategy (Oswal & Narayanappa, 2015). In this way, sustainability becomes the new element added to the tasks of HRM.  So, it appears necessary to understand the role that HRM can play in achieving sustainable organizations, in terms of competition, selecting and retaining talented workers, and the reputation of the organization. To keep pace with dynamic economic, social, and environmental forces and keeping in mind both internal and external stakeholders, organizations are trying to achieve sustainable environment for long-term performance growth. In this way, sustainability becomes the last stage in HRM evolution. Closely linked to the concept of sustainability is corporate social responsibility, focused specifically on the internal dimension of CSR and so on Human Resource Management. Therefore, organizations should pay particular attention to workers, because socially responsible practices primarily affect internal stakeholders (Millá & Berini, 2005), such as investment in human capital, health, safety, and change management. The social performance of administrations regards those who dedicate time and expertise to the pursuit of that organization’s success, affecting its reputation and its attractiveness to the most highly skilled workers. Following this point of view, the relations between professional life and personal life

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influence how the workers feel and live their administrations daily. In fact, work–life balance practices could contribute positively to organizational performance, making the administration more attractive for internal workers. Another challenge to the human resources function in Public Administrations is represented by the amount of data and information coming from the use of information systems and the Big Data system. The ever-increasing availability of information could be useful in understanding people and working conditions better within public organizations, fostering their greater organizational flexibility. Analytics is the discipline which has developed at the intersection of engineering, computer science, decision-making, and quantitative methods in order to organize, analyze, and make sense of the increasing amounts of data being generated by contemporary societies (Mortenson, Doherty, & Robinson, 2015). So, analytics involve both traditional relational database and spreadsheet-based analysis, new forms of database software that allow very large quantities of data to be stored and organized more efficiently, and new techniques for representing and understanding data through visualization. In human resource information systems, the data held typically includes information on workers who are hired (employment history, competencies, formal educational, qualifications, and demographic information) and on those applicants who were not hired. Once a worker is employed by an organization, data on hours worked and paid are collected and stored routinely. Depending on the job role, there may also be information on the performance of workers (measures of individual output, etc.). Additionally, there are a variety of soft performance data that might be collected from appraisal and performance management systems, along with information on training and development, information on grievances, capability and disciplinary cases, dispute resolution, internal communications, participation schemes, and staff attitude surveys. All of this data could be combined with bigger data on what a worker does (location data from mobile phones, internet browsing histories, electronic calendars, and other handheld electronic devices used in production or service delivery), who they communicate with (email and phone records and online collaborative tools), and what they communicate about (the content of email, instant messenger conversations and SMS messages, and recordings of interactions with clients) (George, Haas, & Pentland, 2014). Despite these possibilities, the technical means to integrate, organize, and analyze data held in conventional human resource information systems

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with data coming from these larger unstructured sources are as yet not well established. In fact, there exist significant issues of privacy, consent, and ethics to address when storing and analyzing data about workers. Public managers need to develop a strategic understanding of how people (human capital) contribute to the success of their administration. If a strategy is to create, capture, leverage, and protect value given by people, then it needs to be something unique, referring to the specific organization rather than a generic (Boudreau & Ramstad, 2007). This level of strategic insight is essential if managers are to develop HR analytics capabilities. In order to achieve this and develop flexibility within organizations, an important element is represented by the technology that can act as a sparring partner in organizational development processes. Technology developments can play a major role in contributing to sustainability and HR functions will become more digitalized and all processes will be influenced by this. Moreover, the process of digitization offers new ways of working, by reducing the physical and time barriers of work, just as it expands the possibility to broaden the offer to the served community in new and flexible modalities. However, in order to make full use of these opportunities they have to be understood by staff and accompanied in their use and diffusion by involvement processes that may not be easy and immediate but are necessary. So, with development in technology and digitization, data analytics and diversity, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility become effective levers for human resource management to foster flexibility, by permitting the effective deployment and enhancement of any public organization’s principal asset, its people. This involvement of people can therefore become a driving element with respect to the processes of change, becoming a tool for organizational flexibility, developing change management strategies, suggesting correct training and development practices in order to produce highly effective human capital. What appears to be increasingly challenging for all Public Administrations is to be able to systemize the elements of novelty that derive from the new trends highlighted, in order to obtain greater sharing in a cultural key, greater integration in an organizational key, and, consequently, advantages for the community and the territories served.

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3.6   Technology and New Modes of Working in Public Administration Over the last three decades, new and emergent technologies have continuously disrupted the administrative landscape of bureaucracies and the Public Sector around the world. Governments at different levels, and across different branches, are adopting tools and applications to reach out, to deliver, to function, and to organize themselves in ways that allow them to cope with rapid changes. It is therefore important to understand if and how Public Administrations can realize changes and achieve innovation, leveraging also the combination of two key enabling factors: HRM systems and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) (Cantoni & Mangia, 2018). As discussed in the previous sections, in the last decades the HR function has changed its role from a mainly administrative one to a strategic role. This transition is caused by a recognition of the value of human resources in achieving organizational effectiveness (Conner & Prahalad, 1996). In order to reach this objective, HR functions should align their practices and strategy with their resources, in particular their human and technological resources, and the goals of the organization, as suggested by the resource-based approach to HRM (Barney, 1991). The emergent technologies available offer both new possibilities to explore and new challenges to overcome, and require attention to evolving relationships, different processes, and changing structures, in order to attain more efficient, smarter government. Technologies have changed (through enabling and/or constraining) HRM practices by introducing, for example, e-recruitment, e-training, e-competence management, and e-work. These technologies have brought a new vocabulary to the HRM discourse as the conventional terminology is supplemented by new terms like electronic HRM (e-HRM), HRM data mining, HRM cloud computing, application of HRM (for mobile technologies), and HRM big data. These technologies have altered HRM organizational communications and enabled new means of employer branding. The “early bird” areas of HRM adoption of ICT were e-recruitment and e-learning, with web-­ based training as a flexible alternative to classroom-based learning to suit work patterns and a dispersed workforce. Since the 1980s Human Resource Information systems (HRIS) have become fairly common. Typically, these systems dealt with automating functions such as payrolls and personal information, with little or no attempt to make such data interactive or available to staff outside the HR function. They were too

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expensive, unfriendly, and lacked the capacity to manage the large amounts of information required by personnel activities. They are certainly unable to create the type of internal virtual chain necessary to add value; consequently, new advances in ICT are required in order to enable greater automation in HRM practices. ICT technologies and social media technologies are now being used to rationalize or even transform HR.  They have been used to transform internal operations in order to lead to the virtualization of HR management and work, while simultaneously improving the quality of services by transforming the traditional labor-intensive tasks into efficient fast-­ response activities and services that enable public organizations to improve their effectiveness. The last step in the technological evolution is represented by the E-HRM system. The application of this technology enables managers and employees to have direct access to HR and other workplace services for communication, performance, reporting, team management, knowledge management and learning, as well as administration applications. E-HRM is the planning, implementation, and application of ICT for both networking and supporting at least two individual or collective actors in their shared performing of HR activities. E-HRM is not the same as HRIS, which refers to ICT systems used within the HR function. Nor is it the same as V-HRM, or Virtual HRM—which is defined by Lepak and Snell as a network-based structure built on partnerships and typically mediated by ICT to help the organization in acquiring, developing, and deploying intellectual capital. E-HRM is, in essence, a combination of HR functional application, extranet applications, intranet, wireless, and mobile HR applications. Literature distinguishes three types of e-HRM: operational, relational, and transformational (Lepak & Snell, 1998; Wright & Dyer, 2000): • Operational e-HRM consists in asking employees to keep their own personal data update through an HR website or to have an administrative force in place to do this for them; • Relational e-HRM consists in the choice between supporting recruitment and selection through a web-based application process and using manual application processes; • Transformational e-HRM is an integrated web-based tool that enables the workforce to develop in line with the organization’s strategic choices.

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Today, changes in HRM and technologies have modified the geographical boundaries of HRM practices, and distances in and between organizations have been shortened. The use of ICT provides an opportunity to be innovative in when we work, where we work, and the way we work. Specifically, there has been a noticeable diffusion among organizations of innovative ways of working and growing opportunities for their employees to perform work activities remotely, leaving them generally free to choose where (places) and when (time) to carry out their assigned activities (spatial-­temporal flexibility). Because of various technological advancements, public organizations can also offer their employees new ways of working by eliminating physical and time barriers and relying on such organizational forms as telework, home-based telework, mobile work, virtual teams, and, more recently, smart work (SW). SW has the potential to offer a wide range of individuals an alternative to traditional work arrangements. SW succeeds in modifying traditional work conditions and their natural environment, searching different and (till now) not totally and uniquely defined solutions, essentially grounded on a greater discretion in work activities and on a greater responsibility for results. These two elements together are indeed believed to favor better performances by workers (Eberhard et al., 2017). This connection explains the increasing interest for SW, favoring the promotion of projects in the field. Furthermore, over the last few years, managers have started to acknowledge the potential advantages offered to both employees and organizations by SW. How Croft and Taylor point out that society is seeing a new wave of revolutionary technology that provides the platform for significant change in the way people work. These changes are creating renewed interest in how work is conceptualized—what we describe as the “smart-side” of technology. Smart Working has also emerged in Italy— especially after the adoption of the Law n. 81/2017—as a “new” way to define what is considered as an innovative approach to work organization and HRM. The phenomenon is on the up in Italy’s small and medium-­ sized enterprises, but the news is that the phenomenon is taking hold in Public Administration. SW has trickled into the administrative offices of the Council of Ministers, into the Ministry of the Economy, and into major Italian city councils. An important element for effective SW implementation (not external to it, but part of the SW itself) is the context within which SW is adopted. SW could be seen as a system consisting of people, technology, organizations, and management practices related to human resource management.

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According to the principle of equifinality, the same final state may be reached from different initial conditions and HRM antecedents, in different ways, through different mechanisms. In order to better understand the relevance of SW and its functioning within public organizations, the context can be defined in the HRM context as the relevant external and internal conditions and elements. The external elements include societal values, the laws, the regulations, the labor market, and the territorial-level conditions within which the public organization has to work. There will be elements that are more directly under the organization’s control but that are limited by previous managerial decisions and history, including the workforce characteristics. There will also be elements that are directly related to the administrative activities but are outside the direct remit of HRM, such as the management philosophy and the territorial features. Focusing on SW, probably location has a major effect on how SW is understood and implemented, what practices have legitimacy, and what the effects of those practices are likely to be. Countries have different SW regulations and practices because they are in different situations, and have different cultures and different institutions. Specifically, government and regulations play an important role for changing HRM practices and—consequently—SW. Regulations for the Italian context were one of the most important elements. Starting from the 1990s, telework was introduced in Public Administration as a form of distance work by Decree n. 70/1999 providing information on both the features and the criteria in order to realize and use teleworking stations. In 2012, another step was taken in the perspective of the modernization of public organizations: the enactment of Decree n. 221/2012 introduced the so called Telelavoro by default inspired by the Obama government in the United States. Following this decree, Public Administrations were required to implement a plan for telework adoption in which they had to specify “the modalities of realization and the possible activities for which the use of the telework was not possible”. Despite these legislative interventions, Italy has not been able to make the best use of telework, which has been “trapped” by rigid rules. It has therefore become necessary to introduce new instruments of flexibility. In this direction, the Law for the Reform of the Public Administration (Madia Reform, Law n. 124/2015), on the one hand, provided suggestions for the strengthening of the telework adoption; on the other hand, it promoted the adoption of SW. In addition, the law stated that in 2018 (three

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years after the enactment of the law) flexible work tools should be used by at least 10% of public employees. The last step in the regulatory framework in Italy is represented by the adoption of the Law n. 81/2017, which marks the shift from a telework to an SW approach. The law defined SW as “a way to regulate the workers-organization relationship, according to an agreement between the parties, also recurring to forms of organization by stages, cycles and goals, without a defined timetable or constraints on the work place and the opportunity to use any technological tools to perform activities”. Moreover, the law (Art. 18) stated that the main purpose of this new way of working is “both to increase competitiveness and to facilitate the balance of working and living times”. The underlying idea of this legislation is, on the one hand, to promote an improvement in productivity and, on the other hand, to guarantee a better work–life balance for workers. Creating new rules with lightweight characteristics and obligations (for the worker and the employer), the SW law aims to stimulate a deep cultural change in the concept of work: a shift from a “clocking in” mentality to a goal-oriented mentality, where workers have ample freedom to self-­ organize their jobs as long as they meet the goals set at the due dates. The innovative part of the law is to configure SW as an organizational tool and not as a type of contract, with the aim of making it workable for all employees who carry out tasks that are compatible with SW. Globalization will apply to SW too, since universal “good practice” will inevitably spread around the world, but there is little evidence that countries are becoming more alike in the way they conceive of and manage SW.  Some current problems characterizing Italian Public Administration could impact on the adoption of SW. One of the main issues of the Italian PA is the huge presence of older workers. In 2015, fewer than 3 employees out of 100 were under 30 and the average age was 50.4. One of the most important direct consequences is, for example, a closure toward innovation. Another critical aspect related to the Italian PA is the presence of corruption and the lack of transparency. Despite the innovations introduced by the Madia Reform, such as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the position covered by Italy in the international ranking of corruption is very disappointing. The causes of this positioning are that the FOIA needs time to be implemented properly and that the level of digitalization of Italian PA is still insufficient. Another problem is represented by the insufficient propensity to measure and evaluate employees on their performances and by inadequate planning: these

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are the bases of a culture that rewards the mere act of being present rather than any actual effort made, destroying talents and productivity. Finally, due to the inadequate capability of Italian Public Administration to attract and retain valuable and highly qualified employees, it is more important than ever to understand what could attract people to the public service. There may be debate about the balance between cultural differences and institutional differences, but together or independently culture and institutions will impact the SW/technology interface too. Only limited empirical research on how PA is dealing with the adoption of SW is currently available, but in Italy an important exemplar experience helping to explore and to understand the configuration of SW and its outcomes at the individual, organizational, and societal level has been conducted in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM). The PCM is the administrative structure which supports the Italian Prime Minister’s office. It contains those departments which carry out duties pertaining to the office of the prime minister. Duties invested in the Italian executive government generally are not administered by the Presidency, but by the individual ministries. The creation of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers is comparatively recent: it only began to take shape in 1961, although not in an organic manner, since it lacked a law which regulated its whole operation. In 1988, a new law (l.400/1988) was approved, which regulated the Presidency. Finally, in 1999, the reorganization of the PCM was carried out with Decree Law n. 303 of 30 July 1999, part of the Bassanini reforms. At the end of 2017, the PCM launched a trial to prepare for the development of a new way of working. The project was presented and its objectives and phases shared. In January 2018, the pilot project was launched and the SW model became a reality in the organization. During the pilot phase only four departments were involved: the Public Administration Department, the Department for Equal Opportunities, the Department for Family Policy, and the Department for Human Resources. This project was not only one of the first SW initiatives at the central level of Italian Civil Service, but it was also intended as a pathfinder, with the SW model it developed becoming a guide for all the other Italian administrations. Table 3.1 shows the percentage of workers who decided to take part to the SW project in the Departments involved. The total number (57 workers) involved in the SW project represent 10% of all the human resources employed in these Departments.

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Table 3.1  Smart workers involved in the project

Departments

Number

%

Public Administration Equal opportunities Family policy HR

14 8 3 32

24.6 14 5.3 56.1

More than 57 workers initially applied to take part in the SW project, but the senior management responsible for ensuring the normal functioning of each department carried out a preliminary evaluation of each request and only selected those applications which did not compromise the activities and the achievement of the assigned objectives. The final selection of the applications was made by a commission created specifically for the SW project. With respect to the conceptual and practical framework, the PCM project was realized following the directive published by the prime minister and referred to the actuation of Art. 14 of the law issued on 7th August 2015, known as PA Reform of the Minister Madia. Firstly, the directive recalls point 48 of the European Parliament Resolution of the 13th September 2016 affirming that the Parliament supports SW, a working approach based on a combination of flexibility, autonomy, and collaboration, which does not require the physical presence of workers in the office and lets them manage their own working time, underlining its potentiality for a better work–life balance; the Parliament recommends to not assign additional obligations to employees, but simply focus on workers’ welfare, pointing out the need of a “result-based” management to avoid abuse and promoting the utilization of digital technologies. In terms of eligibility, the directive states that all categories are suitable for SW initiatives. Moreover, each sector of the PA has the opportunity to develop and to implement an SW model according to its features and needs. The qualitative objective defined in the directive is to favor the adoption of SW and/ or any other flexible initiatives/tools/instruments. The quantitative one was to ensure—by 2018—the participation of at least 10% of workers in each public organization in SW projects. According to the general path designed by the directive, the PCM decided to develop an SW model following four different phases:

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• Phase 1: Create an internal work group including administrative members to support the start of experimentation and monitoring. This group must analyze the macrostructure of the organization, map activities, processes, personnel, and workers’ needs (familiar or private). • Phase 2: Define the main characteristics of the SW project through the draft of a plan (duration, days of remote working, technological devices, recruitment criteria, etc.). Therefore, define the activities that cannot be worked remotely, identify yearly targets to reach the final objective of 10%, and discuss the plan with trade unions. In this phase, the possibility of creating coworking areas should be taken into consideration. • Phase 3: Select one (or more) department(s) for the SW pilot phase start (identifying personnel, duration, and starting date). • Phase 4: Provide a monitoring system for both performance and productivity evaluation, identifying some relevant indicators based on features and functions of the selected department. Considering the absence of a supportive and mature digital infrastructure, the PCM invested in the ICT element by developing a digital environment able to complete the HR strategy of letting people work whenever and wherever they wanted. Thus, in addition to some investments in unified communication and collaboration tools, a mobile workspace (constituted by a laptop, a smartphone, and an internet connection) has been made available to all employees. In the PCM, the worker indicated if he/ she intends to use personally owned tools (laptop, smartphone, etc.) configured by the administration or tools directly provided by the administration. In both the cases, the PCM issued an informative note to each smart worker indicating general and specific risks related to the particular mode of execution of the activities, providing useful indications for the worker to make a conscious choice of the place to carry out work activities. Moreover, a set of cloud-based solutions has been developed in order to improve performance and ensure smart workers have access to shared documents. In this way, the working place is highly simplified, and human resources can focus on one task at a time, boosting both their efficiency and effectiveness. The PCM also ensured access to those public platforms necessary for given tasks (e.g., SIGOCE is the platform used by the PA to complete payments). Workers use their smartphones to connect to the intranet and access their mail in the same mode they would use on site.

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In order to guarantee an effective interaction with their offices and good performance, nonmanagerial-level workers must be available to be contacted during their SW days for at least 3 hours (1.5 hours if on a half-­ day), according to time slots identified in their individual projects. The analysis of the HR (Janahi, Griffiths, & Al-Ammal, 2015) revealed that some new features have been introduced. Before the pilot phase, the following requirements were identified: • The activities assigned to the employee can be relocated without their necessary physical presence in the workplace; • The technological equipment used by the employee must be suitable for work off site; • The employee must enjoy operational autonomy and must be able to organize the execution of work outside the workplace, respecting assigned objectives; • The results of the activities assigned to the employee must be monitored and assessed; • The activities assigned to the employee must not be incompatible with SW, due to their specific nature and methods of carrying out the tasks. Workers have to present an application for taking part in the SW project complete with their individual project and their schedule of activities. The application is then assessed for suitability by line managers. The director of each department approves the contents and methods of implementation, ensuring alignment with the organizational needs of the structure. At organizational level, a technical group and a monitoring group were set up to define selection criteria, assess, and select applications and to monitor the activities carried out in SW. The first group comprises managers only and performs more operational activities, while the second group supervises the project and monitors the smart workers and includes both managers and trade union representatives. SW is subject to assessment for both organizational and individual performance evaluation. The PCM progressively adjusts its internal monitoring and control systems, identifying suitable indicators in order to evaluate the efficiency, effectiveness, and economy of the activities carried out using SW. However, SW does not vary the nature of the worker’s contract, the role of the employee in the administration and their workplace. Another important innovation at organizational level is represented by the mapping of the activities carried

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out by each department in order to identify which activities had to be excluded. In general, almost all activities were included except for those that (i) require physical presence and (ii) require a constant and continuous relationship with the management. Some examples of excluded activities are secretariats, protocol, and archive, warehouse management, library management, and so on. The PCM also realized several training initiatives to support the change management process stemming from the adoption of an SW model. The general aim was to develop new competencies and capabilities necessary to efficiently and effectively accomplish the new tasks and activities connected to the new working model. Specifically—in terms of contents—two different training sessions are organized. The first one was focused on safety at work and the second on the use of technological tools. Although there are difficulties involved in generating a standard cycle to implement SW, the paradigm proposed by the PCM aims to become a best practice for other Italian public organizations. With the pilot phase still ongoing, it is difficult to state the real outcomes of this SW project. However, it is possible to discuss the expectations of the PCM working group on SW and examine some preliminary outcomes from personal, business and society perspectives. At an individual level, perceived job flexibility, given a reasonable workweek, enables more employees to have work–family balance (personal and family benefit) and also enables employees to work longer hours before impacting work–family balance. In particular, one possible benefit of SW has to do with a reduction in the stress associated with the daily commute. Flexplace also provides more options for where an employee might choose to live. Smart workers in PCM, in fact, may choose to work from home or anywhere else. In addition, work in the PCM is strongly influenced by the political moment. In a rigid work environment, during a political crisis, for example, it could be extremely difficult simultaneously to meet the demands of work and family life because the work has to be done physically from the work location. By contrast, in a flexible work environment, an employee can work the same long number of hours but intersperse several hours of quality family time each day. For this last, reasons remains unclear as to the choice to use SW by PCM managers. Finally, our analysis reveals that the vast majority of smart workers (38%) are between 50 and 59, another substantial group (35%) are between 40 and 49, while younger people are almost absent, a phenomenon that can easily be explained by

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the high number of employees seeking SW for medical pathologies, of course more frequent as age increases. At an organizational level, the technology and, more in general, the role of SW are one of the elements supporting digital transformation in PCM and in Public Sector organizations. Since PCM can be classified as a “large organization”, it has greater resources to support the technology required for flexplace. Moreover, with the adoption of SW people in the PCM are more aware of the use of digital technologies and SW itself becomes an opportunity in terms of organizational learning. Furthermore, in the PCM the adoption of SW requires different stratification processes and procedures in order to maintain the alignment among objectives, behaviors, and tools. Another implication is related to the culture and the philosophy of the PCM. An organization that adopts SW should also move away from a “process-oriented” culture to a “results-oriented” culture, and performance evaluation systems must adapt to include more specifically measured objectives. Additionally, implementing SW should make it possible to change the object of the evaluation process, moving away from physical presence to the results obtained. This new culture could discourage misbehavior all too common in public institutions. By betting on trust and giving more responsibility to workers, it will be possible to distinguish valuable and willing people from the idlers and underachievers and give everyone the rewards they deserve. Adopting supportive leadership behavior based on trust also has a direct effect on the feelings and emotions of employees and is a way to create a work environment that enables employees to achieve organizational goals in public institutions. The last, but not least, important aspect at an organizational level refers to the management of individual differences within the PCM, especially the gender differences. As suggested from some scholars, the analysis of the case study revealed that gender differences associated with adoption of SW could be significant, indicating a lower proportion of men adopting SW. In the PCM, in fact, 71.9% are women (41 workers) and only 28.1% are men (16 workers). Finally, it is too early to evaluate outcomes at the societal level, given that the pilot phase of the project is still ongoing. However, it is possible to discuss the expectations of PCM on this level. Of course, looking at the environmental consequences and sustainability of SW, the experience conducted in PCM and its further extension to other Departments should moderate private car use, reducing environmental and socioeconomic impacts of mobility on society. Congestion, air pollution, noise, the increase in time loss due to traffic and externalities linked

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to up- and downstream processes are the best-known transport-related externalities. Rome is the city with a higher number of smart workers than elsewhere in Italy. More in general, the adoption of SW could lead the PCM to a significant externalities saving. Furthermore, the introduction of SW in the Public Sector would imply an additional investment on the digitalization of processes and practices. It has been proven by several researches that the creation of an e-government reduces corruption and enhances transparency. The adoption of SW would produce positive economic effects also on the national budget. Private companies that have adopted SW report financial savings and improved productivity. The savings deriving purely from the reduction in office space could be between €1 and 3 billion. Adopting SW increases efficiency without reducing the number of workers, improves productivity and, consequently, the quality of the services. Furthermore, extending SW to public employees is one way to avoid creating any further discrimination and to improve the relationship between politics, public opinion, and stakeholders.

3.7   Considerations and Conclusions This chapter analyzes the elements and mechanisms that determine the principal factors of success in terms of competitiveness in Public Organizations: the people. It examines the levers and constraints in people management in Public Administrations during the current period of change. It also looks at how to motivate people in organizations to prepare them to meet new challenges in the public sector; how to improve the process and logic of recruitment; how to better define suitable training programs to match competencies and knowledge with the changing requirements of the community and the new opportunities offered technology. Work is unquestionably changing and support is vital to ensure people change with it. Public managers and governments must focus on all these factors to obtain improved performance and organizational results. Despite the several labels and perspectives used by scholars to refer to Public People Management, many efforts are still incomplete. From a theoretical point of view, the similarity among public and private organizations allows us to imagine new perspectives of analysis and action. But from an operational point of view, people remain the principal asset of public organizations but also the main problem of day-to-day

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management. One of the principal aspects of this situation is related to the shift from traditional management mechanisms used by public employees—such as bureaucracy—toward others management levers still in the making. The current consequence is that public managers have great difficulties in obtaining good performance at the various levels of the public sector, from ministries to municipal administrations, all over the Italian nation. This study offers theoretical contributions and presents practical projects able to show and understand the main characteristics of the public context and its peculiarities regarding change management. First of all, to our knowledge, it is the first study that systematizes HRM in Italian Public Administrations; in addition, the focus on HRM sees a description of specific projects that central administrations are developing in order to improve productivity through diversity management. Finally, the contribution wants to amplify and sustain the efforts that public managers make day by day to obtain better services and performance for citizens and their served communities through structures and processes that are not always adequate, without ever forgetting that the level of public sector performance has been achieved over time by our civil servants.

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PART II

The Italian Case Study

CHAPTER 4

Public Management Reform in Italy Alessandro Hinna and Federico Ceschel

4.1   The Conceptual Framework for the Reformist Season The dynamic of change that has affected Italy since the 1990s is common to many Western countries (OECD, 2005). The various Italian administrative reforms that will be discussed in this chapter took place in a historical moment in which, on a global scale, politicians, administrators, and researchers were announcing a possible and appropriate path toward softening the highly bureaucratic features and monopolies of state Public Administrations; abandoning rigid operational schemes in favor of flexibility; setting aside a prescriptive attitude and culture; shifting focus from processes to administrative results; and placing the citizen at the center of public policies and strategies. The direction of this process of innovation is supported by a managerial framework called “New Public Management” (hereinafter also NPM) (see

A. Hinna (*) • F. Ceschel Tor Vergata University of Rome, Rome, Italy Italian National School of Administration (SNA), Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. Decastri et al. (eds.), Organizational Development in Public Administration, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43799-2_4

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Chap. 1) (Hood, 1991; Kickert, 1997; Pollitt, 1994; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004; Thomas, 2012), which is based on the principles of organization and management typically applied in the private enterprise sector. In particular, it should be emphasized that the basic idea of NPM is not so much related to the imitation of a particular economic or entrepreneurial model. Rather, it is based on the principle that the administrative function should also be inspired by the same criterion of legitimization, namely performance (Matheson & Kwon, 2003), similar to the organization of an enterprise. Starting from the second half of the 1990s, alongside the traditional dual-faceted model, which sees in public subjects the only holders of the right to deal with common goods and in citizens merely passive users or customers, the need for a new method of “shared administration” has progressively been established (Bingham, Nabatchi, & O’Leary, 2005; Osborne, 2010; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017), based on the hypothesis of the following: • Replacing the relationship between institutions and citizens, traditionally vertical, hierarchical and unidirectional, with a multipolar, equal, and circular model, based on values of transparency, communication, trust, and collaboration; • Replacing the mere transfer of resources with a strategy based on the sharing of skills capable of tackling issues that are increasingly complex and difficult to govern; • Abandoning a vision of the state as guarantor of the essential needs of society, to transform it into a supporter of the propulsive capacity of citizens and businesses to participate actively in the social and economic life of the community. Rhodes (1996) was among the first to argue that governance simply means changing the meaning of government. If by government, in fact, we mean the activity or the process of governing, a set of ordered rules, the complex of people called to govern, and, finally, the complex of methods or systems through which a particular society is governed, then by governance we refer to a new process of governing, a new and different set of rules, or, again, a new method by which to govern society (Alford & Hughes, 2008; Frederickson, 2005; Jones, Schedler, & Mussari, 2004). The issue of governance, in particular within the Public Administration, therefore suggests a new model of administration, alternative to that based

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on the centrality of state public authority, on the isolation and homogeneity of public government institutions, on the sovereignty and superiority of public authority, and on the preeminent importance of constitutional and legal aspects. On the contrary, the new model expresses the need to broaden social consensus through the introduction of mechanisms and practices that make citizens’ participation in public action effective, in a context of administrative transparency, clearly attributing the responsibility for decisions and actions to the various actors involved (Koppenjan & Klijn, 2004).

4.2   The Administrative Reforms of the 1990s 4.2.1  Assumptions and Dimensions of Radicalism of the Administrative Reforms Historically, the Italian Public Administration (henceforth, PA) has shown its inability to adapt its organization and activities to the new tasks and new functions that it has progressively assumed over time, in a dynamic relationship between the role of the state, economic conditions, and the needs of society. The inability to adapt to the new scenario has led to a clear rigidity of public systems, hampering the possibility of reaching important, albeit necessary, transformations. In particular, looking at the second half of the last century, the inability of Public Administrations to manage the transition from organizations of order and basic functions to organizations dedicated to the supply of complex services has been a destabilizing factor. In this regard, there has been an increasingly marked contradiction between the modification of functions and the persistence of administrative models, highlighting the need for a revision of the latter. Further on, in this section we describe how the new reformist season that began in the 1990s was a moment of rupture with the continuity of the past (Capano, 2006), at least in terms of legislative reform (Sepe, Mazzone, Portelli, & Vetritto, 2003). A season that has led to redesigning the complete organizational setup of the public apparatuses through the removal of the state from the management of some large services and the simultaneous creation of highly independent regulatory bodies. In contrast with the incremental logic of (direct) intervention of Public Administrations in the economic and social organization of the country system, the reforms of the 1990s have therefore outlined the directives for

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a progressive transition from a state seen as a “managing institution” (Sepe et al., 2003: 202) to a “regulatory” state, to which economic and social actors demand quality public rules in the economic field (Borgonovi, 2005: 21), in an increasingly marked protection of citizens’ rights and attention to results, as postulated by the theorists of the post–New Public Management (henceforth, post-NPM). 4.2.2  The Legislative Interventions of the 1990s: Some Cardinal Points The drastic reduction of the Public Sector in the economy, with the privatization of important public services and public industrial enterprises, marked the first qualifying moment of the reform. In this perspective, Law n.359/1992 was crucial from a legislative point of view. It ordered the transformation of Italy’s large public holding companies, Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI) and ENI (nowadays ENI S.p.A.— National Hydrocarbon Company) first and foremost, but also INA (nowadays INA Assitalia S.p.A.—National Insurance Institute) and ENEL (nowadays ENEL S.p.A.—National Organization for Electricity) into S.p.A. (Sepe et al., 2003). The law was held to have definitively clarified that the task of the PA is not to provide services, but to ensure that services are provided (Osborne & Gaebler, 1995). Moreover, in those years, attention to the simplification and quality of the rules was an inevitable corollary to the guarantee functions that the state is called upon to carry out. In this regard, Law n. 241/1990 certainly represents a milestone in the debate—still ongoing—on simplification policies at various levels of government (D’Ambrosio & Peta, 2006). Although subsequently modified over the years by different legislative interventions (laws n. 537/1993, n. 273/1995, n. 127/1997, n. 191/1998, n. 340/2000, n. 80/2005), it has in fact placed emphasis on some concepts that are still constantly at the center of the debate on improving the activity of the Public Administrations. Specifically, Law n. 241/1990 can be considered the starting point of a path of reconstruction of a different model of administration whose fundamental character lies in the centrality of the role assigned to the citizen and, therefore, in the institutionalization of participation mechanisms which were far more incisive than in the past where, consistent with the adopted administrative structure model, the citizen had never had never been considered to be on an

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equal footing with the Public Administration (Merighi, 1996). Emblematic of the new relationship between citizens and administrators is the fact that the so-called principle of publicity of administrative action was included among the general principles of administrative action. At this point, this concept of transparency contrasts with the previous principle of secrecy, except in cases determined by law. Hence, the introduction of new rules concerning administrative procedures and the right of access to public documents. In general terms, therefore, as pointed out by several parties since its introduction (Castiello, 1996), the objectives pursued by Law n. 241/1990 were related to a better understanding of the administrative action by the community and the simplification of procedures due to a more rational execution of the action. On the one hand, through this norm the legislator opened the way to a season of simplification and deregulation of administrative procedures which was to find its maximum expression in Law n. 127/1997 (the so-­ called Bassanini II), entitled “Urgent Measures for the streamlining of administrative activity, decision-making processes and control procedures”. The same principle of effectiveness was already present in Law no. 142/1990, as the basis for the renewal of management positions in local authorities. The rule was considered the most important change made by the legislator in the history of the Italian administration (Cassese, 1995), allowing local authorities to effectively assume the position that had been assigned to them in 1948 through Art. 5 of the Italian Constitution.1 Faced with an urgent need for efficient, effective public action in providing services to the citizen, the state reform process took—consistently with what was happening in the same period in other southern European countries—four fundamental lines of action (Bresser Pereira, 1999): . A reduction of regulation in the private sector; 1 2. An increase of the administrative and financial capacity to implement decisions taken at the government level;

1  Article 5 Constitution: “The Republic, one and indivisible, recognizes and promotes local autonomies, implements the most extensive administrative decentralization in the services that depend on the State; adapts the principles and methods of its legislation to the requirements of autonomy and decentralization.”

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3. A redefinition of the limits and spaces of action, through a more precise identification of the activities exclusively attributable to it with respect to those transferable to other forms of business (profit or nonprofit); 4. Investment in institutions capable of ensuring a better intermediation of interests, legitimizing public action and fueling spaces of social control and forms of direct democracy.

4.2.3   Linkages Between the Administrative Reforms of the 1990s, NPM, and Post-NPM After briefly recalling some of the fundamental features of the vast debate within the NPM and the post-NPG movement (see Chap. 1), we can now define the links between these two paradigms. In particular, in the Italian case, not all the variables that have characterized the NPM at an international level can be found (Cepiku & Meneguzzo, 2007). From a brief examination of the intense legislative period of the 1990s, it is possible to reclassify the elements of the reforms (Capano & Gualmini, 2006) with key words such as decentralization, autonomist policies, organizational pluralism, contractualism and managerialism. 1. Decentralization. The decentralization strategy, albeit with ups and downs, has always been the focus of the debate on the reform of the Italian state and has found effective application in the last legislative reform season, through the transfer of powers, responsibilities, and tasks from the central administration of the state to decentralized administrations, in particular to Regional Council and local authority level. The regional response to these new functions in particular was a step in the direction of a greater organizational flexibility, progressively abandoning a functional organizational configuration based on the division of assessor’s tasks, in favor of a divisional configuration (Baldi, 2006), with a distribution of organizational levels generally articulated in the sequence: (a) department, (b) sector, (c) service. Organizational tools such as project units, offices, and coordination roles have also proliferated to better address intersectoral planning problems. The same thing has happened at the level of

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local authorities, where organizational configuration progressively moved toward “decentralized” divisional solutions (Rebora, 1999). This is more evident in the larger realities, in relation to the particular organizational complexity that has progressively characterized them. The partial reconfiguration of decision models is also a common element for both levels of government (regions and local authorities). 2. Autonomist policies and organizational pluralism. In this case we refer to the policies through which the public power decides to “guard” the borders of its own political arena (Capano & Gualmini, 2006: 13) establishing the rules, standards, and principles of action of other public institutions, private profit or no profit. This happens through quasi-market mechanisms to be implemented (contracting-­ out and in contracting-in). In this context, the model of the national and regional authorities (legislative decree n. 469/1997), to which the political power has delegated and is delegating the supervision of the respect of rules within specific sectors, has assumed particular importance (e.g. CONSOB, ISVAP, Antitrust, Guarantor, and AGCOM). These authorities have generally assumed a model of collegial government despite a heterogeneity of the criteria for appointing members (Cavatorto, 2006). . Contractualism. All institutionalized forms of cooperation between 3 Public Administration and other public or private organizational actors can be clustered under the label of “contractualism”. Starting from the first “Bassanini reform”, intergovernmental conferences and interorganizational coordination instruments were established between different levels of government or between government bodies of the same level (Capano & Gualmini, 2006). . Managerialism. Consistent with the principles of organization of 4 the Public Administration that anticipated and “founded” some of the considerations made by the NPM paradigm, Italy has worked to insert mechanisms of accountability and evaluation of organizational resources within the Public Administrations (including human resources), which have already been tried and tested in the context of profit-oriented companies.

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4.3   Determinants and Complexity of the Administrative Change: The Answers of the Italian Legislator 4.3.1  The Determinants and the Dimensions of Complexity Referring to Butler’s (1998) institutional contingent model of organization as a frame of analysis, we sketch an outline of the differences between the current, historically inherited situation and the expected outcomes of the changes brought to bear. In this context, a qualifying element of analysis is the differential of organizational complexity (internal and external) that Public Administrations have been called to manage. In this framework, the decision-making process provides the theory underlying the institutional model used. Specifically (see Fig. 4.1): 1. Decision theory assumes uncertainty as an input variable of design activity. 2. While the uncertainty is in turn a function of:

(a) the complexity and dynamism of the environment in which the organization operates (Mintzberg, 1979);

Context

Organizational Structures

Levels of Uncertainty

Decision makers

Decision-making Models

Fig. 4.1  Uncertainty and organizational planning: The problem of decision-­ making capacity. (Source: Adapted from Hinna, 2009)

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(b) the number, diversity and variability and interdependence of internal or external actors involved in the decision-making process (Butler, 1998; Decastri, 1997). 3. The organizational problem of aligning to the dimensions of uncertainty mentioned above results in an efficient choice of organizational structures and decision-making processes, such as output variables placed between them in a relationship of mutual interdependence.

In order to analyze the structural characteristics and the current and prospective dynamism of the dimensions of causal relations mentioned above (levels of uncertainty, organizational structures, decision models), we will proceed with the identification, analysis, and relation of assumptions and propositions known to organizational studies and essentially attributable to three distinct strands of research already discussed above: 1. “New” public management paradigms (NPM) and public governance (post-NPM), in order to analyze the new dimensions of complexity and dynamism of the environment in which the public organization operates; 2. Participatory decision-making processes, as an evolution of public decision-making models;

New Public Management/ Public Governance

Bureaucratic Organization of Work/ New Public Management

Context

Organizational Structures

Levels of Uncertainty

Decision makers

Decision-making Models Participatory Decision-making Processes

Fig. 4.2  The conceptual framework adopted: Analysis perspectives and objects of investigation. (Source: Adapted from Hinna, 2009)

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3. Classical theories on the bureaucratic organization of work, in order to analyze the characteristics and critical dimensions of the current organizational structures of Public Administrations and to describe spaces and limits of change and innovation of the same. Figure 4.2 outlines this: (a) Complexity and Dynamism Deriving from the NPM and Post-NPM Paradigms The conceptualization of a “governance” problem, and no longer, or not only, of a “government” problem, has had important repercussions on the way decision-making processes are conceived, calling into question the need to implement organizational models capable of mobilizing human resources and institutions in a given territory. Following a public governance perspective, the objective of the administration thus becomes the creation of consensus around certain choices, while the decision-making processes acquire a more open structure, in clear contrast to the rigidity of traditional hierarchical decision models. The governance paradigm is therefore in contrast with the government concept of the NPM paradigm. If in the latter, in fact, the legitimacy of the decision-making authority derives from the formal institutional system, thereby making it exercisable through mandatory tools, the post-NPM paradigm consists in the exercise of formal and/or informal powers with the goal of creating consensus around certain choices. In this perspective, therefore, the Public Administration does not decide autonomously, after consulting other subjects, but is called to determine the criteria and processes for deciding on problems of common interest. The new challenge is to consider the diversity of interests in order to adopt policies and choices capable of converging interests toward mutually acceptable solutions (Borgonovi, 2000). (b) Participatory Decision-Making Processes The arguments developed above clearly define a new relationship between administrators and citizens, whose relational dimension does not seem to be confined exclusively to a generic goal of “customer orientation”, but also involves more procedural dimensions. This offers important insights on the type of decision-making processes that should characterize administrative action. For this reason, therefore, the participation among the

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actors of the public context was one of the key points of the process of Italian administrative reform starting from the early 1990s, in agreement with what the international community was suggesting at that time. Looking at some of the main legislative texts of administrative reform (period 1990–2000), participation emerges as a controversial institution, summarized in three main positions (Ingrassia, 2007): 1. Moment of co-decision, which relies on the case of “administration by agreements” provided by law n. 241/1990 and on the vision of procedure as a place of comparison between public bodies and citizens (where the latter would have the role of enriching the administrators vision with specific information); 2. Instrument of defence of the administered person, or modalities for redeeming disputes and guaranteeing private interests with respect to the possible interference of public power; 3. Institute aimed at establishing a collaboration between the administration and the private sector for “better decisions”. In this sense, the institute becomes functional to the democratization of the decision-­ making process, so that those who are affected by decisions taken by the Public Administration contribute to their concrete formation. Consequently, a substantial change in the organizational models of the Public Administrations becomes necessary so that this transition process can actually take place. (c) Classical Theories on the Bureaucratic Organization of Work In light of the considerations above, it is clear that the new values of dialogue, participation, consensus, and empowerment should enrich, without replacing, those principles of impartiality, equity, and transparency that have represented and still represent the cardinal points of a public administrative action. Considering the organizational theory, the changed context raises important questions about the new optimal configuration of the Public Sector and, above all, the problem of assessing the real capacity of Public Administrations in carrying out the new tasks assigned to them. In fact, many of the innovation processes and contents underlying the principles of NPM and post-NPM cannot avoid a clash with the

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characteristics of the bureaucratic organization of work that are characterized by the following: • An exercise of power bound by rules; • A strong specialization of work governed by rules and regulations; • A stable division of duties and office powers; • A system of general rules which, applied to specific situations, govern decisions and actions, thus guaranteeing uniformity, continuity, and stability in the activities; • Communication (of an impersonal and normative nature) that mainly follows vertical lines; • A strong decision-making centralization and therefore the admissibility of individual actions exclusively molded on preselected behavioral prescriptions; • Impersonality in external and internal relations, so as to avoid subjective interference in the rational fulfilment of office duties. Today, more than ever, these dysfunctions of the bureaucratic organizational system can compromise the effectiveness of the administrative action given the new dimension of complexity in which the Public Administration finds itself operating. 4.3.2  The Implications of Complexity In order to overcome the partial inadequacy of traditional bureaucratic forms in carrying out the new tasks assigned to Public Administrations, NPM theorists have suggested key innovation objectives: 1. The creation of a specific political-social environment, in which the relationship between citizen, businesses, social institutions, and government levels is based on criteria of efficiency, flexibility, responsibility, and transparency; 2. A reconfiguration of the system of relations at an infra-­organizational level and, more generally, to a different and greater quality and quantity of transactions between organization and environment; 3. An increase in the degree of sophistication of the organization of the single administrative entities (Decastri, 2005), combining the basic rules of bureaucracy with the tools aimed at increasing the capacity to manage new levels of information complexity.

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The analysis presented clearly shows how the new legislative system in Italy, which will be described in the next paragraph, must be considered as an element of strong environmental discontinuity that has pushed individual organizations into profound internal changes (Decastri, 2005). In particular, the normative institutionalization (a) of the principle of vertical and horizontal subsidiarity and (b) of the centrality of the user leads to a reconfiguration of the system of relations at the infra-­ organizational level and, more generally, to different and greater qualities and quantities of the transactions between organization and environment, challenging individual administrations to solve unfamiliar problems (Perrow, 1967). Hence the need for a modernization (without abandonment) of the old bureaucratic model through the introduction of organizational mechanisms capable of increasing the degree of sophistication of the organization so as to be able to better face the different tasks assigned to them. For this reason, an evolution toward forms of organization with “widespread intelligence” (Decastri, 2005) is necessary, supporting the basic rules of bureaucracy with the tools aimed at increasing information processing capacity, through an increase in the response capacity of the hierarchical line (to be carried out through structured delegation) and the mechanisms of connection between the different organizational units (Galbraith, 1977). In this way, the passage becomes dynamic—already advocated by significant literature on the subject (Decastri, 2005)—from a mechanical bureaucracy to a professional bureaucracy (Mintzberg, 1979) defined as spurious (i.e. with the strengthening of the techno-structure and the creation of a line of supervision and control). In these terms, therefore, the radical nature of the supposed change is better clarified, to the extent that it inevitably clashes with the political (Mintzberg, 1979) and cultural (Schein, 1990) dimensions of individual organizations. In interpreting this shift from a mechanical bureaucracy to a professional one (spurious), the legislator has interpreted the new management paradigm by insisting on three main areas of organizational action/change: 1. Modification of organizational structures by promoting forms of division of labor based on the decentralization of responsibilities to the basic organizational units and the creation of autonomous managerial units; development of professionalization systems for organizational actors;

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2. Modification of vertical specialization criteria, through the affirmation of the principle of distinction-integration between politics and administration; 3. Introduction or change of new or different functioning mechanisms, borrowing logics and management techniques of private companies, such as for example: integrated management control systems capable of managing results rather than just process dimensions; human resources management systems, with particular reference to performance assessment and risk management systems.

4.3.3  The Reforms of the Italian Legislator The Italian legislator, aware of the dimensions of complexity and dynamism of the internal and external reference context, as well as of the three main areas of action/organizational change summarized in the previous paragraph, proposed a series of reforms in an attempt to adapt public organizations to a model of professional bureaucracy, radically redesigning the regulatory parameters that had historically the regulated status, operating logic and careers of the Public Sector (Sepe et al., 2003). This is the background to the interventions that over the last 25 years have reformed: (a) the relationship between politics and administration (which we have already mentioned in Sect. 4.2.2); (b) public employment, (c) performance management systems; and, finally, (d) the introduction of risk management systems. (a) The Relationship Between Politics and Administration The relationship between politics and administration in Italy has been characterized by a long reformist path that now finds its explanation in a structure that provides a clear distinction between the function of determining political-administrative orientation (direction activity) and the responsibility for the actual performance of the administrative action (management activity). Looking at the normative sources, the distinction between direction activities and management activities was introduced for the first time by law n. 142/1990 within the framework of autonomous local organizations and subsequently codified for all public employees by legislative decree n. 29/1993 (now merged into legislative decree n. 165/2001).

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The passage of the administrative system from a model based on the principle of ministerial responsibility—characterized by the total subordination of management officials to political bodies—to a model inspired by the distinction between politics and administration and, therefore, to the autonomy of managerial functions, was however slow and gradual and was divided into a series of regulatory phases. Further, legislation was subsequently passed in order to tackle issues with application. The main regulations stem from legislative decree n. 165/2001 and law n. 145/2002, which, while they had a profound effect on the relationship between management and government bodies on a structural and organizational level (access, assignment of tasks, mobility, and managerial responsibility), left the provisions relating to the functions exercised unchanged. The system was therefore based (and is still based) on three actors: politicians, managers, and trade unions. The political level is responsible for the functions related to the macro-organization and the definition of the strategic objectives and plans to be implemented. The executives, while executors of the political directives (D’Alessio, 2006), are responsible for the decisions related to the organization of the offices, the measures concerning the management of labor relations with subordinates and the responsibility for the achievement of the assigned objectives. Finally, the unions act as a counterweight in the task of regulating labor relations and trade union relations. It is therefore evident that the political authority has a strictly “political” responsibility, which involves the formulation of decisions on the future of the interventions, based on specific value judgments, establishing the merit of the intervention from the point of view of the contents (what to do), times (when to do it), and resources (how much to invest). The administrative function, on the other hand, has the discretion to choose the operational objectives of these decisions in management terms (how to implement them). This entails a profound transformation of the role of control and verification of the action carried out. It is no longer a question of inspecting, through a control based on hierarchy, the work done by the administration to ascertain compliance with the law. On the contrary, there is a need to identify a form of verification that indicates whether the results have been achieved, whether they have satisfied the recipients, producing the desired effects and, finally, in what manner and at what costs they have

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been achieved. In a word, “verification” is now synonymous with “evaluation”. In view of these objectives, however, we highlight the persistence of a residual publicist regime that characterizes the top-level organization (D’Orta, 2004) of the administrations (the so-called macro-organization), against a generalized private regime that characterizes the low organization (the so-called micro-organization) of labor relations. In short, the various legislative interventions have imposed a clear reduction in the decision-making role of political power, limiting it to the ability to propose and support innovative strategies, without dealing with the operational profiles but only with the overall goals. As a consequence, the administrative function is configured as an organized, but largely discretionary, interaction between the decisions of the politicians and their recipients, the citizens. The effectiveness of administrative action therefore depends on the cognitive and technical capacities available in the administrations, such as the quality of their human resources, the quality and congruity of the technological and financial resources that they are able to acquire, the flexibility of organizational models, and the ability of these organizational models to adapt to the diversity of the tasks to be accomplished. In theory, this separation between political direction and management should have some virtuous effects: • Avoiding interference by politicians in management; • Giving greater autonomy to those who manage the organization; • Encouraging politicians to identify as the social actor defining strategies. (b) Public Employment With the expression “privatization” of the civil service, reference is generally made to the reform implemented in several stages by the legislator in the 1990s (see Table  4.1) (legislative decree n. 29/1993, the so-called first privatization; law n. 59/1997, the so-called second privatization) aimed at bringing the employment relationship of Public Administration employees back under civil (private) law. Currently, legislative decree n. 165/2001 (the so-called consolidated law of the public employment) and the sectoral collective agreements represent the fundamental legal sources of the new privatized employment relationship, even if a conspicuous regulatory production has subsequently intervened to partially modify the

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Table 4.1  Public employment reforms Normative reference

Reform

Legislative decree n. 29/1993 Law n. 59/1997

The so-called First privatization—The “privatization” and “contractualization” reforms. Employment relationship regulated by civil code and national contracts The so-called Second privatization—key words “autonomy”, “decentralization functions”, and “simplification”. Employment ratio based on the logic of efficiency Political-administrative separation, introduction of the spoils system

Legislative decree n. 80/1998 Legislative decree n. 165/2001 Law n. 145/2002 Legislative decree n. 150/2009 Law n. 190/2012 Law n. 114/2014

The so called consolidated law of the public employment. Efficiency promotion, cost rationalization, better use of human resources. Differentiation between macro-organization (publicist regime) and micro-organization (private regime) of the Public Administration Expansion of the spoils system Partial decontracting. Redefinition of relations between law—power of management—collective bargaining; performance measurement and assessment; management interventions; and individual employment regulation Interventions to prevent phenomena of illegality or conflict of interest Simplification, administrative transparency, efficiency, generational change

“consolidated law”, in particular legislative decree n. 150/2009 (the so-­ called Brunetta reform), law n. 190/2012 (the so-called anti-corruption law), and, finally, law decree n. 90/2014 (the so-called Madia decree) (Boscati, 2014). In particular, Art. 1 of legislative decree n. 165/2001 clearly describes the aims of the reform to: • Increase the efficiency of administrations, also through the coordinated development of public information systems; • Rationalize the cost of public labor, containing the total direct and indirect personnel expenditure within the public finance constraints; • Achieve the best use of human resources, ensuring training and professional development of employees, guaranteeing equal opportunities for female and male workers, and applying conditions similar to those applied in the private work.

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Subsequently, with the introduction of law delegation n. 15/2009 and of the following legislative decree n. 150/2009 (the so-called Brunetta reform) the system of trade union relations, the role of management, the reward system, the disciplinary regime and the regulation of collective bargaining in the Public Sector underwent profound innovations. The reformist intervention, expressive of a clear “de-contractualization” of the employment relationship in the Public Administration (Carinci, 2013), was inspired by a need for efficiency, effectiveness, impartiality, meritocracy, and empowerment of civil servants (especially of public managers). These objectives seem to respond to a corporate logic that is actually direct from the law which, based on a complex mechanism aimed at improving services, intends to combine selective rewards and sanctions. The main lines of intervention of the reform are channeled into four pillars: 1. Provisions to redefine the relationship between law, management power, and collective negotiation; 2. Measures aimed at regulating the performance measurement, assessment, and transparency system; 3. Interventions on management; 4. Interventions on the regulation of the individual employment relationship, especially in terms of merit (and remuneration) and disciplinary action. Finally, further changes to the public employment regime have also been made by the most recent legislation. In particular, law n. 190/2012, the so-called anti-corruption law, introduced various legislative changes into legislative decree n. 165/2001 aimed at preventing or suppressing phenomena of illegality or conflicts of interest within the Public Administration. Subsequently, law decree n. 90/2014 (converted into law n. 114/2014) (the so-called Madia decree) brought some further and significant innovations to the public work regime, not so much to improve the functioning of the administration but, rather, to reduce the costs of Public Administration and to improve the distribution of personnel in favor of young people. Linked to the discipline of management, there is the central and delicate issue of the appointment of certain managerial positions by

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politicians. The so-called spoils system is a tool to implement the right of the political authority to orient the activity of the administrations, directing them to the implementation of the political choices taken by the representative authority. The study of the mechanisms of the spoils system enables us to understand and evaluate the relationship of trust between the political body and managers, based on the intuitus personae and on the coherence of the appointee with respect to the political agenda of the political authority. In other words, it is an exception to the general principle of distinction between the political-administrative functions of the political authorities and the administrative management and implementation functions of public managers. The essential trait that distinguishes the ways in which this mechanism is applied in the Italian context with respect to the spoils system typical of the Anglo-Saxon environment is that, in Italy, the assignment is an accessory element with respect to the employment relationship. In fact, starting from law n. 59/1997 and its implementing decree legislative decree n. 80/98, the split between the employment relationship (service relationship) and the organic relationship (organizational relationship) introduced the temporary nature of all management positions. This distinctive aspect is based on the diversity of the Italian discipline with respect to the Anglo-­ Saxon normative framework. Therefore, we speak of “the Italian-approach to the spoils system”, which is impure, in the sense that the termination of the managerial position has no effect on the stability of the employment relationship. In any case, although the mechanisms of spoils system were not—as seen—completely unknown in the Italian context (in addition to the aforementioned legislative decree n. 80/98, reference is made here to the previous Presidential decree n. 748/1972), the formal introduction of the spoils system in Italy from the regulatory point of view occurred with the law n. 145/2002 (the so-called Frattini law). This law, concerning the reorganization of state management, entailed a reformulation of the legislation on public employment, a year after the entry into force of legislative decree n. 165/2001. The new law introduced a wider spoils system for top management positions. Incumbents were to be automatically dismissed from their posts after 90 days from the vote for the new government. This was to guarantee a greater flexibility in the choices of the political authority vis-à-vis management. The law was soon subjected to

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the scrutiny of legitimacy by the Constitutional Court, which declared it to be unconstitutional (sentence 103/2007). Finally, a further widening of the scope of the spoils system in Italy occurred with decree law n. 262/2006 (converted into law n. 286/2006), through which all the executive positions for top management or experts were also subject to the spoils system. The law, therefore, now concerns all external managers as well as managers dependent on other administrations. (c) New Performance Management Systems With reference to performance management systems, legislative decree n. 29/1993 can be considered the first, albeit generic, reference to the Table 4.2  Planning, programming, and control reforms in Italy Normative reference

Reform

Legislative decree n. 29/1993 Law n. 20/1994

Political-administrative separation. Introduction of the concepts of efficiency, effectiveness, economy, quality Reform of the Court of Auditors, which extends its mandate to include a check on results Internal controls in local authorities

Legislative decree n. 77/1995 Legislative decree n. 80/1998 Legislative decree n. 286/1999 Legislative decree n. 150/2000 Legislative decree n. 267/2000 Law n. 448/2001 Legislative decree n. 165/2001 Law n. 145/2002 Legislative decree n. 150/2009 Law n. 190/2012 Law n. 213/2012 Decree law n. 90/2014 Legislative decree n. 74/2017

Political-administrative separation, introduction of the spoils system Introduction of managerial controls, including strategic control Administration-citizen relationship Internal controls in local authorities Outsourcing of public services Review of the provisions of legislative decree n. 29/1993 concerning internal controls Expansion of the spoils system Performance management and CiVIT creation. Optimization of public work productivity and efficiency and transparency of Public Administrations Internal control measures aimed at anti-corruption Review of internal controls for local authorities Creation of ANAC Performance management regulatory review

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obligation to adopt managerial controls, strategic planning, and performance management in central Public Administrations (Cepiku, 2018) (see Table 4.2). The legislative decree reaffirmed the principle of management by objectives in line with the “new” concepts of efficiency, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of administrative action for all Public Administrations. In addition, it established evaluation units, or services of internal control, with the task of “verifying, through a comparative assessment of costs and returns, the achievement of the objectives, the correct and economic management of public resources, the impartiality and the good performance of the administrative action” (Art. 20). However, the provisions of legislative decree n. 29/1993 failed to be fully implemented (Hinna, 2005); therefore, a second intervention by the legislator (legislative decree n. 286/1999) was necessary to clarify and systematize the issue, defining general organizational principles and leaving to the single administrations the task of equipping themselves with the appropriate organizational tools functional to four distinct (but integrated) types of internal control (Cerulli Irelli & Luciani, 2002; Monteduro, 2005): 1. Administrative and accounting regularity check (Art. 2), in order to guarantee the correctness of administrative action; 2. Management control (Art. 4), in order to verify the effectiveness, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of the administrative action to optimize the relationship between costs and results, including through timely correction interventions; 3. Assessment of personnel, using the results of management control to assess the performance of personnel with managerial qualifications. This is undertaken not only in relation to their specific functions and, therefore, in relation to the results achieved with respect to the established objectives, but also with regard to their “ability to develop the professional and human resources assigned to them” (Art. 5); 4. Strategic assessment and control, concerning the adequacy of the choices made when implementing plans, programs, and other tools for determining the political direction, in terms of consistency between results achieved and predefined objectives. This is a control activity that responds directly to the authorities of political direction who are also in charge of assessing the performance of the managers responsible for implementing ministerial directives.

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Beyond the quadripartition of internal controls, legislative decree n. 268/1998 brings substantial innovations to the system of internal controls compared to the past, aiming for a more unambiguous legitimization of the economic-corporate approach (Borgonovi, 2005). Despite the conceptual framework just described, the attempt of legislative decree n. 286/99 to redesign a new approach to strategic planning failed in terms of full implementation during the following decade, this legislative decree n. 150/2009 (the so-called Brunetta reform) was passed in an attempt to remedy the situation by explicitly introducing a link between internal control systems, performance evaluation, financial planning systems, and strategic planning systems (which the reform defines as the “performance cycle”). In this sense, the “Brunetta reform” seems to represent the logical evolution of the transformations that have affected the Public Administration since 1990 and that have placed new general principles of action at the base of the functioning of public offices. The reform did not completely rewrite legislative decree n. 286/1999, limiting itself to repealing some provisions, but did introduce innovative elements aimed at overcoming the dysfunctions of the existing control system, thus enhancing the mechanisms (Hinna, 2009). The “Brunetta reform” aimed to improve the quality of public services, the growth of professional skills, the transparency of the results of Public Administrations and the resources used to pursue them. In this sense, the concept of performance described above is probably the great novelty of the reform. Performance is considered as the contribution that a specific entity—individual, group of individuals, organizational unit, organization, program, or public policy—makes through its action toward the achievement of goals and objectives that have the satisfaction of public needs as a reference point. Performance management is a process that is divided into specific phases and ends with a precise output that can be considered the management output. These phases constitute the performance cycle that develops through macro areas, such as the following: • Planning; • Measurement; • Evaluation; • Control and possible replanning of the subsequent management cycle or in the same cycle, if deviations between the recorded results compared to the programmed objectives are too significant and not tolerable.

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The complexity of the cycle is directly proportional to the articulation of the dimensions that the performance wants to capture. The reform introduces, in contrast to the one-dimensional historical approach anchored to expenditure as a single input dimension, the multidimensionality of performance, referring both to its concept of amplitude and depth. Amplitude means not only the input but also the output and the outcome, transparency and integrity, and so on. Depth means the entire organization, the individual organizational units that comprise it, managers, groups of employees, and individuals. In short, the organizational and individual performance. In particular, the areas of measurement and assessment of organizational performance emphasize the characteristics of multidimensionality, such as the following: • The impact of activated policies on the final satisfaction of the community’s needs; • The implementation of plans and programs; • Detection of the degree of satisfaction of the recipients of the activities and services; • The modernization and qualitative improvement of organization and professional skills and the ability to implement plans and programs; • The qualitative and quantitative development of relations with citizens, stakeholders, and the users/recipients of services; • Efficiency in the use of resources; • Achievement of the objectives of promoting equal opportunities. Legislative decree n. 74/2017 and its subsequent “guidelines” were in line with legislative decree n. 150/2009. The only significant innovations were the following: 1. The link between corporate strategic objectives and general public policy objectives; 2. The recovery of the relevance of organizational, as compared to individual, performance. (d) Introduction of Risk Management Systems The first real reference to risk assessment and management in public organizations emerges, once again, from legislative decree n. 150/2009. In this sense, the use of risk management systems (henceforth, RM) is considered fundamental for a dual order of reasons:

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1. Since risk is an element of disturbance to the achievement of objectives, managing it correctly means essentially protecting the achievement of strategic objectives; 2. The consideration of a particular risk, that of nontransparency, is absolutely necessary for the preparation of “transparency and integrity plan”, which all administrations had to develop (as we will see later on, this plan will be exceeded by the obligation to draft a “three-year plan for preventing corruption and transparency” which, moreover, will adopt the same logic). With reference to the second point, Public Administrations had to define initiatives aimed at guaranteeing legality and a culture of integrity in two main aspects: corruption risk management (controlled through prevention policies based on RM techniques) and dissemination of the culture of integrity within administrations, through the adoption of tools such as codes of conduct, awareness-raising actions, training on ethical leadership, and so on. Subsequently, with the reform initiated by law n. 190/2012, aimed at preventing the phenomenon of corruption in Italy, the legislator chose to adopt a multilevel governance model where anti-corruption and integrity policies are promoted and implemented by Public Administrations both at national and at decentralized level. Specifically, the Italian Legislator charged the “National Anti-Corruption Authority” (henceforth, ANAC) with the preparation of the National Anti-Corruption Plan (henceforth, PNA) as a key instrument of the corruption prevention policy. According to the provisions of law n. 190/2012, the PNA now represents the methodological guideline document that each Italian administration is required to follow for the elaboration of its own strategy to prevent the risk of corruption. More specifically, each administration is tasked with the development of the “Three-Year Corruption and Transparency Prevention Plan” (henceforth, PTPCT), which is to be adopted based on an analysis and assessment of corruption risks. As anticipated, the drafting of the PTPCTs has superseded the previous “transparency and integrity plans” required under legislative decree n. 150/2009. The reform follows a logic of going beyond mere compliance with regulations. On the contrary, greater efficiency and effectiveness of administrative action is considered as the main tool for reducing the risk corruption, defined not only as criminal conduct but, more generally, as incorrect behavior in which the exercise of public function is placed at the service of

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special interests. In this perspective, the development of RM systems, to which the regulatory impulse aimed at preventing fraudulent behavior within organizations contributes, clearly represents the most congenial tool among prevention models. The implementation of the RM system must be preceded by an implementation plan that includes both the phase of analysis and organizational planning, and the articulation of the phases of the management process, from experimentation to full implementation. This plan should include at least the following steps: 1. Organizational analysis and planning (mandate, resources, policy, responsibility, reporting, and system review); 2. Monitoring and reviewing of the system; 3. Assessment of the risk of corruption (risk assessment), which in turn includes the phases of:

(a) Identification of corruption risks; (b) Analysis (measurement of the probability and impact of the identified risks); (c) Weighting of the same and related definition of intervention priorities; 4. Identification and implementation of specific prevention measures developed in order of priority; 5. Communication of the risk management plan and consultation of internal and external stakeholders; 6. Reporting and monitoring of treatment measures.

Therefore, the Italian legislator has chosen the path of “empowerment” of the single administrations in the management of the corruption risk within their organizational perimeters, offering their support through the PNA principles that are inferred from international RM standards, in particular ISO 31000: 2009. The objective is to promote an overall coherence of the system at national level and at the organizational level of every single administration, thus trying to progressively update the PNA and, therefore, the methodological indications contained therein, also on the basis of the elements that will emerge in the practices of the individual administrations, as well as in the implementation of their PTPCT. In this sense, the policies of prevention of corruption concern areas of intervention that cannot be confined only to the improvement of the

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management and control systems of the individual administrations (as the reforms typical of NPM would tend to do). Conversely, the quality of the internal operating systems of the single administrations (control and risk management systems) represents a necessary condition for an effective policy to prevent illegal behavior, thus integrating (and supporting) a prevention policy of the risk of corruption in the country. In summary, strengthening the link between governance and the management of anti-corruption policies implies the need for systemic coordination between macro-level policies (country) and meso-level policies (single organizations), requiring adequate risk management systems and implementation processes that each administration should implement to prevent corruption. In this framework, it seems appropriate to highlight how the implementation of complex prevention policies in the Italian context is therefore not attributable to a peculiarity of the governance model adopted but to implementation expectations at the level of the single Public Administration. In fact, this complexity is linked to the high level of responsibility and involvement expected from the organizational actors within the single organizations. On this level, a very ambitious choice was made (Ceschel, Hinna, & Scarozza, 2016) which has few equals in international practices. This model attributes a central role to the individual organizational actors involved, who are responsible for the prevention of corruption and transparency (the “risk managers”) and, above all, to the managers or officials responsible for offices or activities that are considered the “risk owners” of the RM system.

4.4   Current Challenges The results of the analysis show that Italian Public Administrations have been under constant reform (Capano, 2000; Ongaro, 2011) from the beginning of the 1990s. These reforms have affected almost all areas of public management, from financial management to human resources, from organizational structures to the decentralization of responsibilities between levels of government. The agenda of political reforms was evidently inspired by the NPM, although the reforms themselves have outlined a different model, in which the imperative of representative democracy, key to the Weberian model, has remained substantially valid, evolving to include a set of citizen participation systems (Cepiku & Meneguzzo, 2011), in the wake of the principles of post-NPM.

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Looking at the changes stemming from the reforms since the 1990s, we see that Public Administrations have been affected by a “cascade” movement that actually originates in the national and international environment, influencing both legislation and the definition of the strategy and, only at the end, finds clarification in the implementation of the same strategy within the individual structures. In this sense, the passage from a “manager” state to a “regulatory” state, or even a state with only “strategic” functions (as in the exemplary case of the corruption prevention strategy, law n. 190/2012), is based on the assumption that the single administrations introduce innovative plans and management methods into their organizational reality, definitively undermining the traditional public decision-making apparatus. In terms of intensity, the transition process has significantly transformed administrative action, prompting single administrations to implement “reactive” changes (Consiglio, 2000)—as a “response” to changes in environmental conditions of which the reform has become an interpreter. These changes also present a “radical” nature, with the introduction of management models aimed at a greater organizational flexibility, economic efficiency, and quality of service, which influence the entire organizational system, modifying its basic characteristics (Hinna, 2009). In the face of such a profound change in terms of content and intensity, the “new” organizational model is clearly still in a phase of complete definition and, above all, implementation. Which organizational configuration can or should represent the new “ideal type” of public organization? To what extent can the characteristics of the bureaucratic organization of work be challenged? And above all, once the basic organizing principles have been defined, what constraints and what levers will lead the expected organizational change? If the legislator, on the one hand, and the theoreticians of the NPM and the post-NPM, on the other, seem to have a clear path to follow, the question to ask is how much and to what extent these innovations are, or could be, effectively introduced in organizations of a still—substantially— bureaucratic type. Although necessary, the suggested innovations are in fact difficult to achieve, addressing problems related to the capacity that administrations have to defend their autonomy from environmental pressures. In this sense, the new and composite regulatory context inevitably pushes to analyze the dynamics and processes of change underlying the introduction of the reforms previously exposed in a coherent contextual

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paradigm (Borgonovi, 2005), in which the formal quality of the rules— rather than concerning specific aspects have defined principles, criteria, rules of general conduct, and instruments to enforce them. This is an important but not unique element, also requiring specific conditions that concern the system of actors and internal and external relations to individual administrations more generally. Consistently, what has emerged from the analysis leads to the identification of a deeper “object” of change within the internal actors and in their relationship systems, which indirectly gives greater importance to the contribution that each individual is called to make to the functioning of the organizational system. Not surprisingly, in the last decade more and more authors in the academic field have studied organizational change adopting a so-called human-resource based theoretical perspective, which is useful for a better description and interpretation of the role of the organizational actors involved in the dynamic process of change. In particular, an attention to the actors of change and their role has significantly increased in recent years (Molineux, 2013). If over ten years ago Fernandez and Rainey (2006) identified managerial leaders as a dominant role of impulse and direction to change, in the most recent managerial literature we highlight significant innovations related to the role of the organizational actors involved in the processes of change. Anticipating this trend, Currie (2000) had investigated, for example, how middle managers could influence change. Subsequently, collecting various suggestions from the reference literature, Buchanan (2003) was one of the first to propose the concept of “diffused agents” of change, delving into how “static change role taxonomies do not appear to reflect the fluidity of strategic change driving roles” (Buchanan, 2003). Looking at more recent works, Stummer and Zuchi (2010) underlined the need for an explicit differentiation between roles, programs and change projects to reach a real organizational transformation, as well as a clear cost-benefit analysis deriving from the assignment of multiple roles to the actors involved. Agostino, Arena, and Arnaboldi (2013) have instead explored the role of the so-called mediators, primarily the middle managers involved in the implementation of change projects, in their function as “bridges” between the strategic objectives defined by the leaders and the working reality of public officials.

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Moreover, other agents of change not belonging to the managerial sector emerge from an analysis the literature. For example, Asquer (2015) investigated the role of temporary workers as they are able to develop new organizational practices. Kidron (2016) highlighted the key role played by internal auditors, and, finally, Kuna (2017) attributed an essential function to external consultants in identifying obstacles in the implementation phases of reforms. All these new actors show different degrees of participation in the processes of change and different functions so that they cannot be included in a single and rigid category. Consistently with what has been said so far, various authors have begun to explore the strategic role interpreted by the function of human resource management (HRM) in organizational change initiatives. In this sense, Cunningham and Kempling (2009) were one of the first who made explicit reference to the need for enhancing the HRM structures to favor the process of change as an essential element of institutionalization. Rees and Johari (2010) have also focused their analysis on the effectiveness of HRM systems by identifying the main challenges that professionals in human resource management should address as strategic facilitators of change processes. The relationship between “change management” and “people management” is therefore increasingly evident in HRM studies, as well as organizational development and human resources (Rees & Johari, 2010). On this theme, Ellis (2007, p. 32) highlighted how the barriers between human resource management and change management are becoming “increasingly blurred” as a direct result of an “inherent shift by HR professionals to a strategic dimension”. It is against this background that the challenge of the reform of the Italian Public Administration should be measured today. The legislative progress of the 1990s and its constant updates lead us to consider the “season of norms” to have come to an end, albeit always perfectible. But the rule, as we know, is certainly a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition for a renewal of the ways of organizing and managing the Public Sector work. Content and intensity of expected changes require actions on policies and management systems of human resources, defining a key role of HRM departments in supporting and developing the relational skills of managers needed to promote cultural changes in the workplace in which they operate. This reflection is as urgent as it is still unripe and, perhaps, represents a real challenge for an apparent but substantial renewal of the Italian Public Administration to date.

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CHAPTER 5

The Key Role of the SNA in Promoting Organizational Change and Competencies Development Sonia Moi and Anna Maria Massa

5.1   Introduction Developing an effective, competent, and forward-looking public service is one of the greatest challenges public organizations face today. This chapter aims to explain the role that central administrations play in promoting organizational and competencies development. Almost 30 years have passed since the issue of Italian Legislative Decree 29/93, the legislative provision that marked a discontinuity of historical significance, at least in its intentions, initiating a process of profound renewal in the way the Italian Public Administration worked and was organized. The decree also marked the beginning of a long season of investigations and studies on a scientific level, innumerable debates, infinite experimentations, and various initiatives fostering change.

S. Moi (*) • A. M. Massa Italian National School of Administration (SNA), Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. Decastri et al. (eds.), Organizational Development in Public Administration, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43799-2_5

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We focus on the educational and research institutions which played a key role in leading to relevant organizational change by proposing the case of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA) as a representative example. The School is placed under the supervision of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and it is a high-level training and research institution that aims to support, promote, and facilitate the process of innovation in Italian Public Administrations and the development of its reforms. Its mission is to carry out training activities of excellence for public employees, with the support of research activities, in order to promote a culture of effectiveness and efficiency in Public Administration, to disseminate methods of management control and economic accounting, and to implement technological and innovation processes in services provided by the central Public Administration. Over the last few years, the SNA has supported Italian Public Administration in successfully tackling the organizational change resulting from recent reforms, contributing to the development and dissemination of a competency approach for public employees. The SNA works in cooperation with the Italian Public Administration contributing to the development of Human Resources Management (HRM) practices according to a competency approach. In particular, the School selects and recruits managers and civil servants for central Public Administrations, provides training for public employees, develops research programmes for the Public Administration, public policies, and the public economy, and provides technical assistance for the implementation of reform and innovation programmes. Particular attention is paid to senior public managers, recognized as a strategic leverage for the competitiveness of the whole Italian public system. The SNA ensures a constant and highly competitive channel of recruitment for public managers and pays attention to the development of training methods that are increasingly adequate both for the context and for people. In this perspective, this chapter also illustrates the SNA’s increasing commitment in the development of new approaches and training methods for the growth of knowledge and competencies for public managers, starting from an analysis of any gap in competencies. Finally, the chapter will deal with partnerships between the SNA and other national administrations in order to design intervention paths increasingly focused on the needs of the Public Administration. Public Administrations need innovative plans based on the constantly evolving external scenario that determines their training and learning requirements;

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the School therefore liaises with these structures in order to trace together the educational path to be followed.

5.2   How Public Entities Lead to Organizational Development The process of consolidating modern Public Administration systems has passed through the widespread adoption of Weber’s “bureaucratic model” (Fry & Raadschelders, 2013; Rokkan, Flora, Kuhnle, & Urwin, 1999; Weber, 1961). The organization of the administrative machine according to the bureaucratic paradigm has determined a clear prevalence of the institutional dimension over the company dimension and on the related functional principles. This imbalance has strongly influenced the characteristics of traditional organizational models and personnel policies that have characterized the phases of establishment and consolidation of the current Public Administration system. From the structural point of view, the adoption of the bureaucratic model has traditionally produced a strong segmentation of administrative processes in rigidly proceduralized phases and an aggregation of tasks according to technical-operational homogeneity or based on the attribution of ownership of the acts-related formalities (Niskanen, 2017). The bureaucratic approach to administration is based on a rigidly sequential logic: the focus is more on the procedural correctness of the single operations than on the coherence of the relationships that exist between them. The rationality and functionality of these relationships are considered a corollary of the correctness of the procedures that govern the individual phases. This leads to a strongly self-referential model, poorly oriented to objectives, and, therefore, not very responsive to deviations from expected or socially desirable results. The application of the bureaucratic paradigm to the administrative system has undeniably generated malfunctions and recurrent organizational pathologies (Raniolo, 2012). As the levels of complexity grew, the bureaucratic paradigm, which lends itself to governing the functioning of companies operating in conditions of relative simplicity, became increasingly inefficient and ineffective. Starting from the 1990s, in the face of the radical transformations in inter-institutional and financial relations between the various levels of

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supranational, national, regional, and local government, the institutional set-up and the general state model paradigms changed completely. These mainly exogenous changes were combined with the internal renewal processes of local authorities, more direct expression of new requests and needs of the reference communities. The strong pressure towards change in the 1990s is therefore the result of two converging top-down pressures (constraints of belonging to supranational aggregations, for example, the European Union, and instances of revision of the state model, such as decentralization) and bottom-up processes (demand for more direct control and greater transparency regarding the use of public resources, progressive shifting of the competitive centre of gravity to the level of local economic systems, new demands and needs connected to the acceleration of general economic and social changes, or globalization processes, e-economy, etc.). The reorganization interventions of the 1990s marked a moment of significant discontinuity with respect to the incremental and highly inertial logic that had inspired the first organic restructurings activated within Public Administrations since the end of the 1970s. In this new perspective the Public Sector, as an efficient service delivery tool, does not differ to a large extent from the private sector and can be administered according to the management criteria typical of private companies and the competitiveness logic (Van de Walle & Hammerschmid, 2011). The rationalization of the organizational structure foresees that human resources become the fundamental resources around which all the others revolve and the creative and innovation capacity assumes a fundamental role within public organizations (Thompson, 2011). For this reason, it becomes desirable to create modern forms of organization capable of enhancing the autonomy and the creative spirit of the staff through methods such as, for example, listening, competencies training, and building a common purpose and a shared culture. The organizational development of Public Administrations is therefore a very recent process, whose definition is not even defined in some circumstances. Cummings and Worley (2005) defined it this way: “organizational development is a system-wide application and transfer of behavioural science knowledge to the planned development, improvement, and reinforcement of the strategies, structures and processes that lead to organization effectiveness” (pp. 6–7), while other definitions emphasize technology, research, problem-solving, planned interventions, data collection, diagnosis, and so on. One example is Carnevale (2005):

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“organizational development manifests a normative, re-educative education philosophy because it encourages individuals and groups to re-­ examine core values, beliefs, and operating assumptions about themselves, other people, and the way their organizations function” (pp. 1–2). The “from government to governance” (Peters & Pierre, 1998) formula indicates precisely this process of weakening the traditional bases of political power and the government’s ability to govern public institutions in favour of actions and practices performed together by a plurality of actors (public and private, national, and supranational) in order to formulate and field public policies (Mayntz, 2006; Rhodes, 2000). Public Administrations are often pushed to transformation through radical changes that involve organizational restructuring, downsizing/ delayering, redesigning roles, technological innovation, and business process reengineering. Equally often, however, these reforms dwindle into marginal adjustments to the established models of functioning, which prove capable of a high degree of rigidity and resistance capacity. This circumstance then moves the focus of the analysis from the content and type of change devised to that of the resources needed to activate it. Indeed, for the success of a change programme it is necessary to guarantee learning competencies, change capabilities, and development of professional competencies throughout the organizational structure. The result of the change, in fact, normally takes place in a path that simultaneously involves the dimension of learning, that of the development of resources and that of the management of power (Burnes, 2004). No renewal can materialize in an organizational and administrative system without the activation of dedicated and participatory learning mechanisms which, in addition to creating the premises for new models of work organization, contribute to the redefinition of existing power systems. This is because the “dominant coalitions” will naturally tend to channel the efforts and contents of the learning systems towards already consolidated situations or towards their own interests and objectives. The involvement of human resources therefore represents one of the most complex aspects from the point of view of how change is governed. The development of the organizational action is fed, in fact, both by well-­ defined objectives and tasks explicitly declared and by emotional aspects, most often unconscious, which constitute what some authors define the “shadow zone” of the organizations. In this regard, over the years a new concept of training has taken hold: this is gradually overcoming the view of training as a mere formality or

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obligatory passage to be eligible for promotion, but rather a real operating system of personnel management, aimed at both development and maintaining strategic knowledge and competencies within the organization, defining growth professionalism paths for individual public employees. In particular, three training challenges have been identified: (i) meeting the demand for new competencies deriving from the modernization of the Public Administration, from the needs of businesses and citizens, and from the need to better qualify the currently existing profiles (the training must be supported by updated analyses of missing professional profiles and analysis of the need to retrain staff); (ii) the computerization of Public Administration and its consequent reorganization; and (iii) the management reform, to be supported with a system of high-level continuing education provision. The international context allows to deepen and interpret these interventions more effectively, in light of the important dichotomies and contradictions that science and managerial practice have highlighted in the implementation phases. The most successful interventions, in fact, are conceived in a clear strategic framework (mission) and take on the logic of (incremental or radical) change of the work processes in which the public action takes place (Burnes, 2004). The will and a strong need to “rationalize” expenses are not, in fact, sufficient, over time, to permanently affect the actual functioning of the administrations. The organizational literature, in fact, highlights the characteristics of the different strategic approaches to change, the conditions that make these approaches more coherent and therefore successful, the roles that must be guaranteed in the transition process, and above all the resistances of the management. According to these theoretical approaches in the processes of change, first of all, in any change management process, the essential background that creates the conditions for the real success of change is the existence and sharing of a vision (Kettinger & Grover, 1995). A vision of the future for an administration that invests in change is necessarily characterized by a managerial culture made up of clear timing for carrying out the interventions, subjects to be involved in different types of partnerships and initiatives, costs and benefits to be negotiated in preliminary or during programme management. A mature vision of the path of change can contribute to the creation of a common base of knowledge, of legitimacy, and of commitment between the actors involved in the project, thus attenuating the inevitable resistances. Furthermore, a robust programming phase is needed, a phase, that is, in which the specific objectives

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of the change are interpreted, modelled, and calibrated, with respect to the specific structural and relational conditions for the necessary harmonization between the different organizational configurations (Bridges, 2009). The development and success of change is therefore closely linked to the quality of the context that promotes it, which must be able, beyond rhetorical statements, to internalize the signals and pressures towards a new strategic and operational condition; but, as already noted, it also derives from the sensitivities and the degree of attention given to the topic of change management and to the instrumentality necessary for its management. The traditional set of theories on change management has proven to be more attentive to the strictly technical-managerial aspects, with a strong focus on the types of change, on the management methods of the decision-making variables, and on the possible actions to be implemented to better guide the transformation paths. Change is often presented in these approaches as something objective, voluntary, and impartial, or rather a useful tool to solve a specific problem and to favour a better functioning of the organizations (Jones, 2013; Kotter, 2011). In fact, despite the importance of the programming processes already noted, the really essential resource in any change management process often proves to be managerial competencies in managing “emerging” organizational models. The manager’s sensitivity and competencies are essential to interpret these models and to have a lasting impact on the operating characteristics of the administrations and, therefore, also on their actual levels of expenditure. Competencies and behaviours must combine professionalism in the conduct of change and in the preparation of supporting managerial tools, but they must also have marked distinctive traits of leadership and negotiating competencies (Moran & Blauth, 2007). In conclusion, change and innovation are today the themes that underlie the survival of all organizations. The future is not predictable, yet it is possible to try to anticipate it. The choice that the Public Administration is called upon to make is between the rigid stability of a past already experienced and the flexible mutability of a future yet to be discovered: bureaucratic and hierarchical management models on the one hand, and simil-market logics and results orientation on the other. In this context, public entities play a fundamental role and this chapter aims to identify their objectives, since education and research institutions are the actors leading to a relevant organizational change for Public Administrations. To decipher the future, it is necessary to elaborate new schemes to interpret the present to move in a reality that appears increasingly

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complex. As successful organizations show, in those that have been able to build this collective commitment, change is now a structural dimension of becoming rather than, as was long believed, an occasional and exceptional phenomenon. The awareness is by now consolidated that in very dynamic and turbulent environments every organization (be it a company, a Public Administration, or a local territorial system) must constantly react or anticipate continuous pushes to change, counter threats, and exploit opportunities to avoid the risk of succumbing. Today the problem is to understand how public entities are able to learn, that is, to change themselves and their way of interacting with their environment. In the Public Sector, for some years now, an irreversible movement is under way that pushes every single administration to give itself an identity and to enhance its specificity and its role in the area of competence, implementing processes of internal transformation and openness/adaptation to their environment. Therefore, in the following paragraphs we propose the case of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA): it is a representative example of the development and dissemination of a competency approach for public employees and managers, so we will illustrate the increasing commitment of the SNA in the development of new training methods for the growth of knowledge and competencies of public managers and the partnerships between the SNA and other national administrations in order to design intervention paths increasingly focused on the needs of the Public Sector.

5.3   New Training Methodologies for Competencies Development Training, and the role of Schools of Government in providing training, is important in order to develop specific knowledge and the competencies of public servants. In fact, the idea that productivity and efficiency in managing human resources need to be increased has recently gained a widespread acceptance not only in private firms, but also in Public Sector organizations (Sliter, Bouchard, & Bellemare, 2005). In the Public Sector, human capital takes on a pivotal role in administrative effectiveness and quality, and therefore is key to the success of public machinery functioning (Bonder, Bouchard, & Bellemare, 2011; Wu, 2013). Following globalization and ongoing political, economic, technological, and environmental changes,

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public entities have begun to perceive the need to re-evaluate their human resources development policies, in order to operate in a more efficient, responsible, and responsive way (Bonder et al., 2011). This is why scholars and practitioners of the human resource development field in the Public Sector have begun to place an increased emphasis on a relatively new approach to human resource management, namely, competency-based training (Lee & Kozman, 2010). Competency-based training involves training public servants around the competency profile required for the work task to be performed (American Society for Training & Development, 2000; Wu, 2013). Taking the cue from the literature, the term “training” here refers to the development of those individual knowledge, competencies, and attitudes required of all employees who hold a certain job role (Wu, 2013), while the term “competency” comprises the specification of knowledge, skills, and abilities required to achieve that competency standard for the performance of a certain job role (Wu, 2013). In other words, “competency-based training” aims not only to enhance employees’ competency set needed to carry out their job well, but also to clarify that competency set needed for success across all jobs in the organization (Bonder et al., 2011; Lee & Kozman, 2010; Wu, 2013). Against this backdrop, Schools of Government are likely to play an important role in ensuring that competency-based training is in place within the Public Sector. More specifically, in order to develop effective competency-based training, Schools of Government are called upon to conduct a “competency gap analysis”. From a literature review, it is possible to identify several suggestions and methodologies on how competency gap analysis, and thus competency-based training, can be realized. Rossett (1995) suggests to first examine the current state of performance and finally to define the desired state of performance, with the gap between the states characterizing training needs. Instead, Misanchuk (1984) proposes to conduct a competency gap analysis through identification of the competency of individuals to perform a task, recognition of knowledge, skills, and abilities for the job role, and collection of the individual’s desire to undertake training. Lee and Kozman (2010) describe the competency-­ based training methodology through a seven-step process covering the identification of a critical body of competencies for a certain job position, the identification of the competency level an employee should be performing at for a particular position, data collection on the current state of performance and on the actual competency gaps, and finally the proposal of training solutions. Wu (2013), instead, identifies five factors as critical

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success factors in competency-based training processes: (1) the alignment with the organization’s strategic goal and plans; (2) the presence of an organizational performance system; (3) the competency model development; (4) the individual competency gap; (5) the training on the gap. As widely demonstrated in literature (Kampelmann & Rycx, 2012; Quintini, 2011; Sims, Veres, & Heninger, 1989; Verhaest & Omey, 2006), inadequate design of a competency-based training programme or implementation of a training not properly aligned with the organization’s needs and competency requirements and gaps is costly on a number of fronts, including workers’ earnings, job satisfaction, job turnover and productivity, employees’ retraining, and their organizations’ performance, efficiency, effectiveness. In other words, the approach refers to the identification of the measure of the gap between the competencies required and those actually owned by employees, with the aim of highlighting the areas on which the individual is adequate to the expectations of the position held, those in which they exceed, and those in which investment in terms of development is required. In these terms, the approach allows not only for possible gaps, but it may help to formulate the “development plans” for those missing competencies needed to perform the role. Operatively, the starting point is the clear identification of competencies, in terms of general knowledge, specific knowledge, and behavioural competencies needed to perform a certain role. It is also necessary to develop an evaluation method in order to observe and measure the existing gap (if any). The measurement of any gap found provides useful information to understand: • which competencies are adequately owned by the individual who holds a specific position; • which competencies are not adequately owned by the individual who holds a specific position that are instead needed for those position and require an investment in terms of development. Again, in a context of scarce resources, this approach makes it possible to address the training activity and the development interventions on paths suited to the real needs of individuals. In short, under the competency-based training approach, each public servant can be assessed to find the gap between the knowledge and competencies they need and the knowledge and competencies they already

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have. The difference between the two represents the so-called competency gap. Training then needs to be developed to help Public Sector personnel acquire the missing competencies and fill the gap. Focusing on the training approach, the function of Schools of Government has to be much broader than merely imparting knowledge. The complex competency required of today’s Public Sector human resources cannot be developed or improved only through traditional, single modality approaches to training. In fact, according to the previous sentence, there are two theories on learning approaches: pedagogy versus andragogy. According to Knowles, Holton, and Swanson (2005), pedagogy is derived from the Greek words paid, meaning “child” (the same stem from which “pediatrics” comes) and agogus, meaning “leader of”. Thus, pedagogy literally means the art and science of teaching children. Thus, the pedagogical model assigns to the teacher full responsibility for making all decisions about what will be learned, how it will be learned, when it will be learned, and if it has been learned. It is teacher-directed education, leaving to the learner only the submissive role of following a teacher’s instructions (Knowles et al., 2005, p. 61). In other words, the pedagogical theory assumes that the student will simply learn what they have been told (McGrath, 2009). The andragogical model starts from different assumptions. Synthesizing Knowles’ et al. (2005) model, adults in learning: • need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it; • need to start from their experience; • are life-centred (or task-centred or problem-centred) in their orientation to learning. Adults are motivated to learn to the extent that they perceive that learning will help them perform tasks or deal with problems that they confront in their life situations. Furthermore, they learn new knowledge, understandings, competencies, values, and attitudes most effectively when they are presented in the context of application to real-life situations. These assumptions lead us to conclude that adult training requires different approaches from the traditional one; in line with this hypothesis, the basic assumption is that children and adults learn differently. In other words, according to Silberman (2006), integrating Confucius’ assumption, the principle is that “When I only hear, I forget. When I hear and see,

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I remember a little. When I hear, see, and ask questions and discuss with someone else, I begin to understand. When I hear, see, question, discuss, and do, I acquire knowledge and skill. When I teach someone, I master whatI have learned” (p. 2). There are many approaches and training techniques. For example, lectures, brainstorming, demonstrations, role play, case studies, simulations, observation, exercises, games, group discussions, and so on. Every approach and technique is suited to different needs and tries to achieve certain goals. In line with the andragogical model and Silberman’s assumption, experienced-­based learning seems to be more in line with development of adults’ competencies. For example, as proved by Pillay (2010), training programmes, which are focused on a predominantly formal and didactic approach, are found to have a minimal impact on competency levels of public health managers. In contrast, the authors showed that public managers are more likely to improve their knowledge and competencies by means of training programmes based mainly on an experiential approach, which may include mentoring and coaching, networking with colleagues, and in-house programmes. These new and creative approaches thus seem to have the benefit of tailoring training to practices and issues relevant within an institution, of exploring issues in a non-threatening environment, of increased acceptability and convenience to participants, and of learning to apply integrated knowledge in a practical manner (Pillay, 2010). This is in line with the theoretical insights highlighted by Sims et  al. (1989) in their study. According to these authors, training programmes based on concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation help public personnel attain the required competency and perform their jobs with maximum effectiveness. Therefore, because methods of training such as lecture or demonstration are not sufficient for the attainment of competency (Sims et  al., 1989), the School of Government is encouraged to train public servants by adopting the experiential processes discussed above, to construct a well-rounded competency-based training. In doing so, Sims et al. (1989) suggest Kolb’s et al. (1984) experiential learning model as a vehicle for impressing competency across public servants. Kolb’s experiential learning model explains the conditions of adult learning into a four-step cycle. These steps can usefully steer the development of a successful competencybased training programme (Sims et al., 1989). More specifically, according

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to Kolb’s model, an adult begins his/her learning from a concrete experience, followed by a reflective observation in which he or she rethinks what has happened (Kolb et al., 1984). Successively, that individual tends to analyse different solutions or alternative conducts, and last, once new behaviour has been developed, he or she tends to test new ideas in new experiences, and the cycle in issue begins once again (Kolb et al., 1984). Kolb’s model clearly highlights how far the employee’s learning process can be continuous. Therefore, the School of Government is called upon to make use of this experiential learning model when designing competencybased training programmes. In order for the knowledge learned to be applied by the public personnel, the School of Government should construct competency-­based training programmes by relying on the competency gap to close, by requiring the participants to reflect upon the competency being learned, by analysing possible solutions or alternative uses of that competency, and lastly by putting in place a strategy for implementing that competency (Sims et al., 1989). With this in mind it is evident that combining traditional, formal instruction with training based on an experiential approach can thus be considered a useful means to close the competency gaps in the Public Sector effectively. Given the need for more experiential-based approach to adult training, the next section discusses the role of Schools of Government in providing training for public employees.

5.4   The Key Role of Schools of Government in Public Employee Training Two interdependent, though separate, functions enable civil servants to develop the necessary competencies and knowledge to respond to internal and external policy pressures and citizen expectations: education and professional development. Whereas education usually provides the foundational knowledge for civil servants at the time of recruitment, training and professional development provide the specific knowledge and competencies civil servants will require in a job-specific role (Reichard, 1998). Nevertheless, the need for in-service training for public service personnel has long been neglected. It was only in the late 1960s that governments started to discover the need for in-service training for public servants. This was the time when administrative reform was on the agenda

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and new management techniques, including budget systems, planning methods, and organization techniques, found their way into the public service (OECD, 1997). As William G. Torpey (1953) says, “training may be defined as the process of developing competencies, habits, knowledge, and attitudes in employees for the purpose of increasing the effectiveness of employees in their present government positions as well as preparing employees for future government position” (p. 154). According to this definition, training plays a fundamental role in the process of improving Public Administration and may be considered to be the key to develop the competencies of public employees and the process of internal transformation and adaptation to environment in which they operate. In other words, in Public Administration training is related to the creation (or the improvement) of the quality of their services, and it aims to promote the development of the system and action programmes related with central and local government bodies (Chlivickas, Marcelienė, & Vaitenkovaitė, 2002). Moreover, training, employee learning, and the development of their competencies have become a necessity and a strategic element for Public Administrations; moreover, they are considered vital to any country as they affect its bureaucracy and policymaking (Rajasekar & Khan, 2013). Another important element is related to the role of training in encouraging continuous learning through the continuous development of knowledge and competencies. In this sense, according to the International Labor Office (2010), encouraging continuous workplace learning enables employees to adapt to changes in the environment and meet the challenges that ensue. Given these premises, the training of public employees can have different purposes depending on the specific circumstances of the country system or of the public organizations, but one common goal of public service training can be observed throughout, and that is to support the implementation of administrative reform and modernization (OECD, 1997). Moreover, according to the OECD (1997), other objectives from a more operational point of view may be summarized in the adaptation of competencies and qualifications to technological and other changes in the public service to improve the performance of civil servants by helping them to adapt to changes in the work routine due to new technologies, new legislation, and so on; the increase of the efficiency in executing the

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tasks to reduce costs; the promotion of horizontal mobility by providing training to acquire the expertise necessary to fulfil a new task on the same hierarchical level to improve the flexibility and adaptability of civil service staff; the improvement of staff motivation; the improvement in human resources management (equal treatment of men and women, etc.); the improvement of the relationship between the public service and the user and improving the services provided to the public; the support of staff development (career paths); and the development of international cooperation and European integration. In these terms, the importance of training is clear. However, a relevant element concerns the subjects called upon to provide training to public employees. Hence the importance of national schools. According to the OECD (2017), Schools of Government are uniquely placed to enhance the capacity of public servants to meet the leadership, policy, and delivery challenges they face. Schools play this role both directly, through their learning and training programmes, and indirectly, by encouraging a learning culture that contributes to civil service effectiveness and efficiency. However, to remain relevant and responsive, schools also need to adapt their programmes to the changing needs of governments and civil servants. In other words, National Schools of Government play an important role in the training of managers and employees in order to develop their competencies, also in cooperation with universities and more, in general, research institutions. Playing this role implies being involved in a plurality of activities, representing a high degree of heterogeneity and complexity of these institutions. According to the findings of the 2014 OECD Survey of National Schools of Government, a research developed by the OECD Global Network of Schools of Government (OECD, 2017), Schools of Government are involved in a great number of training and professional development activities, such as organizing conferences (79% or 19 out of 24 respondents to this question); integrity and values training (75% or 18 out of 24 respondents to this question); and management and leadership development (75% or 18 out of 24 respondents and 70% or 17 out of 24 respondents to this question, respectively). In addition, they are also responsible for maintaining international partnerships (66% or 16 out of 24 respondents to this question) and providing advisory services to government (60% or 14 out of 24 respondents to this question). Schools are also active in areas best described as contributing to the role of

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government as a whole, such as promoting public service innovation (75% or 18 out of 24 respondents to this question); dissemination of good practices (58% or 14 out of 24 respondents to this question); and knowledge development through their applied and academic research activities (41% or 10 out of 24 respondents and 29% or 7 out of 24 respondents to this question, respectively). Those activities carried out by Schools of Government to contribute to civil service development implement training policies defined by national governments. However, training is not the only area in which Schools of Government are involved; a significant part of the activity is also related to research in collaboration with other public bodies and universities. On the one hand, given that Schools of Government are seen as an interface between the national government for the implementation of its priorities and commitments, they act as agents of change, through their ability to integrate the priorities of the national government into their programming; on the other hand, they also have a mission to engage in knowledge development and research (OECD, 2017). In these terms, cooperation of Schools of Government is fundamental and may be either at a national or at an international level in order to provide training, to develop research programmes, or to exchange views and experience. For example, at the international level there are several groups, such as the SCEPSTA (Study Group of European Public Service Training Agencies), the OECD Global Network of Schools of Government, and associations such as the IASIA (International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration), or international organizations focusing on specific areas, such as RESPA (Regional Schools of Public Administration, focusing on Western Balkans). Some national training institutions, particularly within the EU, work in close cooperation with national training institutions of other countries, and have set up training courses targeted towards foreign public servants (OECD, 1997). Given the importance of Schools of Government in providing public employees’ training and the typical activities they carry out, in the next section we compare European Schools of Government (and their role in provide public employees’ training) starting from a brief description of the Italian National School of Administration which will be examined in detail in the final section.

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5.5   A Comparative Analysis with Other European National Schools of Administration 5.5.1  A Brief Description of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA) The National School of Administration (SNA) is the institution appointed to select, recruit, and train public officials and managers and constitutes the central point of the single system for recruitment and public training, established to improve the efficiency and quality of Italian Public Administration. The teaching staff of the SNA is made up of experts from the academic world, Public Administration roles, and international organizations. Through its network of former alumni, the SNA represents a precious source of knowledge and experiences contributing to the qualitative increase of training and research activities. The headquarters of the SNA is in Rome. Teaching and training activities are also held at the Caserta branch. The main activities the SNA carries out are the selection and recruitment of managers for the central Public Administrations; the provision of training for public employees; the development of research, reforms, and innovation programmes on Public Administration, public policies, and public economy. In the international sphere, the SNA considers international agreements as a fundamental part of its activities and supports Italy’s commitment on the international scene. The SNA invests heavily in the mutual exchange of good practices between international institutions for the development of good governance actions worldwide. Through bilateral and multilateral agreements, the SNA concentrates its activity on two areas of intervention: –– the planning and provision of international training courses for public employees, managers, and foreign diplomats; –– partnerships with networks of international schools and international institutions operating in the Public Administration and public management sector.

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5.5.2  A Brief Description of the French “École nationale d’administration” The École nationale d’administration (ENA) is very complex and articulated. The ENA deals with a relatively limited part of the training activity (although it is the most prestigious). A very large role is played centrally by the training schools of the ministries while an equally wide-ranging function at the local level is the responsibility of the Institut national des économies territoriales (INET). The ENA is institutionally located at the Presidency of the Council; it is autonomous as far as budget and organization are concerned and operates under the so-called “Direction Générale de l’Administration et de la Fonction Publique”. The structure consists of seven General Directions. The teachers are external (around one thousand), mainly practitioners from the civil service. The ENA is primarily aimed at the training of great élites, in particular those whose professional paths mature within the Council of State, the Court of Auditors, specific figures, such as those of inspectors, but particularly relevant in the French administrative/institutional context. The ENA focuses its activities (selection, recruitment, initial training [Competition Course], and continuing training) through a large group of Masters (with a growing openness towards foreign students) and a catalogue of short courses. Increasing emphasis, now almost pre-eminent, is put on the “European ruling class” and on the training of French students both in the role of EU officials and in the tasks of internal referents of European public policies. An average of 80–100 students are recruited by the School every year. After recruitment, they take a strict selective test, within the competition course. The administrative staff and those dedicated more directly to the planning and management of training activities go beyond 200 units. Before the interventions on the French public budget, its budget exceeded 40  million euros a year. The figure should currently be around 30  million euros. There are over 50 sectoral training schools in a variety of areas of public intervention (agriculture, environment/ecology, culture, defence, economy, justice, industry, interior, education, work, health). These schools prepare officials and executives especially in the development of their technical-­sectoral competencies with sometimes very extensive paths (up

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to four years) and with a growing attention to the parallel growth of managerial competencies (this is very clear in the case of health managers). For training at the territorial level, l’Institut national des économies territoriales (INET, located within the Center National de la fonction publique territoriale) organizes numerous training courses (with reference to both initial and continuing education) with the aim of “training the managers of large territorial communities”, namely, communities with more than 40,000 inhabitants. The courses on offer are very varied, including both Master’s or similar (18 months) degrees and very short courses (2 days). The INET regularly collaborates with national institutes specializing in field studies, with the ENA and with other public training schools within the Réseau des écoles du service public (RESP). The INET increasingly concentrates its training activities on European policies. On average, the various very selective examination procedures involve between 50 and 60 people every year. About 60 administrative staff and 14 training experts work at INET. Teachers and external experts are around 400. 5.5.3  A Brief Description of the German Federal Academy of Public Administration The German training system, like the French one, is very articulated. There are training schools at the federal level, some with specific sectoral specialization functions, while practically every region (Land) has its own training school for its employees (BAKöV). The BAKöV (Bundesakademie Für Öffentliche Verwaltung In Der Hochschule Des Bundes—Federal Academy of Public Administration), with financial and organizational autonomy, is located at the Ministry of the Interior. It deals only with the continuous (or advanced) training of the officials/managers of the central administration. Every year the flow of activities reaches about 16,000 participants (considering a very advanced and used e-learning programme). In a sense, the activities of BAKöV are located downstream of a recruitment process that involves other schools of public education bodies (see below). The teachers are temporarily recruited from civil servants and the academy. The BAKöV offers a two-­ year Master’s degree in European Governance and Administration with the ENA and other European universities.

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The FH Bund (Fachhochschule Des Bundes Für Öffentliche Verwaltung—“high school of Public Administration practice”) is a public training school with organizational and financial autonomy located at the Ministry of the Interior. It follows a specialized university model (from the police to foreign affairs to the general administration) organized in departments with a faculty of 200 full-time teachers (mix of academics and practitioners). The FH Bund has the important function of recruitment and training. After a three-year course (initial training), students have direct access to the civil service. More generally, the FH Bund is perhaps the main entry portal for the central German Civil Service. As mentioned above, BAKöV (but also the Speyer University for the more academic-type training contents) deals with professional updating (continuous or advanced training). FH Bund is the institution that clearly reflects an economic-cultural model (typical of European German-speaking countries and strongly rooted also in university studies) based on practice and constant comparison with practitioners of the civil service. As mentioned, the Länder personally manages its public training schools. For example, in Bavaria the Länder runs the Fachhochscule für öffentliche Verwaltung und Rechtspflege in Bayern, which also deals with training in the field of justice. 5.5.4  A Brief Description of the Spanish National Institute of Public Administration The INAP (Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública) comes under the aegis of the Ministerio de Hacienda y Administraciones Públicas with organizational and budgetary autonomy. It organizes the selection of the leadership of the civil service through a competition course and carries out continuing education activities in the catalogue. It then takes care of all the stages of training for public employees. Teachers are recruited amongst academics, PA managers, and private trainers. What characterizes the Spanish experience is the coordination that the INAP ensures to 16 training schools at the level of the Autonomous Communities (except for Madrid). It is a very interesting balance between centralization (teaching methodologies, for example, but also specific programmes managed by INAP for local employees) and decentralization/autonomy  that assume specific aspects of conditions at the local level. Last March the INAP approved a resolution that redefines

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in detail the methods of intervention of INAP in the autonomous communities, in the provinces, and in some municipalities. 5.5.5  Some General Considerations The tools and technologies with which civil servants need to work have become increasingly sophisticated. While government schools (or “schools”) generally serve as institutions focused on the learning and development needs of civil service employees, there is a wide range of organizational forms, structures, mandates, and approaches to training and development. The nature of their training and development activities varies considerably. Competition from other training providers is growing fast; it is hard to find resources and citizens’ expectations are of varying types, so schools are increasingly looking to new and innovative approaches to deliver learning, including the integration of information and communication technologies. Government schools usually operate through approaches which vary depending on the type of mandate. Those providing post-secondary education invest in teaching and research, where programmes are longer and likely to involve a higher percentage of time spent in classroom-based learning, such as seminars and lectures, and evaluation of student assessments to enable credentials to be conferred. On the other hand, schools providing professional development and training to current public servants focus on shorter-term activities, such as two- and three-day training programmes, and probably adopt experimental learning approaches, such as alternatives to classroom-based learning. A Survey carried out by the OECD showed that 14 institutions out of 15 opted for traditional classroom training. Other methods reached a percentage of less than 50% of schools and there is a growing trend towards the convergence of various means of training delivery, as each method provides unique advantages that may prove complementary. In recent times, the number of a new generation of employees whose favourite training tools are information technology, online courses, wikis, and social networks has been increasing within the civil service. Classroom learning remains the main means of learning, even though four schools that have responded to the OECD Survey are providing online self-study courses for training civil servants.

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This comparatively low rate of adoption of digital technologies for learning may partly stem from the lack of existing policies or guidelines to guide their use. New innovative learning methods such as e-learning are likely to require significant initial investments. Moreover, potential failures must be considered, as the outcomes of innovative approaches are often difficult to predict. Budget restraints and competition are likely to increase in future. Moreover, the nature of learner and learning will change and e-learning technologies are likely to be preferred. In light of this, schools should consider developing more proactive approaches and greater investments into innovative training and learning methods. National civil service-learning strategies and plans, as well as negotiated collective agreements, provide the framework for civil servant access to learning and development opportunities. The length of training paths varies from country to country, with an average of three training days every year in Germany and seven to ten days annually in Italy (OECD, 2010). The main goals of government schools are teaching and research. They can also play a central role in providing the necessary training and development opportunities. Hence, facing a decrease of available resources, schools should reconsider their ways of investing in the design, development, and delivery of courses and programmes. Competition from the private sector and other training providers is increasing as well; this is why schools should embed innovative learning methods, including the accreditation processes, that can ensure responsiveness to the needs of individual learners and the government as whole, while achieving cost savings, such as e-learning. In addition, ensuring the continued viability and relevance of learning and training programmes also calls for the regular review of programmes. As the findings of the OECD Survey highlight, though this is occurring, it needs to be made more systematic and linked to other inputs such as the regular review of government priorities and the results of evaluations. Government schools are also urged to respond to the changing needs for civil service competencies and the requirements of governments, aimed at meeting new citizen expectations and policy priorities. Finally, research-­ oriented government schools tend to focus mainly on applied research in the areas that are broadly consistent with government priorities. The link between the research and learning and training programmes still needs to

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be clarified, so as to ensure that the research is focused and contributes to learning activities, while learning programmes remain topical and relevant. Against this backdrop, government schools should take the following recommendations into account: • Regularly review schools’ learning and development programmes to ensure that both the content and delivery methods are suitable for meeting the needs of learners and governments. • Assess the scope for introducing innovative techniques in the delivery and content of learning and development, including the use of social media and other information and communications technologies. • Strengthen the link between research and knowledge development activities and learning programmes. In so doing, learning programmes remain relevant and up to date with changing government priorities and emerging social, economic, and political trends. 5.5.6   Institutional Framework of Government Schools The choice of institutional model may influence the relationships between schools and other government institutions. Schools can work as a centre of government institution; as a departmental institution; as an autonomous institution. In the first model, the school is institutionally located close to the centre of government (CoG) and aims at directly responding to the training priorities identified by the CoG. The school’s proximity to the CoG will of course have an impact on the definition of learning needs and priorities. We can find such institutional models in Austria, Hungary, Italy (where the SNA is part of the Prime Minister’s Office), and Poland. In the second model, the government communicates its priorities to a deputy department or agency which, in turn, will transmit them to the school. The latter is totally or partially autonomous from the lead portfolio department. Such models can be found in Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Spain. Schools belonging to the third model maintain a formalized relationship with the government, though it is institutionally autonomous. In this model the relationship is framed by a legal agreement, a memorandum, or other similar arrangement.

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The nature of institutional relationships with governments will of course influence the autonomy of the schools: the ones located within a centre of government or ministry portfolio may have less administrative and policy autonomy and their ability to quickly and autonomously define and adjust their learning programmes may be undermined; if a school is established as an autonomous institution, it will have greater independence and potential ability to achieve efficiency gains. Greater autonomy usually goes hand in hand with more decision-making and resource management responsibility and may lead to greater client satisfaction and responsiveness. It is also likely to keep the level of collaboration with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. If government schools have an academic mission, autonomy may be greater. On the other hand, schools which are merely government institutions without an academic role appear to be less autonomous. Importantly, several stakeholders associated the effectiveness of schools as learning institutions with the degree of closeness of the relationship to government and a centre of government institution. Therefore, while autonomy of action is an important consideration, the ability to link schools with the broader priorities and activities of government requires a degree of proximity to the centre (OECD). 5.5.7  Relationships with Non-Governmental Institutions Many responding institutions maintain relationships with other educational institutions such as national and international universities as well. These arrangements include academic staff exchanges or joint appointments, collaborative design of programmes, and credentials recognition. Another factor that influences the mandate and capacity of schools is their legal framework. For the most part, all of the responding institutions were established through a form of legal instrument, whether a law or decree. This is significant because the instrument gives legal life to the institution and is the source of authority for its mission and mandate. These legal instruments often provide the basis for regulations or policies that provide greater detail or specificity to the actions of the school. Furthermore, the powers that are granted schools in their constituent instrument may also have an impact on their capacity to engage with other institutions within government or outside. The existence and powers of the school can be defined by both laws of general application to the Public Administration as a whole and

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constituent laws specific to the institution and its establishment. The choice of legal instrument largely depends on constitutional, legal, or administrative considerations proper to each country. The power to establish a national civil service-learning and training institution may provide the necessary authority and mandate to engage with other government institutions and may serve as a precondition for the development of the necessary capacities. Internal governance and management are among the many factors that contribute to the organizational success of government schools. On top of the school hierarchy there is leadership under an institutional head, followed by several bodies, such as a head of institution and a board of directors/trustees. Consequently, day-to-day duties are delegated to the head of institution and strategies to the board of directors. The presence of key governmental and non-governmental stakeholders on a board of directors or council of members may be an indication of close collaboration and interaction between the school and these bodies. Similarly, the presence of government officials on a board of directors would lead to greater collaboration between the government and the school. The clarity of each school mandate, which must comply with the single country’s legislation, is a crucial factor. Coordination ensuring that learning and development are efficient must be robust. The existence of different governance models among Schools of Government may be explained by differing national contexts and policy preferences about governance, management, and administration. More important is the degree to which the governance model ensures the proper and efficient administration of the institution. Again, clarity about the governance model is important, especially where this can be described in the legal instrument establishing the school.

5.6   The Case of the Italian National School of Administration (SNA) The High School of Public Administration (SSPA) was established in Italy with Articles 150 and 151 of Presidential Decree No. 3 of January 10, 1957 (single text of the laws on civilian personnel of the state), in execution of the proxy law of December 20, 1954.

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When the SSPA was created, the need for the State Administration to have its own training facilities capable of providing for the professional improvement of officials was formally sanctioned. The SSPA was located at the seat of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and functionally employed by the Minister for Bureaucratic Reform. Its main aim was the implementation of preparation and training courses for workers, the updating and further training for those in service, as well as the promotion and carrying out of studies for the “technical-­ administrative improvement” of the State Administration. Aimed at meeting the institutional goals, the SSPA could also make use of the collaboration of Universities, Ministries, Institutions, and Research Institutes. The Implementing Decree was issued five years later by Presidential Decree No. 576 of May 29, 1962. Subsequently, Presidential Decree No. 472 of April 21, 1972, ordered the reorganization and the strengthening of the SSPA, to which—in addition to the tasks already foreseen by the previous norms—the burden of organizing preparation courses for the career of the state officials, of planning training courses to start managerial careers, and of supervising the activity of all the training schools set up in the State Administrations was given. Theoretically, the strengthening of the SSPA aimed at something ambitious: providing the state apparatus with the necessary tools to create a bureaucratic elite capable of making the administration’s action more efficient. The role of the SSPA was extensively redesigned by the provisions of Legislative Decree 29/1993 and those contained in “corrective” Decree 470/1993. These rules originated from the proxy contained in Article 2, par. 1, Lett. f) of Law No. 421 of October 10, 1992. In this regard, the law foresaw the “reorganization” of the High School of Public Administration, also in relation to the functions of access to managerial qualifications. The link between the reform of the SSPA and the review of the selection criteria of public management was one of the key points of the reform. The proxy for the Reorganization of the High School of Public Administration is contained in Law No. 69 of June 18, 2009, which contains “provisions for economic development, simplification, competitiveness as well as civil proceedings”. The stated purpose of the proxy was to implement a unitary system of interventions in the field of training of public employees; retrain public work; increase its productivity; improve the performance and quality of

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services provided to citizens and businesses; allow the measurement of the results and costs of public action; and digitize Public Administrations. To do this, the possibility to reorganize, transform, merge, or suppress the National Centre for Information Technology in the Public Administration (Cnipa), the Training and Studies Center (Formez), and the High School of Public Administration (SSPA) was envisaged. The new Legislative Decree No. 178 of December 1, 2009, “Reorganization of the High School of Public Administration” (SSPA) pursuant to Article 24 of Law No. 69 of June 18, 2009, for the definition of the nature and tasks of the School, does not differ much in appearance from the previous structure (previous are the following: Legislative Decree No. 287 of July 30, 1999, of “Reorganization of the High School of Public Administration and Requalification of Public Administration Personnel”, in accordance with Article 11, Law No. 59 of March 15, 1997; Legislative Decree No. 381 of December 29, 2003, containing amendments to Legislative Decree No. 287 of July 30, 1999, concerning the Reorganization of the High School of Public Administration, pursuant to art. 1 of Law No. 137 of July 6, 2002). The mission of the School is expressly identified by the Reform Decree which, in Article 2, attributes to it the purpose of “creating and seeking excellence”: the excellence of knowledge, competencies, and performance, of the men and women, of managers and officials whose daily work in the Public Sector as well as supporting and promoting the process of innovation and reform of the Public Administration with the general objective of making it a factor of competitiveness of the Italian economic and productive system. This general objective is then declined in some activities, summarized as follows: • for the promotion and dissemination of culture, technological innovation, evaluation processes, and methodologies; • for internationalization, • for the definition of criteria and methods of excellence throughout the system of training of public employees, increasing the range and volume of its action alongside the pursuit of qualitative excellence, • for an increase in the number of programmes in charge and the qualified participation of managers and officials increasingly diversifying teaching so as to satisfy the multiplicity of objectives;

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• for collaboration with universities to receive teaching and research contributions and launch joint Master’s programmes to integrate the executive education offered by the School with post-graduate academic training specifically designed for public managers, • for the adoption of advanced distance teaching methods, • for the constant search for institutional partnerships for the definition of increasingly defined training programmes and targeted recipients, • for the stipulation of agreements in relation to requests for special programmes, research, and school as a think tank with study; • for research activities on didactic innovation and in the preparation of teaching materials, • for research programmes developed in partnership with universities and research institutions. The functional framework resulting from the most recent reforms includes the following types of tasks: (a) selection, recruitment, and training of managers and state officials; (b) initial training of managers hired following public examination; (c) training and updating activities for central government employees or, by agreement, for other public and private employees; (d) training of officials from other countries; (e) research, analysis, and documentation activities aimed at pursuing excellence in training activities linked to Public Administration reform and innovation processes. In addition to the activity described above, the SNA performs a series of international activities; indeed, it considers these agreements as a fundamental part of its activities and supports Italy’s commitment on the international scene. The SNA invests heavily in mutual exchange of good practices between international institutions for the development of good governance actions worldwide. Through bilateral and multilateral agreements, it focuses its activities on two areas of intervention: (1) planning and provision of international training courses for public employees, managers, and foreign diplomats; (2) partnerships with networks of international schools and international institutions operating in the Public Administration and public management sector. Internationalization thus leads to an international training of managers to guarantee the development of the competencies and knowledge

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necessary to interact with other Public Administrations and international bodies. It develops an active network with other schools and universities (both Italian and foreign) in order to guarantee a useful exchange of experiences, knowledge, and new contexts between Italian executives of central administrations and other subjects. Another important step is Presidential Decree No. 70/2013 “With the Creation of the Single System”—although it does not affect the autonomy and institutional location of the individual schools, their addresses and activities are defined by a Coordination Committee, chaired by the President of the Council of Ministers or by a delegate Minister and composed of the governing bodies of the schools. The Committee has the functions of programming the training activities of managers and officials, as well as coordinating the use of human resources (teaching staff), financial, and instrumental (offices). The Committee is based at the SNA, which provides technical support by using available resources. The functioning of the SNA is governed by Legislative Decree No. 178/2009 and by Presidential Decree No. 70/2013. The President must ensure teaching and scientific activity and appoint examining boards for examinations and courses. Looking at the structure of government, we notice that the powers of the President are particularly wide, also because the latter operates more on the basis of the personal confidence of the pro tempore minister than under the supervision of the Department of Public Administration. The Management Committee, which holds office for four years, approves the annual programme of the School, the budget, and the financial statement proposed by the President, and can make decisions about the definition of the internal organization. A further internal organization for the functioning of the School was defined by Resolution No. 1 of March 16, 2018, approved by Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers of March 22, 2018 and is organized into five departments and five educational areas. The coordination of the teaching activity of the National School of Public Administration is entrusted to the latter. The departments are divided as follows. The Department for the Development of Managerial Competencies (DISCOGE) coordinates the activities of the selective training course for access to managerial qualifications in state and non-economic public bodies, as well as the selective course-examinations “Administrations for the

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Recruitment of Officials in the Same Administrations”. It coordinates the activities of the training cycle reserved for the winners of the public examinations organized by the single Administrations for the access to the position of manager in State Administrations and in non-economic public Bodies; it prepares the continuous training courses specifically intended for the staff of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, of the constitutional bodies and of the independent authorities, and plans continuous training courses in the areas of public management, performance evaluation, personnel management and labour relations, of public communication; it promotes and coordinates the activities of the network of training managers of State Administrations and economic public bodies in order to rationalize the processes for identifying training needs and the consequent planning of the School’s educational activities. The Department for Economics, Finance and Statistics (DEFS) coordinates the initial and ongoing training courses specifically designed for the staff of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, of tax agencies, of the National Statistical Institute (ISTAT), the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Agricultural Food and Forestry Policies, the Agency for Agricultural Disbursements (AGEA), as well as the Court of Auditors; It programmes continuing education courses in economics and taxation, budget and public accounting, statistics for Public Administration, public regulation of the economy, analysis of the impact of regulation, behavioural sciences applied to Public Administration. The Department for European and International Affairs (DIAEI), coordinates the initial and ongoing training courses specifically intended for diplomatic career personnel, as well as for the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), of the Agency for Territorial Cohesion, of the National Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE). It coordinates training activities for officials from other countries and training projects carried out with the collaboration or funding of the European Union or of international organizations; manages the continuous training courses in subjects related to the issues of European integration and international relations, the planning and management of European funds, language training; handles the management of relations with international organizations, with the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA/IIAS) and with other European and international associations and networks operating in the sectors of interest for the School.

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The Department for Institutions, Security and Self-Government (DISA) coordinates the initial and continuing training courses specifically intended for prefectural career personnel, as well as for civil administration personnel of the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice, of the administrative justice bodies, of the National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC) and, where foreseen, of the Regions and Local Authorities and plans continuous training courses in the areas of corruption prevention, public contracts, administrative transparency, administrative action rules, and related reforms. The Department for Well-Being, Culture, and Sustainable Development (DIBECS) coordinates the initial and ongoing training courses specifically designed for the staff of the following administrations: • Ministry of the Environment and Protection of Land and Sea, High Institute for Protection and environmental research (ISPRA); • Ministry of Labour and Social Policies; Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, National Tourism Agency (ENIT); • Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, ANAS (the National Body for Routes and highways), National Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC), Energy Services Manager (GSE); • Ministry of Education, University and Research, National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research System (ANVUR) and other research institutions and bodies; • Ministry of Health, National Agency for Regional Health Services (AGENAS) and Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA); Agency for Digital Italy (AgID); • National Institute for Occupational Accident Insurance (INAIL), National Social Security Institute (INPS). The Department is also responsible for continuous training courses on sustainable development, health, and safety in the workplace. The five educational and scientific areas coordinate the teachers and their activities and verify the upholding of their teaching commitments; they collaborate with the departments in defining the contents of the training courses and in finding the teachers involved; finally, they promote the planning and realization of scientific research and European and international projects. Another important area of interest is related to national and international cooperation with the Public Administration and/or universities and research institutions, as suggested in paragraph 3. In this context, the Italian National School of Administration (SNA) has significant experience of partnerships and cooperation at both the national and the international level.

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In particular, the SNA contributes to the promotion and enhancement of national and international initiatives through numerous actions aimed at promoting and spreading the culture of effectiveness and efficiency in Public Administration, also through the development of innovative models of inter-institutional cooperation and concertation between central and territorial, European and international administrations. The most relevant experiences, both current and past, are mentioned below. The first example refers to “Partnership and International Openness (PON GAS)”. This project is included in the context of the actions foreseen by the executive Plan of the Department of Regional Affairs of the Presidency of the Council, an intermediate organization entrusted with the realization of the 5.2 objective “Improving Inter-Institutional Cooperation and Contractual Capacities with Specific Reference to the Public-Private Partnership Sector” of the National Operational Programme of Governance and System Actions (PON GAS 2007–2013). In particular, the professional collaboration project is aimed at improving the capacities of the territorial and healthcare bodies operating in the regions of the convergence objective, in the management of the public-private partnership of international openness processes. The project is divided into two lines of action, for the strengthening of the planning capacity of territorial vocations and public-private partnership start-up and the strengthening of the capacities of the Regions to take part in international openness processes. Another programme is called “Programme for the Sicilian Regional Council”. In particular, the National School of Administration (SNA) has stipulated an agreement with the Sicilian Regional Council to provide training for the 2007–2013 European Social Fund—Convergence Objective—Priority Axis VII “Institutional Capacity” programme, designed to improve public services in the region. The SNA training programme was divided into three sections and involved roughly 1500/2000 employees working for the Regional Council or other regional bodies, including 400 managers and executive officers. The three sections are the general training for a select group of 30 Regional Council managers; specialized training for a large number of managers and executive officers from various regional bodies, universities, town councils, the Carabinieri, the police, and the financial police force; technical training in class and on the job for specific sectors of the regional administration (finance, education, and professional training).

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Moreover, SNA grants contributions for activities and research projects aimed at raising the quality of training, to guarantee constant updating also in relation to the reform processes and to promote innovation in the PA; in terms of content and methodology, the project or research activity must correspond to the educational offer of the School. One example is the agreement signed by SNA with SDA Bocconi— School of Management, in which research projects have been developed on topics of particular importance for the Italian Public Administration. In this context, three research projects were developed, called, respectively, “SMARTAPLAB: The community of practices for improving performance in Public Administrations” developed between 2017 and 2018, “Measurement and evaluation of performance in the central PA” and “The public service motivation in the central PA”, both developed in 2011. At the international level, the SNA has started a collaboration with the prestigious “Brookings Institution” (Washington DC, USA) for the publication of books, establishing a series dedicated to the researches of the SNA, in particular those related to issues relevant to Public Administration and public management, which led to the publication of some volumes. The SNA has also cooperated with the Public Administration Research Institute (IRPA) in order to study some of the main themes which have affected Italian Public Administrations over the last 20 years and to verify what has been done and identify the lines of corrective actions on these fields. They are, in particular, the distinction between politics and administration, the discipline of the administrative procedure, and the reform of controls. The common and principal aim of the research is to produce documents and materials functional to the training activities of the managers and public officials performed by the SNA. To this end, seminars will also be held at the School. Further recipients of the research are the Minister for Public Service and the government in general, to whom plans and interventions for rationalization and reform of the Public Administration can be suggested (with particular reference to separation between politics and administration, organization and functioning administrative procedures, size and effectiveness of control mechanisms). The results of the research can also be effectively used by the operators of the Public Administrations themselves (in particular, by the political-­ administrative leadership and by the management) in the definition of the strategic and operational planning of the activities aimed at implementing

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the processes of simplification, integrity, transparency, and control within each administration. Censuses, random analyses, and guidelines may be very useful for this purpose. Finally, the outputs produced with such research (monographs, reports, conference proceedings) may be made available to public training and research centres for the performance of training activities for management and Public Administration personnel. Among the most important partnerships, SNA has cooperated with the European University Institute on the field of the governance by contract and transnational regulation. The research project focuses on the different models of government by contract with forms of outsourcing concerning both the regulatory and judicial functions at the international level, with analysis of the impact on the national level. One of the main fields of enquiry regards the impact that the transformation of transnational regulation models has on the functions of the state, on the role of Public Administration, and on the relationship between executive and jurisdictional power. The theme is addressed by examining the potential trade-offs between efficiency and accountability, the agency relationship between the delegating administration and private delegates. The research uses the comparison in particular with Great Britain, where a recent reform has defined general parameters based on which the executive can delegate the regulatory power to third parties, to the public, to the private sector, or a combination of the two. The methods of attribution of the power of regulation are also evaluated in light of the impact analysis to verify if the current models used allow to adequately consider the costs and benefits of the delegation and other forms of conferring power of regulation. The research analyses the new models of transnational regulation in different fields, ranging from e-commerce to cultural heritage, from the environment to technical standards of food safety, and so on. Since they confirm the need to overcome the conventional schemes based on the centrality of the regulatory states, their consolidation redefines the role and the instruments used in the interaction with global and regional markets. The aim of the research project is to analyse the different forms that the governance of these processes assumes and to understand the costs and benefits that the redistribution of regulatory power (deriving from the transfer of powers from national states to international institutions and public entities to private subjects) involves. As a result of this project, several research reports have been published.

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Finally, among the most important collaboration networks, the SNA led the project called “a network for quality training” (RFQ) in which the SNA has played the role of a reference point for excellence training aimed at executives and public officials to produce, through cooperation with Public Administration training schools, universities and other training facilities, ideas, and innovative solutions for the continuous improvement of the training offered to public employees, as well as for the analysis, experimentation, and dissemination of innovative methods and practices. The approach used was a collaborative and open approach through which the network has promoted and developed planning and evaluation models of training activities, which was compliant with the quality standards adopted at the international level. This was to improve the quality and usefulness of the training offer, intended above all in terms of improving competencies, motivating staff and positively impacting behaviour and individual performance, related to the needs of modernization of institutions, through the pursuit of the following objectives: • the link of training to the administration’s strategic objectives and personnel management policies, • the evaluation of training to communicate the results and report on the use of resources with respect to areas of performance improvement in Public Administrations (training accountability), and • the redevelopment of training strategies and policies. In such a complex context of interaction between different subjects, there are many ongoing challenges. Schools of Government are called on to improve their coordinating role, in order to improve quality of training, its results, and its impacts. Partnerships and cooperation with research institutions, Public Administrations, and international institutions help Schools of Government to fulfil their role as agents of change, through the coordination and monitoring of training programmes and research activities. In this context, the example of the SNA is emblematic. In line with this experience, the next chapter illustrates an experimental project jointly launched by the Italian Prime Minister and the SNA, with the aim to propose and test a competency approach for the Italian public organization system.

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References American Society for Training & Development. (2000). The American Society for Training and Development reference guide to workplace learning and performance. Amherst, MA: HRD Press. Bonder, A., Bouchard, C. D., & Bellemare, G. (2011). Competency-based management—An integrated approach to human resource management in the Canadian Public Sector. Public Personnel Management, 40(1), 1–10. https:// doi.org/10.1177/009102601104000101 Bridges, W. (2009). Managing transitions: Making the most of change. New York: Kindle Edition. Burnes, B. (2004). Managing change: A strategic approach to organisational dynamics. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education. Carnevale, D. (2005). Organizational development in the public sector. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Chlivickas, E., Marcelienė, K., & Vaitenkovaitė, R. (2002). Civil servant training strategy as a precondition for improving the quality of Public Administration: The example of Lithuania. In Building better quality administration for the public: Case studies from Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 124–141). Slovakija: Public Management Service (PUMA), OECD and School of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana. Cummings, T., & Worley, C. (2005). Organization development & change. Mason, OH: Thomson-Southwestern. Fry, J. C., & Raadschelders, N. (2013). Mastering Public Administration: From Max Weber to Dwight Waldo. Thousand Oaks: CQ Press. International Labour Office. (2010). A skilled workforce for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. A G20 Training strategy. Geneva: International Labour Office. Jones, G.  R. (2013). Organizational theory, design, and change (7th ed.). Prentice Hall. Kampelmann, S., & Rycx, F. (2012). The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data. Economics of Education Review, 31(6), 918–931. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2012.07.003 Kettinger, W. J., & Grover, V. (1995). Toward a theory of business process change management. Journal of Management Information Systems, 12(1), 9–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.1995.11518068 Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F., III, & Swanson, R. A. (2005). The adult learner: The definitive classic. Adult Education and Human Resource Development, Elsevier Inc. Kolb, D. A., Rubin, I., and Mclntyre, J. (1984). Organizational Psychology: An Experiential Approach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Kotter, J. P. (2011). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

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Lee, J., & Kozman, T. (2010). Use of competency-based needs analysis in developing employee training program. International Journal of Business and Public Administration, 7(1), 117–131. Mayntz, R. (2006). From government to governance: Political steering in modern societies. In D. Scheer & R. Frieder (Eds.), Governance of integrated product policy (pp. 16–25). Aizlewood Mill: Greenleaf Publishing. McGrath, V. (2009). Reviewing the evidence on how adult students learn: An examination of Knowles’ model of andragogy. Adult Learner: The Irish Journal of Adult and Community Education, 99–110. Misanchuk, E. R. (1984). Analysis of multi-component educational and training needs. Journal of Instructional Development, 7, 28–33. Moran, L., & Blauth, C. (2007). Creating a change-capable workforce. AchieveGlobal. Niskanen, J. (2017). Bureaucracy and representative government. Routledge. OECD. (1997). Public service training in OECD countries. SIGMA Papers, No. 16. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/5kml619ljzzn-en. OECD. (2010). Human resources management: Country profiles. Retrieved from www.oecd.org/gov/pem/hrpractices.htm. OECD. (2014). Skills beyond school: Synthesis report. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264214682-en OECD. (2017). National schools of government: Building civil service capacity. OECD public governance reviews. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/1 0.1787/9789264268906-en Peters, B. G., & Pierre, J. (1998). Governance without government? Rethinking Public Administration. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 8(2), 223–243. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a024379 Pillay, R. (2010). The skills gap in hospital management: A comparative analysis of hospital managers in the public and private sectors in South Africa. Health Services Management Research, 23(1), 30–36. https://doi. org/10.1177/097206340901200102 Quintini, G. (2011). Over-qualified or under-skilled: A review of existing literature. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers. https://doi. org/10.1787/5kg58j9d7b6d-en. Rajasekar, J., & Khan, S. A. (2013). Training and development function in Omani Public Sector organizations: A critical evaluation. Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 14(2), 37–52. Raniolo, F. (2012). La prospettiva burocratica. In R.  D’Amico (Ed.), L’analisi della pubblica amministrazione: Teorie, concetti e metodi (Vol. 2, pp. 41–68). Milano: Franco Angeli. Reichard, C. (1998). Education and training for new public management. International Public Management Journal, 1(2), 177–194. https://doi. org/10.1016/S1096-7494(99)80090-7

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Rhodes, R.  A. W. (2000). Governance and Public Administration. In J.  Pierre (Ed.), Debating governance. Authority, steering and democracy (pp.  54–90). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rokkan, S., Flora, P., Kuhnle, S., & Urwin, D. (1999). State formation, nation-­ building and mass politics in Europe. The theory of Stein Rokkan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rossett, A. (1995). Needs Assessment. In Anglin, G. J. (Ed). Instructional technology: Past, present, and future, p.183–196. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, Inc. Silberman, M.  L. (2006). Active Training: A Handbook of Techniques, Designs, Case Examples, and Tips. Third Edition, Pfeiffer & Company. Sims, R. R., Veres, J. G., III, & Heninger, S. M. (1989). Training for competence. Public Personnel Management, 18(1), 101–107. https://doi. org/10.1177/009102608901800109 Sliter, J., Bouchard, C. D., & Bellemare, G. (2005). The Canadian response to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Managing police resources; a competency-based approach to staffing. Journal of Financial Crime, 12(4), 327–330. https://doi. org/10.1108/13590790510735294 Thompson, J. D. (2011). Organizations in action: Social science bases of administrative theory. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers. Torpey, W.  G. (1953). Public personnel management. New  York: Nostrand Company, Inc. Van de Walle, S., & Hammerschmid, G. (2011). The impact of the New Public Management: Challenges for coordination and cohesion in European Public Sectors. Administrative Culture, 12(2), 189–209. Verhaest, D., & Omey, E. (2006). The impact of overeducation and its measurement. Social Indicators Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11205-005-4276-6 Weber, M. (1961). Economia e società. Milano: Edizioni comunità. Wu, J. L. (2013). The study of competency-based training and strategies in the Public Sector: Experience from Taiwan. Public Personnel Management. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0091026013487124

Website List SNA (Scuola Nazionale dell’Amministrazione). (n.d.). Retrieved from www. sna.gov.it ENA (École nationale d’administration). (2015). Les missions de l’ENA. Retrieved from www.ena.fr/eng/L-ENA-se-presente/Qui-sommes-nous/ Missions-de-l-ENA INAP (Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública). (n.d.). Who we are and what we do. Retrieved from www.inap.es/presentacion-ingles THE BAKöV (Federal Academy of Public Administration). (n.d.). Retrieved from www.bakoev.bund.de

CHAPTER 6

A Project for Assessing Public Management Competencies Francesca Gagliarducci and Davide de Gennaro

6.1   Introduction From 2017 onwards, the Italian National School of Administration (SNA) launched innovative activities to measure and assess the competencies of senior executives, managers, and officials of central administrations. In particular, it designed an experimental path to identify a “protocol” to read and evaluate the individual and collective competencies of Public Administration (PA) managers. This pilot study involved 51 first- and second-­level senior managers of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM), where the positions, the competencies necessary to cover them, and the competencies actually possessed by the individual managers were assessed. The comparison between necessary and available competencies

F. Gagliarducci Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] D. de Gennaro (*) University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. Decastri et al. (eds.), Organizational Development in Public Administration, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43799-2_6

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rendered it possible to identify individual development spaces and organizational development paths. This chapter presents and critically interprets the action-research project, jointly launched by the Italian Prime Minister’s Office and the Italian SNA, entitled “Analysis, Evaluation and Strengthening of Managerial Competencies in the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers”. The main aim of the project was to assess the competencies of a sample of public managers working at the Italian PCM in order to redesign the ideal profiles their roles require. A team of experts were involved, including human resources scholars and psychologists, and a multi-method approach based on individual interviews and assessment was adopted. This project was conceived as a pilot for a possible subsequent broader intervention; it may also be considered an essential prerequisite for designing appropriate development and training paths in a differentiated and targeted manner, as well as fostering a process of constant development of strategic managerial competencies.

6.2   The Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers The Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM) is an important administrative structure which supports the Italian President of the Council of Ministers in exercising the functions of political orientation and coordination regarding other administrations (Italian  Legislative Decree 303/1999) and in the definition and implementation of certain specific public policies. The establishment of the PCM is quite recent: it was created as an ad hoc structure regulated by a specific legislation regarding its organization and functioning. The organization of the PCM in Italy has its origins in Law No. 400/1988, followed by other legislative milestones such as Legislative Decree No. 543/1996, which defined the Presidency as a general secretariat, Legislative Decree No. 303/1999, and the most recent reform passed in 2003. The complexity of the PCM is due to its marked functional and organizational polymorphism, to the frequent changes in the competencies attributed by the law, and to the organizational structures arranged in the delegation of functions pertaining to the President of the Council of Ministers’ office. The PCM is conceived, from the organizational point of view, as a sort of elastic mesh which can be modelled on a changing body; its legal structure gives it a minimum size that can be expanded and then,

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if necessary, narrowed according to political needs (Mari, 2004). At the moment, it has a staff of around 4500 individuals, of whom about 300 cover managerial positions. Data from this study has been collected from managers of various organizational functions and roles working at the PCM. The PCM is structured into three different types of departments and offices established by the Italian DPCMs issued March 1, 2011, and June 21, 2012: (1) offices directly supporting the Prime Minister, (2) general departments and offices which the President of the Council of Ministers employs for directing and coordinating specific political and institutional areas, and (3) general offices which support the President of the Council of Ministers in coordination and political direction. The offices directly supporting the Prime Minister have the task of providing direct and specific assistance to the President of the Council of Ministers, to the Ministers without portfolio, and to the Vice-Secretary of the Presidency. Each Prime Minister issues decrees identifying the offices of direct collaboration and determines their composition on the basis of the  proposals from the Ministers without portfolio or the Vice-Secretary of the Presidency. General departments and offices compose the general structures of the PCM, which are entrusted with the care of homogeneous functional areas. The departments are divided into offices of general managerial level and non-general managerial level services. The autonomous offices are general managerial structures with functional autonomy comparable to that of the departments. Finally, for the performance of particular tasks, for the achievement of certain results, or for the implementation of specific programmes, the President may establish, by decree, specific “mission” structures, whose temporary nature is specified by a trust act. The decision-making structure of the PCM is highly hierarchized, with multiple levels of authority relationships (Esposito, Beatrice, & Ziino, 2016). The organization chart in Fig. 6.1—which does not show, for reasons of synthesis, the numerous committees, commissions, consultants, technical units, observatories, and task forces—shows the complexity of this administration. The top of the structure includes the Prime Minister and the senior officials, who are in charge of the apical offices and departments, directing and coordinating political and institutional areas and providing direct support to the Prime Minister. At a lower level, first-line managers direct general offices and they have a direct relationship with senior officials. Even lower, second-line managers direct operational offices. Finally, executives perform operational tasks. The decisions are taken in a top-down

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General structures with address and coordination functions relating to specific politicalinstitutional areas

• Department for Regional Affairs, Autonomy, and Sport • Department for European Policies • Department for Relations with the Parliament • Office for the Government Program • Department for Public Functions • Department for Family Policies • Department for Institutional Reforms • Secretariat Office of the Permanent Conference for Relations between the State, Regions, and Autonomous Provinces of TN and BZ • Department for Youth and National Civil Service • Department for Planning and Coordination of Economic Policy • Secretariat Office of the State-City Conference and Local Autonomies • Department for Equal Opportunities • Department for Anti-Drug Policies • Department for Cohesion Policies

Offices for direct collaboration of the President of the Council of Ministers

• Office of the President • Press Office and President’s Spokesperson • Office of the Diplomatic Advisor • Office of the Military Advisor

General structures with functions of coordination and general political address and for technical-managerial support

• Department for Legal and Legislative Affairs • Secretariat Offices of the Council of Ministers • Department for Administrative Coordination • Department for Policies for Management, Promotion, and Development of Human and Instrumental Resources • Department for Information and Publishing • Office for Budget and and for the Check of Administrative-Accounting Regularity • Office for Internal Control, Transparency, and Integrity • Office for the State Ceremonial and for the Honors • Office of the General Secretary

Fig. 6.1  PCM structures established by the Italian  Prime Ministerial Decree 01/10/2012 (organization chart updated to May 2016). (Adapted from Esposito et al., 2016)

perspective, whereby the senior officials are involved in the decision-­ making process together with the political party, while the hierarchically lower managers mainly play a role of coordinating the personnel and executing directives. The PCM includes numerous dissimilar and variable activities entrusted both to the Secretary General and to the delegated Political Authorities that change, in the structure and in the competencies, according to the political-institutional needs of the various government structures (Esposito et al., 2016). The activities of the PCM are basically grouped into four different levels (Mari, 2004). The first level is of vertical instrumentality: this is the classic activity of the Presidency, serving government policy (e.g., institutional relations or administrative and economic coordination). The second type of activity can be defined as horizontal instrumentality: this concerns the activities supporting the ordinary functioning of the

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governmental structure (e.g., the activities of the secretariat or of the protocol office). The third type is instrumental to the activities mentioned above and it concerns the budget, accounting, internal control, personnel, and so on. Finally, there is a fourth level of instrumental activity, which concerns the functioning of the structure as a whole (e.g., the supply of goods and services or the management of real estate). The organization of the PCM takes into account and reflects a particular awareness of the need to ensure, in part through its functional connection with other Italian central administrations, the unity of political and administrative direction of the government, in accordance with Article 95 of the Italian Constitution. The President makes use of the Presidency for an organic and integrated exercise of the following functions: direction and relations with the Council of Ministers; government relations with Parliament and other constitutional bodies; government relations with European institutions; government relations with the autonomies system; government relations with religious confessions, pursuant to Articles 7 and 8 in the last paragraph of the Constitution; design of general policies and general political decisions; coordination of the government regulatory activity; coordination of the administrative activity of the government and of the functionality of the internal control systems; promotion and coordination of equal opportunities policies and government actions aimed at preventing and removing discrimination; coordination of the activities of institutional communication, information, as well as relating to publishing and promoting products; promotion and verification of the innovation in the Public Sector and coordination in the field of public work; coordination of particular sector policies considered to be strategic by the government programme; monitoring the state of implementation of the government programme and sector policies. The management of the PCM deserves special mention. Its functions are not strictly comparable to those of public managers working for other levels of government or ministries, since in the PCM the main role is to make the administrative machine work and to govern the system of institutional relations, and not just to carry out managerial activities. PCM managers indeed represent the highest echelon of non-elected figures in government (Boyne, James, John, & Petrovsky, 2009); they must necessarily work in an institutional perspective, with the constant need to liaise with other levels of government and with the European Union, not so much as a point of mediation between instances from the various ministries, but rather as a central apparatus equidistant from the institutional interests at stake and as guarantor of the public system as a whole.

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This research, focusing on public managers working at the PCM, is an action-research project with the main aim of assessing the competencies of a sample of 51 senior managers in order to redesign the ideal profiles their roles require. This type of analysis identifies any discrepancies between the competencies required and those present and highlights the areas where training is highly recommended.

6.3   The Need for Assessing Competencies for PCM Managers Since the 1980s (e.g., Gunz, 1983), there has been a need for rethinking competencies for public managers in order to improve their performance at all levels, in a transition from the old to the new concept of Public Administration (Buonocore, de Gennaro, De Nito, & Hinna, 2018; Dunleavy & Hood, 1994; Romanelli, de Gennaro, & Buonocore, 2018). Following a traditional approach, “competencies” have been defined as the underlying set of an employee’s behavioural patterns leading to an effective and/or superior work performance (Boyatzis, 1982), although nowadays there is more focus on the need for building up a competence framework for the implementation of different HR strategies and practices (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). Nevertheless, as already stated in Chap. 2, in public management literature the studies and investigations on competencies have been characterized by a strong fragmentation and there is a general lack of consensus about the meaning and definitions of competencies. Since its introduction in the UK and USA, many European countries have adopted a competency model, even though in many cases different strategies and choices have been followed in its implementation, mainly due to the differences in context and domain. For example, a study based on competency management in the Public Sector with a comparative analysis of four countries (Australia, Belgium, UK, and Korea) showed that “Belgium is the only country that developed a single competency model which applies to all civil servants, including senior management. In each of the other countries at least two types of competency models were developed: one for senior management and one for all civil servants. The use of competencies in the various HR processes differs from country to country” (Op de Beeck & Hondeghem, 2010, p. 29). In Germany, according to Bach and Veit (2018), competencies principles have not been applied to

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the career of senior managers at the DG level, despite politicians being interested in selecting people who have high professional competencies, as shown by Kopecký et al. (2016). What is really important to underline is that the adoption of the competency model in a public context follows some criticalities that are context-specific. For example, scholars show that there are important differences between private and public domains (see Darling & Cunningham, 2016) and that within the public context each single organization personalizes each single competency, giving a different meaning to the same behaviour. According to Horton (2006), the introduction of a competency-based model is directly linked to managerial innovations such as performance management, a focus on human resource strategies, and the need to keep public expenditure down without having a negative impact on efficiency, effectiveness, and performance. An example is represented by the studies on the theme of competencies affecting trust (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002; Dull, 2010; Newell, 2012; Van Ryzin, 2011), ethical leadership (Adams & Balfour, 1998; Ciulla, 2004), public service motivation (Paarlberg & Lavigna, 2010; Perry, Hondeghem, & Wise, 2010), affective leadership (Newman, Guy, & Mastracci, 2009), collaborative leadership (O’Leary, Choi, & Gerard, 2012), or organizational culture (Dull, 2010). Relevant competencies in public management now include communication, problem-­solving, team-working, and the ability to improve professional (e.g., learning attitude and performance, motivation, judgement, and leadership) and personal (e.g., flexibility, resilience, and creativity) traits (Hennessey & Amabile, 1998). This is in line with a generalist perspective, which holds that the professional profile of public managers is not necessarily related to specific policy expertise but rather to managerial competencies, which are required in all domains of Public Administration (Jann & Veit, 2015). These changes and their related needs are captured in the literature on “soft skills” (see Heckman & Kautz, 2012; Laker & Powell, 2011; Mitchell, Skinner, & White, 2010) to inform and empower staff to deal with changes, to encourage people in lifelong learning, and to encourage learning organizations to foster continuous improvement (Beard, Schwieger, & Surendran, 2008). These studies are in line with Grugulis and Vincent (2009), who explain how in recent years there has been a dramatic shift from technical to soft competencies, especially in the Public Sector. Soft skills are a very current topic in the business environment. New corporate culture calls for conspicuous investment on the also so-called

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transversal competencies, which are useful for enhancing productivity at work. But what exactly are these transversal competencies? By “soft skill”, we mean a particular competence which vehicles effective and productive interaction with others, both in the workplace and outside it. It is not about technical-specialist competencies—namely, all those knowledges related to the development of a profession, today considered “hard” skills—but rather it is about a person’s attitude to team work, communication competencies, work ethic, time management, and so on. Giving a definition of soft skills is certainly the first step to understand what the characteristics of these particular attitudes are. In the literature, soft or transversal skills mean personal attributes, character traits, intrinsic social signals, and the communication competencies necessary for achieving success both at work and in everyday life. Soft skills allow individuals to understand others, to capture their emotions and feelings; these are competencies that are much more difficult to acquire, at least in a conventional way, and even more difficult to measure. Examples are self-confidence, self-criticism, problem-solving, attitude to growth and constant improvement, perseverance, flexibility, communication competencies, self-­ promotion capacity, ability to work in a group, conflict management, influence, and leadership. On the contrary, hard skills represent those specific and transmissible competencies that can be easily defined and measured. However, this new set of competencies for the Public Sector has to deal with new methods for measuring and evaluating them. In the traditional managerial literature (Athey & Orth, 1999; Campion et al., 2011) the competency model is associated with various HRM practices, such as hiring, training, evaluating, paying, and promoting employees based on personal and professional characteristics and attitudes. Conversely, in the HRM literature (in both private and public contexts), scholars refer to the concept of evaluation mainly with reference to salaries and bonuses: the main reason organizations adopt an evaluation programme is to remunerate and reward their employees (Horton, Millo, & Serafeim, 2009; Zingheim & Schuster, 2003). Indeed, public management literature is not familiar with the techniques of assessment despite its having been investigated, linked, and applied in different areas and domains. Although over the years many scholars have doubted the possibility of reading and assessing the overall knowledge, competencies, and attitudes in the performance of professional functions (Lichtenberg et  al., 2007), assessment remains a

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fundamental process to evaluate personal and organizational competencies in detail, to understand employees’ strengths and weaknesses, and to build up individual and organizational training paths in order to bridge the gap between the competencies staff and managers should have and those they actually possess (Mulder, Weigel, & Collins, 2007).

6.4   Aims and Method The world of Public Administration needs modern tools of organizational rationality able to evaluate performance, define responsibilities, and identify coherence between role demands and individual resources (Buonocore, de Gennaro, Decastri, & Hinna, 2019). Starting from these considerations, on the initiative of the President of the SNA and of the Human Resources manager of the PCM, an experimental project was launched to assess the competencies of a sample of senior managers working at the PCM, in order to trace the ideal profiles their roles require and highlight the areas of competencies requiring improvement through training activities (Decastri, 2018). As already mentioned in the previous chapter, the SNA is an Italian administrative structure that provides post-graduate training for civil servants (officials, managers, and executives) throughout their entire career cycles: from the selective entrance examination for new executives to ongoing training for career development and in-service training (Chap. 5). The project, entitled “Analysis, Evaluation and Strengthening of Managerial Competencies” in the PCM had five main objectives: (1) to map PCM managerial positions, (2) to identify the existing competencies in order to represent the intellectual, professional, and human capital of public management working at PCM, (3) to reorganize the organizational structure of the PCM, (4) to prepare differentiated and targeted career and training paths, and (5) to foster a process of constant development of strategic managerial competencies. The project, therefore, originated with the objectives of identifying the role profile of public managers, assessing their competencies, and defining a learning environment suitable to strengthen their weaker aspects. The project envisaged three phases: • The construction of a job description for each PCM manager: a job description is usually developed starting from a preliminary job analysis aimed at understanding the activities, responsibilities, and pur-

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pose of the position within an organization, along with the knowledge and the competencies needed for effectively filling that role (Fermi, 2004). • The transformation and rendering of the job descriptions into job profiles: a job profile is defined as the set of competencies, motivations, and values needed in abstract to effectively carry out a job position (Smith, 1997). This phase used an online assessment and in-presence simulation tool to establish patterns. Once the role profile had been defined, it was evaluated whether the job holder possessed all or some of the features and competencies required by the profile. Thus, this assessment methodology identified the expressed and latent competencies and attitudes of the evaluated managers (Nikolaou, Gouras, Vakola, & Bourantas, 2007). • The identification of any gaps between job profiles and competencies profiles: the assessment phase delivered a job profile and a competencies profile; a comparison of these two “documents” allowed researchers to identify the areas where an intervention was required to strengthen the person-job fit (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005). Subsequently individual and/or collective training and/or development paths were designed and are still under development: these may include opportunities and learning environments such as classroom training, individual coaching, business games, or anything else consistent with reported needs (Sallis et al., 1985). A team of experts, including human resources and organizational behaviour scholars and psychologists, were involved in the three phases of the project. With the help of the HR manager of the PCM, 51 volunteers managers from all the three senior management echelons of the Italian civil service were recruited. These comprised first-level managers, second-­ level managers, and second-level managers currently assigned to first-level managerial positions. Table 6.1 shows the characteristics of the sample. The project involved a multi-method analysis combining the administration of semi-structured interviews with individual assessment activities addressed to individual managers. The interviews were based on a list of questions to ensure the interview remained focused on the topic of interest, namely, the formulation of job descriptions. These were semi-structured interviews with open questions in a non-rigid order, so as to put the interviewed subjects at ease and to allow the interviewer to constantly adapt to the flow of the discussion.

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Table 6.1  Characteristics of the sample Gender Male Female Age Average age Managerial level First-level managers Second-level managers Second-level managers with assignment of first-level manager

29 22

56.90% 43.10%

55 18 29 4

35.30% 59.90% 4.80%

Each interview had an average duration of 90  minutes and involved a couple of interviewers who were scholars of business organization and human resources management topics. They provided the information necessary to formulate the job descriptions and then define the role profiles of each interviewed manager. Next, an assessment ascertained whether the post holder possessed all or part of the characteristics indicated in the role profile, and any gaps were identified through assessment methodologies by a team of psychologists. The assessment “reads” the individuals and their latent competencies and attitudes, as well as highlights their work motivation and the values underlying their behaviours. The managers took a test of about three hours during which they were observed reacting to the stimuli of the context, for example, their analytical or synthetic approaches to data collection, sensitivity or not towards listening, and so on. In the following paragraphs the study methodology is described in greater detail. 6.4.1  Semi-Structured Interviews All the position holders were interviewed with a semi-structured methodology in order to define the job descriptions. A semi-structured interview is characterized by a compromise between a structured and a free interview: the interviewer upstream identifies the areas to be explored, but leaves the interviewee free to proceed according to the order and the way he or she prefers (Fylan, 2005; Leech, 2002). This methodology combines planning and flexibility, whereby prefixed, generic, and specific questions change on the basis of the single interlocutor. The conduct of semi-structured interviews changes based on the answers given by the

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interviewee and on the basis of the situation: the interviewer, in fact, cannot address issues not covered by the track but, unlike what happens in the structured interview, can develop some topics that spontaneously arise during the interview if he or she believes these topics are conducive to an understanding of the job description. With a semi-structured, flexible approach the interviews potentially ranged over all the topics concerning the work activities of PCM managers. The focus was on finding recurring themes in order to construct a job description for each volunteer. The interviews were conducted in the managers’ offices and lasted an average 90 minutes; subsequently, the notes from the interviews were uploaded into an online software, Dedoose (version 8.0.35), for qualitative data analysis in order to build the job descriptions of the interviewed managers. A detailed job description is a tool for describing and correctly interpreting the main features of an organizational position; briefly it includes the name of the position, the organization chart, the mission, the tasks performed, the responsibilities and the key performance indicators (KPIs), the hierarchical positioning, and the relationships with other organizational functions inside and outside the work environment (Eugeni & Vittadini, 2017). From June to September 2017, 10 interviewers met 51 PCM managers (including heads of departments, first-level managers, second-level managers, and second-level managers currently assigned to first-level managerial positions) and interviewed each of them about their areas of activities, individual activities, and the optimal ways in which these activities were to be  carried out. The topics covered by the interviews are covered in detail here: • demographic section (e.g., job title, location and operational headquarters, number of human resources assigned, organization chart of the department or the general office); • activities (it is a matter of identifying the “process”, the set of activities and the modalities with which these are carried out, e.g., composition of a typical day or week, identification of the activities carried out by macro-area); • outcome (the results expected from the performed activities), responsibilities, and key performance/monitoring indicators; • relationships (internal—hierarchical or horizontal—and ­external to PCM); • structure and organization of work; • mission.

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Box 6.1 illustrates the structure and areas of interest of the interview. Box 6.1  The Structure and Areas of Interest of the Interview

• Demographic section:

–– What is your name? –– What is the exact name of the position in which you are located within the PCM? –– What is the organization chart of your department/office within the PCM? • Activities: –– What activities do you carry out in your typical day/week? Can you tell us some anecdote related to your daily work life? –– What are the macro-areas your work divides into? –– Do you carry out activities that are not foreseen or presumed by your appointment decree, or do you carry out fewer activities than those foreseen or presumed by your appointment decree? • Responsibilities and key performance/monitoring indicators: –– What are your main responsibilities? –– What are the (positive and negative) key performance indicators of your work? –– Can your work make someone happy? Who benefits from your work? • Competencies and attitudes: –– What are the main professional and technical competencies that you deem necessary in carrying out the activities of your job? –– What are the main personal attitudes and characteristics that you deem necessary in carrying out the activities of your job? • Relationships: –– With whom do you mainly relate at work? –– What are the departments/offices you most often deal with? –– With whom do you mainly relate outside the PCM? (continued)

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Box 6.1  (continued)

• Work organization: –– How many human resources are formally (and informally) assigned to your department/office? –– Do you have a team of people you work with? –– Do you spend time organizing the work of your collaborators? –– Do you spend time training and coaching your collaborators? –– What degree of autonomy do your collaborators experience? What is the division of work in your department/office? –– In organizing your work (within your department/office) what are the critical issues that emerge? What are the improvement actions that you propose? • Mission: –– If you have to summarize in a few lines the usefulness of your work, how would you describe it? –– What’s your job for? –– Why are you paid? –– What is your mission?

After each of the interviews, the interviewers were asked to formalize the results of the interviews into a job description and to submit it to the interviewed manager and his or her hierarchically superior manager in order to receive feedback, verify whether it corresponded to institutional expectations, and guarantee the possibility, eventually, of making changes or additions. 6.4.2  Assessment Centre After editing the job descriptions, through an assessment, a team of psychologists converted them into job profiles by identifying the set of competencies, motivations, and values needed to effectively fill the job position (Mulder, Wesselink, & Bruijstens, 2005). The assessment centre is a standardized survey methodology, designed and maintained by psychologists, which makes use of stimulus situations and tests to identify the possession of the competencies necessary to carry

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out a professional activity. The assessment centre aims at identifying in a predictive way the attitudes and behavioural characteristics that represent the personal substratum of an individual with respect to the optimal coverage of an organizational role. From the methodological point of view, the assessment centre is configured as an artificial situation, a sort of “container”, with a known context value, within which are inserted particular inputs, which are controlled variables, so that inducing behavioural responses can be observed and detected, analysed, and compared against defined criteria of interpretation. The assessment methodology has been conducted through an in-­ presence and an online test. During the in-presence test, of about three hours, managers faced different types of situations and settings (e.g., from role play to basketball) and have been observed by a psychologist. There are no “right” or “wrong” behaviours in these situations: the object of the analysis is the way people react to the stimuli of the context, showing—for example—analytical or synthetic approaches to data collection, and so on. The observation of managers’ behaviour allowed psychologists to identify the attitudes that lead to certain types of action and to define the profile of the individual under examination. During the online (remote) test, other generic and specific tests have been administered: the former ignored the specificity of the position and aimed at “understanding” the individual as a whole by identifying the traits of his or her personality; conversely, the specific tests aimed at reading the attitudinal characteristics in relation to a specific job profile in order to provide a direct comparison between the role and the individual performing it. A job profile is defined as the set of competencies, motivations, and values needed in abstract to effectively cover a position. The competencies, in turn, are divided into technical knowledge, experiences (know-­ how), and attitudes (personality traits). The job profile can also be understood as a sort of template, an ideal shape to which reference should be made when selecting and “shaping” the person who is going to cover a certain position; if the position holder had all the characteristics indicated in the profile, he or she would be perfectly adherent to the role and would have the maximum chance of obtaining efficient and effective results. In practice, Public Administrations should do their utmost to define these profiles, selecting the most suitable persons and, above all, pushing the position holders towards a process of improvement and development. Among the assessed areas and dimensions, values and motivations which can influence the professional path have taken on an important role.

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Even work behaviour is subject to assessment: in general, by crossing data on the so-called “normal” behaviour (i.e., daily trends) and on particular situations (i.e., when a person is under stress) it is possible to analyse the different facets of the personality and predict, with a significant degree of statistical reliability, the behaviours that the person could implement in certain situations. Among the tools and methodologies used in the assessment phase are: • professional biographic questionnaire; • structured interview on the competencies being assessed; • CV analysis; • analysis of business cases; • role play; • Hogan test. Hogan personality tests, in particular, measure the behavioural tendencies of people in normal conditions (bright side), the risk factors that emerge in stressful situations and which can put careers at risk (dark side), and the values that guide professional choices. Then, psychologists proceeded to provide feedback to the managers by sharing the preliminary results of the assessment with them. The phases of the assessment centre were therefore threefold. In the first phase, public managers involved were sent a questionnaire to complete and the credentials to access an online test with the relative instructions. The questionnaire is used for a critical review of the career path up to the date of compilation, while the test—a validated and standardized psychometry tool—is used for the exploration of personality traits. During the second phase, the psychologist elaborated, on the basis of the job description, a job profile summarizing the competencies of the role—in particular the so-called transversal competencies—that the position holder possessed. Subsequently, a psychologist conducted an individual session with each participant, lasting about two and a half hours. This session comprised tests and interviews to study individual attitudes in greater depth. The final phase involved the drawing up of a report and giving about an hour’s feedback to the managers involved, as well as a summary for the management of the SNA and the PCM, in the form of aggregated data, with comments and suggestions for future organizational development.

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6.4.3  Analysis To recap, we used a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 2017) as well as the Gioia method (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2013) through a methodological process involving four phases. In the first phase, a team of human resources and organizational behaviour scholars conducted interviews using a semi-structured methodology. Given that a thorough knowledge of the literature on the subject would have prevented us from objectively thinking during the analysis of the interviews (Gioia et al., 2013), we made our research process “abductive” and not “inductive”, so we considered in tandem data and existing theory (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2007) with reference to the appointment decrees and the activities envisaged for each department of the PCM. Subsequently, thanks to the assessment centre methodology, a team of psychologists translated job descriptions into managerial role profiles. The third phase involved the analysis of the results and the feedback of individual profiles, all of which involved the processing of the data collected on an individual and aggregate level and a feedback phase with the consequent possible integration of profiles. Finally, in the fourth and last phase of the project, through an analysis of this gap between the expected and the observed competencies of managers, learning and development paths were developed, with consequent organizational actions.

6.5   Results: The Key Dimensions of Managerial Competence Domain Some results emerge that are worth investigating and discussing. The interviews were initially greeted with scepticism, with many managers seeing them as a waste of time (“I’m really busy, will this be quick?”); but the interviewers managed to create a positive climate to ensure the meetings were pleasant and stimulating (“Have we finished already? I have other things I’d like to tell you!”) and this engendered positive word-of-­ mouth feedback on the grapevine, fuelling curiosity and interest among all the PCM managers. The managers who were interviewed considered this project useful because of the opportunity to examine in depth some aspects of their profession that are generally overlooked (“What competencies are needed to cover my job position? What are my key performance indicators?”) and to highlight some personal development areas they should work on (“I will do everything possible to improve the way I relate to

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others!”). A first subject of interest is therefore represented by the cultural resistance with which the managers approached this project, although it was a sample of volunteers. The world of Public Administration is continually demonstrating that it is far from the evaluation logic of the private sector and this can be the first alarm bell. In addition to the mapping of job positions, the competencies and aptitudes of the managers interviewed were observed to create a job profile and to establish the training needs of the PCM. Among the evaluated areas and dimensions, particular emphasis was given to values and motivations, intended as an essential part of identity, determining the environments and the relationships potentially sources of energy—namely, the areas in which it seems that the manager works more easily, drawing gratification, energy, and enthusiasm from what he or she does, or on the contrary the situations of tension, that is, the ambits in which it is possible that the manager perceives more effort, feels him- or herself outside the comfort zone, and feels a potential loss of energy. From the analysis, it emerged a prevalence of (1) operational competencies, with respect to the strategic managerial ones, both in job profiles and in current competencies, (2) motivations related to professionalism, safety, and altruism, and (3) attitude to risk and predisposition to personal initiative. A more detailed assessment analysis revealed some characteristics and critical aspects of this branch of the Public Administration that can be classified as follows: • Competencies and aptitudes of PCM managers: operational competencies were found to be superior to their strategic managerial competencies. These are, however, very high values, since managers show a strong attitude to work organization and planning (competencies present in 52% of respondents), as well as to problem-solving and coordination (48% of respondents). Managers are also characterized by a general and systemic vision (46% of respondents), although not everyone has the perception of the main objective of the department of competence. On the contrary, some gaps and training needs emerged with reference to the involvement and the engagement in work and in the management of conflict and authority. Lastly, it is interesting to note that the interviewed and assessed managers do not have a marked tendency to take responsibility and this is an aspect on which it is undoubtedly useful to develop adequate training paths.

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• Personality traits of PCM managers: prudence represents a common personal characteristic among PCM managers; if on the one hand this result may seem to be in line with the administration’s need for caution, it is also true that this can often lead to a lack of responsiveness and initiative. There are also other interesting aspects, such as the desire for knowledge (61% of respondents), strong interpersonal sensitivity (58%), and curiosity (57%). Scrupulousness is attested, on average, by 66% of respondents, while obedience, on average, by 57%. Strangely, PCM managers do not appear particularly sociable (28%) and this is certainly an aspect to work and train on in the future since the relational aspect assumes a fundamental importance for managers in public and in private organizations. • Motivations, values, and preferences of PCM managers: a very high value emerged with reference to aesthetics (82%), perhaps due to the fact that positions in the Prime Minister’s office are undoubtedly prestigious. All other variables (e.g., security, altruism, affiliation, power, etc.) returned values in the average, although not with regard to the “money” variable, which played a part of relative low importance in this work context (33% of respondents). These results helped to draw a picture of the training needs of the PCM, starting from the description of the personal and professional competencies of public managers. Managers seem to have a strong inclination to learning but show a low propensity to risk and social relationships; they also prefer a horizontal work organization and often intervene in the resolution of staff conflicts. Managers tend to manage heavy workloads with ease, showing dedication to and engagement in their work, although they often experience contradictory objectives due to the lack of information and internal communication within the administration. Moreover, from the analysis of the job profiles some tendencies have emerged with reference to the cognitive area (e.g., problem-solving, general and systemic vision), the attitudes (e.g., coordination, involvement, assumption of responsibility, organization, planning), and the relational boundaries (management of conflicts, authority, communication). From the observed set of abilities, the most represented in the job profiles, in order, were: (1) organization and planning, (2) problem-solving, (3) coordination, and (4) general and systemic vision. This prevalence is, however, influenced by the strong general operational rather than strategic and managerial emphasis of the work roles.

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In general, a strong difference emerged between first- and second-line managers. The latter feel “oppressed” by a low autonomy which does not always allow them to be executives as a whole, but rather mere executors and coordinators of assigned human and professional resources. Among the areas of strength there is a high level of professionalism in the individual contribution, in the sense of belonging, in rigor and adherence to the norm, in the high sense of duty, and in the importance of offering a service to society. Almost all of the managers interviewed and assessed expressed a good level of initiative in bringing innovation and suggestions in order to do their job better, while being aware of the difficulty of bureaucratic slowness and resource slenderness. The areas of improvement identified so far refer rather to a lack of awareness and attention with respect to the issues of managerial development (attitude towards the assessment), to a scarce attention to the management of resources, seen almost always as a problem and not as a role mission, and to a poor horizontal integration. From the different assessment circumstances, it emerged that the population involved should develop and consolidate a total of four macro-competencies listed below: leadership, relationship orientation, work organization and time management, and result orientation. In light of these considerations, the final step of this project involved the formulation of training and development paths—and others are currently under development—in order to fill the gaps between existing and desired competencies of managers. It is important that the hard but mainly the soft skills of managers should be improved, in order to enable them to perform better in their roles and to face the challenges engendered by the recent changes involving the Italian Public Administration. It seems appropriate to promote initiatives in the direction of an awareness of the administration’s global mission, a greater horizontal integration, and a more careful exploitation of human capital and support for managerial development. Furthermore, it is essential to create the conditions for designing appropriate development and training plans, in a differentiated and targeted manner, as well as foster a process of constant development of strategic managerial competencies. Finally, by defining a learning environment suitable to reinforce “weaker” competencies, this project aims to represent a starting point for a subsequent broader intervention, aimed at strengthening the managerial competencies of the Italian civil service.

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6.6   Implications for Organizational Design and Human Resource Management Today, faced with a growing demand for services with equal resources, thanks to new tools, Public Administrations can rethink the efficiency of production processes and the methods for strengthening and developing staff competencies and performance. Furthermore, the awareness of the importance of an effective use of the assets of competencies, knowledge, values, and motivations used daily in the respective working contexts has increased further. Regardless of the objectives of the presented exploratory study, some critical points have emerged that are worth investigating. First of all, a common problem is represented by the organization of work: in structures that are not well defined, some managers were not aware of the exact number of collaborators available to carry out their work activities. Furthermore, again with regard to the organization of work, many managers feel demotivated because their perception is that they are not involved in the decision-making processes of the administration. Finally, a common element emerging from the analysis of the data also concerns the difficulty in measuring objectives and, consequently, an absence of incentive tools. From the assessment centre process, after having drafted the job descriptions and the job profiles, three final outputs were produced: • An individual report, containing a detailed description of all the dimensions analysed for each interviewed manager. This is a document that analyses the main characteristics of the organizational position with the competencies required to perform each individual task in the best possible way. • An aggregated report, with the main evidences of the population involved. This document aggregates the data related to the motivation and competencies being assessed as an overview of the entire interviewed population. The data can then be used to identify in-­ house development policies for the population or analyse training needs in terms of personal development or with reference to any gaps detected. It also identifies any gaps in technical knowledge and experience. The training paths can be formulated, for example, in terms of training courses, participation in projects, participation in events, job rotation, coaching, or other training experiences.

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• An organizational report containing the critical assessment of the organizational structure and the first suggestions for an improvement of the critical issues encountered by the interviewers (work organization experts and psychologists) during the phase of the interviews and the assessment centres of managers. In fact, the interviewees were asked to identify any critical issues in the organization of their work and to propose improvements that could be made. The organizational team used their answers to propose some improvements in work organization at the end of the analysis. These are undoubtedly interesting indications and suggestions, both from the individual point of view and from the aggregate and organizational ones, which, however, highlighted some problems in the assessment phase. This study showed public management is not familiar with the concept of assessment despite the fact that these techniques have been investigated, linked, and applied in different areas and domains, especially in the private sector, but also in the Public Sector in other countries. According to McMullan et  al. (2003), assessment contributes “to the maintenance of professional standards (Rowntree, 2015) and facilitates judgements about employees’ qualities, abilities, and knowledge against predetermined criteria” (p. 167). Assessment methodologies also raise a number of other issues. First of all, it is important to distinguish between training assessment, understood as a developmental process of assessing competencies, and summative assessment, that is, typically an end-point measurement of the outcomes of a training process (Roberts, Borden, Christiansen, & Lopez, 2005). In this sense, the summative logic is more similar to what managerial scholars define as the evaluation process—that is, a practice adopted by human resource managers to review and evaluate an employee’s performance over a specific period of time—and the objective of this project merely refers to the first type. Another issue that is relevant in the business setting is the role of people involved in the assessment process. Scholars agree on a multidimensional and multi-method approach involving an all-round evaluation where all the different stakeholders are considered, including supervisors, peers, and, possibly, clients, as well as the individual’s self-analysis (Atkins & Wood, 2002). This approach provides important information in terms of the quantity and the quality of the behaviour and work of individuals, but it is also extremely expensive and time-consuming. A fortiori, from a

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Public Administration perspective, it is not always easy to measure the perception of all external stakeholders as PCM managers work in centralized activities with a potentially unlimited number of interested parties. Another critical issue is employees’ resistance to assessment. As stated by Lichtenberg et al. (2007), “one challenge is to convince those who are sceptical of the value of the culture shift toward more comprehensive assessments across the professional life span. Sceptics often question whether such assessment(s) would lead to better training for competencies and higher levels of competence overall, whether the assessment of competencies would reduce incompetence in the field, and whether the measurement of competencies is a better way to assess professional performance in the long run than what is currently being done” (p. 476). Scepticism is frequently a cloak for two critical issues: the fear of change and the fear of evaluation. People tend to resist assessment because they do not want to change their status quo; therefore, they fear losing power, probably because they simply feel comfortable in their jobs. This was very common and could have also affected the quality of the results. Finally, in terms of the reliability of the assessment methods, according to Lichtenberg et al. (2007): “psychology does not currently have methods to readily or reliably assess the integration of knowledge, competencies, and attitudes in the performance of professional functions that comprise competence” (p. 476). Nevertheless, assessment remains a fundamental tool and process in order to assess personal and organizational competencies in detail, to understand employees’ strengths and weaknesses, and to build up individual and organizational training paths to fill the gap between the competencies staff and managers should have and those they actually have (Mulder, Weigel, & Collins, 2007). Similar themes and methodologies can also represent a starting point for a new idea of recruitment in the Public Sector. As already stated, the ability, motivation, and productivity of the personnel who populate government bureaucracies is a key determinant of government performance and recruiting the “right” type of public employee—those with not only the technical competencies required for performing a job, but also with the motivation to serve the public first and foremost—is particularly important in Public Administration given that structural constraints limit the potential of monetary and career rewards to influence incentives and performance of individuals. The importance of selection of civil servants for the productivity and performance of government is also increasingly backed by empirical evidence from academic studies (e.g., Meziani-­Remichi & Maussen, 2017;

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Selden & Orenstein, 2011; Sundell, 2014) to complement what has been tacit knowledge among policy circles for a long time. Furthermore, the selection of the right staff and the career development of staff need to be underpinned by a clearer description of roles, procedures, positions, processes, and job profiles in public organizations, as well as by a clearer identification of required competencies. In light of this project, and other similar ones undertaken by the Italian central Public Administration, the Italian SNA could seek analytical and advisory services to strengthen (1) the definition of required competencies and of roles and positions in various organizations and units of Public Administration and (2) the recruitment procedures for Public Administration. SNA could support Italian Public Administrations in (1) developing guidance and hands-on assistance for clearer descriptions of roles, positions, and related competencies (including advise for the development of an assessment centre), and (2) proposing options for a recruitment model able to select staff with excellent knowledge, competencies, and attitudes, as one avenue for strengthening Public Administration. The model should be able to evaluate knowledge as well as competencies and (existing) attitudes and be in compliance with Article 97 of the Constitution1 and other relevant legal obligations. These services would include advice on competencies and of assessment methods in order to identify both technical and soft skills related to specific role profiles and consequently in order to improve the recruitment and the selection of individuals with appropriate attitudes and public service motivation to be effective civil servants. Final outputs could then be (1) an analysis of the current situation and its strengths and weaknesses regarding the identification of job profiles and competencies and the recruitment processes in use, (2) a guidance note on options for identifying roles, positions, job profiles, and competencies, including concrete examples drawn from the targeted subset of jobs in pilot administrations and for the development of an assessment centre, and (3) a clear and accessible menu of options for recruitment procedures, including underlying explanations about options and their 1  Public offices are organized according to law, so as to ensure efficiency and impartiality of administration. The regulations on public offices lay down the areas of competence, duties, and responsibilities of their officials. Employment in Public Administration is made through competitive examinations, except in those cases established by law (Constitution of the Italian Republic, 1947).

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advantages/disadvantages, and a discussion of the duration of various options taking into account existing experience (e.g., number of applicants), in order to develop a draft handbook and guidelines for implementation of the recruitment model(s) selected (in co-creation with Italian counterparts) for Public Administration. Based on the above, here are some thematic areas on which development courses have been launched: • leadership: principles of public management, how to motivate employees, leadership in the Public Administration, how to become a mentor, policies and tools for managing people, multisource feedback, evaluating performance and behaviours in the Public Administration, enhancement of work well-being; • relationships: effective communication, negotiation, public speaking, how to prevent and manage conflicts, emotive intelligences for management; • work organization and time management: planning and governance of organizational processes, project management in the Public Administration, strategic time management; • goal orientation: managerial coaching, self-empowerment, goal setting. This is a non-exhaustive programme of the courses, since it is partly still in the planning phase, but which highlights some reference issues on which the training of the PCM managers will be based. New individual and collective training paths are currently being designed, including opportunities and learning environments such as classroom training, individual coaching, guided project works, business games, or others consistent with the needs reported. This focus on training is undoubtedly a major achievement for the Public Administration, considering that in Italy the propensity to training in the workplace is not high: in 2005 only 30% of Italian companies invested in training and, despite this value rising to 56% in 2010, these values are still below the European average of 66% (ISFOL, 2013). This is even more evident in the Public Sector: as evidenced by some PA Forum surveys (27th edition of the Italian Public Administration Forum), Italian public employees are less qualified than their European colleagues, since the administration’s economic difficulties have progressively sacrificed budget allocations for staff training (Agnesa, Calvaruso, Malaguti, & Vidotto, 2011). Although it is difficult to estimate and measure the impact of training on performance, numerous empirical

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studies demonstrate its positive and significant impact (e.g., Bartel, 2000; Dearden, Reed, & Van Reenen, 2006), highlighting that training activities improve business performance by increasing competencies for managers and employees. The literature also highlights the relevant benefits of training in the field of soft skills, contributing to improving personal characteristics such as emotional intelligence, negotiation competencies, change management, and team problem-solving, essential for effectively exercising a leadership role (Bancino & Zevalkink, 2007), and that these are essential conditions to allow public and private organizations to maintain high levels of competitiveness (Gabriele, Feltrinelli, & Trento, 2014). A related aspect concerns the development of potential in subordinates. In order to organize work efficiently, available human resources must act in the common interest; the improvement of internal communication, group cohesion, and the reduction of free riding can certainly improve the internal working climate and lead to better results (Williams, 2013). Finally, a soft skills’ training path provides managers with a systemic and wider interpretation of organizational functioning and processes, developing mental and relational models able to interpret the context in which PCM managers work. Furthermore, following the definition and the need to identify the soft skills relevant to Public Sector managers, one aspect that should not be underestimated is their acquisition. According to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory (Bandura & Walters, 1977), people learn primarily through the observable behaviours of others. Most human behaviour is learned by observing through modelling: from the observation of others, an idea is formed of how new behaviours are performed, and then the encoded information serves as a guide for action. From here we refer to the principle of so-called social proof: this axiom affirms that, on average, people tend to consider the choices made by a large number of people as valid. That said, it will not be difficult to understand how behaviours (and their consequences) are modelled on the basis of social interactions with others. Although in some people there are innate attitudes, it is certainly possible to acquire and refine soft skills and the best way to do so is to observe the virtuous and productive behaviour of others and make them our own. We must try to understand what the needs of others are, learning to put ourselves in their shoes. Changing one’s point of view is a great start to increase one’s understanding competencies. It is essential to learn to actively listen to the people with whom one relates in order to try to help them by rowing in a common direction. To develop

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soft skills, the contribution of a professional coach is useful, as they are able to build, step by step, training programmes to model the behaviour of managers and employees. Given that this study has generated a lot of interest and satisfaction, it is likely that it will be extended to other Italian administrations in order to create a mapping of public management positions and a general and specific learning path to meet the needs of Italian PA.

6.7   Conclusions Chapter 6 has dealt with the methodology with which the exploratory pilot study was conducted, that is, a multi-method analysis, combining semi-structured interviews with individual assessment activities. The objective of the chapter has been to outline some preliminary results in order to prepare future training plans for Italian public managers. After analysing the data and results from this multi-method study, it seemed appropriate to promote initiatives in the direction of defining a learning environment capable of reinforcing the weaker competencies of Italian public managers. Given the complexity of the structure and the great internal mobility, the study focused on transversal competencies and meta-skills that would foster better management of work in the current moment, avoiding too specific a focus on a single role. The case study therefore focused on the detection of competencies, motivations, areas of strength, and development areas (in a broad sense) with respect to the context. By way of example, only considering the competencies, there are many areas of investigation of this process: • problem-solving: ability to detect the problem and define it appropriately; propensity to see the problem and any difficulties exceeding the normal management not as an insurmountable obstacle, or as somebody else’s competence, but as a normal aspect related to one’s activity and, as such, to be faced and solved; ability to identify and analyse the different variables and facets of a problem and to identify its causes in a correct way; • general and systemic vision: ability to see spontaneously and easily the interconnections between the various organizational parts and the network of relationships between them and to assess complexity; ability to solve critical situations taking into account the context and

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the different factors involved; ability to communicate and promote an overall vision of problems and solutions among colleagues; • coordination: predisposition to give clear and explicit indications and directives about what is expected; ability to make others do what is functional to the goal through the influence and/or the  use of authority and power linked to the hierarchical role; propensity to analyse the activities to define the action plans and assign the activities; ability to consider the impact that each team member’s activity and behaviour generates on each other’s activity and behaviour; • involvement: ability to transmit a sense of belonging; sharing values and objectives of the organization and of the organizational unit; profound interest in investing energies for a wide and effective management of processes; ability to achieve results; propensity to create the best “team play” through a collaborative attitude that encourages the assumption of responsibility on the part of others; • assumption of responsibility: to show knowledge and awareness of one’s role and duties to correctly define strategic, decisional, and operational limits; ability to assume responsibility for achieving objectives even when no action is directly taken in the implementation phase; to seek solutions to problems rather than ensuring that they cannot be traced back to oneself or one’s functional area; • organization and planning: ability to structure activities, human and instrumental resources, and time according to the achievement of a goal; propensity to plan time, giving priority to actions and monitoring results and processes in order to increase operational and economic efficiency; ability to allocate and assign activities and resources from a process perspective; • conflict management: a tendency to live and to promote among colleagues a vision of the contrasts of opinions as moments of comparison useful for an improvement of the way of working; ability to settle situations of opposition between colleagues by stimulating a positive attitude for integration; ability to face situations of divergence with a partner with serenity and promoting a balanced relationship; tendency to maintain calm and lucidity in situations of tension and disagreement; • authoritativeness: inclination to influence and direct the actions and attitudes of the interlocutors; ability to be seen as a professional reference point; ability to transmit integrity and consistency with respect to one’s own values; ability to implement behaviours and attitudes in

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line with organizational choices, even in cases where these are not shared in full; • to be able to communicate: ability to effectively and actively listen and transmit the message to the interlocutor with a good degree of flexibility; tendency to interpret the communicative process, by clearly expressing and verifying the level of one’s own understanding through every possible source of feedback; knowing how to present the contents in a clear and incisive way by choosing the most appropriate channel to reach the goal; • adaptability and openness to change: ability to grasp new tools as an opportunity; accepting uncertainty and the risks that derive from it and valuing the positive aspects; tendency to create, among colleagues, the organizational and climate conditions for change to take place; aptitude to promote change through the search for new ways of managing activities and services; • emotional and social intelligence: ability to recognize one’s own and others’ emotions; propensity to manage emotions in a functional way to achieve goals; to be constructive in the face of frustration and failure; ability to keep open communication with the interlocutor identifying the knowledge to grasp emotional states by moving properly in the relationship at various levels while maintaining a high degree of effectiveness and functionality. Making PA competitive and a driving force for the country represents a complex challenge that requires a great push towards the innovation of services, a strong focus on efficiency and transparency, and a real individual and collective cultural transformation. The SNA has decided to propose to the whole Italian PA a path that should allow it to grasp the training and development needs of its managers with a logic that is both solid and scientifically valid. Usually, training in the world of PA is a sort of ample menu, often very rich and interesting, but it does not have a direct connection with the real needs of the single administration, of the single department, of the single position. This is why the SNA has tried to create a path, a project that aims at connecting the real needs of Public Administrations and of the people who work within them. But how should this “bridge” be structured? The Italian SNA would like to propose a process that includes three work phases: (1) the first phase concerns the analysis of the needs, that is, the organizational analysis of the

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Public Administration that participates in the project, and in particular of the individual managerial positions; in other words, the first goal is to read the organization to understand what are the activities, responsibilities, relationships, and, more generally, the organizational characteristics of the administrations’ functioning. On the basis of this organizational reading, the Italian SNA will then transform the organizational position with its characteristics into what is called a job profile, then the necessary profile of competencies to cover and carry out that specific position. On the basis of the organizational reading and the translation into competencies theoretically and abstractly necessary to effectively cover that position, the SNA will then pass to the second phase (2) which sees the position holder as the protagonist. The path passes from the organizational reading of the position to the reading of the competencies of the manager who occupies that position at that moment; this reading takes place through an assessment with psychologists, who are called on to analyse the profile of competencies of the manager who occupies that position. This assessment takes place both through online tests and through meetings, simulations, exercises that do not focus on the evaluation of the person—this is not the objective of the assessment—as much as on understanding the competencies that the person has vis-à-vis the job and the position he or she occupies. Once the assessment is completed, including the profile of the people who occupy those positions, the SNA comes to the third phase (3), which sees a comparison of the job profiles with the competencies possessed by the manager, by the person in that position at that moment. This comparison between the job profile and the manager’s competencies identifies the gap, the lack of competencies relative to the manager in that position, and how to help that person to develop, grow, and reinforce certain competencies to be more in line with the position he or she holds. In this third phase, therefore, the SNA tries to understand what these gaps are, later designing ad hoc training courses which start from these deltas, from these gaps, and which should allow the manager to strengthen the position coverage, thus being even more effective within that position, and consequently making the whole Italian administration stronger and more capable of managing its own processes. This chapter argued for building new managerial competencies for public management drawing on the case study of the SNA and its experimental assessment project addressed to senior managers in the PCM. The results suggested new areas of managerial competencies which could be improved by encouraging ongoing learning programmes within public organizations to foster continuous improvement and learning paths.

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Relevant competencies include communication, problem-solving, team-­ working, and the ability to improve personal learning and performance, motivation, negotiation, leadership, and personal traits like flexibility, resilience, and creativity.

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PART III

Learning from the Italian Way

CHAPTER 7

Conclusions and Implications for the Italian Public Sector Stefano Battini, Gianluigi Mangia, and Angelo Mari

7.1   Italy and Political Instability Italy over the years has been characterized by a “stable instability” (Bull & Newell, 1993) that has fuelled a fiery debate on the inefficiency of Public Administration (Mele & Ongaro, 2014). Italian governments of the last 20 years have largely consisted of coalitions with bare majorities “just as large as [their participants] believe will be winning and no larger” (Ongaro, 2013: 32–33). Centre-right and centre-­left parties have alternated, together with a small centre opposition representative, and this has generated negative consequences in the implementation of reforms and in strategic planning in the civil service (Buonocore & de Gennaro, 2018). S. Battini Italian National School of Administration (SNA), Rome, Italy Tuscia University, Viterbo, Italy e-mail: [email protected] G. Mangia (*) • A. Mari Italian National School of Administration (SNA), Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. Decastri et al. (eds.), Organizational Development in Public Administration, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43799-2_7

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The reform of the Public Administration has been a distinctive and constant feature of every government since the foundation of the modern Italian state in 1861. Within this turbulent and constantly evolving scenario, Italian public management has undergone numerous changes that have determined its characteristics today (Di Mascio & Natalini, 2013). Uncertainty, vagueness, and ambiguity are features of public organizational environments (Karp & Helgø, 2008; Romanelli, de Gennaro, & Buonocore, 2018) and in a particularly unstable scenario, such as Italian politics, public management is entrusted with the role of a fundamental actor in the effective management of change. This requires a new managerial profile, with an evaluation based on two aggregate variables (Azzone & Palermo, 2011): (a) organizational skills, that is, the ability to activate managerial conduct to achieve an adequate and effective combination of human, professional, technological, and financial resources and (b) performance, that is, the ability to transform the objectives received from the political summit into results through the management activity. Without doubt, Italy’s chronic political instability has generated continuous interruptions in the planning and in the implementation of government policies (Cassese, 2012) that have hindered all the initiatives aimed at innovating the administrative machine. One of the causes can be fount in the short-termism of politicians and administrators over the years, as they focused on objectives that could be achieved before the transition to a subsequent government. This has obviously generated repercussions on reforms, many of which have been approved and implemented with difficulty by majority coalitions whose short-lived governments had neither the time nor the opportunity to legitimize themselves in the eyes of public opinion (Buonocore, de Gennaro, De Nito, & Hinna, 2018). Political instability, besides affecting the stability of strategic reform strategies, also has a direct impact on the stability of the roles of public managers. With the establishment in Italy of a majority electoral system, Italy also activated a neo-spoils system, with politicians being given the option of appointing managers of their choice to lead key departments and structures in order to guarantee professional and moral support for their political programmes. The spoils system in Italy is governed by Law No. 145 issued 15 July 2002 and by Law No. 286 issued 24 November 2006, with the underlying concept being the need for trust and harmony between administration and politics as a necessary element for the good performance of Public Administrations. A common purpose, guaranteed by the fiduciary nature of the appointments, determines a greater cohesion and synergy of action between politicians and managers. This obviously

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impacts on public managers, who experience a condition of greater uncertainty as they are pressed by two opposing needs: on one side, they have the task of translating the political address into measures and management actions and, at the same time, they are required to guarantee the impartiality of the administrative action (Cassese, 2002). In the Public Management literature, many scholars have dealt with the issues of political instability, adopting different perspectives of analysis. Hurwitz (1973), for example, investigated long-lived governments, trying to identify the conditions that can guarantee greater stability over time with reference, for example, to a legitimate legal system, to the absence of violence or socio-cultural heterogeneity. Furthermore, the literature has shown that political instability generates significant organizational changes in the Public Sector with negative consequences for countries’ economy in terms, for example, of financial development or inflation (Aisen & Veiga, 2013); thus, political stability would represent a fundamental prerequisite for a more effective management of the administrative processes (Galli, Ongaro, Ferrè, & Longo, 2013). In a recent article, Brady, Paparo, and Rivers (2016) highlight the existence of a negative relationship between political instability and the economic performance of a country; similarly, Meyer-Sahling and Yesilkagit (2011) have shown that high political turnover hinders an effective implementation of administrative reforms. Conversely, a part of the literature focused on the positive effects of political discontinuity, considering more opportunities in increasing meritocracy in the selection phases (Ferejohn, 1986), but also skills and professionalism (Feiock & Stream, 1998), and in preventing corruption and cronyism (de Mesquita, 2000).

7.2   How Instability Affects Managerial Behaviour Managers tend to experience organizational change differently compared to other categories of workers (Karp & Helgø, 2008), since they are often more directly involved in the decision-making processes and, in the case of public managers, they are aware of the decision-making guidelines of politicians. The perception of uncertainty, therefore, tends to be lower, as managers often act as an “active” part of the change process. However, sometimes political dynamics become very frenetic and almost irrational, up to the point that the reasons for change are not clear even to top managers, who experience a sense of uncertainty and instability with relevant consequences for their work. In these circumstances, public managers may experience a low level of organizational identification (Dutton, Dukerich,

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& Harquail, 1994). Since individuals act based on their sense of belonging to different social groups, it is likely that frequent changes in government do not allow a coincidence between the political values of managers and the values of the politicians. Organizational identification means the recognition of one’s own values in those of the organization and it can help to understand why some individuals commit themselves to carry out their activities with more self-­ denial than others (Dukerich, Golden, & Shortell, 2002). Managers who experience “temporary identities” (Ibarra, 1999) or an ambiguous organizational membership—as may be the case of the Italian political and administrative system, continually “provisional” and unstable—are in fact less identified with the organization and, consequently, less motivated to carry out their tasks. This uncertainty determines a decrease in motivation to lead for public management (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2011). Motivation to lead (MTL) refers to the tendency to seek out leadership positions and to the effort managers exert in performing their leadership duties at a high level; it is a three-­ dimensional construct based on affective, social normative, and non-calculative identities (Chan & Drasgow, 2001). MTL affects the individual’s participation in leadership roles and activities due to self-inclination and preference, perception of and conformation to social norms, and lack of calculation (non-calculative MTL) (de Gennaro, 2019; Hong, Catano, & Liao, 2011). Senior public managers therefore may show a high level of dissatisfaction at work because they do not perceive the satisfaction and the pleasure deriving from being leaders, they are not motivated to lead by social and normative reasons, such as a feeling of commitment to the group, and finally they are not encouraged to sacrifice themselves for uncertain and fickle objectives, such as the MTL definition (Amit, Lisak, Popper, & Gal, 2007). Another important point is that, in a condition of high political turnover, managers may find it difficult to plan and set medium- and long-­ term goals. Drawing on goal setting theory (Latham & Locke, 1991), individuals’ performance is the result of their will, so that an individual who has a clear idea of what she/he wants to do will perform better than those who have unclear goals and ideas. Some managers may feel disoriented in carrying out their duties: as governments alternate in a frenetic way, managers fail to plan long-term goals because there would be no possibility of reaching them. When the context is perceived as insecure and unreliable, then it will certainly influence and affect employees’ propensity

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to reach goals (Borgogni, Dello Russo, Petitta, & Latham, 2009), since individuals want to grasp the relationship between what they do and the desired outcome (Bandura & Locke, 2003). In conclusion, starting from the consideration that a setting of uncertainty negatively affects self-regulatory mechanisms and performance (Arenas, Tabernero, & Briones, 2006), it would be useful to verify if and how uncertainty impacts on behaviours, attitudes, and perceptions (see for example Buonocore, de Gennaro, Russo, & Salvatore, 2020). Some examples can be professional identification, in terms of recognizing one’s own personal values in those of the administration, MTL, in terms of efforts in performing high-level administrative leadership duties, and planning activity, in terms of setting goals’ characteristics. Strategic, structural, and job-related uncertainty experienced by public managers in Italy could be the cause for the general inertia of the Public Sector (Cristofoli, Nasi, Turrini, & Valotti, 2011). We hope that the studies on these issues will proliferate, since literature on the topic is still lacking and it needs further contributions in a behavioural perspective in order to create public value in changing circumstances (Bryson, Crosby, & Bloomberg, 2014). Public managers must be able to cope with sudden changes in government management as if they were company managers and, in light of these new skills and abilities required for them, Italian public managers can represent the development lever for Public Administration (Buonocore, de Gennaro, Decastri, & Hinna, 2019).

7.3   The Need for a Cultural Change in Public Management The issue of change is currently very much to the fore in the Italian Public Administration, especially with reference to the need to shift (or, more accurately, recover) attention from rules and procedures to people and the real problems Public Administrations deal with, by adopting an approach that can be dubbed behavioural (Hinna, Mameli, & Mangia, 2016). There have been numerous reforms of the Public Administration over the years, all oriented at modifying work processes to make them more efficient and effective in a context of constant change. Pursuing “efficiency” and “effectiveness”—terms abused in the public as well as in the private sector—is naturally indispensable if the PA’s work processes are primarily aimed at providing services to citizens and businesses (e.g.,

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Andrews & Van de Walle, 2013; Mihaiu, Opreana, & Cristescu, 2010; Wallner, 2008). Indeed, the country’s growth policies also require greater productivity and the ability to offer adequate services to businesses and citizens. But what is the productivity of the PA fuelled by? Cutting costs? Reorganization of services? Timely but strict procedures? All these elements certainly, but it is also predominantly fuelled by the quality of the personnel (Kuipers et al., 2014): the competencies possessed, the experience gained, the motivation at work, the sense of service to the citizen, the personal abilities, the values in which one believes (Van Wart, 2013). And if the productivity of PA is determined by the quality of personnel, the latter is guaranteed by the ability to update and develop competencies. Therefore, training could be an important tool for the innovation of human capital in the Public Sector (Klingner, Llorens, & Nalbandian, 2015). The world of learning is in fact evolving from a process in which the subject of training is shaped by a teacher to a process of co-creation of knowledge and experiences. For some years we have witnessed the transition from a top-down process, characterized by a hierarchical approach to the development of people, to a bottom-up process, in which trainers and scholars collaborate in the creation and development of knowledge, competencies, and abilities. It is a vision of circular, horizontal, and reticular learning (Nigro, Nigro, & Kellough, 2012). The trainer, holder, and protagonist of the transformation of people becomes the facilitator of learning for individuals; in this context, the training offices of local and central PAs are involved in updating personnel and developing competencies and abilities, despite limited resources. Some administrations try to find innovative solutions to satisfy this obligation by innovating processes, methodologies, contents, and tools; in this sense, it is not about teaching people how to properly execute a procedure, in view of the mere fulfilment of a task, but it is about giving them the power to change things through training (Jewson, Felstead, & Green, 2015). Not “theoretical” and merely procedural training, but training oriented to produce the change that public employees urgently need, or rather they are entitled to. In this perspective, there are five choices a Public Administration can make to change (Sismondi, 2017). These are not obvious choices that, depending on the direction, can lead to different models of Public Administrations. The first crossroads is the one between what scholars commonly call “defensive bureaucracy” (e.g., Jef & Faure, 2014) and a new form of government that we have designated as “partner state”. Defensive

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bureaucracy holds that if you don't know or don't know how to do something, it's better to avoid doing it. It is a defensive bureaucracy that demands a double digital channel, but also maintains a hard copy version because “you never know”. It is a defensive bureaucracy that thinks that immobility is the only salvation during  chaos, waiting for the wind of innovation to pass. The antithesis of defensive bureaucracy is the partner state (Peric, 2009). It is a necessary paradigm shift from the idea of a provident state that authorizes (the regulatory state), produces (the producing state), assists (the welfare state), to a partner state that moves in a concept of network, which stimulates collective intelligence, which supports and where necessary guides and empowers society towards the transition to a collaborative model (Goldsmith & Eggers, 2005; Lee & Strang, 2006). A possible synthesis between these very different conceptions of the role of the civil servant can be found only in the accompaniment of people and in the reassurance that such an accompaniment can guarantee. Therefore, fewer regulations and more manuals, that is, less attention to formality and more to processes. A second choice is whether to put, in these difficult years for public economy, the maximum emphasis on efficiency, the rational use of resources, the outputs, or rather on the effectiveness, the impact of public policies on the lives of citizens, and the outcome (Lan & Rainey, 1992). It seems obvious that efficiency and effectiveness must be pursued together, but all too frequently the focus has been on naïve, efficiency-based adjustments, offspring of NPM that have failed to find full realization, leaving unsatisfied desires for a PA organized as a company, an image that has been abandoned by all modern democracies (Denis et al., 2009). Today, the idea that the administration has to work better or “to do more with less” no longer appears viable; on the contrary, we must recognize that the administration has to enable citizens to solve their problems and reach their goals. Here too the synthesis can be found only in a “sensemaking” operation (Anderson, 2009), by sharing the meanings and purposes of public action with continuous evaluation and self-assessment procedures according to PA values. The third alternative is “locational”, how to place the administration in the imaginary space in which the life of citizens takes place. An example could be online services: digital administration, which has absorbed technological innovation but has not changed its skin, imagines a unique place where you can find all the PA services and where citizen can search for all the information (Fishenden & Thompson, 2012). On the contrary, very

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often there is availability and provision of digital services, but actual use is relatively low (Chen & Hsieh, 2014; Fang, 2002). Citizens are not on public portals, but they use other tools and other digital environments, where administration needs to catch up to offer its contribution (Scott, 2006). In other words, fewer portals, fewer services that nobody uses, and more access through “apps”, plus “mobile services”. Here it is probably a question of teaching public technologists to really put citizens first, but not in theory, imagining what they should do, but in practice, looking at what they actually do. Linked to this locational choice is the fourth crossroads: the one that sees on the one hand the attitude of those who look at citizens as customers with needs to be met and on the other the conviction that they are also “shareholders” (O’Flynn, 2007). The first case reinforces what Cassese (2001) called the “bipolar paradigm”, which he defined as two separate poles, neither converging, nor contracting, but in opposition, due to the superiority of one over the other. The second case provides citizens who autonomously propose themselves to the administration as allies to pursue together the general interest on the basis of the Constitution (Demir & Reddick, 2012). In this second meaning of shared administration, which can be achieved thanks to the principle of subsidiarity, active citizens and administrations establish relationships based on collaboration and integration, as well as on that principle of relational autonomy thanks to which all the subjects participating in the network created by subsidiarity are to be considered as bearers of resources, each according to their own abilities and possibilities (Peters, Liu, & Ondercin, 2012; Sedjari, 2004). For this cultural change, it has to be accepted that the mission of an administration is increasingly external to the administration itself, thanks to complex connections between multiple public and private organizations that must be coordinated. It means accepting that the public manager becomes above all a “network manager”, a mediator able to simplify and unite the talents of a community towards a common and politically shared goal (Cristofoli, Markovic, & Meneguzzo, 2014). The last opposition is the one from which we started: a shift from solely norm-based reforms to change that is based on attention to people. Innovation policies should be focused and supported by processes of involvement and sharing of objectives, defined on the real needs of those who are the recipients (Shergold, 2008). To do this, it is important to experiment and support new forms of collaboration, new models of administration that see the territories as protagonists, with engagement,

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promoting the culture of participation and the real involvement of citizens and actors in public innovation processes, empowerment, providing Public Sector workers with opportunities for internal training, and enforcement, adopting specific and timely measures to effectively implement innovative approaches (Quelin, Kivleniece, & Lazzarini, 2017). The recent reform of Public Administration in Italy defines new rules for public work and at the same time promotes an administration that is more transparent, simple, and open to the needs of citizens, with the aim of endorsing the values of an open government highlighting the centrality of the contribution of citizens and employees. Reforms are certainly important levers to introduce change, but they are not enough to carry change through. Innovation certainly cannot be accomplished at zero cost and when the “capacity to execute”—that is, the effective ability to implement change—is lacking (Milward et al., 2016). In addition to transforming processes and related outputs, it is necessary to act on people, especially in a period in which the scarce financial resources of central and local PAs have forced the block of turnover. Therefore, it is necessary, on the one hand, to implement national and territorial policies and, on the other hand, to redefine work processes and invest in the development of the competencies of the specialist professional figures and of all the operators in the PA.

7.4   Conclusions: Looking Ahead Organizational development in the Public Sector consists of a series of actions planned and implemented with the aim of increasing the performance of administrations and the efficiency of processes through the recognition, training, and development of human resources. Indeed, if public workers fail or are unable to capitalize on knowledge and if organizational processes are not well designed, economic waste increases and motivation at work decreases. Over the years, human resource management in Public Administration has been a recurring topic in Italy. There are numerous studies in the literature that refer to the poor efficiency of the Public Sector and it is a common opinion that public workers are “slackers” and that they do not work efficiently; they rationally decide to rationalize their energies and act as freeriders, doing the minimum necessary to carry out their activities. How did this happen and, above all, how can it be solved?

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Slack workers, like other workers, use their personal and professional resources in the workplace only if actually motivated. Nevertheless, motivation—including a considerable number of theories, like those on needs or processes—follows a fairly simple logic: I commit myself to work if in return I can get something I want or if I have the fear of losing something I already have. Civil servants in Italy often do not perceive the risk of losing benefits in their work, nor do they see their efforts rewarded or compensated by any (economic or career) advantages; for this reason, the Public Sector does not provide individuals with any kind of motivation. Only workers driven by intrinsic motivations—public service motivation, desire to help others, self-denial, commitment, and so on—work efficiently, but the administration often does not even recognize these good practices. It can be said that public workers who believe in Public Administration’s values behave consistently, but it is not the administration that drives these behaviours: by relying only on intrinsic motivation, Public Administration delegates to the individual manager or employee the possibility of working with self-denial, thus producing good results, or with indifference, thus acting without commitment and generating inefficiencies. There is an urgent need to create the conditions to motivate public managers and employees in order to solve the problems of the Public Sector. Motivation undoubtedly stems from performance evaluation systems. These cannot be based on counting presences or absences in the workplace—this is in fact a necessary but not sufficient condition for evaluating work activities—as much as on the effective behaviours which are put in place at work. Performance evaluation follows a rationale that is to stimulate and clearly define expectations and objectives for each worker: in practice, all civil servants, whether managers or employees, know what the administration expects from them. Consequently, a performance evaluation system represents an effective development tool since, at the end of each reference time period, it is possible to check the distance between expected behaviours and actual behaviours and then to intervene to improve performance. Therefore, motivation is based on evaluation systems which, in turn, pursue the objective of improving behaviour, performance, processes, and in general the organizational structure through a continuous development process. Development processes necessarily pass through a new conception of training. Indeed, the relationship between training demand and supply cannot be accidental. In the past the training offered by the Public

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Administration was a vast, varied menu of topics that were interesting, but not calibrated on the basis of the actual needs of the administrations: public employees and managers attended courses that interested them but that had no causal relationship with the work they were doing. A development process requires effective training courses and to design these it is necessary to understand what the administrations need and this can only be done through an analysis of the organizational positions and the skills necessary to cover them within Public Administrations. Through an analysis of knowledge, experiences, and attitudinal traits, it is in fact possible to create a list of competencies that must necessarily be present to cover a public (managerial or operational) position. A good manager cannot be a person who knows everything or who is an expert in everything; on the contrary, it is necessary that he or she has particular personality traits: knowing how to decide, for example, is a fundamental aspect in performing a managerial role that one does not learn at school but that comes from knowing how to face risks, from emotional intelligence, from so many aspects that it is not possible to measure with multiple choice questions or judge from academic achievements. It is essential to understand whether attitudinal traits are present in public workers or can somehow be developed for the improvement of the entire Public Sector. Drawing from these needs, the Italian National School of Administration (SNA) has undertaken a competencies’ assessment project addressed to the managers of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM). Starting from the analysis of a specific organizational position, it has been possible to identify the competencies— knowledge, experiences, and aptitude traits—theoretically necessary to perform that position and those present. From this comparison a gap emerged between ideally necessary skills and those actually possessed and in the light of this data specific and generic individual and collective training paths have been developed in order to fill the highlighted gaps. The training courses promoted by the Public Administration, therefore, are not aimed at the mere transfer of knowledge to public employees and managers, but have the principal objective of providing a learning path for the administrations through those who attended those courses. As in a private company’s check-up—which always starts from the needs of the client and not on the basis of standard models—the planning of the training offer of national schools of Public Administration must therefore start from the recognition of the training needs of the administrations; in

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practice there must be a close interconnection between administrations and training providers. The next step will be to generate value in public work through the values of people working in the Public Sector. Especially in the recruitment phase, it would be useful to assess people’s values in order to select only those who really believe in Public Administration. This would make evaluating individuals’ behaviours and performance superfluous, since they would be intrinsically motivated to achieve the best results for the Public Sector. Today it is a dream, but the path to reach it has been traced.

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Index1

A Accountability, 5n2, 11, 12n4, 14, 42, 43, 63, 111, 172, 173 Assessment, vii, 12, 26, 45, 47–50, 52, 54, 55, 77, 91, 118, 122, 125, 127–129, 159, 178, 184, 186, 187, 190–194, 196–200, 203, 206, 225 Autonomy, ix, 5n2, 8, 17, 21, 23, 42, 46, 56, 57, 67, 89, 91, 109n1, 119, 120, 131, 142, 157, 158, 162, 167, 179, 181, 196, 222 B Behavior, 5, 12n4, 19, 22–24, 38, 40, 41, 45, 47, 52, 56, 66, 68, 74, 77, 78, 93, 128–130 Boyatzis, Richard, 39, 40, 42, 55, 182 Brunetta, 76, 121, 122, 126

Bureaucracy, viii, 3, 7, 12, 13, 17, 19, 22, 23, 63, 83, 95, 116–118, 152, 199, 220, 221 See also Bureaucratic model Bureaucratic model, x, xi, 5, 22–25, 117, 141 Butler, R., 112, 113 C Change management, 9, 11, 80, 82, 92, 95, 133, 144, 145, 202 Co-creation, 13, 201, 220 Communication, vi, 25, 44, 51, 81, 83, 84, 90, 106, 116, 129, 159, 161, 168, 181, 183, 184, 195, 201, 202, 205, 207 Competency, v–xi, 21, 25, 26, 37–57, 66, 72–74, 76, 77, 81, 92, 94, 139–173, 177–207, 220, 223, 225 See also Knowledge; Skills; Soft skills

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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INDEX

Competitiveness, 87, 94, 140, 142, 164, 165, 202 Complexity, x, 14, 16–22, 24–26, 37, 42, 55, 61, 74, 111–130, 141, 153, 178, 179, 203 Context, ix, xi, 8, 8n3, 9, 13, 16, 18–20, 22, 39–42, 47–49, 55, 56, 62, 66, 67, 69, 75, 79, 85, 86, 95, 107, 111, 112, 115, 118, 123, 130, 131, 140, 144, 145, 148, 149, 156, 163, 167, 169–171, 173, 182–184, 187, 191, 195, 197, 202, 203, 218–220 Corporate social responsibility, 80, 82 Creativity, vi, 12n4, 19, 183, 207 D Decentralization, 3, 7, 11, 109n1, 110–111, 117, 130, 142, 158 Design, vi, 4n1, 9, 20, 26, 38, 56, 67, 112, 140, 146, 148, 160, 162, 181, 197–203, 225 Development, vi, vii, 4, 38, 62, 117, 139–173, 178, 217, 224 Digitalization, 42, 87, 94 E École nationale d’administration (ENA), 156–157 Effectiveness, viii–x, 4, 4n1, 11, 14, 22, 23, 42, 43, 62–66, 68, 70, 72–74, 78, 83, 84, 90, 91, 109, 116, 120, 122, 125, 128, 133, 140, 142, 146, 148, 150, 152, 153, 162, 170, 171, 183, 205, 219, 221 Efficiency, viii, x, 3, 5n2, 6, 11, 12n4, 14, 22–25, 38, 42, 43, 63, 65, 66, 70, 74–76, 78, 90, 91, 94, 116, 121, 122, 125, 127, 128, 131, 140, 146, 148, 152, 153,

155, 162, 170, 172, 183, 197, 200n1, 204, 205, 219, 221, 223 E-HRM, 83, 84 Empowerment, 19, 42, 57, 115, 122, 129, 223 Ethic, 82, 184 Evaluation, vii, viii, x, xii, 10, 12, 42, 43, 47, 48, 50, 54, 64, 71–77, 89–91, 93, 111, 120, 125, 126, 148, 159, 160, 165, 168, 171, 173, 184, 194, 198, 199, 206, 216, 221, 224 F Flexibility, vi, viii, 3, 4, 11, 22, 25, 57, 64, 65, 78–82, 85, 86, 89, 92, 105, 110, 116, 120, 123, 131, 153, 183, 184, 187, 205, 207 G Globalization, v, 11, 25, 37, 87, 142, 146 H Hierarchy, 8n3, 11, 12, 17, 19, 20, 23–25, 63, 73, 119, 163 High school of Public Administration practice (FH), 158 Human Resource (HR), ix, 37, 49, 56, 61–95, 111, 114, 120, 121, 125, 130, 133, 142, 143, 146, 147, 149, 153, 167, 178, 182, 183, 185–188, 193, 197–203, 223 See also Human resource management (HRM) Human resource management (HRM), vi, vii, ix, 38, 39, 44, 47–55, 61–95, 133, 140, 147, 184, 197–203 Hybridity, 19–21, 26

 INDEX 

I Information and communication technologies (ICT), 25, 83–85, 90, 159 See also Digitalization; E-HRM; Technology Innovation, viii, ix, xi, 4, 6, 7, 12n4, 19, 22, 42, 57, 61, 64, 75–77, 83, 87, 91, 105, 114–116, 122, 126, 127, 131, 132, 140, 142, 143, 145, 154, 155, 165, 166, 171, 181, 183, 196, 205, 220–223 Instability, 215–219 Institutional theory, 20 Instituto Nacional de Administracion Publica (INAP), 158, 159 Italy, vii–xi, 3, 65, 69, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 85–88, 94, 105–133, 160, 161, 163, 201, 215–217, 219, 223, 224 J Job description, xi, 185–188, 190, 192, 193, 197 K Know-how, ix, 49, 53, 61, 77, 191, 205 Knowledge, vi, vii, ix, 4, 4n1, 12n4, 13, 18, 21, 25, 37, 39–41, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53, 61, 64, 66, 70, 72, 73, 84, 94, 95, 140, 142, 144, 146–152, 154, 155, 161, 165–167, 184, 186, 191, 193, 195, 197–200, 204, 205, 220, 223, 225

235

L Lawrence, P.R., 6, 9, 10, 79 Leadership, vi, viii, 5, 6, 9, 44, 47, 48, 52, 69–71, 93, 128, 145, 153, 158, 163, 171, 183, 184, 196, 201, 202, 207, 218, 219 Learning, vi, xi, 4n1, 13, 25, 47, 48, 50, 52–53, 72, 73, 83, 84, 93, 140, 143, 149–153, 159–163, 183, 185, 186, 193, 195, 196, 201–203, 206, 207, 220, 225 Legislative interventions, 86, 110–111, 120 M Motivation, vi, viii, 11, 22, 63–69, 71, 74, 77, 153, 171, 183, 186, 187, 190, 191, 194, 195, 197, 199, 200, 203, 207, 218, 220, 223, 224 See also Public service motivation N National School of Administration (SNA), x, xi, 73, 139–173, 177, 178, 185, 192, 200, 205, 206, 225 National Schools of Government, 153 Networks, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 155, 159, 166, 168, 173 New Public Governance, 12 New Public Management (NPM), viii, x, xi, 4, 5, 8, 11–16, 19, 22, 24, 25, 38, 42, 43, 65, 105, 106, 108, 110–111, 113–116, 130, 131, 221 New Public Service, 12, 15

236 

INDEX

O Organization, vi, 3, 37, 61–65, 94, 106, 115–116, 139–173, 178, 197–203, 218 Organizational change, x, xi, 4n1, 5–16, 62, 76, 118, 131–133, 139–173, 217 Organizational model, 42, 43, 75, 114, 115, 120, 131, 141, 145 See also Organization P Performance, vi, 4, 38, 63, 75, 106, 124–127, 147, 179, 216, 224 Personality traits, 191, 192, 195, 225 Policy, 7, 13, 17, 18, 44, 48, 71, 88, 126–130, 151, 153, 160, 162, 163, 180, 183, 200 Political instability, 215–217 politics, 26, 94, 118–120, 171, 216 See also Instability Post-NPM, 5, 8, 11–22, 24, 25, 108, 110–111, 113–115, 130, 131 Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM), xi, 45, 88–94, 140, 164, 168, 177–186, 188, 192–195, 199, 201, 202, 206, 225 Privatization, 8n3, 69, 108, 120 Problem-solving, vi, 22, 25, 45, 46, 142, 183, 184, 194, 195, 202, 203, 207 Public administration (PA), vi, 3–26, 38, 61–95, 106, 139, 157–159, 177, 215 Public management, vi, vii, x, xi, 9, 22, 26, 38, 42, 68–69, 75, 105–133, 155, 164, 166, 168, 171, 177–207, 216–223 Public manager, v–ix, xi, 5n2, 8n3, 9, 10, 14, 18, 25, 37–57, 63, 76, 82, 94, 95, 122, 123, 140, 146,

150, 166, 178, 181–183, 185, 192, 195, 203, 216–219, 222, 224 See also Public management Public organization, vi, xi, 69, 71, 75, 86, 113, 131, 173 Public sector, vi, 3, 38, 61, 108, 142, 181, 215–226 See also Public administration (PA); Public organization Public service, x, 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 21, 43, 49, 61, 62, 64, 68–70, 88, 108, 126, 139, 151–154, 170, 171, 183, 200, 224 Public service motivation, 67, 171, 183, 200, 224 Public Value Management, 12 R Recruitment, vii, ix, xi, 3, 49, 50, 54, 62, 64, 69–74, 77, 84, 90, 94, 140, 151, 155–158, 166, 199–201, 226 Reform, v, vii–ix, xi, 3, 4, 6–22, 42, 43, 61, 62, 65, 66, 68, 70, 71, 76, 105–133, 140, 144, 151, 152, 164–166, 171, 172, 178, 216, 223 See also Legislative interventions Regulatory state, 108, 131, 172, 221 S Selection, vii, ix, 26, 43, 47, 50, 54, 64, 69, 71, 77, 84, 89, 91, 155, 156, 158, 164, 166, 199, 200, 217 Skills, vi–xi, 10, 12n4, 18, 21, 25, 37, 39, 40, 43–46, 48–55, 61, 64, 66, 69–72, 77, 79, 106, 127, 133, 147, 184, 216, 217, 219, 225

 INDEX 

Smart work (SW), 85–94 Soft skills, vi, 45, 183, 184, 196, 200, 202, 203 Spoils system, 7, 123, 124, 216 Sustainability, x, 8n3, 13, 80, 82, 93 T Taylor, S., 78, 85, 182 Team work, v, 184 Technology, v, 6, 8n3, 21, 25, 69, 78, 80, 82–94, 142, 152, 159–161 Training, vii, 3, 38, 64, 69–74, 121, 140, 146–154, 178, 220

237

U Uncertainty, 8, 8n3, 24, 55, 56, 112, 113, 205, 216–219 V Values, 4–6, 11, 13, 14, 18–21, 23, 44, 45, 53, 56, 63, 67–71, 75, 78, 79, 82–84, 86, 106, 115, 119, 143, 149, 153, 186, 187, 190–192, 194, 195, 197, 199, 201, 204, 218–221, 223, 224, 226 W Work engagement, 194, 195