scholarly journals Lifelong Learning and Virtual Communities in the Public Administration: A Case Study in Italy

Author(s):  
Nicola Villa ◽  
Luigi Colazzo ◽  
Andrea Molinari
2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Andrea Molinari

This research aims at analyzing the effectiveness of SCORM-based e-learning material in introducing companies to innovative practices, specifically the use of Digital Signature and Certified Electronic emails. These two tools have recently become mandatory in the Italian Public Administration, thus forcing them to pursue innovation through dematerialization processes. This innovation involves millions of Italian citizens and companies that now have the opportunity to interact with public bodies in a more efficient and effective way. Nevertheless, neither the Public Administration nor most of the companies (especially Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises - SME) were ready for this radical change in the use of electronic communication. A significant training effort has been delivered to allow end-users to absorb the concepts, tools, methods and procedures that take advantage of citizen-to-government and business-to-government communication. Most of this effort relied on e-learning and virtual communities’ tools and services, providing support to citizens and organizations facing this new technical and organizational challenge. The authors present the successful experience in the design, creation and delivery of the distance learning materials designed for these purposes, together with the best practices and lessons learned. Key words: e-learning, public administration, dematerialization, learning objects.


Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Ken Nichols

Star Trek began as a 1960s television series led by a swashbuckling starship Captain, an intellectual off-world first officer, and a multicultural, heart-of-gold crew. In the third of a century since its appearance on our home screens, the series Gene Roddenberry created has become a world-wide phenomenon.Star Trek is also a rich treasure trove of administrative literature: The setting — usually a starship, sometimes a planetary government organization. The characters are clearly delineated, colorful, share common goals, distinguish between their personal and professional roles and concerns, and serve well as archetypes for distinct organizational personalities. And the missions are clear, benevolent, in the public interest, and frequently controversial.As you watch an episode of one of the four Star Trek series, how many of these facets can you observe?That’s public administration, all right, but in a very different wrapper


Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle C. Pautz ◽  
Laura Roselle

Perceptions of government and civil servants are shaped by a variety of factors including popular culture. In the public administration literature the significant role that film and other narrative forms have on citizens’ perceptions is duly noted, and there is ample research on politicians and military heroes in film, but a focus on civil servants remains largely elusive. Among the sparse literature centered on civil servants are studies that employ a case study approach or focus on a few films. In contrast, our research employs a large sample of 150 films. These films comprise the top ten box-office grossing films from 1992 through 2006; therefore we examine the films most likely to have been seen by a majority of movie-watching Americans. More than 60 percent of the films in our sample portray government as bad, inefficient, and incompetent. However, the data on more than 300 civil servants yield intriguing findings. Surprising, in light of the negative depiction of government, is the positive depiction of individual civil servants. Half of civil servants were positively portrayed, and only 40 percent were negatively depicted. Americans may view government negatively, but they see in film positive depictions of how individual civil servants can and do make a positive difference.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14(63) (1) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
Maria Popescu ◽  
Lidia Mândru

"The paper addresses to the Public Administration (PA) from the management perspective. The first part of the study defines the conceptual framework of the two management doctrines, generically called the New Public Management and New Public Government. The second part of the paper reviews the transformation movement in PA management and governance in Romania in the last two decades. The methodology of the study consists in the analysis of the recent theoretic studies on PA modern approach, and official documents, national and European reports, and other publications related to the PA reform in Romania. "


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Viera Papcunová ◽  
Roman Vavrek ◽  
Marek Dvořák

Local governments in the Slovak Republic are important in public administration and form an important part of the public sector, as they provide various public services. Until 1990, all public services were provided only by the state. The reform of public administration began in 1990 with the decentralization of competencies. Several competencies were transferred to local governments from the state, and thus municipalities began to provide public services that the state previously provided. Registry offices were the first to be acquired by local governments from the state. This study aimed to characterize the transfer of competencies and their financing from state administration to local government using the example of registry offices in the Slovak Republic. In the paper, we evaluated the financing of this competency from 2007 to 2018 at the level of individual regions of the Slovak Republic. The results of the analysis and testing of hypotheses indicated that a higher number of inhabitants in individual regions did not affect the number of actions at these offices, despite the fact that the main role of the registry office is to keep registry books, in which events, such as births, weddings, and deaths, are registered.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (9) ◽  
pp. 1319-1334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérôme Brugger

The article explores some of the conceptual discussions on information and communications technology (ICT) use in public administration in the 1970s. Based on ICT-maturity models, the interagency cooperation plans and their failed implementation are analyzed. This case study focuses on the discussions on the utilization of a unique identifier in Swiss public administration and describes the key concepts as well as the actual developments in this specific case. While the chosen approaches for shared use of resources encountered cultural and organizational limitations along with technical difficulties, new organizational practices for coordination and standardization were created and showed first results.


Author(s):  
Lidia Noto

The emergence of e-government changed the world of the Public Administration (PA) and the discipline of Public Management dramatically. Through the presentation of a case- study of the municipality of Palermo, this article attempts to discuss the renewed need for assessing performance of e-government services in a local government and to disclose the main critical issues in accomplishing this evaluation. Palermo is experiencing the implementation of a second- generation e-government project that is embodied in the realization of a web portal. The conceptualization of a framework to assess the performance of the digital services appears to be crucial in order to improve the system and to avoid the errors of the first project. This work relies on a survey to the citizens and semi-structured interviews to managers in charge of the development of the project. System Dynamics, a particular kind of dynamic simulation, is used to provide the necessary feedback structure for identifying the determinants of the success of the portal.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Rinaldi ◽  
Roberto Montanari ◽  
Eleonora Bottani

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a business process reengineering (BPR) approach to a public administration of Italy, to first assess the efficiency of the administration, then to redesign its internal processes, to improve the current performance. Design/methodology/approach – A detailed mapping of the AS IS processes of the public administration was initially carried out, together with the collection of the relevant data. Then, a simulation model was designed to support the BPR approach. In particular, the model was exploited to assess the performance of the AS IS scenario of the organization, then to investigate numerous TO BE process configurations and evaluate the achievable performance improvements. Findings – From the study, it emerged that the current efficiency level of the public administration examined has potentials to be significantly improved. For instance, by maintaining its current workforce, the public administration could consider the opportunity of providing additional services to the citizens or to serve citizens from the neighbouring municipalities. Otherwise, the organization could consider a reorganization and reduction of its current workforce, at the same time keeping the service level to its citizens almost unchanged. Research limitations/implications – Results of this study cannot be fully generalized, since the whole analysis is grounded on specific public administration. Moreover, although the simulation outcomes of the TO BE processes show interesting improvements compared to the AS IS scenario, the TO BE configurations were not (yet) implemented in practice. Therefore, the results provided should be confirmed in future research activities. Practical implications – The case study allowed deriving some useful guidelines to improve the efficiency of the public administration examined, as well as to identify some TO BE configurations that could be implemented in practice. Originality/value – Scientific literature includes a limited number of studies that evaluate the efficiency of public organizations in real contexts. Moreover, no studies target public administrations in Italy. Therefore, this case study represents an interesting addition to the literature.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hortiguela Alcala ◽  
Ángel Pérez Pueyo ◽  
Víctor Abella García

Actually, it’s so important to articulate procedures that enable to analyze real work made in schools on Key Competences (KKCC). The aim of this study it was studied the perception management teams and teachers of Physical Education (PE) about this curricular element. The sample used in the research covers all the secondary schools in the capital of Burgos (Spain), a total of thirty. It was studied, using the descriptive analysis of a series of questionnaires completed by teachers, the assessment made them on the use of KKCC as an element of learning by the student. It has also conducted a single case study as a participant observer during a school year in a representative sample center, in order to examine in detail in the daily contribution to competencies. Participating teachers, despite favorable consideration to the integration of KKCC in the classroom, demonstrate a lack of information by the public administration, resulting in a lack of teacher training in regard to the possible application tools the classroom.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-91
Author(s):  
Luciana Oliveira Militão ◽  
Paulo Burnier da Silveira ◽  
Andrea Juliet Celis León ◽  
Liziane Paixão Silva Oliveira

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