3. Method
We adopted a case-study methodology. The case-study method was chosen because of the need to
answer “how” and “why” questions and to study the relationship between the context (i.e. a public
organization) and the phenomenon (i.e. the actors’ work practice) [29]. The chosen public organization
is an Italian non-profit Public Agency called INAIL – TheWorkers Compensation Authority. It pursues
several objectives: the insurance of workers involved in risky activities and the re-integration of work
accident victims to the labour market and social life. INAIL’s mission is to provide services to workers,
and thus it maintains direct contact with its ‘customers’ across the whole of Italy. This agency is
composed of a headquarter, where management and strategy are carried out, and a number of regional
branches, which provide services and operate mainly in the metropolitan areas, the chief provincial and
the sub-provincial towns.
As top management reported during the scouting phase, in 1980 INAIL initiated an important process
of change in order to introduce its IS. From 1980 to the beginning of 1990, the main scope was to
redesign organizational processes with the support of a new configuration of IS architecture. INAIL, in
fact, opted to introduce a decentralized IS structure, abandoning a centralized one. Furthermore, INAIL
introduced both a new IS for cost control and a Performance Management System (PMS). From the
middle of 1990, a large number of organizational processes were changed and “automated”. On the
one hand, working on back-end applications, INAIL: a) replaced existing management systems with an
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System; b) introduced an e-procurement system and an integrated
system for Human Resources Management; c) set up a Document Management System integrated with
an Electronic Records Management System. On the other hand, working on front-end applications,
INAIL: a) introduced an intranet portal; b) developed a certified email system; c) created, with other
public organizations, an integrated web portal where the users can access to the e-services and monitor
the progress of files.
Starting from our research aim, we focussed on what the General Management Unit of INAIL defines
as the “army” of bureaucrats who work in the regional branches and operate in close contact with the
end-user. The case-study units of analysis, in particular, were selected according to two criteria: a)