4.2. To manage means to define organizational goals and targets
When the interviewees were asked to describe the organization of the work inside their structure, we
found that the activity inside the public authority was organized starting from a programme that planned
the annual task, identifying targets for each process and sub-process. A director clearly explained how
the planning was conceived:
M. Trotta et al. / Evidence from an Italian public organization 31
. . . every year general management elaborates an annual plan that leads us to have 200/300 performance
indicators. Using these indicators, general management individuates about 20 strategic
targets. These targets are universal, meaning they are valid for all INAIL’s regional branches.
As for the second Proposition even when it is not clear whether MBO has the power to modify some
organizational elements or not, there is evidence that MBO promotes some changes. It is interesting
to note that the organization’s practices were deeply influenced by strong attention to result control,
according to NPM. In order to evidence how some private sector guidelines have contaminated the public
sector, a northern Italy branch worker underlined:
. . . when I started to work here, there wasn’t this planning, neither was there all this focus on targets.
Then work changed because the point of view in analysis development changed. First there was
random work. . . we didn’t have today’s controls: today’s IS allow real time control of every single
worker’s activity, in this sense a bit of private entered the public sector.
In every branch, work was based on planning, control and monitoring of moments, but with different
levels of urgency. In the central and southern Italy branches the situation appeared to be under control
without any backlog of work, whereas the metropolitan and the northern Italy interviewees complained
of “the continuous daily urgency of work which messes up the planning” (Operator, metropolitan branch).
Along with the differences in the various regional structures, considering all interviewees, it is possible
to identify the importance of the role of the process owner. In particular, the process owner described
him/herself as “the reference point of the whole process”: the actors that cover this role had on one side
the responsibility“to daily verify what is done in relation to the planned and very stressful objectives”
(Process owner, northern regional branch) and on the other side“to organize clerks’ work in a calm
environment” (Process owner, southern regional branch).
Among the interviewees, the role of the leading authorities was “to control the administrative procedures
assigned to the operators” (Operator, southern regional branch).