According to the idea of safety structures as systemic, we developed a framework that emphasizes how the engagement of all relevant social agents could play an active role in the whole safety performance. The hypothesis of this paper is that a systemic approach should imply a precise shift of perspective from a unit of analysis embedded in a general environment, with mutual effects on a given safety performance, to a general analysis of a system where interdependent agents affect system performance. Through the lens of organizational field theory, safety performance is intended as the sum of the activities of multi-agents oriented by normative and cultural principles set out at the societal level, specifically within the urban area boundaries. In doing so, the analysis describes the key agents and their activities according to four different safety stages: Prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Institutional logics, distinguished as formal and informal, help to explain the behaviors and connections among agents. With the idea that a locally placed, organizational field reflects its peculiarity, we used four Italian towns located in two different areas of Campania, which live under the constant risk of a volcanic eruption, as examples. The results show how safety structures systems are contextual, characterized by locally embedded formal and informal rules, but not necessarily mutually aimed at orienting key agents to improve the safety performance. This contribution aims to support empirical analyses, natural experiments as well as qualitative studies to compare urban areas designed as safety-organizational fields from a multidisciplinary perspective. At the same time, we indicate some policy suggestions by emphasizing differences among organizational fields.

This paper outlines a theoretical framework for the risk management of road infrastructures from the perspective of organizational studies and engineering science. The framework moves beyond the traditional approach analysing each road infrastructure in isolation, and adopts the emerging systemic approach aimed at optimizing the interrelation between infrastructures, while at the same time extending this approach by considering actors as well as infrastructures. The initial focus is on the interaction between the parts (infrastructure and related actors) within a system (infrastructure and related actors within administrative boundaries) with a focus on two organizational modes: coordination and fragmentation. The choice between coordination and fragmentation depends on the span of safety and the level of risk. Furthermore, coordination and fragmentation offer useful insights for decision-makers by addressing specific modes of governance aimed at avoiding a lack of cooperation and ineffective responses. The paper then examines satellite data obtained from differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) in a geographical information system (GIS) platform. The aim is to identify the span of safety within a system, concerning specific infrastructures with the related actors, and to assess the risk levels for road infrastructures. The approach is intended to identify the most appropriate organizational mode. The potential of this approach was tested in a sample area of Rome (Italy), and the results reveal a significant span of safety with a common negligible risk, and a subspan of safety with a moderate risk. In the first case, coordination between the parts is desirable. As a result, long-term and fully shared solutions can be adopted, including joint planning operations and standard operating rules. In the second case, fragmentation is indicated, with more flexible solutions characterized by sharing and local autonomy.

Background: Many healthcare systems have been unable to deal with Covid-19 without influencing non-Covid-19 patients with pre-existing conditions, risking a paralysis in the medium term. This study explores the effects of organizational flexibility on hospital efficiency in terms of the capacity to deliver healthcare services for both Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients. Method: Focusing on Italian health system, a two-step strategy is adopted. First, Data Envelope Analysis is used to assess the capacity of hospitals to address the needs of Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients relying on internal resource flexibility. Second, two panel regressions are performed to assess external organizational flexibility, with the involvement in demand management of external operators in the health-care service, examining the impact on efficiency in hospital capacity management. Results: The overall response of the hospitals in the study was not fully effective in balancing the needs of the two categories of patients (the efficiency score is 0.87 and 0.58, respectively, for Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients), though responses improved over time. Furthermore, among the measures providing complementary services in the community, home hospitalization and territorial medicine were found to be positively associated with hospital efficiency (0.1290, p < 0.05 and 0.2985, p < 0.01, respectively, for non-Covid-19 and Covid-19 patients; 0.0026, p < 0.05 and 0.0069, p < 0.01, respectively, for non-Covid-19 and Covid-19). In contrast, hospital networks are negatively related to efficiency in Covid-19 patients (-0.1037, p < 0.05), while the relationship is not significant in non-Covid-19 patients. Conclusions: Managing the needs of Covid-19 patients while also caring for other patients requires a response from the entire healthcare system. Our findings could have two important implications for effectively managing health-care demand during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. First, as a result of a naturally progressive learning process, the resource balance between Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients improves over time. Second, it appears that demand management to control the flow of patients necessitates targeted interventions that combine agile structures with decentralization. Finally, untested integration models risk slowing down the response, giving rise to significant costs without producing effective results.

The aim of this study is to analyse inter-firm corruption and to ascertain whether the proximity of firms engaged in corruption is a significant factor. We draw on transaction cost theory to explore two forms of corrupt exchange (negotiated vs. productive) and the role of proximity in reducing transaction costs. We obtained original data from the judgements of the Italian Court of Cassation and clustered homogeneous proximities. We then used separate binomial logistic regressions to show how the relation between transaction properties, the consequences for transaction costs and forms of corrupt exchange lead to different outcomes for each subgroup of proximities. The results show that technological and geographical proximity are beneficial to both forms of exchange, leading to a reduction in exchange costs, in much the same way as legal activities. However, unlike legal exchanges, corrupt and in particular productive exchanges do not appear to benefit from social proximity.

Purpose: This paper analyses emergency management in two regions of Italy – Emilia-Romagna and Veneto – in order (1) to understand whether they impact on the spread of local coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) contagion and (2) evaluate which strategy works best.Design/methodology/approach: A three-step method was developed consisting of (1) a regional incidence curve analysis; (2) a descriptive statistical analysis of the respective operational measures related to the COVID-19 curve stages; and (3) a dynamic Structural Equation Model.Findings: The results show the effects of the models during the various stages of the local contagion, focussing both on the two individual regions and a comparison of the way they responded.Practical implications: Three theoretical implications are highlighted: (1) Better results are not necessarily the outcome of increased expenditure; (2) The overall rigidity they both show does not work; (3) The decision to centralize was, to some extent, effective for both regions.Originality/value: The article empirically tests the effectiveness of emergency management in tackling a single event. Instead of the widely-used normative approach, the authors adopted a descriptive one, which is not frequently discussed in the emergency management literature.

Third sector organizations, like the rest of the economic system, have been heavily affected by the pandemic. The aim of this work is to study resilience and adaptability to crisis in terms of economic results and innovative outcomes of the cooperative business model in the Italian third sector during the COVID pandemic. It uses new evidence from a recent survey on the Italian third sector and consists of two main parts. In the first, the institutionalist literature on contractual failures is assumed as an interpretative key in the comparison between the business model, governance, and routines in social cooperatives versus other non-profit organizations (NPOs) interpreted as third sector entities. In the second, we use the new data from a third sector survey in the Marche region, collected in the late spring of 2021 at the end of the pandemic outbreak. Empirical assumptions concern organizational resilience and adaptation to unexpected negative shocks in cooperatives and other NPOs. The results show that, in the management of the crisis, cooperatives are better able to preserve their human capital and resort to layoffs less often than other NPOs. Shared decision-making, employee involvement, and the adaptability of the work process emerge as dominant organizational characteristics that support resilience and service innovation in cooperatives. The main policy implication concerns the ability of cooperatives to play a stabilizing and a-cyclical role during the crisis and to fill the supply gaps left open by other organizational forms (private, non-profit and the public sector). The originality of the paper lies in its new approach to cooperative organization and in the analysis of the reaction of cooperatives to the pandemic.