Suchergebnisse

Many countries are developing new strategies for assuring, despite expenses cutting, a good level in public services delivering. In most cases the solution is found through the implementation of policies encompassed in the framework of co-production. The aim of this paper is to show that policies inspired by co-production theories represent a possible solution, but their implementation is not so easy if there is no tradition and no "receptive" environment. Italy represents in this sense an interesting case. The necessity to meet EU standards forced last governments to heavy cutbacks in public spending with many reforms in a country in which there is not such a great tradition in line with co-production theories. In this paper it has been analysed the role of social enterprises as created after the enactment of Decree 155/2006 (fourth and last reform in the Italian social policy system in the last decade). Dimensions, legal forms, number of employees, sectors of activity have been analysed. The analysis of data shows a kind of correlation between regional governments policy decisions and private initiatives regarding social enterprises, with a particular case in Campania Region that influenced the whole system. In conclusion it is affirmed that if there is a lack of tradition in having community services, an 'imposed' system inspired to co-production can lead, at least in a first phase, to results that are even worse than the preexisting situation for what regards public spending and lack of high quality services.

AbstractNon‐governmental organisations (NGOs) have the potential to combine social objectives with trading activities, while social reporting represents a tool for disclosing NGOs' peculiarities. Although the number of NGOs adopting social reporting is increasing, research is still lacking on the relationships between firms and NGOs and their impacts at the government level, at which policy makers must both favour social/environmental commitments and ensure that NGOs pursue their core objectives, also when carrying out trading activities. This paper investigates the challenges of policy making in this field by analysing NGOs in Italy, the first country to make social reporting compulsory. We randomly selected 20 social reports from the Italian NGO register to analyse eight components regarding the disclosure of their impact. The results show that a compulsory requirement leads to a paradox, given the trade‐off between stakeholder engagement principles on the one hand and disciplinary power and accounting as action at a distance principles on the other, leading NGOs to account for their output rather than for their impact. We thus contribute to the literature about NGOs and corporate social responsibility (CSR), delineating the relevance of a paradox perspective. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only study to apply this perspective to the analysis of CSR and sustainable development trajectories in NGOs.