Cristiana Cattaneo

The TOC Thinking Process: The viability of change

This research article presents a Full Thinking Process Analysis (FTPA), along with an in-depth comprehension of changes in healthcare, through a reframing of the Three-Cloud Approach. The reframed Three-Cloud Approach provides useful insights into the change implementation process, as it relates to the construction challenge of a new, 1000-bed hospital. Pertinent documents, formal evidence and interviews reveal multiple types of constraints, their dissolution and the implementation of shared answers to observed problems. Through the lens of the Thinking Process-Three-Cloud Approach, the case study shows how the process of identifying the Core Conflict Cloud is fundamental to implementing ongoing strategic and organizational change. The Three-Cloud Approach allows in-depth analyses of resistances to change and other intra-organisational processes, while it highlights the conditions necessary for underpinning and designing effective tactics for successful change implementation.

Performance Management Systems and Strategy: The state of the art in Italian journals

Taking the Ferreira and Otley (2009) broad view of performance management systems (PMSs), the aim of this paper is to investigate the debate over PMSs and strategy tackled in a context of strong traditional academic roots in the accounting field, such as that in Italy. We conduct the research through a systematic review of studies on this topic that have been published in Italian journals since 1980. In determining the object of analysis, we discuss if these papers follow the taken-forgranted international distinction between strategic PMSs as such (ref. to first stream of literature) and PMSs introduced for developing and executing a defined strategy (ref. to second stream of literature). The literature review is based on papers selected from the ESSPER database from 1980 to 2013. The first results show 34 interesting papers published in different Italian journals, especially in the 2000s. These papers are published in a wide range of journals and show a predominantly practical tendency in which both quantitative and qualitative studies are welcome. Studies related to the first stream of literature argue the diffusion of PMSs as techniques and the peculiarities of strategic cost management systems. Further development categorized in the second stream of literature describes in-depth relationships, benefiting from certain topics understudied nowadays in the national debate. Evidence of the influence of economia aziendale on some papers belonging to both the two streams emerges.

Sistemi di gestione e controllo e professionalizzazione delle imprese familiari. Uno strumento di accreditamento intraparentale

Within the family business field of research, professionalization and succession have strongly attracted the scholars’ attention. Both the processes entail crucial changes for family firms, whose outcomes are mysterious and sometimes differing from expectations. Though scholars have identified several relationships between these processes, the way in which succession and professionalization could evolve in the medium-long term has not been adequately investigated. In particular, it is not clear how the introduction of management control systems and the hiring of skilled non-family managers may be combined with the successor’s professionalization. This paper builds on an Italian longitudinal case study analyzing the use of managerial systems and the introduction of professional managers during the intra-family succession. Results show that the successor’s seal of approval moves the introduction of managerial systems and the hiring of professional managers to the detriment of long-term survival and growth.

Rilevazione del gap tra DRG price e internal cost: implicazioni di case-mix accounting

In recent years, national and international studies analyse issues related to the consumption of resources, efficiency and appropriate costs in health care. In this framework, the Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) system and its implication for case mix, management accounting systems and processes in hospitals still requires research. This study has two objectives. The primary purpose is to investigate the gap between DRGs price and the internal cost for the hospital. The focus on the nursing care and non clinical services is due to the increasing relevance of the health and social care domain and non clinical services as well. Secondly, we want to investigate the opportunity to implement, especially at the national level, accounting case mix systems. The analysis in a hospital in northern Italy provides some results and insights in both directions.

Pratiche di controllo di gestione nel contesto sanitario italiano: i cambiamenti in atto nel Sistema Sociosanitario Lombardo

In recent decades, reforms in the public sector place new demand on the manage-ment and control practices. Focusing on healthcare there are few investigations that analyse the context related to the design of such practices in a holistic sense. Thus, the aim of the paper is the comprehension of how management accounting and control practices change, even in their nature, as the result of reforms, specifically the introduction of L.R. 23/2015 related to the renew Lombardy Health System. A conceptual model inspired by the middle range thinking guides the analysis of the legislation, notes of interviews, conferences and informal meetings with practitioners. Nine months later the introduction of reform, regulations and the perception of involved practitioners seems oriented towards the design of management accounting and control practices with communicative nature.

Co-production in Action: The Case of an Italian Residential Care Home

Co-production is an increasing debate within public management. “It goes to the heart both of effective public service delivery and of the role of public services in achieving other societal ends—such as social inclusion or citizen engagement” Osborne et al. (Br. J. Manag. 24:S31–S47, 2012).

Sistemi di controllo formali nelle pmi familiari: una presenza possibile?

Formal management control systems (MCSs) in family business is an under-studied topic. According to the family context, studies usually refer to informal MCSs and the introduction of formal systems coincide to peculiar situations, such as professionalization or succession. The purpose of this paper is to capture the multitude of determinants enabling the presence of these systems. A survey addressed to Italian construction SMEs highlights some determinants. The process of growth, the macro-economic context of crisis, the lack of a key actor for management and control and the lack of shared values into the management group favour the introduction of formal MCSs. The effects of other variables are not confirmed.

Il coordinamento infermieristico in un percorso di cambiamento aziendale: whence e whither

Il ruolo del coordinatore infermieristico si e evoluto in modo profondo e vari studi nazionali e internazionali hanno inteso individuare i fattori che maggiormente hanno influenzato tale cambiamento, focalizzandosi di volta in volta su una dimensione di contesto oppure su una dimensione micro. Il presente contributo propone un arricchimento delle prospettive di analisi, attraverso un tentativo di lettura integrata delle teorie che appartengono al framework istituzionale (NIS, NIE, OIE). L’analisi del caso di un’azienda che sta vivendo un profondo cambiamento strategico-organizzativo, attraverso questa lente istituzionale, da conto del combinarsi delle diverse spinte al cambiamento e fa emergere spunti di riflessione sulle prospettive evolutive del ruolo del coordinatore infermieristico.