Miriam Petracca | UNIVERSITA' TELEMATICA GIUSTINO FORTUNATO (original) (raw)

Papers by Miriam Petracca

Sinergie Italian Journal of Management Vol. 34, N. 99, 2016, 2016

Purpose of the paper: This study, which adopts a situationist perspective, analyzes the governanc... more Purpose of the paper: This study, which adopts a situationist perspective, analyzes the governance dynamics of Italian museum organizations. It focuses on the role played by the actors involved in the governance practices of the national artistic-cultural heritage, the institutional pressures brought to bear on the conduct of museum directors, and the initiation of isomorphic and decoupling processes by the actors. Methodology: We conducted field research to verify the presence of isomorphic and decoupling processes in the strategic behavior of directors who are responsible for Italian state museums. To this end, we developed descriptive, cluster, and cross-tabulation analyses. Findings: The field research first detected a widespread emphasis on the protection of artistic-cultural heritage. Secondly, it revealed a tendency for museum directors to adopt isomorphic and decoupling strategies. Research limits. Although the situationist perspective enabled a more realistic representation...

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British Food Journal

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the level of awareness of the topic of sustainabi... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the level of awareness of the topic of sustainability among Italian consumers in the wine sector and their perception – that is, what does it mean to consumers – of this issue. Design/methodology/approach This paper develops a quali-quantitative study on a random sample of Vivino reviews analysed through content analysis. Findings Awareness of topic of sustainability among Italian wine consumers is currently low, although it is increasing. It is not among the main factors that influence the choice of wine among Italian consumers, who are still mainly attracted by organoleptic properties and characteristics linked to the terroir concept. Research limitations/implications The research utilises a random sample, and the analysis is limited to the perception of consumers using online word of mouth (WOM). Practical implications To develop a long-term perspective on sustainability in the wine sector, it is necessary to have the courage to mak...

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The paper focuses on health social network, as websites where patients can find medical informati... more The paper focuses on health social network, as websites where patients can find medical information at a number of different levels – since services offered range from emotional support to self-tracking and to clinical trial access. To monitor them, in 2005 the World Health Organisation (WHO) founded the Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe), with the scope to certify health-care-on-the-web through an ethical code (HON, Health On the Net). It has been realized in order to facilitate the distribution of useful and reliable information on the web among citizens. Moving from the eight HON’s principles, with the addition of a new area based to a set of items referring to a cost-benefits analysis, we have carried out a research aiming at investigating potential relations between the rating and the economic benefit gained by an eHealth website. In addition, through a discriminant analysis it has been possible to weigh the attributes (referring both to the HON certification and to the cost-...

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Il contributo intende proporre una lettura dell’attuale riforma dei beni culturali (con particola... more Il contributo intende proporre una lettura dell’attuale riforma dei beni culturali (con particolare riferimento al D.M. del 23/12/2014), meritevole di aver proposto nel settore di riferimento la riscoperta dei principi di autonomia decisionale in capo ai decision makers e dell’autosufficienza delle organizzazioni museali. Ciò perché si ritiene che solo il recupero di tali principi consenta ai direttori museali (o di polo, secondo la Riforma) di perseverare nel proprio orientamento al marketing rispondendo, così, alle aspettative del mercato. A tal fine, si proporrà una breve ricostruzione dei dibattiti politico e scientifico sul tema della governance museale, attraverso l’individuazione di una direttrice comune: la necessità di avviare e sostenere il processo di managerializzazione di un intero indotto che ripone nella categoria cognitiva e mercatistica definita “cultura” e nella locuzione “patrimonio artistico e culturale” le maggiori probabilità di generare “valori” per i musei, per i territori e per la Nazione. Nel dare rilevanza a tali assunti, il presente contributo sintetizza quanto il gruppo di ricerca ha condotto finora in ragione del piano di indagine longitudinale teso ad accertare la presenza e la portata di certe dinamiche di governance ed organizzative riferite al sistema museale italiano.

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The paper investigates the ‘professionalization’ process of the Italian cultural heritage. In par... more The paper investigates the ‘professionalization’ process of the Italian cultural heritage. In particular, it aims to propose an own interpretation of the ‘professionalization’ process, as a dissemination of ‘good’ practices, adopting the point of view of new institutionalism theory. This theoretical approach frames the professionalization process, and then that of managerialization, as the material and symbolic conditioning that the institutions have on human behavior: the professional has the ability of government and management; through professional training will be ensured the dissemination of the same capacity and then the ‘good’ practices. In this scenario Italian universities seem to contribute to the dissemination of artistic-cultural heritage management practices.
The research, which has purely theoretical aims, starts from a quick reference to the regulatory framework evolution and a synthesis of scientific debate on the governance of cultural heritage; then, it will propose a reflection of the role that Universities currently have in the diffusion process of professions for the government and management of cultural heritage.
In this way, the paper links the governance of the artistic-cultural heritage with the ‘training process’ that universities do for professionalizing human resources. University nowadays are conducting training projects for ‘cultural manager’, sometimes anticipating the decision of Public Administration, trying to condition them, sometimes following its strategic directions.

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In this paper we evaluate the eventual impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on tax avo... more In this paper we evaluate the eventual impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on tax avoidance. Considering that both CSR and taxation compliance are deeply influenced by the civic spirit of the corporation, we expect that enhancing the level of CSR of the company, we’ll find a less recourse to tax avoiding behaviors. We test our hypothesis on a sample of Italian listed firms, individuating differences and similarities with other comparable researches conducted in different countries. We suggest that the country-specific pattern of research in taxation is probably not only due to different legal provisions effective in different countries. Probably: (1) the cultural background influencing the civic duty of managers and other stakeholders strongly determines the choice of tax avoiding behaviors; and (2) in different countries even CSR disclosure is differently considered, working as a transparency instrument somewhere, but as a public relationship tool somewhere else.

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Obiettivo del paper. Il lavoro ha l’obiettivo di proporne una visione ‘situazionista’, alternativ... more Obiettivo del paper. Il lavoro ha l’obiettivo di proporne una visione ‘situazionista’, alternativa alla visione prevalente che considera tali processi animati da razionalità sistemica tesa a giustificare una linearità che, concretamente, appare fortemente fuorviante.

Metodologia. Si pongono a confronto due paradigmi interpretativi dell’impresa fornendo una differente chiave di lettura di cosa sia l’innovazione e, conseguentemente, di quali siano i processi attraverso i quali essa si delinea.

Risultati. Lo spunto è la rivisitazione del concetto di innovazione che, da costrutto immanente, diviene partecipato da una serie di attori che non sempre lo legano al recupero di efficienza o efficacia. Esso, viceversa, può essere il risultato di decisioni tese a legittimare l’impresa nei confronti delle istituzioni e di altri attori chiave operanti in un dato “campo organizzativo”.

Originalità e limiti della ricerca. L’opzione situazionista può essere intesa come elemento di originalità del lavoro in quanto invita a prendere coscienza sia dell’esistenza di decisioni basate su aspetti politici (o del potere), sia di processi tesi all’acquisizione di legittimità. L’assenza, in questo contributo, di uno studio empirico, seppur presentando un completo quadro teorico, può costituire un limite del lavoro.

Implicazioni pratiche. La rilettura dei processi di innovazione proposta consente di ampliare il numero degli schemi manageriali e di decision making con schemi e modelli che pongano al centro le strategie negoziali. Altresì, il recupero di alcuni costrutti cognitivi (isomorfismo e miti razionalizzanti) apre la strada ad una visione meno ingenua sulle dinamiche organizzative dalle quale prendono corpo, in concreto, i processi innovativi.

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This paper tries to examine the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and so... more This paper tries to examine the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and some Corporate Financial Performance (CFP). CSR is measured by an index of corporate social responsibility disclosure while ROA, ROS and ROE are used to measure CFP. The CSR disclosure index gives information about the engagement of firm in corporate, CSR, and staff strategy, social, community, and political investment, environment, consumer, and supplier awareness, voluntary reports and certifications. We test our hypothesis on a sample of Italian listed firms, specifically, our sample is composed by companies listed on the STAR market and a sample of control, composed by the 20 listed companies with the higher capitalization. Therefore, our sample is compodes by 84 corporations. We have hand-collected the data from the annual report and any other available document present in the institutional website of each corporation, for the 2012-2013 financial year. We use the Tobit Regression Model, whose analyses were performed using the statistical software SPSS© and Gretl©. The result of this study indicates that we cannot state that there is a positive relationship between CSR and CFP.

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The paper examines the role of Universities in the ‘managerialization’ process of the Italian art... more The paper examines the role of Universities in the ‘managerialization’ process of the Italian artistic-cultural heritage. Universities are, in a very broad sense, institutions whose mission is to promote and support the dissemination of knowledge and the development of new skills in the society. They do so essentially through the research and teaching activities. At the same time, Universities, together with other institutional actors, “select” the knowledge to be transferred to the Students, via their undergraduate curricula and programmes, and the practices to be applied to the workplace, via professional masters and similar educational schemes.
Based on the evidence of the proliferation of professional courses aiming at spreading the managerial culture into the Italian cultural sector, we adopt the new-institutionalism perspective to draw a quali-quantitative analysis of the offer of managerial masters (both first and second level) from Italian Universities. The main aim of the research is to observe if and how the dissemination of selected “good” managerial practices is attributable to isomorphic pathways based on the pursuit of legitimacy and consensus in a certain institutional context. In order to observe the presence of “normative isomorphism” in these processes, we here present a content analysis on the most recurrent profiles of masters activated by Italian Universities that are consistent with the issues of the cultural heritage sector.

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Obiettivi. Il lavoro analizza le dinamiche di governance dei musei statali italiani in chiave sit... more Obiettivi. Il lavoro analizza le dinamiche di governance dei musei statali italiani in chiave situazionista. Il focus è su: il ruolo giocato dagli attori (Direttori/executive) coinvolti nella governance del patrimonio artistico-culturale nazionale; le pressioni istituzionali in grado di orientare le condotte dei Direttori dei musei; l’attivazione di processi isomorfici e di decoupling da parte di quest’ultimi. Metodologia. Il lavoro ha previsto una ricerca on-field che ha coinvolto la popolazione dei Direttori responsabili delle organizzazioni museali italiane, tesa a verificare la presenza di processi isomorfici e di decoupling nelle condotte strategiche dagli stessi adottate. A tal scopo sono state condotte le seguenti analisi: descrittiva, cluster e tavole di contingenza. Risultati. L’analisi sul campo ha consentito di rilevare, in prima istanza, un prevalente orientamento alla conservazione del patrimonio artistico-culturale del campione indagato a fronte di una limitata propensione alla valorizzazione dello stesso. In seconda istanza ha fatto rilevare la propensione dei Direttori ad adottare condotte strategiche isomorfiche e di decoupling. Limiti della ricerca. La prospettiva situazionista nel puntare ad una rappresentazione più realistica del fenomeno, non fornisce allo studioso un set di pratiche di governace prescrittive “pronte per l’uso”. Implicazioni pratiche. La rilettura della governance delle organizzazioni museali in chiave situazionista sollecita gli operatori del settore a rivedere la portata di modelli predittivi e, al contempo, puntare sulla capacità di lettura del contesto competitivo oltre che istituzionale. Originalità del lavoro. Il contributo fornisce al lettore l’opportunità di riconoscere nei processi isomorfici e/o di decoupling la naturale conseguenza di un framework normativo frammentato.

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Purpose – This work investigates the ‘managerialization’ process of the Italian cultural heritage... more Purpose – This work investigates the ‘managerialization’ process of the Italian cultural heritage. The work starts from the analysis of scientific and political debates of the governance’s dynamics of Italian state museums (in particular focusing on the recent reform of the Italian museums’ system - Franceschini’s Decree) from which emerges some recurring themes. In particular the research group focuses its attention on the necessity to ‘modernize’ the process of cultural heritage management, which means ‘managerialization’ and, so, ‘professionalization’ of specific roles in the strategic sectors of heritage’s protections, conservations, and valorization (‘cultural manager’ as directors/executives).

Design/methodology/approach – The research group adopts the ‘situationist’ approach, focused on: the concrete context of human action and the role played by directors/executive; the institutional pressure able to orient the conducts of the latter; the activation of isomorphic processes by directors.
In particular, this work investigates the presence of normative isomorphism, connected to the professionalization, and its role in the institutionalization of the rules. Based on the assumption that Universities have a crucial role in the development of new skills, we test our hypothesis on a sample of professionalizing master (first/second level) about the professionalization in the field of cultural heritage.

Originality/value – The work links the governance of the artistic-cultural heritage with the 'training process' that universities make for professionalizing human resources.
The current regulatory framework puts at the centre of every strategic board the need to start a training process in collaboration with specialized entities to this purpose: universities and training institutions are, in the opinion of the writes, appropriate as well as necessary. University nowadays are conducting projects training for 'cultural manager', sometimes anticipating the decision of Public Administration, trying to condition them (lobbying), sometimes following its strategic directions (conceding pressures).

Practical implications – The adoption of this approach, trough the reconstruction of actions actually undertaken by experts for protection and valorization of artistic-cultural heritage (directors/executive), allow us to observe the following: the governance dynamics started by actors responsible for Italian cultural heritage seems, at best, informed at decoupling process, due to strong institutional pressures leading the organizations manager to ‘look like’. The latters, in fact, in an effort to gain social legitimation, decided to adopt strategic conducts of institutional isomorphism. The decoupling should create, for the benefits of those who adopt these conducts, a ‘legitimacy façade’, aimed at achieving results only apparently performing.

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Proceedings of XXVI Toulon-Verona International Conference

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Sinergie Italian Journal of Management Vol. 34, N. 99, 2016, 2016

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British Food Journal

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Proceedings of XXVI Toulon-Verona International Conference

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