Couples’ First Child Intentions and Disagreement: An Analysis of the Italian Case

The aim of this article is to examine the determinants of couples’ childbearing intentions, by explicitly taking into account the agreement or disagreement of the two members of the couple. The relevance of the partner’s reproductive intentions has been well recognised in the literature, but few studies have provided in-depth analyses of the fertility plans of both partners. In our study, we used the household-level data from a survey on “Family and Social Subjects”, carried out by the Italian National Statistical Office in 2003, which provides characteristics on both partners. We adopted a couple’s perspective which allows us to give a unitary picture of the concordant or discordant nature of partners’ first child intentions. We found that a lack of agreement in the reproductive decision-making process is likely to occur in the Italian couples where the role of the woman is less traditional. In particular, cohabitant, highly educated and working women are more likely to be in disagreement with their partners in the decisions concerning having a first child. Being religious may be also a source of discordance in the couples’ reproductive plans. Our findings support the utility of taking a couple-based approach in studies on fertility intentions.     

Reflective practice and learning from mistakes in social work student placement

ABSTRACT

Student placement is a fundamental component of social work education and an important space where to build critically self-reflective practitioners. Students learn from their reflection on their experience and their mistakes are a powerful opportunity to go behind the surface of events and understand the essence of the profession. This article will present some results from the analysis carried out on the reflective writing of a group of social work students who describe and reflect on the most significant mistakes they made in their field practice using a reflective framework developed for errors and failures. The main results of this experience are illustrated with special focus on the impact and on the emotions, the relationships with service users and the assessment of the cases. Students are often so concentrated on looking at their responsibility that they become almost blind to the systems and interactions that contribute to the negative outcomes of their actions. Social work education programs should emphasize the importance of structured reflective habits and promote the culture of responsibility instead of the ‘blame culture’, that is probably the strongest obstacle to learning from mistakes and preventing their repetition in the future.     

Boards,governance and value creation in grant-giving foundations

The non-profit sector is a sizeable and highly dynamic component of economies and societies throughout the world. The expectations placed upon non-profit organizations raise fundamental issues such as the capacity of these organizations to deliver, their accountability to the various constituencies that they serve and their capacity to create value. The effectiveness of these organizations should not be taken for granted, and it is therefore important to understand which factors affect their ability to create value. This paper investigates the relationships between the specific knowledge and experience possessed by board members and foundations’ commitment to pursue high value-added activities, such as the improvement of the performance of grant recipients or social innovation. It uses an empirical analysis to apply statistical techniques to a sample of Italian banking foundations. Our results show that, of the various types of skills and background possessed by board members, the managerial skills of business experts are particularly relevant for value creation by grant-giving foundations. The article therefore contributes to the discussion on the relationship between board skills and organizational outcomes.     

When Municipality is Partner in Business: A Mapping of Italian Experience

Municipal ownership of companies in Italy is a common phenomenon that underlines the attitude of local bodies towards the supply of particular local services, frequently with a correlation of public and private interests. This article addresses key features of the companies involved. The focus is on their location, legal status, spread of ownership, work, governance and economic performance, as a lead into more comprehensive future research on how municipal ownership can affect company performance and markets in different service areas and territories.     

Assessing the Radiological Impact of Radiation Exposure Devices

Radiation exposure devices (REDs) are radiological weapons obtained by concealing a strong gamma‐emitting source in a place frequented by public to cause radiation injuries following the absorption of elevated radiation doses. The present work aims to assess the radiological impact of an RED by simulating its effects in both dynamical and static conditions of the covertly exposed population, with individual position and motion obtained through a Monte Carlo approach. The results indicate that in small enclosures the motion of people amplify the effects of radiation exposure with respect to the static case because it turns out in a larger number of individuals receiving doses above the threshold for the onset of deterministic effects. This behavior is mitigated in medium and large enclosures due to dose spreading over trajectories moving far away from the critical region close to the RED. The scaling laws obtained with a simple circular geometry were successfully applied to a more complex geometry like that of a stadium. The potentially large number of victims and the possibility to reiterate the attack raise the question of early detection. This can be achieved either by radiation survey or by indirectly inferring the presence of a strong radioactive source following the triage of patients with radiation sickness symptoms collected by the same hospital. In the former case careful design and operation of aerial or in situ monitoring is needed, while in the latter specific training should be given to healthcare personnel aimed to improve their discrimination and cooperation capabilities.     

Knightian Analysis of the Vickrey Mechanism

We analyze the Vickrey mechanism for auctions of multiple identical goods when the players have both Knightian uncertainty over their own valuations and incomplete preferences. In this model, the Vickrey mechanism is no longer dominant‐strategy, and we prove that all dominant‐strategy mechanisms are inadequate. However, we also prove that, in undominated strategies, the social welfare produced by the Vickrey mechanism in the worst case is not only very good, but also essentially optimal.     

Do Economic Recovery Packages Open a Window of Opportunity for Corruption and Mismanagement? The Case of Italy in the Aftermath of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Public Organization Review - This paper explores the effects of the pandemic on corruption and mismanagement in Italy, a country where the Covid-19 crisis is supposed to have significantly...     

Performance information use in public administration: an exploratory study of determinants and effects

The public sector performance movement has intensified during the past three decades, increasing formalized planning, control and reporting across all OECD countries. Notwithstanding the extant literature on performance management, empirical evidence on how and why performance information is used in day-to-day practice is still rare. Such research is relevant not only to advance theory but also to inform decision makers in designing the conditions that effectively contribute to performance and accountability improvements. We aim to contribute to a better understanding of the effects and determinants of use by considering the characteristics of performance management systems, the characteristics of users and context features. We selected two central government case studies from Italy, a country that has adopted several reforms on performance management since the early 1990s. In order to gain insights from both supply and demand side, for each ministry we interviewed people responsible for the design and functioning of the performance management system and top managers that are supposed to use performance information when taking decisions. Results show the prevalence of passive rather than purposeful use. Motivations and obstacles to the use of performance information are identified, drawing relevant practical and policy implications.