Abstract

BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIANLOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR
SCORING OR LEARNING?

BENCHMARKING LANIVELUL
COLECTIVITĂŢILOR
LOCALE DINROMÂNIA ŞI ITALIA:
INSTRUMENT DEMĂSURARE SAU DEÎNVĂŢARE?
Constantin Marius PROFIROIU
Professor Ph.D., Administration and Public Management
Faculty, Bucharest University of Economic Studies
E-mail: profiroiu@gmail.com

Daniela SORRENTINOPhD Student, University of Siena

Rezumat

Abstract

Nowadays benchmarking is one of the mostpopular managerial instruments for organizational
performance improvement, both in the private
sector as well as in the public one. The present
paper reveals which is the rationale for whom
public entities have largely adopted this particulartool, traditionally used by private companies andhighlights the consequences of uncriticallytranslating it from a private to a public logic.
The papers is aimed at comparing thebenchmarking approaches in Romanian and
Italian Local Governments (LGs), eventuallydetecting whether they are more prone to use it asa scoring or evaluative managerial tool.

În prezent benchmarking-ul reprezintă unul dintre cele mai
populare instrumente manageriale pentru îmbunătățirea
performanțelor organizaționale, atât în sectorul public, cât și încel privat. Articolul evidențiază care sunt rațiunile pentru care
entitățile publice au adoptat pe scară largă acest instrument,
specific sectorului privat și evidențiază consecințele translatării
necritice ale acestuia, dintr-o logică specifică sferei private, într-o
logică caracteristică sferei publice.
Lucrarea își propune să compare abordarea benchmarking-uluila nivelul colectivităților locale din România și Italia și să indice în
ce măsură acestea sunt mai înclinate să îl folosească ca
instrument de măsurare, respectiv instrument de evaluare
managerială.

Keywords: benchmarking, local collectivities,de măsurare și evaluare managerială

instruments for
management

measuringandCuvinte cheie: benchmarking, colectivitități locale, instrumente

evaluating

JEL CODES: H4, L33………………
Keyword…………………

Proceedings of the 11th Administration and Public
Management International Conference”Strategic Management for Local Communities”

PROFIROIU Constantin Marius and SORRENTINO Daniela
BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR SCORING

FAMP

CCASP

OR LEARNING?

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE”Strategic Management for Local Communities”
30th – 31st October 2015
Bucharest

1. INTRODUCTION
The implementation of NPM-like reforms during the last decades has led public sectors all over theworld to import the business philosophy in terms of values, concepts and techniques (Hood, 1991).
Faced by financial constraints and fiscal stress, the main objective to which those changes pointed tohas been the quest for improved levels of efficiency in managing public entities and resources. Suchwaves of renewal have had an overwhelming impact in the public sectors, thus involving every aspect of
its sphere, from the accounting systems to the organizational structures. As a matter of fact, changes ineach dimension reinforced each other, being parts of a wider design of reformation, whose combination
has been seen as indispensable for the beneficial change to occur (Anessi Pessina and Caccia, 2000).
Slimmer and more decentralized structures aimed at making local public managers more autonomousand responsible for their results. In the light of the increased management responsibilities, fascinatedand pressed from the business models, local public administrations (LPAs) imported managerial models
and tools typically proper of the private sector.
In such a context, the benchmarking has been proposed among the kinds of performance measurement
tools, these latter argued to be able to offer “solutions” to the public expenditure concern, to improve
services delivered to citizens-users, to measure public organizations on the basis of an input–output(outcome) model (Johnsen, 2005).
The adoption of NPM-like measures- such as the benchmarking translation in the public sector has
inspired a profusion of comparative studies (Lüder, 1994; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004), which evidenced
peculiar contingency elements to make the difference in shaping the paths and paces of reforms in
different countries.
However, there is still few research papers in the literature regarding to the benchmarking
implementation in the public sector to the local level.
The purpose of this study is the one to investigate the benchmarking approaches in Romanian and
Italian local governments, in order to assess the influence of country-specific institutions in conceiving
and shaping a certain kind of benchmarking system. To this aim, we wish to highlight connections
between the institutional characteristics of the involved countries and their approaches to thebenchmarking as a management tool in local governments. In particular, the comparative effort between
these two countries, traditionally belonging to two different administrative styles, may provide the basis

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BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR SCORING
OR LEARNING?

for detecting those elements of the different styles that favored the development of a certain kind of

In line with previous studies (Bowerman et al., 2002), we maintain that a thorough understanding of thebenchmarking nature in the public sector is fundamental for assessing whether and how such amanagerial tool may be fruitful for public entities in achieving the hoped successful changes.

2. THE INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTContemporaneously to their diffusion all over the world, public sector changes of the last decades havebeen widely addressed by the literature, analyzing the related issues from different perspectives(Fernandez and Rainey, 2006). Nevertheless, most of the contributions on organizational changes are
not specifically concerned with the public sectors ones (Kickert, 2010).
In a well-known literature review on organizational change by Pettigrew et al. (2001), the authorsemphasized a number of interconnected issues concerning the existent research, which claimed forfurther investigation. Among the others (e.g., examination of multiple contexts, investigation ofinternational and cross-cultural comparisons), they highlighted the space for studies linking theperformance of organizations with the change processes, as well as the need to account for variables
such as the context, time, and history.
More than ten years later, Kuipers et al. (2014), when critically reviewing the literature on public sector
change management, not only restated the lack of studies analyzing the outcome of change processes
in the public sector (see also Vann, 2004), but they also built a framework for research on these change
processes that accounts for historical and contextual factors. Such a framework is composed by fivefactors deemed relevant for studying public sector changes, namely the context, content, process,outcomes, and leadership.
This study wishes to contribute and being framed in the context section, i.e., “the background of theempirical data or [as] a framework for the conceptual elaboration of change management in the public
sector” (ibidem, p. 6). Particularly, the contextual element we want to acknowledge in this study is theinstitutional background of the LGs under investigation, with this meaning their organizational andadministrative culture, historical background and legal structural features (Pina et al., 2009)
The powerful contribution of comparative studies on this topic has been to evidence the role of peculiar
contingency elements in shaping the paths and paces of reforms in different countries, eventuallyleading to classify countries according to their traditional administrative styles (Dunleavy and Hood,

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30th – 31st October 2015
Bucharest

benchmarking approach, with reference to its role as a learning or evaluating managerial tool.

PROFIROIU Constantin Marius and SORRENTINO Daniela
BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR SCORING

FAMP

CCASP

OR LEARNING?

1994; Kickert, 1997; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000; Torres, 2004). As for the EU countries, four

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE”Strategic Management for Local Communities”
30th – 31st October 2015
Bucharest

administrative styles have been identified:a) Anglo-saxon countries (UK is the only European one): they have shown to be more prone inadopting business-like managerial approaches in the public sector, emphasizing principles
such as efficiency, effectiveness and value for the money.
b) Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden plus the Netherlands): even if
concerned on efficiency and effectiveness issues, the very aim under their reforms is thecitizens’ satisfactionc) Continental and Southern Europe countries: traditionally characterized by hierarchical andbureaucratic public administration structures, in which recent reforms have been implemented
in a much more integrated manner.
d) Central and Eastern Europe: countries of this group are the ones previously belonging to thecommunist block, engaged in a comprehensive reformation of their public sector since thedismissal of the block.
The countries on which we focus, Romania and Italy, respectively belong to the third and fourth groups
classified above. They both are two examples of unitary states, while presenting differences in the levelof centralization and.
The Italian case is an interesting one, with regard to the centralization and fiscal autonomy features,
which are currently questioned by recent reformations in the country. Indeed, even if characterized by aconsiderable degree of decentralization, recent reorganizational programs aimed at reducing the tiers ofgovernment (Legge Delrio). When turning to fiscal autonomy, it must be said that, despite fiscal
federalism programs have been designed (Law n. 42/2009), the central Government still has aprominent role in collecting taxes, generally leaving a very limited budgetary autonomy to local
governments. Finally, as for the administrative culture, Italy is traditionally identifiable as a rule of law
country.
Framing the administrative styles of the two studied countries serves the purpose of identifying the“starting point”, the initial conditions which are deemed to influence and shape the paths and paces ofpublic sector reforms (Kuhlmann and Wolmann, 2014), and consequentially, the approaches throughwhich managerial tools such as the benchmarking one may be welcomed by LGs.

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BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR SCORING
OR LEARNING?

In the waves of renewals that characterized the last decades of public sector life, the quest for more
efficient management has been a leading objective. To this aim, the business environment, traditionallybased on the value for money principle, represented a main source of inspiration. In such a context, thebenchmarking has been considered a notably valuable efficiency tool, which, translated from the private
sector, could have brought recognizable benefits to the public one as well.
When considering benchmarking conceptualization in this latter, we can observe that, at least from anormative perspective, the idea behind its implementation would be faithful to the private worldinterpretation. For instance, Cowper and Samuels (2005, p.1), framing the benchmarking in the public
sector, defined is “as an efficiency tool [is] based on the principle of measuring the performance of one
organization against a standard, whether absolute or relative to other organizations”.
In a similar vein to the business world, the predicted efficiency gains can be reached by following a
specific process (Kenneth and Bruder, 1994; Parena et al., 2002). It generally starts by considering
those organizations’ key areas needing improvements, to then identify other excellence organizations in
those areas. Studying the performance of the benchmarked organization provides elements forcomparisons with the benchmarking organization itself, which can be in this latter imported. Anyway, inorder to make this process effective, it is fundamental to monitor the benchmarking results also after its
implementation.
Having this in mind, some consequential considerations arise. First, it shall follow that examples of bestpractices may derive from very diverse types of organizations, even if having a different mission oroperating in other sectors. The implication for local public administrations would be that they could
benchmark organizations operating in the private sector as well. Believing that the benchmarking can be
fruitful only when made with regard to strictly comparable organizations, may lead LPAs to exclude mostof the private sector counterparts, on the grounds of the fundamental mission divergence. At thecontrary, it may be suggestable when seeking for efficiency improvements.
Furthermore, in order for the benchmarking to deliver the expected beneficial changes, its usage shallnot be conceived as a mere comparison with best practices, eventually leading to certain kinds ofscoring (ibidem). Rather, LPAs should be able to critically identify areas of improvements and to
implement examples of best practices, without neglecting to contextualize them in their own
organization.

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3. TRANSLATING THE BENCHMARKING IN THE PUBLIC SECTORPROFIROIU Constantin Marius and SORRENTINO Daniela

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BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR SCORING

CCASP

OR LEARNING?

Nevertheless, just as many other ingredients of the NPM receipt, the benchmarking tool has beensometimes mimetically imported from the business world, reproduced in different countries, without
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE”Strategic Management for Local Communities”
30th – 31st October 2015
Bucharest

achieving its potential benefits for the public sector (Siverbo and Johansson, 2006). In particular, what
emerged from the international experience is that the benchmarking has often been implemented as amere scoring system, rather than as a learning opportunity (Kuhlmann and Bogumil, 2015). As a matterof fact, Tillema (2010) maintains that, according to the informational needs, the benchmarking one may
represent a managerial tool connected to different functionalities, more or less likely to imply
performance improvements, sometimes turning to dysfunctional rather than improving changes.
This leads us to argue that something is missing in the (not immediate) link between the benchmarking
adoption by LPAs and its related benefits. At the same time, the lack of a deeper understanding of thebenchmarking approaches in the public sector prevents from assessing whether and how thebenchmarking private experience could be fruitfully translated into the public sector, ultimately leading to
the expected performance improvements.
In this respect, the institutional context, as defined above, is expected to play a fundamental role inunderstanding the ways in which managerial tools for LGs are conceived, welcomed and implemented.
In other words/to sum up, the extent to which the benchmarking can represent a managerial tool
offering potential solutions to LGs to improve their performance –mainly in terms of efficiency andeffectiveness- depends on the way LGs themselves approach it. As long as it works as a scoring
system, dysfunctional rather than beneficial changes are likely to occur. At the contrary, when it isconceived as a learning opportunity, then this private idea may work for perf improvement. The
prevailing information needs – as expressed by the institutional context- would make the difference in
opting for the former or the latter approach.

4. METHODOLOGY
In order to assess the benchmarking approaches of Romanian and Italian LGs, as connected to their
institutional background, we plan to empirically gather data by means of a survey. Precisely, theinstrument for our data collection is a questionnaire, to send to a large number of municipalities in bothcountries. For a matter of comparison, considering the average size of Romanian and Italianmunicipalities, we include in our sample those ones with a number of inhabitants higher than 1,000.
The identified respondents might be the municipal managerial bodies. As for Italy, these are theSecretaries General, who are in charge in a middle position between the political and executive bodiesof the municipalities, being appointed by the Mayor and exercising managerial functions.

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BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR SCORING
OR LEARNING?

The questionnaire we are going to build for the inquiry aims at addressing following core features ofReasons for adoption: for a matter of internal consistency, to the extent the benchmarking has
been claimed as a managerial tool able to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the public
sector, we want to detect whether these drivers are acknowledged when translated into the
local governments under investigation. Moreover, it is interesting to understand the motivationsin the remaining cases, in which it is not adopted, acknowledging the possibility of technicaland cost problems (Siverbo, 2014), as well as the perception that the expected benefit may notsurpass the costs;

Object of the benchmarking: Cowper and Samuels (2005) describe benchmarking as anefficiency tool having three main aspects. First, standard benchmarking, according to whichorganizations relates to a set standard of performance that it could expected to achieve.
Second, results benchmarking, by which one can use the performance of a number oforganizations as a means of comparisons. Finally, in the process benchmarking, the focus ison the process through which other organizations produce a particular output, thus attempting
to capture the reasons behind variations in the performance. Our research points atinvestigating the presence of whichever of these aspects used as objects of the benchmarking
activity;

External vs. internal adoption: the circumstances in which the benchmarking is externallyrequired or internally adopted must be discerned as well. Such a differentiation is often linked
to the opposition between, respectively, top-down and bottom-up adoption (Goddard &Mannion, 2004).



Voluntary vs. compulsory adoption: it represents a further specification of the external vs.
internal dichotomy (Jäkel, 2013);



Sanctions-rewards system: following from the previous, an external/top-down/compulsory
benchmarking system may provide for a sanctions-rewards system, in connection to thebenchmarking results;



Information disclosure: regardless the compulsiveness or voluntariness in the adoption of thebenchmarking, LGs may or may not disclose benchmarking-related information to external
stakeholders.

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benchmarking implementation in LGs (Tilema, 2010; Kuhlmann and Bogumil, 2015):

PROFIROIU Constantin Marius and SORRENTINO Daniela

FAMP

BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR SCORING

CCASP

OR LEARNING?

The literature underlying reasoning for investigating these variables relies in the hypothesis that thebenchmarking as a real evaluative managerial tool is more likely to be developed when internally and
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE”Strategic Management for Local Communities”
30th – 31st October 2015
Bucharest

voluntarily adopted, eventually in the absence of a sanctions-rewards system, even in its less formal
version of information disclosure.

CONCLUSION
Seeking for improved efficiency and effectiveness, public entities all over the world have undergone
more or less extensive processes of reform in the last decades. The business world, traditionallyfeatured by those driving principles, has represented a main source for inspiration. Among the others,
the benchmarking is on the menu of renewals, as a managerial tool for performance improvements.
When translated from the private sector, unfortunately, it did not always led to the expected beneficial
changes, often turning to be used as a scoring tool, without any learning potential.
It is probably time to make a step back and understand the features of benchmarking in the public
sector. This can be even more achieved in a comparative perspective, thanks to which the institutional
contexts provide causality with the conceiving and implementation of renewals.
To this aim, this paper wishes to compare the benchmarking approaches in Romanian and Italian LGs,
eventually detecting whether they are more prone to use it as a scoring or evaluative managerial tool.
The institutional context, as defined by countries’ administrative style, provides insights into thecontextual factors affecting organizational changes.
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OR LEARNING?