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The objective of this work is to identify the strategies of digitalization embraced by the European Capitals of Culture 2020 (ECoC) in replying to the limitations due to COVID-19 emergence and to understand how DT have impacted in terms of resilience and innovation. This study aims to provide a contribution at the understanding of the effects and benefits of the digitalization in supporting the reorganization of the cultural projects of ECoC 2020 in replying to the COVID-19.

This paper is based on an exploratory multiple case study methodology. As a suitable investigative tool for the analysis of a contemporary phenomenon in their natural settings, case study methodology allows to integrate evidences resulting from multiple sources (Yin, 2006, 2008; Eisenhardt, 1989). Data collection, monitoring and analysis rely on the combination of Web-based desk analysis and social big data analytics. The integration of such sources has been addressed towards the investigation of the strategies of digitalization undertaken by the two ECoC cities, Galway in Ireland and Rijeka in Croatia, respectively.

Evidences in terms re-organization of the cultural projects, digitalization of the tourist experiences, commitment of local communities and visitors have been derived from the study while the cross comparison of the two cases has allowed to identify common and specific patterns.

The paper presents some limitations. Firstly, the methodological approach as well as the nature of data collected suggest the need of future investigation with the inclusion of a larger sample of ECoCs and the inclusions of quantitative date related to trends of online cultural experiences and travel data. Secondly, the theoretical perspective of digitalization used in this study can be accompanied by other perspectives such as innovation and resilience capabilities of an ECoC.

This study contributes to the academic literature by providing a better understanding of the level of resilience generated vis-à-vis the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of DT in promoting participation in culture and implementing cultural initiatives of ECoCs. However, despite the relevance of the topic, the attention from the academic literature on the topic of digitalization in cultural and creative industries is still limited. Moreover, even more limited is the knowledge about the effects of DT and if their opportunities are actually transformed in positive outcomes.

In recent years, the public sector has faced the challenge of digitalisation. This has significantly impacted the relationships between citizens and public organisations and, thus, it widely affects participatory processes, such as participatory budgeting (PB); in fact, digital tools (DTs) have emerged as a solution, increasing citizen engagement whilst improving efficiency, reducing costs and saving time. This contribution analyses PB in Rome, which is also implemented with DTs, seeking to understand how DTs impact citizens’ role in creating public value.

The study is based on a qualitative approach, precisely by analysing a descriptive and exploratory single case study of PB’s first adoption in Rome in 2019. The information is obtained from multiple sources and examined through document analysis.

In the Roman context, DTs in PB primarily facilitated cost-effective information sharing, offering citizens basic participation. Unfortunately, the potential for more interactive DTs was overlooked, failing to enhance citizen engagement in critical phases like deliberation, evaluation or monitoring. Therefore, the tools did not fully support citizens becoming co-creators of public value instead of just users in governance.

The novelty of this study lies in exploring the difference between the use of DTs that assist citizens/users in improving service quality and those that support citizens in creating a public and shared value. It ventures further to assess various tiers of participation, meditating on the digital elements that stimulate active engagement and value creation instead of simply expanding the participant pool or process efficiency.

The research aims to provide a longitudinal case study to understand how digital transformation can be embedded in municipal reporting frameworks. The central role of such technology becomes increasingly evident as citizens demand greater transparency and engagement between them and governing institutions.

Utilising a longitudinal case study methodology, the research focusses on Turin’s Integrated Popular Financial Report (IPFR) as a lens through which to evaluate the broader implications of digital transformation on governmental transparency and operational efficiency.

Digital tools, notably sentiment analysis, offer promising avenues for enhancing governmental efficacy and citizenry participation. However, persistent challenges highlight the inadequacy of traditional, inflexible reporting structures to cater to dynamic informational demands.

Embracing digital tools is an imperative for contemporary public administrators, promoting streamlined communication and dismantling bureaucratic obstructions, all while catering to the evolving demands of an informed citizenry.

Different from previous studies that primarily emphasised technology’s role within budgeting, this research uniquely positions itself by spotlighting the transformative implications of digital tools during the reporting phase. It champions the profound value of fostering bottom-up dialogues, heralding a paradigmatic shift towards co-creative public management dynamics.

Using critical disaster studies and state theory, we assess the disaster aid platform named Lebanon Reconstruction, Reform and Recovery Framework (3RF) that was put in place by international donors in the aftermath of the Beirut Port Blast in August 2020, in order to examine the effectiveness of its inclusive decision-making architecture, as well as its institutional building and legislative reform efforts.

The paper uses the case study approaach and relies on two original data sets compiled by authors, using desk reviews of academic literature and secondary data, in addition to 24 semi-structured expert interviews and participant observation for two years.

The aid platform appears innovative, participatory and effectively functioning toward recovery and reform. However, in practice, the government dismisses CSOs, undermines reforms and dodges state building, whereas the 3RF is structured in incoherent ways and operates according to conflicting logics, generating inertia and pitfalls that hinder effective participatory governance, prevent institutional building, and delay the making of projects.

The research contributes to critical scholarship as it addresses an important research gap concerning disaster aid platforms’ institutional design and governance that are under-studied in critical disaster studies and political studies. It also highlights the need for critical disaster studies to engage with state theory and vice-versa.

The research contributes to evaluations of disaster recovery processes and outcomes. It highlights the limits of disaster aid platforms’ claims for participatory decision-making, institutional-building and reforms.

The paper amplifies critical disaster studies, through the reflexive analysis of a case-study of an aid platform.

The purpose of this study is examined whether coproduction appears spontaneously in the literature on public sector innovation and governance, the citizens’ role in coproduction and the implication of citizens’ participation in the governance of innovation networks.

The review complied with preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) protocol. The search was performed in the Ebsco, Scopus and WOS databases. The authors analyzed 47 papers published from 2017 to 2022. Thematic and content analysis were adopted, supported by MAXQDA.

The papers recognize the importance of the citizens in public innovation. However, only 20% discuss coproduction, evidencing the predominance of governance concepts related to interorganizational collaborations – but not necessarily to citizen engagement. The authors also verified the existence of polysemy regarding the concept of governance associated with public innovation, predominating the term “collaborative governance.”

The small emphasis on “co-production” may result from the search strategy, which deliberately did not include it as a descriptor, considering the research purpose. One can consider this choice a limitation.

Considering collaborative governance as a governing arrangement where public agencies directly engage nonstate stakeholders in a collective decision-making process that is formal, consensus-oriented and deliberative (Ansell and Gash, 2007), the forum where the citizen is supposed to be engaged should be initiated by public agencies or institutions and formally organized, as suggested by Österberg and Qvist (2020) and Campomori and Casula (2022). These notions can be useful for public managers concerning their role and how the forums structure should be to promote collaboration and the presence of innovation assets needed to make the process fruitful (Crosby et al., 2017).

Despite the collaborative nature of public innovation, the need for adequate governance characteristics, and the importance of citizens in the innovative process, most studies generically address collaborative relationships, focusing on interorganizational collaboration, with little focus on specific actors such as citizens in the governance of public innovation. Thus, it is assumed that the literature that discusses public innovation and governance includes the discussion of coproduction. The originality and contribution of this study is to verify this assumption.

Drawing motivation from the greater exposure to uncertainty and condition changes that affect large projects due to their long lifecycle, this paper aims to investigate how the time factor affects the use of governance mechanisms to pursue the success of these projects.

To pursue its aim, the article applies the dichotomization between the hard and soft mechanisms of project governance to the analysis of a historical case study, whose findings are organized over the short, medium and long periods. The case selected is referred to the peculiar water system, made up of tunnels named “bottini,” that was in use in Siena (Italy) as the old aqueduct. Specifically, the study focuses on the project of expansion of this water system that was realized during the 14th century for the construction of the “Bottino maestro di Fontegaia.”

This article highlights the different relevance that, during the lifecycle of large projects, is assumed by hard and soft governance mechanisms, with the former having main relevance in a short and medium period, and the latter usually emerging in the medium period and, subsequently, playing a growing role for the project success in the long period.

The article contributes to the literature on large projects by providing novel insights about how the time factor impacts the governance of these projects. Furthermore, the case study, with its unique history, highlights the relevance of combining effectively the hard and the soft dimensions of project governance to pursue success.

This article conceptualizes and constructs a comprehensive framework that can better help to answer that question – Who is accountable for social and public problems? – theoretically and practically.

Tracing the drivers behind two phenomena “accountability hole” and “accountability black hole”, stemming from “pushing power game” and “pulling power game”, respectively, this study considers (1) the three actors of society: citizens (civil society), corporations (market) and civil servants (government), and (2) the principal-agent relationship between the three actors in the face of social and public problems. As a result, the 4CAs framework that contains the three actors’ collaborative accountabilities to one another is presented.

The 4CAs model emphasizes (1) all three actors function as agents that are accountable to one another, (2) collaborative accountability beyond collaborative governance and (3) repowering citizens and corporations beyond just empowering them, i.e. returning their inherent rights and obligations to serve one another.

The 4CAs model may function as a descriptive and prescriptive lens through which the trilemma between market failure, government failure and citizen failure can be re-assessed and balanced. The model can also be used as a set of indicators for assessing and helping a society to better resolve the social and public problems collectively.

As public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become preferred and veritable approach to deliver affordable housing, the seemingly lack of understanding of the significant factors that impact on success has become a notable setback. This study aims to delineate significant factors that can support decisions in affordable PPP public housing delivery.

Largely, a questionnaire survey was adopted to elicit insights from practitioners, policymakers and experts to develop an evaluative decision support model using an analytical hierarchy process and multi-attribute utility technique approach. Further, an expert illustration was conducted to evaluate and validate the results on the housing typologies.

The results revealed that energy efficiency and low-cost green building materials scored the highest weighting of all the criteria. Furthermore, multi-storey self-contained flats were found to be the most preferred housing typology and were significantly influenced by these factors. From the model evaluation, the scores on the factors of sustainability, affordability, cultural values and accountability were consistent across all typologies of housing whereas that of benchmarking, governance and transparency were varied.

The decision support factors captured varied dimensions of key factors that impact on affordable PPP housing that have not been considered in an integrated manner. These findings offer objective and systematic support to decision-making in affordable PPP housing delivery.

This research paper aims to conceptualize digital transformation governance and its conventional mechanisms and to present governance solutions tailored to an organization’s level of digital maturity. The objective is to provide a framework for large organizations to select appropriate governance mechanisms based on their digital maturity level, enabling them to effectively manage and govern their digital transformation journey.

The study employs a meta-synthesis methodology, systematically reviewing and synthesizing findings from 175 academic papers and 31 reports/white papers. The research involves a rigorous qualitative approach, including literature search, selection of relevant texts, information extraction, analysis of qualitative findings, quality control and presentation of findings.

The proposed model suggests a three-tiered approach to digital transformation governance based on the organization’s digital maturity: “beginner,” “intermediate” and “advanced” stages. The findings indicate that as an organization advances in its digital maturity, its governance mechanism tends to be less centralized and involves multiple relevant units. Conversely, organizations with lower digital maturity require a more concentrated approach to digital governance.

The study is based on a systematic review and synthesis of existing literature. Further empirical research could validate and refine the proposed model.

By using the proposed maturity-driven model, organizations can choose a more suitable and effective governance mechanism for the realization of their digital transformation roadmap based on their digital maturity level. The model offers a comprehensive framework for selecting and combining appropriate governance mechanisms at each maturity stage.

The proposed framework offers a strategic and novel yet practical tool, enabling organizations to advance their digital governance capabilities in sync with their transformation roadmap. The study consolidates dispersed findings and expands the range of viable governance mechanisms contingent on digital progression.

Poor municipal solid waste management is a major characteristic of urban development in Africa. In Ghana, local governments are mandated to ensure the collection, treatment and disposal of solid waste. However, this has been a herculean task for local governments in Ghana, owing to inadequate resources and weak technical capacities. This has prompted calls for, and actual involvement of the private sector through public-private partnerships (PPPs) in municipal solid waste management, particularly in the urban areas. This study aims to assess the roles, effectiveness and challenges of PPPs in urban waste management in the Sunyani municipality of Ghana.

Adopting a case study design, the study used a qualitative research approach to provide in-depth insights into PPPs in municipal solid waste management in the Sunyani municipality of Ghana. Therefore, key informant interviews and two focus group discussions were conducted.

The study revealed that some policies and actions of the local government (Assembly) do not positively facilitate the effective functioning of PPPs in municipal solid waste management. There is also lack of effective stakeholder consultation, collaboration and grassroot inclusion in the PPPs which affect the effective management of the increasing volumes of solid waste being generated within the municipality.

To achieve the objectives of the PPP arrangements, local authorities should initiate steps to effectively coordinate all the involved private companies. There must also be ways of involving the beneficiaries in the design and implementation of PPPs on waste management to allow for effective grassroots and participatory monitoring and evaluation.

The uniqueness of the case study being a mid-sized and secondary city in a developing country enhances the value of the findings and the application of recommendations in cities with similar characteristics and initiatives in improving PPPs in municipal waste management.