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In recent years, international bodies and public opinion have recommended that governments adopt social responsibility practices to inform and be accountable to citizens about their sustainability actions in environmental, social and economic fields (Galera et al., 2014) and restore citizens' confidence in public authorities (Crane et al., 2008; Shepherd et al., 2010). This chapter reviews the literature on measuring and reporting sustainable performance in the public sector. Analyzing 35 studies published in a period of 10 years (from 2012 to 2021), we address two specific research questions: How and to what extent have public organizations changed to integrate sustainability reporting (SR) systems? What are the enabling organizational factors in adopting SR in public organizations?

This chapter is devoted to sustainable human resource management that leads to sustainable competitiveness. It features the ways human resources can be managed to carry out sustainable goals and the impact of sustainability on employees' attitudes and behaviours. The aim of this study is to explore the complex objectives of sustainability and human resource management and empirically investigate the dynamic relationship between human resources in science and technology and sustainable competitiveness in the case of 35 European countries. Our contribution emphasizes this interrelationship and its causality. For this research, we applied a vector auto-regression (VAR) model, and the Granger causality method to examine the relationship between human resources in science and technology and sustainable competitiveness. A panel data included 314 observations between 2012 and 2021. The panel VAR for analysing the impulse response function was enriched with the 5% and 95%, using Monte Carlo simulations. The research results revealed bidirectional causality in the European countries between human resources in science and technology and sustainable competitiveness. Human resources in science and technology trigger sustainable competitiveness and vice versa. As an element of originality, our study demonstrates that human resources in science and technology contribute to sustainable performance, and, on the other hand, a more competitive and sustainable environment contributes to the development of human resources in science and technology. Thus, the chapter outlines the role of human resources in science and technology with regard to sustainable human resource management (HRM), and how to navigate these objectives so that they can positively influence sustainable competitiveness.

Governments worldwide have used administrative reforms to align public organizations with the needs of their key stakeholders. However, despite successfully implementing them, they do not consistently achieve the desired organizational performance. This paper aims to explore the relationship between the implementation of administrative reforms and the performance of public organizations from a comprehensive perspective. For this purpose, the authors analyze the mediation role of three crucial dynamic capabilities.

This research used a survey-based methodology. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data obtained from a sample of public officials and managers working in public organizations in the State of Ceará (Brazil).

The results of this study suggest that dynamic capabilities can have a decisive role in implementing government policy proposals and helping public organizations align their outcomes with stakeholders' needs. In addition, they indicate the existence of two levels of capabilities and identify a road map for their implementation.

From a practical point of view, by identifying these capabilities and their interrelationship, this study provides a roadmap to reduce the complexity of their use and help managers of public organizations deliver desired outcomes relating to the quality of individual and collective stakeholders.

This study makes important contributions to the literature, enabling scholars and practitioners to see the result of government policy proposals beyond the efficient use of public resources. It shows the role of dynamic capabilities as mediation instruments for changing public organizations, which can be used in administrative reform implementations and continuous improvement processes. Finally, it provides empirical research on the interaction between the three dynamic capabilities in the context of public organizations, differentiating these capabilities into two levels, which provides a road map for their implementation and development by public managers.

Os governos de todo o mundo têm usado reformas administrativas para alinhar as organizações públicas com as necessidades de seus principais interessados. Entretanto, apesar da implementação bem-sucedida, elas não atingem consistentemente o desempenho organizacional desejado. Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar a relação entre a implementação de reformas administrativas e o desempenho das organizações públicas, visto de uma perspectiva abrangente. Para este propósito, analisamos o papel de mediação de três capacidades organizacionais cruciais.

Este estudo utiliza uma metodologia baseada em questionários. Foi utilizada modelagem de equação estruturais para analisar os dados obtidos de uma amostra de funcionários públicos e gerentes que trabalham em organizações públicas no Estado do Ceará (Brasil).

Os resultados deste estudo sugerem que as capacidades dinâmicas podem ter um papel decisivo na implementação de propostas de políticas governamentais e ajudar as organizações públicas a alinhar seus resultados com as necessidades das partes interessadas. Além disso, eles indicam a existência de dois níveis de capacidades e identificam um roteiro para sua implementação.

Do ponto de vista prático, ao identificar essas capacidades e suas inter-relações, este estudo fornece um roteiro para reduzir a complexidade de seu uso e ajudar os gerentes de organizações públicas a obter os resultados desejados em relação à qualidade das partes interessadas individuais e coletivas.

Esta estudo faz contribuições importantes à literatura, permitindo que académicos e profissionais vejam o resultado de propostas de políticas governamentais além do uso eficiente de recursos públicos. Ele mostra o papel das capacidades dinâmicas como instrumentos de mediação para mudar as organizações públicas, que podem ser utilizadas em implementações de reformas administrativas e processos de melhoria contínua. Finalmente, fornece resultados empíricos sobre a interação entre as três capacidades dinâmicas no contexto das organizações públicas, diferenciando essas capacidades em dois níveis, o que fornece um roteiro para sua implementação e desenvolvimento pelos gestores públicos.

Current models of organizational excellence are appropriate for the private organizations. It is evident that if an appropriate model is not adopted, the process of excellence in the organizations fails and some dimensions of the organization get affected by unpredictable damages. This research aims to identify an appropriate excellence model for public organizations.

First, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the excellence criteria and models. Second, the models were through an expert-oriented questionnaire, analyzed by the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique. Participants were experts in the two domains of excellence models and public sector management. A sample of 15 experts was selected using purposive sampling. In order to emphasize on reliability, 10 questionnaires were adopted for analysis.

The findings showed that the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model is the most appropriate model for excellence measurement in the public organizations based on the five selected indices.

The identification of a model for measuring organizational excellence for public sector can significantly contribute to existing literature on excellence measurement.

Scholars have pointed out the need for improvement and refinement in public management research, also depending on the role of public administration for sustainable development. Because government organizations employ a substantial portion of the workforce, management practices in the public sector are critical areas for designing, implementing and delivering policies that can achieve the goals set forth in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For these purposes, and in implementation of the Next Generation EU (NGEU) programme, Italy recently launched an ambitious National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) which includes, among other things, upskilling goals for staff employed, following the modernization process that has involved the Italian public sector in the last decades, with the Decree n. 150/2009. Aiming both to understand the extent of the application of the reform and to answer some basic questions (why, what and how) concerning Individual Performance Appraisal Systems (IPAS), we conducted a content analysis on the 220 documents already produced by the Italian Ministries. The study has been conducted in two different steps of the reform process and provides solid evidence of the reforms' effects on designing and implementing individual performance systems. The analyzed documents reveal no longer-term vision in implementing the IPAS that involves some critical performance management utilities such as training, development, fair pay and deployment of employees, raising new questions about a sustainable approach to the individual performance management process even in public organizations.

Social enterprises (SEs), part of the third sector, are hybrid organizations combining the pursuit of social scopes with commercial business solutions. In seeking for social value, they pair for-profit and non-profit features, thereby compensating for shortcomings of both the public sector and the commercial market. Therefore, the performance management of such organizations assumes a crucial relevance. Among the available tools, the balanced scorecard (BSC) aims to capture performance multidimensionality, at the same time fostering legitimacy towards stakeholders.

In general terms, the BSC has the limit to follow a linear and static logic of construction and functioning. For this reason, scholars combine it with system dynamics (SD) to create dynamic balanced scorecards (DBSCs). However, literature seems to devote scarce attention to the adoption of such analytic tools in the third sector, particularly in SEs. This chapter wants to contribute to bridging this gap by proposing a tailored application in the context of a social cooperative, active in the clothing recycle and in the re-integration of disadvantaged social categories. By referring to previous literature about DBSC, two modelling strategies are identified: the BSC-driven and the SD-driven. The latter, based on inductive reasoning, is the one privileged for the study because of its wider flexibility. The modelling outputs consider different perspectives than the ones within traditional BSCs, contain elements of circular causality and show how financial and non-financial performances interplay and co-determine each other. Insights from the proposed model can be useful to support both decision-making and stakeholder engagement.

Although prior researchers have consistently established a significant relationship between different strategic stances and organizational performances across different research contexts, the mechanisms underlying this link remain unclear. This study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by testing the mediating effect of the use of strategic performance measurement systems (SPMS) on the relationship between strategic stances (prospector, defender, and reactor) and organizational performance in the public sector.

This research is based on data collected by surveying 224 managers at public organizations in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and conducts an analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The study findings show that prospector strategy is positively associated with organizational performance through the use of SPMS. The reactor strategy was negatively related to organizational performance through the use of SPMS. The defender strategy shows mixed results in terms of its effect on the use of SPMS and organizational performance.

The results obtained here provide strong evidence of the vitality of the use of SPMS for efficiency and effectiveness as a mediator between prospector strategy and organizational performance. To extend this position, future researchers could incorporate other contingent variables, such as structural autonomy, or use experimental design methods during economic austerity in the aftermath of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic.

This study represents an attempt to address public administration literature' general calls for grounded research that spells out to practitioners how different strategic stances are likely to affect the use of SPMS to achieve organizational performance levels in the public sector. The present study extends the public administration literature by examining the unexplored linkage of the use of SPMS through which strategic stances influence organizational performance in major public sector organizations.

The paper aims to understand how the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) influenced public employees' perception of smart working and how this approach was used during the pandemic. The authors asked about smart working's positive and negative aspects and how these changed during the pandemic.

The authors explored the strengths and weaknesses of smart working before and after COVID-19. The authors interviewed 27 Italian public employees who had experienced smart working before the pandemic. The questions and discussion aimed to broadly explore the strengths and weaknesses of smart working and smart working's impact on working performance, work relationships and work–life balance (WLB).

Smart working had a widespread and positive impact on organizational flexibility. Smart working improved the response and resilience of Italian public organizations to the pandemic. However, some critical factors emerged, such as the right to disconnect and the impact on WLB.

The authors suggest that the pandemic exposed the need for public administrations to consolidate work flexibility practices, such as smart working, by paying more attention to the impact of these practices on the whole organization and human resources management (HRM) policies and practices.

This study makes an important contribution to the literature on the public sector by discussing the positive and negative aspects of smart working. The study also provides managerial and policy implications of the use of smart working in public administrations.

Drawing upon psychological ownership theory, the aim of this study was to uncover the coexisting mediating effects of knowledge sharing and hiding on the relationship between employees’ organizational psychological ownership (OPO) and their innovative work behavior (IWB). The moderating role of organizational context in these mediating relationships was further examined to determine the moderated mediation paths.

This study mainly used a survey-based research method and collected data from 512 professionals from both public and private organizations in Pakistan to test our proposed hypotheses.

The results showed that coexisting knowledge sharing and hiding mediated the relationship between employees’ OPO and IWB. Furthermore, organizational context moderated the mediated relationships, providing support for the moderated mediation framework.

The results highlight the significance of fostering employees’ OPO to enhance their IWB by promoting knowledge sharing and preventing knowledge hiding. This study also urges managers to consider the contingency effect of organizational contexts when promoting employees’ IWB in emerging economies.

The results obtained in this study suggest that the knowledge behavior paradox occurs in organizations, and distinct organizational contexts play crucial but differential roles in intervening in the effect of employees’ OPO on their IWB. This study empirically validated this complex mechanism in an important emerging economy in Asia.

Drawing on managerial innovation model proposed by Abrahamson (1991), this chapter tries to gain a better understanding of how the UN SDGs have impacted the practice of sustainability reporting of Spanish public universities. Data were collected from a variety of sources, such as: several email structured interviews with university managers, an examination of the Chancellor letters of sustainability reports of Spanish public universities, a detailed reading of some sustainability reports and a consultation of the website of each Spanish public university. The findings reveal that there has been an increasing number of Spanish public universities that have started to publish stand-alone sustainability reporting since the appearance of the UN SDGs. According to Abrahamson's framework, our findings reveal that governmental-policy forces have shaped the sustainability reporting landscape in the Spanish public university setting, and their behaviour is mostly explained by the forced-selection and fad/fashion perspectives.