Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 17–25

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Can intermunicipal collaboration help the diffusion of E-Government in peripheralareas? Evidence from Italy

Enrico Ferro a,⁎, Maddalena Sorrentino b

a Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB), Via Boggio 61, 10138 Turin, Italyb Department of Economics, Business and Statistics, Università degli studi di Milano, Via Conservatorio 7, 20122 Milan, Italy

⁎ Corresponding author.E-mail address: maddalena.sorrentino@unimi.it (M.URL: http://www.enricoferro.com (E. Ferro).

0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Inc. Adoi:10.1016/j.giq.2009.07.005

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Available online 8 November 2009

Keywords:E-GovernmentICT ManagementPartnershipsIntermunicipal cooperationNetworksCollaborative E-GovernmentCollaboration

This paper analyzes the implementation of new intermunicipal structures in Italy to support thedevelopment of E-Government in the country's peripheral areas. Our exploratory case study, conductedin the Piedmont Region, shows that intermunicipal collaborations can facilitate the coordination ofinterdependent subjects, rationalize existing resources (e.g., through the reuse of application softwaresolutions), and prevent the dispersion of federal government funds. Nevertheless, intermunicipalcollaborations alone do not seem to have the power needed to ensure that decisions made at the centrallevel will automatically translate into concrete and binding commitments for the municipalities involved.From a methodological standpoint, the article makes use of the analytical frameworks offered byorganization science to interpret the effects of collaborative arrangements on E-Government implementation.

© 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

E-Government is defined by the European Commission (2003) asthe use in public administration of information and communicationtechnologies (ICT) teamed with organizational change and theintroduction of new skills, aimed at improving both public servicesand democratic processes and strengthening public policy support.Therefore, E-Government can be perceived as the use of ICT to bringthe public administrations (PA) closer to the needs of citizens andbusinesses. The government level having the most direct contact withthe latter entities is that of the municipalities, which are responsiblefor providing a wide range of public services; however, themunicipalities are also the ones that are struggling the most toachieve full E-Government implementation (Ferro, Cantamessa, &Paolucci, 2005).

In addition, this problem usually goes undetected by officialstatistical radars since most efforts to benchmark E-Governmentprojects opt to use central or regional governments as their units ofanalysis (Flak, Olsen, & Wolcot, 2005). As a consequence, theimportance of closely monitoring the diffusion of ICT among thelocal administrations is often underestimated. Nevertheless, themunicipalities need to do more than just offer the surface appeal ofan online front office (sometimes non-existent) if theywant to deliverthe quality and efficiency gains promised by E-Government.

The current Europe-wide trend of creating networks and othertypes of intermunicipal collaboration is the result of specific actions

Sorrentino).

ll rights reserved.

taken to support the smaller municipalities and help them overcomethree critical hurdles: the impossibility of achieving economies ofscale in the launch of innovation processes, the lack of adequateprofessional skills, and the shortage of financial resources.

The networked character that E-Government policies are acquiringprompts us to ask: in what terms does associated managementsplinter away from other forms of organizational managementprocesses? More specifically, on what basis can these “new forms”of organization help achieve what the local administrations have sofar failed to do in the field of E-Government?

The answers to these questions are not so simply conceived. Todate, only a few researchers have investigated whether the provisionof IT-related services through networks or other types of partnership(where the term ‘partnership’ defines a general inter-organizationalstrategy that regardless of the legal form taken on implementation –

e.g., consortium, alliance, and associated management – leads to thecollaboration of two or more public bodies) has contributedsubstantially to the diffusion of E-Government. Generally, the currentdiscourse says that collaborative models become detached fromtraditional forms of organization because they accrete the autonomyand peripheral competencies (of the partners) under the banner of acommon goal (e.g., the setting up of a ‘one-stop desk’ to provideadvice to businesses).

The emergence of intermunicipal cooperation in the E-Govern-ment field opens the door to a broad research area where overlaps inICT disciplines, organizational theory, and policy studies can providehighly informative insights. Therefore, the objective of our explor-atory study is to (1) provide a general and multifaceted overview ofintermunicipal cooperation; (2) describe and analyze some recentinitiatives launched by the Italian government to favor collaborative

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arrangements in the E-Government sphere; and (3) capture theoverall sense of these new inter-organizational initiatives, regardlessof the legal form taken on implementation. Indeed, we will use theanalytical frameworks offered by organization science in an attemptto interpret the case of intermunicipal cooperation in the Italianregion of Piedmont.

The paper unfolds as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature oncollaborative arrangements, summarizing those aspects deemed themost relevant in the current debate and thus defining the perimeter ofour subsequent reflection. Section 3 illustrates our research method-ology. Sections 4 and 5 provide the necessary background informationon the Italian scenario and the collaborative strategy implemented bythe Piedmont Region, in order to allow readers not familiar with thelocal context to fully appreciate the content of the article. Section 6presents themain results of the study by offering our interpretation ofthe empirical data. Finally, section 7 outlines the implications andconclusions of the work conducted, indicating how the issues dealtwith can be approached in future studies.

2. Review of the literature

“Collaboration” is one of the most used terms in the literature oninter-firm organization structures research. In this article, we use theterms ‘collaboration’ and ‘cooperation’ interchangeably to signify anaction aimed at achieving a common goal. On the other hand, we pointout that the notion of coordination as it is used to refer to theorganization of relations between subjects (individual or collective)who are related or associated in a process has a different meaning.Weemphasize the importance of this distinction, given that these termsare not always clearly defined by different authors, making it hard tocompare the results of their studies. Further, as we will see later,assigning superiority – in terms of greater efficacy in the delivery ofservices – to partnerships between PA over other organizational formscan lead to major interpretive errors.

Research has approached the theme of collaborative arrangementsin the public sector since as far back as the 1960s. Nevertheless, it isstill high on the E-Government research agenda (Irani, Elliman, &Jackson, 2007). Many contributions on collaborative arrangements inthe public sector take their cue from the studies on intercompanynetworks. In their extensive overview – a study that is still widelycited today – Grandori and Soda (1995) were the first to propose themost relevant predecessors of network formation and form. Inaddition, the authors shed light on the organizational mechanismsthat regulate joint-ventures, franchising, consortia, commercialagreements, and other inter-firm arrangements. While this is notthe place to re-propose the content of that study, the authors deservefull credit for having reviewed the ‘implicit theories’ across the socialsciences that guide the implementation and development of thearrangements. For example, industrial economics research hashighlighted the economic distinction between equity and non-equityarrangements, organizational research has contributed a moredetailed description of network forms, and sociological and social-psychological approaches have helped to identify forms of sociallycontrolled and informal cooperation (Grandori & Soda, 1995, pp. 185–193). Grandori and Soda's reflection assigns key importance to theneed to promote the analysis of the coordination and controlmechanisms that sustain, regulate, and govern the different forms ofpractical inter-firm arrangements.

Voluntary as well as mandated collaborative relationships (i.e.,relationships in which collaboration is imposed on separate organiza-tions by a third party) (Rodrìguez, Langley, Béland, &Denis, 2007, p. 152)pose governance challenges. It is no coincidence that many studies havesought to establish whether the type of governance mechanism affectsthe success of the collaborative effort over time.

According to the mainstream, partnerships are expected to realizegoals beyond the reach of unilateral action (Entwistle, Bristow, Hines,

Donaldson, & Martin, 2007), goals that range from the possibility ofmobilizing critical masses of resources to the achievement ofeconomies of scale to extending the service offering or to increasingthird-party negotiating power (e.g., with suppliers) (Ferro et al.,2004). In addition, compliance with administrative, procedural,organizational, and management standards should ensure themunicipalities and their associated managements an optimizeddeployment of financial and human resources.

The main premise of the dominant interpretive frameworks is thatthe adoption of collaborative forms between public administrations isintrinsically “a good thing,” “a virtue” (Hudson, Hardy, Henwood, &Wistow, 1999). That said, many authors (e.g., Huxham, 1993;Milward& Provan, 2003; Provan & Sebastian, 1998; Scholl & Klischewski,2007) emphasize the shadow areas, the contradictions, and implicitdanger of certain over-optimistic readings. For example, the outputfrom collaborative arrangements often appears to be negligible or therate of output extremely slow. Even where successful outcomes arereported, stories of pain and hard grind are often integral to thesuccess achieved (Huxham, 1993). The fundamental argumentmaintained by the critical contributions can be summed up asfollows: despite its promise, inter-institutional collaboration is notin itself a guarantee of success. For instance, Entwistle et al. (2007)found that partnerships suffered predominately from a mix ofhierarchical and market dysfunctions (p. 64). Collaboration has beenviewed as a self-evident virtue for several decades, yet has remainedconceptually elusive and perennially difficult to achieve (Hudsonet al., 1999).

While we do not wish to tip the scales towards negativeexperiences, we must highlight the danger inherent in mainstreamthinking. We know that the E-Government agenda is facing compel-ling changes, but we find it hard to believe that the organizationalcriteria underpinning inter-agency initiatives are truly new. In somecases, the new configuration serves to highlight, often symbolically –

both inside and outside the public bodies involved – the adoption of anew logic. Nevertheless, a formal “brand new” configuration is ahighly imprecise indicator of the organizational change underway.

As shown by this short and perforce incomplete review, theissues faced are highly complex and, therefore, carry a high risk ofoversimplification.

Returning momentarily to the question of terminology, it is anunacceptable oversimplification to say that inter-institutional agree-ments are superior to other organizational forms because thecollaboration between actors in a network is more efficacious (ormore flexible) than collaboration between separate actors. Above all,we need to acknowledge that cooperation can be found also ininformal contexts, as we are taught by the well-known example ofBarnard (1938), taken from Simon, Thompson, and Smithburg (1991),of the two men rolling a stone that neither could have moved alone.The organization setting is distinguished by the “cooperation underway” (as depicted in Barnard's illustration), in that it is the action ofintentionally rational predefinition aimed at building an orderbetween the job structure and the social structure. By adopting ananalytical distinction between “activities” and “persons,” the organi-zation is no longer “the art of doing things,” but a process of boundedrational actions and decisions. Therefore, on its own, cooperationbetween the subjects is not sufficient to ensure the desired result ofthat process, but it is an indispensable factor.

A key contribution with great explicative capacity for interpretingorganization settings is that of Thompson (1967), in which the authordevelops a typology of coordination forms that has yet to be betteredon many fronts. According to Thompson, the interdependenciesbetween activities and between persons (in other words, coordina-tion) can take diverse forms, which lead to increasing levels ofcomplexity and cost (p. 56). Coordination may be achieved bystandardization; this involves the establishment of routines or rules.Coordination by plan involves the establishment of schedules for the

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interdependent units by which their actions may then be governed. Athird form (coordination by mutual adjustment) involves thetransmission of new information during the process of action. Inpractice, an efficient organizational action will always seek to adoptthe least complex form of coordination whenever possible. We pointout that the rules can be introduced in a consensual or an imposedway, as is often the case in the public sector. All the same, we cannotfully exclude the freedom of the cooperating subjects. In other words,the action of these latter can always shift away from those rules,resulting in the introduction of factors of structural variability.

What are the implications of these definitions for understandingintermunicipal collaboration? In our opinion, they can help clarify theconceptual horizons. Saying that the network configurations areintrinsically “good” because they are less binding (or ‘more flexible’)for the actors involvedmeans confusing the different analytical levels.Instead, we need to take into account that the organizational actionalways produces constraints for the individuals. In any event, it cannotfully exclude the ability of the cooperating actors to exercisediscretion. Therefore, to report an effective change we need to focuson the processes of regulation and investigate whether and in whatway does the nature (autonomous or heteronomous) of theorganizational processes and the margins of discretion change.

The concepts that we have reviewed help us reinterpret the Italiancase presented in the pages following. And, as stated in ourconclusions, we believe that the push towards heteronomousregulation and the lower discretionary power of the municipalitiesdominates the current favorable scenario for E-Government partner-ships. We believe that only by analyzing the room for action anddecision generated by the overall regulatory process is it possible toclarify the extent and meaning of this organizational design effort.

3. Research methodology

This exploratory study on intermunicipal cooperation in the E-Government field has the goal of developing pertinent hypothesesand propositions for further inquiry (Yin, 1994). The work is based onthe triangulation of a number of primary and secondary sources; wehave also sought to balance the quantitative and qualitative data tofurther strengthen our analysis and contextualize the results. Giventhe role played by the regional administrations in the promotion ofICT innovations (Welp, Urgell, & Aibar, 2007), we decided toinvestigate the Piedmont region, a case familiar to both authors.

Primary sources of data included a survey conducted in 2007 bythe Piedmont ICT Observatory (PICTO, 2007) on a stratified sample of590 municipalities out of a total of 1206. The stratification variablesused for the creation of the sample were the provincial affiliation andthe size in terms of inhabitants. Data was collected through onlinequestionnaires and face-to-face interviews (with the smaller munic-ipalities). The main purpose of the survey was to investigate therelationship between technological adoption and the level of localagency collaboration. An interviewwas also conducted with a domainexpert in charge of the Local Agency Clusters (which go under theItalian acronym of ALI) to broaden our understanding of the issuesinvolved and to check the coherency of the actual situation in theregion and the interpretation of the results obtained.

We adopted three main sources of secondary data:

• A survey conducted in 2005 by CSI Piemonte (PICTO, 2007) – the ITarm of the Piedmont regional government – aimed at under-standing the IT needs of local municipalities;

• A survey by the National Centre for the Computerization of thePublic Administration (CNIPA, 2008a) on the state of the art of theLocal Agency Clusters across Italy; and

• An extensive review of the literature and desk research to favor amulti-perspective approach.

4. Background: from the National E-Government plan to theALI-CST project

E-Government implementation in Europe has been mostly drivenby the Lisbon agenda, and Italy makes no exception. The innovation ofGovernment practices through the implementation of variousInformation and Communication Technologies (ICT) has been viewedas one of the key ingredients for turning Europe into the mostdynamic and competitive knowledge economy in the world. As aconsequence, considerable roomwas reserved over the last decade forstrategic action plans involving E-Government activities (eEuropestrategic plans of 2002, 2005, and 2010).

The first organic initiative in Italy's E-Government arena waslaunched in June 2000, when funding of about €400 million enabledthe National Action Plan to take its first steps. The Plan wasconcretized in 2002, when the first call for the selection of localgovernment-sponsored projects was announced; it was updated in2003 with the definition of 10 goals for the information society.

The first E-Government implementation phase involving regionaland local governments was developed between October 2001 andApril 2003, in accordance with three closely interrelated lines ofaction:

• Co-financing for the building of computer infrastructures andservices for citizens and businesses;

• Defining a common technical, organizational, and methodologicalframework of reference for implementing E-Government projects;and

• Creating regional E-Government centers across the whole of Italy,which were established with the collaboration of the regional andlocal administrations, with the primary goal of providing supportto the local administrations in preparing and implementing E-Government projects.

The first round of funding was granted to projects designed tosupport cooperation between the diverse local administrations. Thiscooperation was supposed to promote the reuse of ICT solutions,which it was anticipated would enable the smaller public agenciesand generate economies of scale. In practice, however, the results fellfar short of expectations (Sorrentino, 2004). In fact, many of the 123projects covered the same areawhile others overlapped, underscoringa marked inability to coordinate the initiatives. All of the projectswere characterized by a strong technological orientation, withobvious gaps in terms of a focus on the organization of offices andstaff training. Further, in many cases, the Plan often targetedorganizations that strongly lacked the maturity needed to deal withinnovation, so it is not surprising that many local agenciesencountered problems, both in the implementation of the startupphase and in the effective use of the services developed.

Italy's second E-Government implementation phase – which triedto put into practice the lessons learned from past experience – kickedoff in November 2003. This time the design effort was concretized inthe preliminary definition of a common strategic vision betweenthe State and regional and local governments. The main objectivewas to extend the already operational innovation processes to mostof the country's local administrations, implementing both servicesfor citizens and businesses and infrastructure services in each areaof Italy.

In May 2005, Italy enacted what is known as the DigitalAdministration Code, which organized and consolidated the regula-tions governing public sector technical and organizational innovation,thereby creating the legislative framework needed to give legalvalidity to the innovations and services based on modern computertechnologies.

Late 2005 saw a revival of the focus on the small municipalities –which in times of spending cuts, risk being cut out of the E-Government transformation process– thanks to what is known as

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the ‘ALI-CST Project.’ This initiative has the objective of creating supra-municipal service structures capable of developing and supporting E-Government processes and of guaranteeing that the administrationsinvolved – above all, the small municipalities – are in a position toprovide and manage services on an ongoing basis and receive thenecessary human and technological resources.

A minimum of data suffice to understand the highly fragmentedinstitutional scenario in Italy and the importance of this goal. Italy'slocal administrations consist of 20 regional governments, 103provincial governments, 360 mountain communities, and 8100municipalities. Currently, more than 72% of Italian municipalitieshave less than 5000 inhabitants, which makes it difficult to imaginethat the smaller local administrations have the capabilities needed topromote systematically (that is, in a non-episodic way) a serviceoffering that meets the needs of their respective territories. Giventhat the major infrastructural projects are now complete (like thoseunderpinning the national telecommunication networks that cur-rently interconnect the PA based on common technical standards),it is time to diffuse E-Government in a uniform but, above all,sustainable way.

The top-down design approach that has characterized thegovernment's initiatives up to now – an approach that commentatorssay has helped many projects become self-referential and poorlyaligned with the needs of either citizens or businesses – is set to besurpassed by other forms of locally based cooperation. Of course, thatis not a complete novelty, given that partnerships have always beenforged in the Italian landscape. So, what has changed? The peculiarfact that, while in the past collaboration between the institutions wasseen as an opportunity, today cooperation is seen as fundamental(Fedele & Moini, 2006).

Recent provisions enacted by the Italian government oblige thelocal administrations to pursue institutional cooperation or lose theco-financing awarded to their innovation projects. September 2005saw CNIPA publish a nationwide call inviting the interested agencies(regions, provinces, municipalities, unions of municipalities, moun-tain communities, etc.) to state their willingness to aggregate andwork in partnerships to enable the launch of E-Government initiativesat the local level. That pre-selection process produced 64 suitableassociations that have adopted different formal configurations. Fig. 1shows that the Convention, the easiest form of agreement toimplement, is the most popular form of aggregation chosen by thelocal administrations, while the incorporation of a new limitedcompany or a new public body are the least common choices.

In February 2007, CNIPA issued its call for the selection of projectsto finance out of a total of 50 projects submitted by the associatedagencies. Those projects would affect more than 19 million citizens, anumber that corresponds to one-third of Italy's resident population, ofwhich 6 million live in municipalities of less than 5000 inhabitants.Interestingly, when CNIPA issued its call for selection in February2007, it sought to represent the ex-ante situation of the financingapplicants. In other words, it formulated an online questionnaire in an

Fig. 1. ALI: types of formal configuration adopted in Italy (source: CNIPA, 2008a).

attempt to document the gap separating the starting point (as is “to bechanged”) and the target (“to be”). The scenario of the Italian regionsprior to the implementation phase of the law thus was described asreliable and objective. The availability of this initial information basecan help the evaluation of the congruousness of the individualprojects from the planning and concrete feasibility perspective. Thedecision to use the financing to extensively map the startingconditions of the municipalities was made in line with a preciseconsideration: the discovery, at the time of deciding how to use thefunds provided by the Italian government to sustain innovation in thesmall and medium-sized municipalities, of the dramatic lack ofobjective knowledge on the smaller administrations.

In addition, the regional administrations involved in theimplementation of the first CST-ALI provision acted very differentlyfrom each other. Some of these intervened in a “subsidiary” way,reinforcing the importance of the project. Other regions, meantime,assumed an attitude of benevolent detachment, also in the name ofrespecting the autonomy of the municipalities. Still others saw theprovision as just one of many spending items through which totransfer money to the municipalities; the diffusion of this attitude isconfirmed by the fact that these regions overlap several financinginitiatives without coordinating them, soliciting the creation ofadditional aggregations at the local level under themirage of receivingmore funds for innovation. According to CNIPA (2008b, p. 10), thediffering behaviors is an index of a continually changing and neverdefined vision of what is meant by a local agency cluster. CNIPA is veryclear on this, however: the strengths of this initiative are not those ofpromoting the use of new “objects” (meaning ICT platforms), but theaffirmation of new “subjects,” which if successful can adoptinnovative solutions for also doing their job more effectively(CNIPA, 2008b).

5. Intermunicipal cooperation in the Piedmont region

5.1. Geographical and demographic constraints

The Piedmont Region (Regione Piemonte in Italian) in Northern Italyis characterized by a high level of administrative fragmentation andpopulation dispersion. The region has a total of 1206municipalities, 90%of which have fewer than 5000 inhabitants. More than 40% ofPiedmont's population lives in small, low-density municipalities,which are scattered over mainly mountain and hill territory. Thesefactors all pose a major challenge to the creation of an ICT-friendlyenvironment outside themainmetropolitan area of Turin that features ahomogeneous offering of broadband and E-Government opportunities.

5.2. Reach and sophistication of current E-Government systems

The current E-Government situation in Piedmont can be describedas follows: 70% of municipalities have websites, but only 23% usethem to provide services. The slow pace of growth in web-based frontoffices between 2002 and 2005 – the percentage of municipalwebsites rose from 40% to 50% – can be contrasted with the slightlymore accelerated pace of the past 2 years; the increase is largely aresult of the arrival of a few private players in the local markets. Theseplayers have exploited economies of scale by proposing a ‘one size fitsall’ strategy and a highly standardized offering to the municipalities.

However, while E-Government diffusion now seems to havepicked up, a new and even more important challenge looms on thehorizon: that of addressing the lack of ICT penetration in the backoffices (highlighted by the low percentage of interactive websites).The major role played by the tourism industry in many of Piedmont'slocal economies has meant that E-Government has been mainly usedas a marketing tool. In addition, the problem is exacerbated byorganizational weakness – attested to by the fact that only 25% ofmunicipalities have dedicated IT management staff – which has

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deterred IT management staff from taking up the challenges inherentin an extensive deployment of ICT in the internal processes. Finally,the low presence of back-office IT systems also characterizes manymid-sized municipalities, making this a priority.

5.3. The role of regional government

The Piedmont Region started to adopt a systematic and integratedapproach to public IT management in the 1970s, leading to thecreation of the CSI, a body charged with providing support to localpublic agencies and bringing together PA and academic institutions inthe quest for a more optimal management of public sector IT. Inaddition, CSI is the vehicle through which the regional governmentinitially implemented and currently manages the Sistema Piemonte, aplatform of E-Government services developed in 2005 to address theICT diffusion's impasse among municipalities mentioned above. Thisplatform enabled the regional government to provide both front- andback-office services to local agencies of all sizes. From a technologicaland economic perspective, the choice seems highly appropriate. Onthe one hand, it favors cost-rationalization through shared ITdevelopment and maintenance in both the front and the back offices,while, on the other, it promotes a more mature diffusion of E-Government with the advantage of a single point of entry for all publicservices to final users (citizens and businesses). Despite this, thediffusion of e-services among local agencies has not gained theexpected momentum. This lack of momentum is due in part to thesubsidiarity principle that guides regional government actions, which,in essence, means that ICT regional policies cannot be imposed on thelocal agencies, who, in turn, are reluctant to relinquish theirautonomy, and in part to the fact that the municipalities have yet todevelop an IT culture that would enable them to understand thebenefits that such an initiative would bring to all stakeholders.

5.4. Constraints posed by national policies

As the reader can surmise, the ALI initiative launched by thenational government overlapped with the support activity promotedby the regional government through CSI. It is not the first time that themunicipalities have encountered a hurdle in their long history.Indeed, we can find many instances where intermunicipal collabora-tive arrangements have been implemented to solve more traditionalproblems. These existing arrangements have, as a result, increased thecomplexity of the scenario in which the ALI initiative had to beadopted. Piedmont currently features two types of municipalpartnership: the first aimed to address issues inherent in themanagement of mountainous territories (preservation and promotionof the area), while the second was created with a more specific goal—sharing the provision of some administrative functions.

The first goal in adopting the national policy at the local level wasto avoid the duplication of costs deriving from, on the one side, thecreation of a new institution with new headquarters, board ofadministrators, etc., and, on the other, an overlapping of theinvestments already sunk into the Sistema Piemonte platform.

The regional government decided to embark on three key lines ofaction. The first called for the reuse of 11 types of e-services, whichhad been launched earlier with the financial support of the national E-Government plan of 2002 and provided through the legacy SistemaPiemonte web portal. The second called for the diffusion – via thesame platform – of application software for the land registry. The thirdinitiative revolved around the setting up of a new team of experts (or“facilitators”) responsible for providing technical assistance, ICTadvice, and staff training to the municipalities. An example of theimportance of the role that facilitators play can be found in the factthat only 22% of municipalities currently provide some sort of ICTtraining to their staff. That percentage is indeed low when we takeinto account that the regional government offers free ICT courses to all

the employees of the small municipalities. Raising the level of ITliteracy and “e-readiness” is prerequisite to the success of any policyaimed at promoting the mature use of ICT in the public sector.

5.5. Local response to the ALI initiative

Piedmont's municipalities paid significant attention to the ALIinitiative, prompting 88% of them to join one of the eight ALI. Webelieve that this action indicates an unexpressed need in thisdirection. Nevertheless, we point out that no cost was incurred injoining the ALIs, which might have helped facilitate their success. Thelocal administrators were attracted to the ALI mainly thanks to thepotential it gave them to (1) expand the range of services provided,(2) reduce ICT costs, (3) access innovation-related funding, and (4)improve supplier management.

Fig. 2 illustrates the services that specifically interest the localagencies and, above all, underscores how all the municipalities rateaccess to land registry services a top priority. That fact can be traced tothe key revenue-generating role of the land registry.

In terms of the small municipalities, the priority flagging ofwebsite development and management reflects the increase inoutsourcing practices. Unfortunately, the municipalities' lack oftechnical skills means they need to ask the ALI's support to managethe ICT contractors. However, in the larger municipalities, such acomplete lack of technical skill does not translate into the same levelof urgency. Nevertheless, the focus on land registry and e-procure-ment reveals that the approach to E-Government is driven by a clearfinancial focus.

6. Analysis and discussion

In seeking to draw a preliminary picture of the phenomenainvestigated and provide orientation for further data collection andanalysis, we propose a possible interpretation of our observations.

The regional “E-Government round table” of Piedmont has beengenerating good results since its inception some years ago and is anarea in which the CSI plays a crucial role in spiking the interest ofadministrations in the ICT sphere. When the new ALI law came intoforce, the CSI had sufficient legitimacy to take a position at the helm ofthe process that had led it and set up eight new units in the provincein conjunction with the interested municipalities.

The agreement forged between the CSI and the majority of thelocal administrations aims mainly to rationalize existing resourcesand prevent the dispersal of government funds allocated to Piedmont(€3 million) in a maze of uncoordinated micro-initiatives, where theamounts would shrink (to roughly €3000 per municipality) and,therefore, would do little to help solve the problem for which thefunds had actually been provided.

The adoption of a strategy calling for the reuse of the softwaresolutions already on stream underscores the focus on economicsustainability. The web portal is the same channel through which themunicipalities can access the land registry system. The setting up of ateam of “facilitators” to assist the municipalities' administrations, notonly with technical glitches, but also their innovation effort, is a clearsign that CSI wants to promote a culture oriented to the building of acollaborative advantage. This is intended to be a “synergy betweencollaborating organizations” (Huxham, 1993).

In addition to an overall rationalization of resources, theimplementation of ALI in Piedmont aims to simplify the interactionbetween the CSI and the local PA, given the drastic reduction expectedin the number of provincial “technical round table” participants.Nevertheless, we underscore that the choice of giving the ALI a formalyet relatively weak configuration – in the form of a frameworkagreement between the local administrations – risks being trans-formed into a problematic element. In other words, it is hard tobelieve that the decisions made on a case-by-case basis by the

Fig. 2. Services ranked in order of priority by municipalities members of ALI (source: PICTO, 2007).

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technical round table participants will automatically translate into aconcrete and binding commitment for all of the municipalitiespotentially involved. In the worst-case scenario, however, the absenceof stringent restrictions could slow or even thwart the efforts to adoptcommon technological and, above all, organizational solutions. Thisworst-case scenario would also result in the growth of technologicalheterogeneity and territorial differences.

We need to take into account the fact that the ability of the 50 localagency clusters to survive does not depend just on the amount ofresources they receive, but also on the real possibility of themunicipalities to introduce organizational changes. Unfortunately,

Fig. 3. Municipalities: actual spending p

that possibility cannot be taken for granted. Italy is characterized bysignificant territorial differences. In those municipalities that sufferfrom a critical financial situation (mainly in the regions of SouthernItaly), spending restrictions do not permit the implementation of anyinnovative policies.

Fig. 3 provides an instant snapshot of how widespread thisphenomenon is (the dark bars that design a descending curve fromleft to right). The chart shows the percentage of municipalities thatare participants in ALI with pre-allocated budgets (i.e., spendingrestrictions). These municipalities have no room for maneuveringwhen it comes to making ordinary administrative decisions, which, at

ower (%) (source: CNIPA, 2008b).

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the end of the day, are themost incisive for the purpose of introducingnew organizational models. The chart's light gray bars show the self-sufficient municipalities, while the mid-range gray bars (on the righthand side of the chart) indicate the fully autonomous municipalities.Under similar conditions, the ALI that are most likely to survive andthat will be able to reap the rewards of the investments that are aresult of the ALI-CST Project are the municipalities represented withlight and mid-range gray.

How these tensions and contradictions are addressed and solvedwill also be a critical factor in the overall effectiveness of the ALI.

An interpretive key that adopts the conceptual frameworksoffered by organization science, and especially by the Theory ofOrganizational Action (TOA) (Maggi, 1990, 2003), enables us toexplain Piedmont's choice in relation to its two main goals. The first isthat of facilitating the coordination of interdependent local admin-istrations: sharing the same application solutions translates into thecreation of standard rules and common practices that steer the actionof the municipalities in the provision of services. That form ofcoordination is not only less costly than the others, but also makes itpossible to evaluate and compare the provinces, for example, bymeasuring the level of use of the e-services and the state of the workin progress. The second goal of enlarging the municipalities' ITresource pool through the introduction of a common land registrysystem reveals the CSI's intention of increasing the technicalrationality of the administrative processes. On the other hand, otherservice areas have adopted more complex forms of coordinating theinterdependency of local administrations. Indeed, the staff trainingand sensitization activities that the CSI will provide to the provincialALI require mechanisms of ‘coordination by mutual adjustment’(Thompson, 1967, p. 56).

This picture seems to point to significant growth in organizationalcomplexity, a complexity that derives from the variety of therelationships forged at the diverse levels. Mutual adjustment becomesnecessary because it is impossible to specify the sequence of theactivities according to predefined frameworks or standard rules. In thestaff training and sensitization activities, each participating subjectrelates with the others; therefore, coordination is ensured by theinformation exchanged during the carrying out of the process ofaction (through feedback).

In addition, the Piedmont Regional Administration – via the CSI – isfurther reinforcing its relations with themunicipalities. What remainsto be seen is the logic for the regulatory framework on whichcollaborative arrangements between the public administrations arebased. This is a theme that has always been a key aspect of academicreflection, as attested to by the literature indicated in section 2, butwhich has yet to find a satisfactory response to the often contradictorysituations found in reality.

The Italian government has charted a kind of “virtuous” course thatshould prompt the local administrations involved to believe in theconsultation culture. There is a clear focus on identifying andspreading best practice both within and between organizations.Despite this emphasis on collaboration and on the freedom given thelocal administrations to choose the collaborative form they believemost efficacious, it is clearly the central government's wish to extendits control to spheres of activity that have never before entered itsfield of action.

Of course, we will not be able to give a founded reply to thatquestion until the ALI implementation phase has been concluded(slated for 2009). According to TOA, the general questions that mustbe asked are:

1) Do the organizational configurations (i.e., intermunicipalarrangements) change the heteronomous/autonomous natureof the regulatory (i.e., coordination and control) processes? and

2) In what way does the discretionary power of the administrationsand the decision-makers change?

When considering these questions, we need to take into account thatthe activity of the public administrations is largely shaped throughlegislative provisions. Any analysis must therefore consider that thepremises leading to the various institutional decision-making levelsin the organizational processes are broadly restricted by the law. Thelaw also restricts the methods of coordinating and controlling theprocesses.

Overall, we can say that the government's decision-makers haveused regulation to make certain that the ALI implementers do notdistort the nature of the legislator's choices. It is widely known(Barrett & Fudge, 1981) that implementation is considered the “blackbox” of policymaking due to the high number of adjustments andinterventions that often characterize the “work in progress.” At thesame time, intermunicipal cooperation seems to leave a lot of roomfor discretion in terms of the methods used to achieve the establishedgoals. However, these “windows of freedom” have a backlash on theexisting constraints: in other words, if one level is highly regulatedalso the other levels will have few alternatives. Ultimately, the pushtowards heteronomous regulation and the reduction of the discre-tionary power of the local agencies significantly predominate thecurrent Italian scenario.

7. Conclusions and implications

The case analyzed in this paper is unique in someways to its Italiancontext, but it raises important issues related to multi-levelgovernance and the implementation of working E-Governmentsystems that are relevant internationally. In addition, the cross-sectional nature of ICT cuts across organization structures andcompetencies. The implementation of seamless E-Government solu-tions thus requires a profound rethinking of the institutional as well asthe organizational assets of traditional government structures.

From a practical point of view, the critical question is: “How do webuild the necessary cooperative and integrative approach across thedifferent administrative levels?” Finding a single answer to thisquestion is not simple, since no silver bullet is available. Nevertheless,the case analyzed in this article may point to a number of directionsuseful in looking for possible solutions.

At the policy level, the allocation of financial resources for theimplementation of E-Government systemsmay be adopted to provideclear incentive structures. In other words, the process of resourceallocation may be used as an important lever to reward collaborativebehaviors by making them economically convenient.

At the organizational level, the use of a representative system(through the establishment of different forms of collaboration orclustering) may be considered to reduce the coordination complexityand to make information flow more effectively among institutions.Loose agreements may be chosen in the initial stages to foster the“bandwagon effect.” Nevertheless, final arrangements should aim atproducing organizational structures able to generate bindingdecision-making processes.

At the technological level, the central administrative level (in thiscase the regional government) plays a key role in promoting the“reuse” of existing solutions. This, in fact, allows fostering—thestandardization of processes, positive externalities deriving fromhigher degrees of interoperability, and cost savings due to theexploitation of economies of scale.

From an academic point of view, intermunicipal cooperation isintriguing because of its paradoxical nature, which combinescompetition and cooperation, autonomy, and interdependence(Rodrìguez et al., 2007, p. 151). That the popularity of thisorganizational choice in public E-Government policies is set toincrease is worthy of further academic investigation, both to explaintheoretically the effects on the administrations and their courses ofaction and to project the consequences of the alternative organiza-tional decisions. The practical agenda calls for civil servants to

24 E. Ferro, M. Sorrentino / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 17–25

understand the concrete implications of collaborative settings on themanagement of technology or on the evolution of the needs of citizensand businesses located also in peripheral areas of the country.

It is probably too early to draw any final conclusions. Nevertheless,we are convinced that the experiences underway in Italy may beinstrumental in sparking a number of useful considerations for theoryand practice. On the one hand, the findings of our research indicatethat governmental action aimed at favoring aggregations andcollaborations in the E-Government sphere might help diffuse onlineservices. From a theoretical point of view, this result may be placedinside a more generalized trend leading to a paradigm shift inorganizational arrangements. As Friedman (2007) stated, the classicalview of command and control is being gradually replaced by a logic ofconnection and collaboration. The implementation of such a logic inGovernment will have to pass through a lengthy process of culturalchange. In particular, it will be necessary to raise awareness of theneed for collaboration as a means of trying to curb culturalimpediments (e.g., control-oriented management) that may, in turn,limit the perceptions of the expected benefits of information sharing(Gil-Garcia, Chengalur-Smith, & Duchessi, 2007 p. 121).

On the other hand, providing E-Government services in anassociated format may not be a sufficient condition for ensuring theprovision of an integrated offering to citizens and businesses.Recalling the words of Entwistle et al. (2007, p. 76), we suspect thatthe partnerships will not find it easy to solve this type of problem. As amatter of fact, the implementation of a truly transformationalgovernment that can significantly change how citizens and businessreceive public services implies deep organizational impacts thatprobably transcend the creation of loose forms of association.

Our exploratory study invites us to abandon the idea thatpartnerships between local public administrations are alwayssynonymous with decisional decentralization and empowerment ofthe peripheral players (Sorrentino & Ferro, 2008). The key role playedby CSI, for instance, clearly shows the need for a central coordinationactivity complementing distributed choices closer to local needs. Thepresence of a central complementary coordination activity may bejustified in a number of ways, including the following: providing amore effective allocation of financial resources, and establishing thedefinition of standards necessary to guarantee interoperabilityamong public agencies. In addition, reaching a good level oforganizational and technological homogeneity is critical for systemicmanagement of innovation at regional level. In fact, the presence ofstandard practices and interoperable technologies allows a muchfaster diffusion of incremental innovations in the system reducingcustomization costs.

We believe that the conceptual proposal advanced in this paper,which assumes the need to focus our attention on the processes ofaction and decision that take place at the diverse organizational levels,can be useful and productive as it enables us to go beyond thesimplifying interpretations found in much of mainstream literature.

Of course, the above conclusions do not rule out the existence ofcases where the organizational solutions are bearers of innovativeorganizational logics. Only research in the field will produceconclusive evidence of the effective diffusion of these solutions andof exactly how many such cases have assumed the new forms merelyon the surface. Our feeling is that this latter type of situation largelyprevails.

This study clearly shows that the challenge for the future is tofind the right balance between the constitutionally recognizedautonomy of local municipalities and the centralization of activitiessuch as standard definition and solutions development that mayallow the attainment of an effective and sustainable E-Governmentimplementation.

Finally, we want to point out some of the limitations of this work.As stated in the title, this work is an exploratory study based upon alimited set of empirical data relative to one region. The findings that

we have drawn from the study presented here need to be furtherstudied and validated by systematic work in the field. The dataprovided gives us a point of departure, some ‘food for thought.’Future research on intermunicipal cooperation in the E-Governmentfield will need to adopt a longitudinal perspective, given that wecannot assume that the relations between the local administrationswill continue unchanged also in the future, when some of thecurrent enabling conditions (i.e., the financial resources provided bycentral government as an incentive to aggregation) expire. Subse-quent work should also focus on the comparative study of the effectsof the intermunicipal agreements implemented in other Italianregions. To conclude, it will be important to investigate whether andhow a deeper understanding of intermunicipal collaborations mayhelp in making a step towards the definition of IT governancemodels aimed at promoting the diffusion of innovation in the publicsector.

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Enrico Ferro is a contract Professor at the Polytechnic of Turin where he lectures oninformation management and strategies in both the public and the private sector. Healso covers a senior researcher position at the Mario Boella Institute (ISMB) where is incharge of the research and policy intelligence activities of the Technology and BusinessIntelligence Area. He has worked in a number of projects financed by the European

Commission with roles ranging from scientific supervisor to senior expert. He is part ofthe organization committees of two international academic events dealing witheGovernment and eInclusion (eGOv, DGO).

Maddalena Sorrentino researches in organization theory and organisational change,and is a professor of e-government at the University of Milan. She is the author andeditor of seven books and more than 140 articles, essays, Italian and internationalconference communications, and research reports. She is a member of the editorialboards of the Government Information Quarterly and the Information Systems ande-Business Management. She is advisor to private and public institutions on themesrelated to organisational development.