Chiara Leardini

Background: Functional motor disorders (FMDs) are prevalent and highly disabling conditions in young adults that can result in reduced independence. Despite advances in diagnosis and treatment, the economic burden of FMDs is largely unknown.Objective: This pilot retrospective study provides a real-world overview of the economic costs related to delayed diagnosis of FMDs from a cohort of patients of a specialized clinic in Italy, based on Italian healthcare costs.Methods: Sociodemographic data, clinical history, healthcare service utilization, and associated direct costs were collected for a period of up to 5 years before a definite diagnosis of FMDs in 40 patients.Results: The mean time lag between the onset of FMDs symptoms and diagnosis was 6.63 years (±8.57). The mean annual use of recourses per patient was three specialist visits (95% CI 2.4–3.4) and three diagnostic examinations (95% CI 2.2–3.6) that made up a total of six investigations and over seven (95% CI 5.5–9.7) rehabili...

""L’interesse per le questioni di genere è andato crescendo nel corso del tempo via via che le pari opportunità e la perequazione fra uomo e donna sono stati riconosciuti come fattori determinanti per lo sviluppo del sistema socio-economico di un territorio. A tal proposito, numerosi studi condotti in ambito economico si sono concentrati sulle ragioni che spingono o dovrebbero spingere l’amministrazione pubblica locale ad essere sensibile al tema della gender equality. La questione di genere, tuttavia, non è solo una questione economica ma costituisce anche un problema aziendale per l’ente pubblico locale, che va attentamente risolto affinché esso possa rispondere efficacemente ai bisogni della collettività di riferimento. Nel presente lavoro, la riflessione si sposta allora sulla dimensione di genere come fenomeno che interessa l’intera amministrazione dell’ente locale. Essa viene considerata come un insieme di bisogni espressione della comunità territoriale di riferimento dell’ente cui l’azienda pubblica risponde stabilendone le priorità di soddisfacimento e con scelte di gestione ed organizzazione coerenti con gli obiettivi e le finalità che si è prefissata. Il problema della convenienza economica della questione di genere viene riformulato ed espresso in termini di efficacia e di efficienza dell’operato pubblico in relazione alle istanze della collettività e ai mezzi impiegati per la loro soddisfazione. Il lavoro sottolinea come la prospettiva di genere, in virtù della sua valenza di interesse generale, dovrebbe essere collocata tra i principi che informano i processi decisionali degli organi di indirizzo in quanto migliora l’identificazione dei bisogni e delle esigenze della comunità e permette una definizione più coerente degli obiettivi che l’ente locale è chiamato a perseguire. La proposta alla quale si perviene al termine di questo scritto è sintetizzabile nell’introduzione dell’analisi di genere già in sede di formulazione della Relazione previsionale e programmatica, quale analisi integrativa nello studio delle caratteristiche della popolazione e stimolo per l’individuazione delle necessità più profonde del tessuto sociale. ""

Accountability to stakeholders has always been pivotal in supporting nonprofit organizations in legitimizing their existence within local communities and building public trust. The development of Web-based accountability tools has offered growing possibilities to communicate and engage in dialogue with stakeholders. However, nonprofit organizations are not yet fully exploiting the potential of the Web. By focusing on Italian bank foundations, this study explores the use of the Web as a tool for discharging accounts to stakeholders and involving them in dialogue. The data show that most of the foundations do not use websites to communicate interactively with their stakeholders, and communication is limited to one-way disclosure of information. The results suggest more steps can be taken to ensure increased responsiveness to community needs.

The paper outlines the key aspects of governance and accountability in relation to the management of Savings Bank Foundations. These particular type of foundation are characterized by the presence of two different "business unit": one in charge of the asset management activity and the other one in charge of the grant making activity. However Savings Bank Foundations are managed by a single governing body. This particular "status" has two main consequences: - the governing body should take decisions seeking to improve either the asset management activity or the grant making activity; - the reporting activity has to provide a clear disclosure about the results of the two activities carried out by the foundations. Therefore, related to the Governance aspect, the paper outlines the need for the Foundations to: - clearly define the role of the different organizational bodies; - hire professionals able to manage the two Foundation's activities; - lay out in a docum...

The third sector comprises heterogeneous typologies of non-profit organisations that range from small local associations to large international foundations. Despite this heterogeneity, all non-profits feel an increasing pressure to adopt inclusive governance practices based on the engagement of stakeholders with a thorough knowledge of the community needs. Involving stakeholders allows an exchange of views on the main issues that non-profits face daily, which can help them to govern and manage philanthropic activities in a rational way. With the aim to contribute to the scant research on knowledge management in the third sector, this exploratory study investigates the role of stakeholder engagement as a source of knowledge in non-profit organisations. Specifically, how does stakeholder engagement provide useful knowledge for decision-making processes is what the study is about in this paper. We focused on Italian Bank Foundations, a particular kind of non-profit organisations that perform on behalf of the public interest and are legally constrained to use their assets and the resulting incomes to pursue the social and economic development of the local community. A qualitative case study of a large Italian Bank Foundation has been used to determine the relevant stakeholders engaged by the organisation, the tools by which their knowledge is acquired and how this acquired knowledge contributes to decision-making processes. The data of the case study were collected through semi-structured interviews with four key informants from the organisation, who have a deep knowledge and understanding of stakeholder engagement practices applied in involving local stakeholders in decision-making. The interviews were combined and compared using a data triangulation approach, together with other information derived from different sources, to improve the reliability of our findings. The results confirm that stakeholder engagement is a means of collecting knowledge that is otherwise dispersed among heterogeneous groups of stakeholders. In general, it emerges that there is a firm belief that stakeholder engagement can provide useful information for identifying community needs and developing philanthropic activities, although some difficulties characterise the acquisition of this information. By focusing on non-profit organisations, the study makes some important contributions to knowledge management research and offers new insights into the role of stakeholder engagement in providing knowledge for supporting decisional processes

Savings banks originated with a vocation for strong solidarity with their local communities. To preserve this link with local stakeholders, savings banks have developed a broad set of accountability mechanisms that involve local authorities and municipalities in their organisational activities. To explore the role of accountability in preserving their community bonds over time, this study investigates the 165-year history of the Verona Savings Bank from its founding in 1825 to the establishment of the homonymous bank foundation in 1991. The evolution of the accountability mechanisms depicts a resilient focus on including local stakeholder representatives in governance matters rather than allowing transparency to decrease over time. This confirms the need to broaden the concept of accountability, particularly when considering the pivotal role played by boards in enhancing accountability to local communities.

This article describes the accountability features of confraternities in Verona during the “Long Seventeenth Century”. These charities, driven by a common and deep Christian spirit, played a pivotal role in a period of great depression, helping the local community. The accounts relating to their activities display precision and are rich in analytical detail, enabling the painting of a portrait of Verona’s confraternities and their economic and charitable actions as strictly bound by a spiritual aim. Using the stakeholder theory lens to analyse the archival documents of the 53 confraternities revealed by the Appraisal Book of 1682, this article highlights a complex network of relationships among these organizations and their stakeholders in light of their power, legitimacy and urgency attributes. We conclude that these confraternities’ accountability was the result of the most powerful stakeholders’ influence, and underlines confraternities’ pivotal role in supporting the poor in the...

The study investigates how governance mechanisms can affect community representation within nonprofit organizations, focusing on Italian Bank Foundations where the community is on board by law. To investigate what governance arrangements increase substantive and symbolic representation, the study adjusts Guo and Musso’s framework by considering several formal mechanisms for appointing board members and the residence of board members as a new aspect of descriptive representation. A content analysis of the statutes and an email survey show that formal mechanisms contribute to substantive representation, whereas descriptive and participatory arrangements enhance symbolic representation. In addition, this study explores the moderating influence of local stakeholders in appointing board members, offering a wider point of view on the relationships among the five dimensions of representation.

Efficient water management is a priority in the European Union, since the operational efficiency of many water utilities is very low compared to best practice. Several countries are restructuring the water industry to save costs. Larger-scale operations and vertical integration are promoted to achieve scale and scope economies; however, the literature is not unanimous that such economies exist. There is also little evidence of the effect of customer density on costs. This article offers some insights into this matter, analysing the Danish water industry by a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis approach to investigate the effects of size, scope and density in the wastewater industry. The results show that the Danish wastewater industry is positively affected by vertical integration and higher population density: firms that serve more than 100 person per km of sewer and combine water and wastewater services achieve better efficiency. Size does not have any significant influence on glo...

By analysing documentary evidences, this article shows the accounting practices adopted by S. Maria della Scala monastery in Verona during the eighteenth century. The study, in particular, is intended: a) to know and describe accountability process and protagonists; b) to identify how accounting practice changed since the establishment of the monastery, in the fourteenth century. The research shows some interesting elements of innovation in S. Maria della Scala monastery bookkeeping.

This chapter highlights the cultural role of Italian bank foundations, in light of information provided through accountability reports. In particular, it specifies how these organizations have invested in art and culture in recent years, using information contained in reports prepared by the Italian Association of Foundations of Banking Origin (ACRI) to provide a general overview of their activity. Although more useful and complete information would come from single bank foundations reports, a significant gap persists between the information held by the foundations and their ability to communicate it effectively to stakeholders. To improve external accountability documentation, it appears necessary to homogenize the way foundations communicate about the returns they achieve on their investments in art and culture.

Nowadays, non-profit organisations (NPOs) face growing pressure to involve the community in their governing boards. Nevertheless, few empirical studies have been conducted on how they selfregulate community engagement in their governance. With the aim of filling the research gap on this topic, this article provides new insights into community engagement in non-profit governance, considering the case of Italian bank foundations (IBFs) in which community representation on the board is required by law, and self-regulation plays a pivotal role in defining mechanisms of engagement. Applying Guo and Musso‘s (2007) framework, a content analysis of IBFs‘ statutes highlights that detailed attention has been paid to formal procedures and descriptive representation mechanisms, while participatory arrangements are lacking. The analysis of the IBFs‘ case reveals additional mechanisms that are useful for better ensuring community representation within governance, and provides new mechanisms that ...

ABSTRACT Il presente lavoro misura l’efficienza delle strutture della rete ospedaliera pubblica del Veneto con il metodo Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) e individua quali variabili operative e ambientali sono in grado di condizionarne l’andamento. Rispetto alla letteratura esistente, questo studio empirico permette di indagare in profondità le determinanti di efficienza di un sistema sanitario regionale in quanto, in collaborazione con la Sezione Programmazione Risorse Finanziarie della Regione Veneto, si basa sull’elaborazione e l’analisi di un dataset longitudinale recente (2011-2012) contenente dati tecnici, di costo e di provento riferiti a uno specifico sistema sanitario regionale. Tra i risultati emersi ricordiamo gli impatti negativi prodotti sull’efficienza da un aumento dell’anzianità della popolazione, dei giorni medi di ospedalizzazione e dalla presenza del pronto soccorso; effetti positivi si riscontrano invece con l’aumento della scala dimensionale.

Italian bank foundations are a particular kind of nonprofit organization, operating in the exclusive interest of a territory, especially in the fields of art, culture, health, and social assistance. Although they share in substance the common idea of foundations, their governance structure presents some peculiarities that distinguish them from typical nonprofit organizations. Bank foundations’ governance structures comprise two different boards with different but complementary functions. The Board of Trustees is in charge of the foundation’s direction; it defines objectives, strategies, and long-term programs. The Board of Directors has more of an administrative function, translating long-term plans into short-term programs of action. Defined as such, this board structure allows the foundation to overcome the rigidity that typically characterizes the dual governance model. It acknowledges a deeper connection between the policy-making body and management and thereby ensures a closer link between strategy formulation and strategy implementation.

Good governance depends on adequate governance tools. Strategic planning is a critical component of good governance in nonprofit organizations because it helps formalize strategy through action plans, identify long-term goals, and identify the polices needed to achieve them. Strategic planning in bank foundations is affected by the particular nature of their business, which comprises both asset management and grant-making activities. In Italian bank foundations, every 3 years, the Board of Trustees identifies within the multiannual planning document the areas of intervention, describes the strategic objectives to pursue within them, and estimates the expected funds to realize such objectives. Every year, the Board of Directors prepares an annual planning document that describes for each sector of intervention the objectives to pursue during the next year and the funds that predictably will be allocated to them. Finally, the Board of Directors identifies an analytical plan for deliberations pertaining to the annual articulation of the activities planned for the next year. Favouring the proper allocation of responsibilities to the different organs that contribute to pursuing the mission, strategic planning can support the good governance of bank foundations.

Bank foundations serve an important purpose in the Italian nonprofit sector. This book presents the legal grounds, areas of intervention, and basic tools involved in the asset management and grant-making activities that such organizations undertake. A special emphasis focuses on the analyses of the organizational structure of bank foundations and the relevant aspects of governance, particularly with regard to the composition, roles, and responsibilities of bank foundation boards. The general reduction in the resources to which they have access requires a new strategy that clearly defines long-term goals and the necessary procedures to achieve them. The topic of strategic planning is therefore also central to this text, which examines its peculiarities, content and governing bodies. The analysis of some case studies provides a better understanding of the manner in which foundations interpret strategic planning and reveals strengths and weaknesses that demand careful attention

Parametric and non-parametric frontier applications are typical for measuring the efficiency and productivity of many healthcare units. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, hospital efficiency is the center of academic discussions and the most desired target for many public authorities under limited resources. Investigating the state of the art of such applications and methodologies in the healthcare sector, besides uncovering strategical managerial prospects, can expand the scientific knowledge on the fundamental differences among efficiency models, variables and applications, drag research attention to the most attractive and recurrent concepts, and broaden a discussion on the specific theoretical and empirical gaps still to be addressed in future research agendas. This work offers a systematic bibliometric review to explore this complex panorama. Hospital efficiency applications from 1996 to 2022 were investigated from the Web of Science base. We selected 65 from the 203 most pr...

By analysing documentary evidences, this article shows the accounting practices adopted by S. Maria della Scala monastery in Verona during the eighteenth century. The study, in particular, is intended: a) to know and describe accountability process and protagonists; b) to identify how accounting practice changed since the establishment of the monastery, in the fourteenth century. The research shows some interesting elements of innovation in S. Maria della Scala monastery bookkeeping.

Nonprofit organizations operating in the environmental protection and conservation sector face challenging fundraising issues in collecting from individual donors the money needed to accomplish their goals. The purpose of this study was to investigate which organizational factors can play a role in influencing the ability of these organizations to collect charitable contributions. By applying an extended version of the economic model of giving to a sample of 142 environmental nonprofits from the United States, the results of the regression analyses show that the following factors allow these organizations to attract more donations: devoting a high percentage of donations to programs, promoting the organization’s image through fundraising activities, having a large amount of assets that ensures a sustainable financial structure, and providing online information that demonstrates how the organization has dealt with its mission. Moreover, the study reveals that providing high amounts o...