Strategic Management in the public sector: an empirical analysis in the Italian public Higher Education sector

Due to NPM reforms, strategic management, which has been defined as "the broader process of managing an organization in a strategic manner on a continuing basis", becomes a relevant feature within the public higher education sector. Although empirical research increased considerably, many countries have been neglected. Among these, there is the Italian context. The present thesis is part of this field of investigation with the aim, through the application of Miles and Snow's strategic framework in the Italian public higher sector, to contribute to filling the gap mentioned above. Besides, starting from the Italian public higher education sector, it intends to provide reflections that can be generalized for the whole public sector. The thesis comprises three different papers, namely, a systematic literature review and two different empirical works. The systematic literature review aims to point out the lessons and further aspects that must be investigated related to the public sector's strategic management that stems from Miles and Snow's strategic framework in the public sector. Based on Walker's work recommendations, the literature review replicates and extends Walker's work by analyzing the most recent empirical research conducted in the public sector related to strategic management. This literature review intends to test Walker's findings and point out new emerging issues stemming from the research conducted in recent years, specifically in the time frame from 2013 to 2018. It emphasizes that, even though there has been a more extensive application of Miles and Snow's framework in the public sector, the empirical research still focuses primarily on USA and UK contexts. Moreover, the prospector and defender strategic stances do not always outperform the reactor one. The two empirical works focus principally on strategic management within the Italian public higher education sector. The first empirical work investigates the possible influence of public reforms on the Italian public higher education sector's strategic stances. It aims to understand whether the strategic stances adopted by Italian HEIs have changed because of the recent reforms, and, if so, how. For these purposes, the work analyzes the effects of Law 240/2010, also known as the Gelmini reform, which has deeply influenced the Italian public higher education sector. This work investigates how the Italian public HEIs have adapted to the new external environment through strategic stances. It emerges that Gelmini reform led to a strategic reorientation in the Italian public higher education system. In contrast to Miles and Snow's proposition, HEIs avoid adopting the prospector strategic stance in favor of the reactor or defender ones. The second empirical work attempts to identify a relationship between strategic stances adopted by Italian HEIs and their organizational performance. Based on Miles and Snow's strategic framework, each HEI's strategic stance is analyzed to inspect the previous relationship and understand if the strategic stance influences HEI performance, and, if so, which strategic stance is more suitable in the Italian higher education sector. The results emphasize that the strategic stance adopted influences HEI performance. However, contrary to Miles and Snow's assumption, such influence does not lead to a strategic hierarchy based on performance, but rather to more considerable variety in performance by HEIs that adopt the prospector strategic stance, i.e., a more risk-prone strategy.