Management Control of the Training Cycle: Evidence from Italian Public Administrations

This paper primarily underlines the redundancy of public sector reforms, issued over years in various countries, and in many cases, fell far from being actually implemented. The training of public management can be seen as a factor influencing the formation of the set of values and beliefs that affect the efficiency and efficacy of each public organization, representing a significant steering mechanism. Consequently, the training cycle should be structured as multi-year plans of development, growth and consolidation of individual and organizational competencies. After discussing the mismatch between training objectives and results, the authors argue the importance of structuring the training process by linking its different stages, with the aim of influencing trainees’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours and orienting practices to disseminate knowledge, skills, and capabilities coherently with the institutional reform guidelines. In particular, the evaluation stage is significantly important, because of the need for assessing individual competencies in relation to the path of growth that the organization has established in the training strategy, the revision of objectives, and the content and delivery of training initiatives. The outcome of training on individual and organizational performance is difficult to measure due to many factors. This difficulty often leads one to underestimate or to avoid the fundamental stage of evaluation. In this perspective, the paper presents evidence collected through a survey on data related to the management of the training cycle of central government organizations in Italy.