Organizational Efficiency in Public Administration: Studies on Employee Performance and Well-being

The project aimed to explore the psychological and organizational constructs that help to understand and promote organizational efficiency and effectiveness in public administrations, in terms of professional valorization and work quality of life improvement, by adopting a bottom-up and people-centered approach. In a work environment characterized by constant change and profound uncertainty, adaptability becomes a crucial competence, and the leadership can act as a catalyst. Therefore, the first chapter focuses on an in-depth examination of the existing scientific literature concerning the relationship between leadership style and job adaptive performance by developing a systematic review and meta-analysis. The results reveal a positive and significant relationship between the two constructs, although no substantial differences were found among the styles compared. The findings highlighted the need to further investigate the role of additional organizational antecedents and psychological variables that influence employee performance and well-being. In this direction, the research outlines two parallel paths within two public sector contexts: the university and a healthcare setting. The second chapter presents a longitudinal study on the technical and administrative staff of the University of Parma, aimed at examining how internal and organizational communication influence job satisfaction and adaptive and proactive performance. A bottom-up approach was adopted, employing a three-phase action research methodology that included a preparatory need analysis, an organizational intervention on managerial roles, and a final monitoring phase. The study reveals weaknesses in area-level communication, organizational feedback, and leadership, especially in managerial guidance and employee involvement, and poor strategic planning. In contrast, inter-unit communication and informal relationships are perceived as strong. Longitudinal data confirm the qualitative analysis and show an opposite trend between the two Areas, principally in communication, organizational feedback, role clarity, organizational identification, and satisfaction. The third and fourth chapters present studies conducted in three hospital settings exploring how organizational culture and leadership predict healthcare professionals’ job adaptability and proactivity. In the first study, carried out at the Hospital of Parma, a moderated mediation model was tested, showing that collaborate leadership, which is a culture-oriented leadership, enhances adaptive performance both directly and indirectly through two parallel mediators: group identification and work engagement. Moreover, low levels of personal change predisposition strengthen the impact of leadership on work engagement, while at high levels of change predisposition, the influence of collaborate leadership on group adaptive performance becomes less significant. The second study, carried out in the Hospitals of Mantova and Piacenza, tested the effects of four different organizational culture orientations on servant leadership and, through a sequential path analysis, examined how this leadership style impacts job-related outcomes, job satisfaction, adaptive and proactive performance, to test direct and indirect effects. The results indicate that flexibility-oriented cultures, specifically Clan and Adhocracy, positively influence servant leadership, whereas Hierarchical culture, which emphasizes stability, has a negative impact on leadership. Market culture did not show significant effects. In turn, servant leadership was found to be a significant predictor of well-being outcome and positively influenced adaptive and proactive job performance, both directly and indirectly, with the moderation of job satisfaction. In sum, this dissertation provides both theoretical and practical implications for human resources management, underlining the importance of people-centered organizational practices in fostering effectiveness and employee well-being in public administrations and the central role of flexible organizational culture and participative leadership in creating inclusive and growth-oriented work environments.