QUEEN’S BUSINESS SCHOOL INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS, ENTREPRENEURSHIP & MARKETING (IBEM) SEMINAR SERIES

Wednesday 5^th November

2pm

“The diffusion of digital services in the Public Administration: The leadership role of Mayors" Co-authored with Andrea Mina (University of Cambridge) and Elena Cefis (University of Bergamo)”

Stefania Scrofani

Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies

Abstract:

This paper examines how various characteristics of top executives influence the decision to digitalize, focusing particularly on the leader's previous career paths, homophily with superiors and tenure. While existing evidence on technology diffusion primarily centers on private organizations, this study takes a novel approach by investigating public institutions, specifically the public administration (PA) of Italian municipalities and their mayors. We employ a fixed effects conditional logit model for panel data, analyzing the adoption of the e-payment service provider (PagoPA) by Italian municipalities from 2012 to 2021. We observe how the previous career of the leader can influence the decision of adopt digital technologies and we reconcile the contradicting findings in the literature about the effect of homophily on innovation, highlighting the moderating role played by the organization's employees human capital. Finally, we find that mayor's tenure has an inverse U-shaped relationship with the adoption of new technologies.

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