Combing System Dynamics Modeling and Performance Management Systems to Frame the One Stop Shop Service: a Case Study Based on Palermo's Municipality

The Italian public sector is characterized by a great number of stakeholders, both public and private. That’s the reason why, in the past, dealing with public issues meant to face different actors and administrations, to solve the several number of bureaucratic requirements. In particular, the field of new business activities was very complex. This area was characterized by huge fragmentations among the public bodies involved. In fact, if an entrepreneur wanted to open a new business, it was necessary to deal with different subjects to obtain the mandatory permits, license and authorizations. Accomplishing all the steps, without any support from the public sector, implied an increase of costs and delays. Furthermore, the interactions among administrations were generating inefficiencies as a result of a lack of coordination and communication. To tackle these issues the One Stop Shop service was introduced. P.D. 447/1998 was the first law to regulates the Italian One Stop Shop. The latter aims to manage the bureaucratic processes behind the opening of new activities. This innovative service brought a relevant change of perspective. In fact with its support, potential entrepreneurs, are now able to deal with just one agency, that has the duty to take into its matters user requests, and contact the related administrations to obtain the specific licenses in place of the entrepreneur. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the performance of Palermo’s One Stop Shop, by suggesting a methodological approach, that is able to tackle potential inefficiencies, to govern and improve the performance of the service. With the purpose of guaranteeing a multidimensional perspective, capable to go further than the financial aspects of the system, a Performance Management (PM) approach is suggested. This methodology focuses its attention on a result oriented perspective, that bases its analysis on the final outcomes of the service . Furthermore, the PM intent is to understand how such end results are influenced, and how it is possible to affect them, by identifying the so called levers of intervention, on which a decision maker can leverage to influence the behavior of the service. Adopting this methodology to the specific case of Palermo’s One Stop Shop, will help to find the main cause and effect relations between the detected variables and the related performance indicators, in order to clarify the provided contribution that every single resource has on the system. Due to an environment that is characterized by non linear relationships, delays and unpredictability among the variable involved, such as in Palermo’s public sector, it becomes useful to adopt a multi-method approach. In particular combining PM with System Dynamics will foster the understanding of dynamic complexities inside One Stop Shop processes, whit the purpose to improve a sustainable growth dimension, that increases the efficiency and the effectiveness of the service. The Analysis that will be provided focuses on two different perspectives. The first, is a qualitative study based on the identification of the main actors, variables and key performance drivers, to understand their interactions and the feedbacks structure that these produce. The second, a quantitative representation supported by a SD model. Its specific intent, is to built awareness of service dynamics among decision makers, in order to create a powerful instrument able to simulate all the crucial relationships of Palermo’s One Stop Shop and test possible reactions of the system over time. Furthermore, this study will suggest possible policies to be implemented, to face potential criticalities among the mechanisms of the service. The goal of both qualitative and quantitative analysis is to develop a sustainable growth path of Palermo’s One Stop Shop based on a learning oriented approach.