Mariagrazia Fugini, Piercarlo Maggiolini and Ramon Salvador Valles
Comparing meso‐ and hypo‐integrated systems, either Municipalities or Regions, Organizations have been conveyed both as meso‐integrated systems and, as territorial collectivities, as hypo‐integrated systems. The job marketplace is a typical hypo‐integrated system. Therefore, to avoid confusion, it is worth detailing the differences between meso‐ and hyper‐integrated systems.
Table 1 compares meso and hypo‐integrated systems. In the first ones( which are social artifacts, namely social systems specifically built for a purpose), the organizational structure ruling the sub‐systems is well identified, and the autonomy degree of the sub‐systems is formally defined. Organizational workflow charts are a valid example. The system dynamics is observable: a clearly located memory exists in the organization, constituted by procedures and by work methods, which are easily accessible and controllable. This means that institutional and organizational tools exist to pilot the system from one state to another: in a meso‐integrated system, a manager can order an employee to perform a task, purchases can be activated, sales can be controlled, and so on.
Table 1: Features of meso‐ and hypo‐integrated systems
MESO‐INTREGRATED SYSTEMS Each subsystem is clearly oriented to the common task The structure is defined The degree of autonomy of subsystems is formally defined The system dynamics is sufficiently observable and controllable The knowledge( memory) is localized HYPO‐INTEGRATED SYSTEMS Each subsystem per se is not targeted to the interest of the whole system The structure is not evident Subsystems have a high degree of autonomy The system dynamics is scarcely observable and controllable The knowledge( memory) is fragmented
Hypo‐integrated systems create observation problems( knowledge), since memory is very fragmented. In fact, there are several operators, each with high operative and decisional autonomy. What is clear in a hypointegrated system is the structure, since information exchanges exist among agriculture, manufactory industry, services, and PA. However, such structure is fluid, dynamic, fuzzy, and hardly controllable. In hypo‐integrated systems, control problems occur. Municipality or Region administrators are not owners of their citizens, e. g., they cannot order a farmer what to plant or a company what to produce.
In the development of a PA IS, the Organization is often regarded as a bureaucratic structure, isolated from the territorial context, and operating to achieve institutional purposes, following well‐defined procedures on the basis of laws and norms. In other words, the trend is to confine the PA to a meso‐integrated system, while, in a wider vision, Municipalities and Regions are primarily territorial collectivities, hence hypo‐integrated systems. The bureaucratic structure is only one portion of a wider system, where we have to consider, in a unitary view, the elective political entities, the administered community and the whole territory of competence.
3. PA organizations and models of ICT adoption
We identify four typologies of PA and the related models of IS that best fit to them, according to the information exchange needs and use.
3.1 Bureaucratic model
This Model conceives a PA as an entity whose task is to emit rules and control their application: the PA are in charge of legitimating public‐interest matters. A strong separation between politicians and managers exists in this model, as happens between the time a norm is formulated and the time it is implemented. The Administration is structured around the principle of the conformity of acts, i. e., what is relevant in order to have an action undergoing a juridical function.
Consequently, all data generated by PA, framed in such a view, are constituted by formal acts registering events( both internal and external), and referencing juridical acts. ICT applications mainly take into account registry activities, taxation, certifications and official acts management( deliberations, regulations, ordinances, authorizations, licenses, etc.).
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