Exploring the link between administrative styles and policy output: The case of the Italian Extraordinary Commissioner for the Covid-19 Emergency

Abstract

Administrative style is a central concept in public policy and administration research. Despite the developments in the field, less is known about the effect different administrative styles have on policy output. To contribute to filling this gap, the article offers an original framework to explore the link between administrative styles and policy output based on the consolidated distinction between functional and positional orientations as constitutive elements of administrative styles. This framework is applied to an under-investigated case of public organization in the Italian context, that is, the administrative apparatus headed by the Extraordinary Commissioner for the Covid-19 Emergency, to test the general hypothesis that what makes the difference in determining output performance is an administration's positional orientation, not only its functional one. Doing so, the article contributes to “second generation” administrative style research and provides a theoretical and analytical framework to be tested in future cross-national and cross-sectoral comparisons.