Stakeholder management e governance locale: quale ruolo per il management pubblico? (Stakeholder management and local governance: which role for public managers?)

The paper analyzes in five local governance case studies: i) the processes and tools employed for engaging stakeholders in different phases of the ‘stakeholder management cycle’ and ii) the role played by public managers. The case studies deal with experiences of co-consultation, co-decision, co-design, co-delivery and co-evaluation. Findings highlight that the processes for engaging stakeholders are both formal and informal and that new institutional and organizational arrangements can be created for managing stakeholders. Moreover, results show that public managers tend to play a proactive role when stakeholders are engaged for service delivery, whereas they tend to play a bureaucratic role when stakeholders are engaged for policy making.