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This paper aims to stimulate interest in the potentials of serious games within organizations. Through the examination of a case study, emphasis is given to serious games designed for health care (HC) organizations that are adopting lean thinking principles and tools.

The paper discusses how serious games can be designed and implemented in practice by describing a case study based on a HC organization. The program, now in its second year, has been used extensively to train HC professionals.

The article is based on the authors’ firsthand experience with serious games and the outcome of several projects carried out in the HC setting under analysis. Serious games were found to be powerful training and management development tools as well as engaging environments for professionals. Specifically, The Lean Healthcare Lab supported professionals in their use and implementation of several Lean principles and techniques.

The article suggests the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of serious games also to improve team performance and develop leadership skills.

Serious games have an enormous potential in sustaining processes of both individual and organizational learning, as well as facilitating improved teamwork. Moreover, serious games are very effective educational tools when compared to more conventional programs.

The approach described in this study can be used to design and implement serious games in any type of organization, in particular, those employing highly skilled professionals. Additionally, this article highlights how serious games can provide learners with a simulated close-to-reality environment where they are challenged to develop policies and use a variety of Lean and management tools.

This paper builds on the debate regarding the application of Lean strategy principles and tools in modern organizations, specifically focusing on the healthcare (HC) sector. The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to highlight the potential role played by Lean strategy tools for strategic planning and management, particularly in reference to the Hoshin Kanri policy deployment system and the “focus, alignment, integration, and review” (FAIR) method; second, to discuss how Lean strategy can be operationalized, specifically relying on the X-Matrix reporting tool; and third, to explore how simulation techniques, in the form of role-playing (RP), may support the aforementioned operationalization of Lean strategy while at the same time promoting policymaking and knowledge sharing.

This research adopts a case study approach. Specifically, the paper relies on the use of a RP Lean strategy project developed in a HC setting.

The paper highlights the potential for the Hoshin Kanri policy deployment process in HC, also emphasizing the main strengths of X-Matrix reporting and the usefulness of the RP technique to support learning acquisition and decision making.

The paper demonstrates how a Lean strategy simulation project may be effectively used for strategic planning/management and to train professionals in HC. To achieve these aims, a methodology to design and implement simulation-based Lean strategy projects in HC is presented and discussed.

A review of the academic literature indicates that Lean strategy is still an emerging research topic addressed by only a limited number of articles. The paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of Lean strategy (particularly Hoshin Kanri and X-Matrix) with particular reference to the HC sector.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the way in which system dynamics (SD) can enhance some key success factors of the balanced scorecard (BSC) model and support decision-makers, specifically in analyzing and evaluating the results of hypothetical scenarios. Moreover, the paper aims to emphasize the role played by statistics not only in validating the SD-based BSC, but also in increasing managers’ confidence in the model reliability.

The paper presents a case study, developed according to an action research perspective, in which a three-step approach to the BSC implementation was followed. Specifically, the first step requires the development and implementation of a “traditional” BSC, which is refined and transformed into a simulation SD model in the second step. Last, the SD-based BSC is combined with statistics to develop policy making and scenario analysis.

The integration of BSC and SD modeling enables the development of a comprehensive approach to strategy formulation and implementation and, more importantly, provides a more reliable basis upon which to build and test sound cause-and-effect relationships, within a specific BSC. This paper exemplifies how an SD-based BSC can be used – and perceived reliable – to evaluate different scenarios and mutually exclusive policy effects in a multidimensional approach. In particular, this study illustrates how to forecast and depict trends for financial and non-financial indicators over the simulation period, with reference to three different scenarios.

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the BSC by exploring whether a combination of SD and statistics may enhance the BSC system’s advantages and facilitate its implementation process and use for decision-making and scenario analysis.

According to the “strategic focus and future orientation” principle of the integrated reporting (<IR>) framework, <IR> should provide information useful to support investors in assessing the future financial performance of organizations. This study aims to support the operationalization of this function by improving the forward-looking orientation of the integrated report.

Basing on the backward- and forward-looking disclosure in <IR> and the dynamic resource-based view (DRBV), this study develops an explorative case study building a quantitative simulation model based on an integrated report.

This study provides useful insights into how operationalizing the <IR> “future orientation” and obtaining more quantitative information on the organization’s capacity to create value in the future by applying DRBV and quantitative simulation modeling.

The article presents one case study to explore the method suggested to improve the <IR> forward-looking orientation. Additional case studies applying the same research design should be certainly useful to refine the method.

Supporting the <IR> forward-looking orientation, this study provides additional information for the decision-making process of investors, thus contributing to the efficient and productive allocation of capital.

Few studies have investigated forward-looking information in integrated reports, highlighting the existence of an “information gap” referred to such disclosure. Overcoming these previous results, the study provides useful insights on how to improve the <IR> forward-looking orientation.

Drawing motivation from the greater exposure to uncertainty and condition changes that affect large projects due to their long lifecycle, this paper aims to investigate how the time factor affects the use of governance mechanisms to pursue the success of these projects.

To pursue its aim, the article applies the dichotomization between the hard and soft mechanisms of project governance to the analysis of a historical case study, whose findings are organized over the short, medium and long periods. The case selected is referred to the peculiar water system, made up of tunnels named “bottini,” that was in use in Siena (Italy) as the old aqueduct. Specifically, the study focuses on the project of expansion of this water system that was realized during the 14th century for the construction of the “Bottino maestro di Fontegaia.”

This article highlights the different relevance that, during the lifecycle of large projects, is assumed by hard and soft governance mechanisms, with the former having main relevance in a short and medium period, and the latter usually emerging in the medium period and, subsequently, playing a growing role for the project success in the long period.

The article contributes to the literature on large projects by providing novel insights about how the time factor impacts the governance of these projects. Furthermore, the case study, with its unique history, highlights the relevance of combining effectively the hard and the soft dimensions of project governance to pursue success.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potentials of role-playing (RP) both in training healthcare (HC) professionals to implement tools and improvement actions based on Lean principles, and in supporting group discussion and the sharing of different competencies for the development of Lean HC.

The paper presents the case study of an RP simulation called LEAN HEALTHCARE LAB, which is used to train HC professionals at Siena University Hospital. The paper reports and discusses the results of a specific two-day simulation session and of a questionnaire that was distributed to gather feedback from the participants.

The paper verifies the potentials of RP to be a powerful educational and training tool that is able to stimulate the HC participants to apply Lean thinking principles and share their competencies in collaborative decision-making processes.

The study provides data in reference to one single simulation session, although the game has already been applied several times in different HC organizations with very similar outcomes. Moreover, a more in-depth analysis of players’ perceptions and decisions could be performed using different tools in addition to the adopted questionnaire.

RP games (RPGs) are effective training and educational tools for HC professionals. They offer benefits and learning conditions which are definitely different if compared with more conventional education programs for HC professionals.

While previous studies have extensively discussed the potentialities of RPG and simulations in training programs, only a few articles have discussed the RP adoption for Lean thinking and even less to educate HC professionals on Lean principles and tools.

This paper aims to inform the discussion on why and how non-profit organizations can experience a hybridization process to address the criticism that would assume hybridity as an intrinsic characteristic of all organizations. Specifically, by referring to the academies of intellectuals as the non-profit setting in which investigating the emergence of hybridity takes place, this paper aims at exploring, first, to what extent this emergence could be induced by institutional conditions, and, second, which structural innovations could sustain the academies’ “motion” towards hybridity.

This paper relies on the institutional logics perspective and adopts the case study method applied to a historical context. The case under analysis is the Academy of “the Immobili”, which, in spite of its name, experienced a hybridization process in 1720 because of the decision to involve an impresario in the management of its theatre.

The findings highlight the significant role played by institutional conditions in inducing the emergence of hybridity, even in presence of internal resistance to any “motion” from the non-profit setting. Moreover, the analysis of the innovations associated with this emergence detects the intertwined action of the different decision makers involved in the hybridization process, in spite of their formal separation. These findings strengthen the conceptualization of hybridity within non-profit organizations.

Besides referring to a historical period that is still little explored in terms of hybridity within organizations, the paper focuses on an original context, i.e. academies, representing an ancient typology of cultural organizations. Therefore, the paper also provides the first insights into the hybridization process of cultural organizations from a historical perspective.

This study aims to explore the engagement between accounting and music in the social and relational construction of accountability. The authors conceive this construction as a dynamic and recursive interplay between the giving of different accounts and the responses that these accounts provoke. The authors investigate the emotional dimension of this interplay, as it is also triggered by music, feeding back into how accountability is constructed and evolves over time.

This study relies upon a historical analysis of archival and secondary sources about the main music concert organized in 1913 by the founder of “Accademia Chigiana”, one of the leading music academies in Italy. The concert celebrated the first centenary of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi, a worldwide famous Italian music composer, and icon of Italian national sentiment.

This study shows that music and accounting were profoundly intertwined in the social and relational construction of accountability for the 1913 concert. Accountability evolved through different accounts, also linked to music, and the complex emotional reactions these accounts provoked in the audiences, citizens, media and institutions, leading to always further responses and accounts in the ongoing construction of accountability.

This study extends prior literature on the chameleonic nature of accountability, as well as on its relational and emotional dimensions. The study shows that accountability is relationally constructed and evolves over time through the giving of accounts and the emotional reaction they provoke from others, feeding into further responses and accounts of the accountable subject. The authors show how the chameleonic nature of accountability permeates not only the accounts and the relations of accountability but also the subjects giving and demanding the accounts: these subjects change as chameleons through their interactions and emotions, feeding into the dynamic construction of accountability. The authors also show how arts, like music, can participate in the chameleonic nature of accountability and of its subjects, precisely by engaging with their emotional reactions and responses.

The study aims to contribute to the debate on how to identify and manage an organization’s sustainability-related resources and processes by understanding the impact of business activities on the environment and evaluating actions to ameliorate their impacts. Within this debate, and specifically taking into consideration the opportunity to support circular economy actions and initiatives, the study focuses on integrated reporting (IR) practices. In detail, this study advocates the joint use of IR principles with the dynamic resource-based view (DRBV) of the firm, adopting their representation of resources and impact of the business activities to identify environmental friendly “hot spots” in organizations. The framework is illustrated through two exploratory case studies.