PERSPECTIVES FOR THE EXTENSION OF GRAICIUNAS’ PRINCIPLE TO THE PROCESS OF CONTROL IN PUBLIC NETWORKS.

Public Organizations are increasingly interconnected, owing to the diffusion of ICT , in large networks based not only on the exchange of information but also on decisional processes making public administration as a whole system of governance and of services production. At the same time are growing problems in controlling those networks and the management has to face a rising complexity in decision making. The Graiciunas' span of control, concerning the number of subordinates that a manager can control, emerges time to time in the theoretical discussions remembering us the simplicity of classical concepts and the influence of them on the economic and managerial history. The hypothesis we want to discuss is the extension of this concept, traditionally referred to organizational design, to evolutionary processes going on in the public administration particularly with the diffusion of ICT. As Graiciunas’ principle bounds the dimensional limits of an effective and efficient organizational structure, the same principle, applied to processes connecting the elements of a network, could be compared with the extension of small words defined by the new concept of 6 away degrees. This concept has implications in the process of network creation and concerns the real effectiveness of the managerial control. The on going crisis demonstrated that most control systems are out of control and this topic increased with the ICT revolution that affects the concrete approach of public managers in their activity. The paper essays to demonstrate the tight link existing among these three concepts : Graiciunas’ principle, 6 away degrees and the effect of the rising role of information in the control of public networks. From a practical point of view this perspective could open new possibilities in the analysis of network performances and to a new approach named “networking” that uses the network not as a tool to distribute resources but to produce them enforcing the sustainability of initiatives and projects. The Graiciunas’ principle applied to organizational structures mathematically proved the limits of the number of subordinates submitted to a manager, this number was after named the span of control.