Simulated Management in the Start-Up of New Public Organizations

The paper wants to present and discuss the results of Bologna University “Simulimpresa” Laboratory in the start-up process of new public organizations. After a survey on the activity held in last decade into the practice management and distance learning, the paper focuses on the experiment of AIVO, the Agency for the Governance of Volga River. This initiative performed by Bologna and Astrakhan Universities in distance learning had the target to transfer in the Region of Astrakhan the experience of AIPO, the Italian Agency for the Governance of Po River. This Italian successful experience was based on an interregional agreement among local governments and stakeholders to ensure the governance of the Po River Basin. In the case of AIVO, one of the major problems in the area on the Volga Delta in which Astrakhan City is located is to govern the local system and to ensure a coordination among different public, non-profit and private institutions. This approach, completely different from the previous one mostly centralized, is based on the capability to operate as a network. The reply of AIPOs organization, made in the simulation with AIVOs, although confirming the effectiveness of Simulimpresa as an entrepreneurship education tool, allows to analyze the process of network creation and management particularly in a culture, as the one diffused among eastern public organizations, scarcely oriented to the self-initiative and to work in inter-organizational teams.