Control as lever for change: the introduction of thePerformance Management System in the Italian Army

The Italian Public Administrations during the last twenty years were involved in a long term-process of reform to “reinvent” the public sector (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992), in accordance with the New Public Management (NPM) principles. The last change in the Italian public sector was realized by legislative decree 150/2009 that introduced the “performance” in the Italian public sector, to improve the quality of their service. The performance and its evaluation is one of NPM pillars (Hood, 1991). Control and accountability play an invaluable and crucial role in the institutional and organizational change (Minelli et al., 2008). The Italian Army (IA) is involved in this changing process, as well as the other public organizations, by implementing a performance management system (PMS), in order “to do more with less” (Osborne, 1993). At the present time the army is in the middle of this process, several steps have been made – objects definition, setting up of measurement system – but furthers and more critics are going to be done.This article aims to respond to the following question: How is the present structure of the Italian Army PMS and its organizational impact? This is a challenger moment for the army and the outcome is still uncertain.