The propensity of being “openness” of Italian LGAs. A study of possible relationships with financial performance

Tools of Web 2.0 and Open Data source have witnessed a massive improvement and become the most used platforms to divulgate information and to shrink the gap between Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and their stakeholders. The aim of this work is to test the effect of financial performance on the Openness of the Italian LGAs, in order to assess transparency and participation for improving accountability. Our results show no significant relationship between “Openness” and traditional performance focused on financial autonomy but, on the other hand, we find a strong association between “Openness” variables and a score deriving from the ten financial performance indexes (“Financially Distress” Score). Notice that the use of only one traditional financial indicator is not able to explain the relationship while a more complex indicators derived from a set of 10 financial ratios (as we call “Financially Distress” Score) is considered more appropriate.