Knowledge Transfer as a leverage for Change: The Case of the Public Prosecutor Office of Naples

Abstract

The public prosecutor’s office of Naples is the biggest prosecutorial institution in Italy. Because of its size, its visibility, and its location in Naples, the PPO it is an interesting and difficult case from an organization development perspective. Innovation programs can be challenging there. Nonetheless this article wants to see whether there is innovation in the PPO of Naples. To do so it will consider the program called “work experiences” implemented in the PPO of Naples in the first semester of 2013. It was designed within the general framework of a joint partnership signed by the University Federico II and the public prosecutor office of Naples and provided the human resources of undergraduates and graduates students, selected on the basis of the merit, assigned to specific organizational units within the PPO. The program proved to be effective in triggering processes of micro-innovation within these units and in promoting a collective awareness of the tacit knowledge dispersed in the informal organization of the PPO.