How the sustainable development goals challenge public management. Action research on the cultural heritage of an Italian smart city

Pressure to face sustainability challenges is encouraging research into the ways in which public managers embed sustainability in their work and implement it. The 2030 Agenda has given a boost to the use of accounting practices to achieve Sustainable Developments Goals. While sustainability, together with accounting and accountability, has been explored, less attention has been paid to the antecedents leading to its embedding in public management practices. To provide a contribution on this matter, this study investigates the organizational processes facilitating public managers in institutionalizing sustainability, accounting and accountability practices. Focusing on the 11th Sustainable Development Goal, “cities” are entrusted with making cultural heritage management sustainable, raising the research question: what challenges does the 11th Sustainable Development Goal pose for the public management of urban cultural heritage? Action Research was carried out to investigate knowledge building within a project—the “Pavia Network Project” (2014–2017)—involving practitioners and researchers. The research findings shed light on the organizational processes that led to the implementation of sustainable accounting and accountability by an Italian smart city. The choice fell on Pavia because of its invaluable cultural heritage, having been, through time, the capital of the Early Medieval Lombard Kingdom, a wealthy Renaissance court and an historical university town. From the discussion of the results, a conceptual model on the antecedents of sustainable accounting and accountability knowledge arose. Besides the limitations of Action Research, this model suggests meaningful insights for both practitioners and researchers into the organizational changes triggered by the 2030 Agenda.