Innovating Communication in Public Institutions: Lesson from the Disclosure of Port Authorities

Facing with the profound environmental changes and the growing complexity of public-private interactions in transport chains, Port Authority (PA) is needed to innovate its communication for effectively sharing strategies and performances with leading heterogeneous stakeholders. This paper investigates the contribution of the Port Authority case on the debate around the impact of New Public Management (NPM) practices on the reform of public administrations. The emerging relevance of communication in managerialized public entities calls for a deeper investigation on the innovativeness of PA corporate disclosure and its determinants. The profound heterogeneity of the background across various countries in terms of corporate governance settings and stakeholders interactions, makes the Port Authority an ideal field for testing the antecedents of the different degree of innovativeness in corporate disclosure. The study performs a content analysis on the Annual Reports of 38 sampled Port Authorities and unveils the determinants of the different innovativeness of communication. Indeed, the manuscript aims to: i) analyze the content of corporate communication, ii) measure the innovativeness of the disclosure, and iii) investigate its potential determinants. The empirical findings provide insightful responses for achieving a deeper understanding of the reasons triggering public institutions to innovate their communication on strategies and performance to public and private stakeholders.