Does a strategy enhance inter-institutional performance? Rational and emergent logics in the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan

Purpose This article examines how a broad and overarching strategic framework influences the performance management of inter-institutional collaboration, contributing to the debate on rational and emergent approaches to strategy and the boundary object literature in public sector settings. Design/methodology/approach The article conducts an embedded qualitative case study of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), based on 23 semi-structured interviews with representatives of 20 public organizations involved at different governance levels. Findings The case reveals a mechanism of cascading rationalization whereby supranational results-based conditionality is translated into domestic compliance-oriented financial control, progressively displacing the deliberately emergent character of the umbrella strategy. This cascade produces a double exclusion of peripheral actors and constrains the strategy's capacity to function as a boundary object, as financial accountability crowds out outcome accountability across governance levels. Originality/value The article introduces three theoretically grounded propositions and a systematic five-criteria assessment of boundary object functionality, specifying the conditions under which shared indicator systems fail to activate inter-institutional collaboration in multi-level public programs. The findings contribute simultaneously to the rational versus emergent strategy debate, the boundary object literature and the study of inter-institutional performance management.