Digital Commons Network^™

Public Administration: How It All Started In Egypt, China And Rome, Laila El Baradei

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Marginalized: The Missing Public Management Research On Homelessness, Richard F. Callahan

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Abstract

Homelessness is long-standing issue in American cities, with significant human consequences. However, current public management research does not typically include research on public agencies responding to the needs of the homeless.

This paper uses a case study to explore the disconnect between public management research and those living on the margins of society as homeless. The case study illustrates the potential for multiple streams of research in public management to effectively research the complexities of homelessness. This paper makes the case for that public agency responses to the varied dimensions of homelessness align with public management research, with the …

Michigan Municipal Manager Perceptions On Lgbtq+ Inclusion: A Narrative Policy Framework Case Study, Christopher R. Surfus

Dissertations

This study explores the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions (KAP) of municipal managers regarding the LGBTQ+ community in three Michigan cities—Grand Rapids, Holland, and Kalamazoo. The purpose is to understand managers’ beliefs and attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community and how policies are implemented and enforced to reduce discrimination. The specific research questions deal with how the beliefs and attitudes of public managers reflect an understanding of and competency on LGBTQ+ issues, how they are affected by the presence of LGBTQ+ staff members, and how they differ from the actual policy provisions affecting the LGBTQ+ community. These questions are examined in the …

Covid-19 And Ethical Dilemmas, Laila El Baradei

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Nonprofit Capacity To Manage Hurricane-Pandemic Threat: Local And National Perspectives On Resilience During Covid-19, Nicole S. Hutton, Steven W. Mumford, Marina Saitgalina, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Joshua G. Behr, Rafael Diaz, John J. Kiefer

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

This paper examines nonprofits' capacity for responding to simultaneous hurricane-pandemic threat, addressing: (1) strategies nonprofits use to deliver services during the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) how natural hazards may affect nonprofit roles in emergency service delivery during a pandemic. Data come from a survey of New Orleans-based nonprofits demonstrating effects of pandemic on local nonprofit service delivery, and workshops with U.S. coastal community stakeholders exploring expectations for nonprofit roles in emergency operations nationwide. Nonprofits have applied resilient strategies including virtual operations, staff reductions, and funding diversification, but vulnerabilities remain. Findings guide a research agenda for building nonprofit and community resilience.

Behavioral Public Finance And Budgeting: New Approaches To Old Questions?, Salvador Espnosa, Kenneth A. Kriz, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) The growing interest in the use of behavioral insights in the study of public administration and policy is contributing to the emergence of behavioral public administration (James et al., 2017). This subfield focuses on the “analysis of public administration from the micro-level perspective of individual behavior” (Grimmelikhuijsen et al., 2017, p. 45). For some scholars, this approach offers interesting opportunities to further the study of perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of citizens, public sector staff, or public managers (Tummers, et al., 2016). The combination of behavioral theory and experimental approaches can improve the standing of the field of public …

Mental Health Issues Development In Law Enforcement Officers And Its Impact On Law Enforcement Agencies: The Need For Policies Focused On Law Enforcement Officers Mental Stability, Joseph A Sorgini

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This study examines the existing literature on PTSD and PTSD symptomology that law enforcement officers experience, and the post-exposure intervention protocols that aid in mental stability of impacted law enforcement officers. The study uses a survey of 155 active-duty law enforcement officers from Montgomery County Pennsylvania. The central question that grounded this research is: are mental health stressors impacting the ability of law enforcement officers to complete their duties despite the existence of post-exposure intervention protocols? There are six tested hypotheses that are tested via logistic regression to determine whether a statistically significant relationship exists between demographic characteristics of law …

Contracting For Algorithmic Accountability, Cary Coglianese, Erik Lampmann

All Faculty Scholarship

As local, state, and federal governments increase their reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) decision-making tools designed and operated by private contractors, so too do public concerns increase over the accountability and transparency of such AI tools. But current calls to respond to these concerns by banning governments from using AI will only deny society the benefits that prudent use of such technology can provide. In this Article, we argue that government agencies should pursue a more nuanced and effective approach to governing the governmental use of AI by structuring their procurement contracts for AI tools and services in ways that …

Organizational Resilience Of Cultural Institutions In The Time Of Covid-19, Danielle Boyce

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Few businesses are considered less “essential” during a pandemic than art museums, historical societies, and other cultural organizations. After the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic, most jurisdictions in the United States required institutions open to the public to close their doors. Without visitors, many cultural institutions faced an existential crisis, and scrambled to find creative ways to stay afloat. Adding to the challenge is the unusual aspect of the COVID-19 emergency, in which parents and children often worked and attended school at home. Gender disparities and professional role might also impact real and perceived threats to organizational survival. …

Administering A Ranked-Choice Voting Election: Lessons From London, Ontario, Charlotte Kurs

Centre for Urban Policy and Local Governance – Publications

To elect its mayor and council in October of 2018, the City of London, Ontario used ranked-choice voting instead of the traditional first-past-the-post system; the first Canadian city in decades to use an alternative electoral system. London’s experience as the first Ontario municipality to implement ranked-choice voting allows it to offer its experience as a lesson to other municipalities that may be considering making changes to their voting systems.

From the Ontario government’s review of the Municipal Elections Act in 2016 through to the implementation of a ranked-ballot election in 2018, this report details the experience of City of London …

Public Administration, Methods Approach: History Research--Selected Bibliography, Sue Ann Gardner

UNL Libraries: Faculty Publications

Public administration, methods approach: Historical research. Includes a list of bibliographical references pertinent to the topic.

Public Administration For The Dead And For The Living, Laila El Baradei

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Where Have All The Local Politicians Gone? A Preliminary Examination Of Causes And Impacts Of Acclamation In Canada’S Municipal Governments, Sheena Earl

MPA Major Research Papers

Why are local government acclamations so common, and is it a problem for municipal democracy? This paper provides a preliminary examination of local uncontested elections through the exploration of various opinions and arguments raised on this topic. Since the academic literature on acclamations at the local level is extremely sparse, information was gathered through a content analysis of online newspaper articles and by performing interviews with current mayors from some of the most and least competitive municipalities following the 2018 election cycle. The following eight reasons for the occurrence of acclamations are referenced in the non-academic literature, many of which …

Literature Review: How U.S. Government Documents Are Addressing The Increasing National Security Implications Of Artificial Intelligence, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This article emphasizes the increasing importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in military and national security policy making. It seeks to inform interested individuals about the proliferation of publicly accessible U.S. government and military literature on this multifaceted topic. An additional objective of this endeavor is encouraging greater public awareness of and participation in emerging public policy debate on AI's moral and national security implications..

Deploying Machine Learning For A Sustainable Future, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

To meet the environmental challenges of a warming planet and an increasingly complex, high tech economy, government must become smarter about how it makes policies and deploys its limited resources. It specifically needs to build a robust capacity to analyze large volumes of environmental and economic data by using machine-learning algorithms to improve regulatory oversight, monitoring, and decision-making. Three challenges can be expected to drive the need for algorithmic environmental governance: more problems, less funding, and growing public demands. This paper explains why algorithmic governance will prove pivotal in meeting these challenges, but it also presents four likely obstacles that …

Lowering Disciplinary Rates: Looking At Social And Emotional Learning At Blackstone Academy Charter School, Ariel C. Davey

Public & Community Service Student Scholarship

Social and emotional learning is a method that may benefit school culture and the environment for a student’s learning. Including social and emotional learning to school curriculums, specifically schools that have large numbers of students of color enrolled, allows students to learn how to manage their behavior and emotions and in turn benefiting themselves and others in present and future relationships. With more social and emotional learning is happening in the classroom, discipline towards students may be reflected on and seen as more harmful than helpful to students. As the days pass by, discipline rates for students of color in …

Funding Childhood Science: Life Or Death, Kathleen Garvey

Public & Community Service Student Scholarship

This thesis draws the connection between an individual’s early childhood science education, health literacy comprehension, and quality of health. A better understanding of science leads to an increased understanding of health, benefiting the individual’s own health care as a result. Thus, proper and equitable educational funding of schools for all districts, regardless of income wealth, is essential to public health. In this thesis I propose that integrating effective science curricula into early education can work to reduce disparities in health literacy and ultimately benefit public health. I wish that this thesis will bring awareness to not only the importance of …

Service Work In Youth Development: The Power Behind Extracurriculars, Lyndsy Cadet

Public & Community Service Student Scholarship

At the heart of all underprivileged areas are underfunded public and charter schools that are not given a chance to properly educate the leaders of the future. The wealth disparities across school districts penalized students who live in low socioeconomic and non-dominant demographic neighborhoods. The biggest attack on educational rights is showcased through the achievement and opportunity gap in which the lack of funding and quality educational experience is limiting the quantity of knowledge students are obtaining in inner city, underfunded school districts. Students, regardless of socioeconomic or ethnic background deserve a chance at quality funded public schools in order …

Writing As A Nonprofit Leadership Tool, Samantha Weinberg

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

When writers use their skills towards a nonprofit’s mission, they can help enhance communities and change lives. There are roles in the nonprofit sector that are very writing centric, such as grant writers and communication specialists, that writers commonly hold. However, writing is also a necessary skill for those in management or leadership positions in nonprofit organizations. This capstone project explores the kinds of writing skills and deliverables that are critical to the responsibilities of nonprofit managers and how writing impacts the effectiveness of nonprofit managers and organizations.

The Coronavirus Pandemic And Public Administration, Laila El Baradei

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Examination Of Individuals: How People Have The Ability, Power, And Voice To Change The Way People View The World In A Positive Way, Amelia Aaron

Public & Community Service Student Scholarship

Throughout my four years of learning about different people who have changed the world and the different ways in which they have gone about it, I have strived to find myself in qualities that match those of influential leaders and change makers. For the sole purpose of this thesis, I did a year’s worth of research trying to distinguish what qualities, characteristics, and backgrounds create positive and impactful leaders. For a lack of a better word, you could say that I made a formula to fully understand what an individual should be striving towards in order to make a positive …

Ending The Notion Of “I Do Not Belong Here” Recommendations For Predominantly White Institutions To Support First Generation Student’S Success, Perla Castillo Calderon

Public & Community Service Student Scholarship

Ever wonder what it means to be a first-generation college student? This thesis focuses on bringing visibility to the first-generation identity college students carry. Divided in two parts, the first part explains what it means to be first-generation, how mentoring programs are supposed to run, and how beneficial extracurricular activities are for both students and the institution as a whole. This first part is based on research and interviews I have conducted with current undergraduate Providence College students. The second part is a proposal for a centralized space where the first-generation identity is celebrated and have easy to access resources.

Learning From The Shadows: Undocumented Students In Higher Education, Sean J. Richardson

Public & Community Service Student Scholarship

Education policy and immigration policy intersect in dangerous ways which creates conditions for different types of students to be isolated in the development of their education. Immigration policy in the United States is a constantly shifting context. Providence College serves as a microcosm of the United States in the experience of being an undocumented student. This thesis serves as a call to action, but also a peak into the world of the undocumented experience. Through critical research, and experiential learning in my last four years at Providence College, we’re coming to understand how the institution not only condones white supremacy …

Trust In The Truth As A Healing Measure To Long-Lived Histories Of Gendered Violence: A Representation Of Congolese Refugee Women And Their Resilience To Love, Gabrielle Amorelli

Public & Community Service Student Scholarship

This paper explores the historical contexts of the gendered violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a preface to the overall sense of mistrust that remains, especially that of which is forced within women themselves. Paired with personal testimonies of Congolese refugee women living in Providence, RI and formal academic research, I hope this will bring an authentic awareness to the effects that the practice and feelings of trust has on women. I anticipate the personification of the overarching power of resilience that refugee women exhibit to shine through to you as a result of my work.

Hope: The Core Of Social Justice, Emily K. Locke

Public & Community Service Student Scholarship

The purpose of Hope: The Core of Social Justice, is to defend the role of hope in social justice movements. For those who are aware of or who face systematic oppression, the idea of having hope can seem ineffective or even detrimental to any progress in overcoming such systems. But, by clearly defining hope and analyzing its characteristics, one may find that the goal of hope and the goal of any social movement are nearly identical. Philosophical, theological, psychological, and historical references help to shine light on the limited conceptions many have of hope and to support the idea …

Women In County Government Leadership: Using Personal Power To Overcome Self-Sabotage, Jamie R. Crews

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this explanatory mixed methods study was to identify and describe self-sabotaging behaviors experienced by female county government executives and to explore the impact these behaviors have had on their career development. A secondary purpose of this study was to identify strategies employed by female county government executives to overcome self-sabotaging behaviors.

Methodology: An explanatory mixed methods research design was used to explore the use of self-sabotaging behaviors of 9 female county government executives in Southern California. A 10-item survey instrument was administered to participants, followed by a semistructured interview consisting of 13 scripted questions. Data collected …

Illuminating Regulatory Guidance, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Administrative agencies issue many guidance documents each year in an effort to provide clarity and direction to the public about important programs, policies, and rules. But these guidance documents are only helpful to the public if they can be readily found by those who they will benefit. Unfortunately, too many agency guidance documents are inaccessible, reaching the point where some observers even worry that guidance has become a form of regulatory “dark matter.” This article identifies a series of measures for agencies to take to bring their guidance documents better into the light. It begins by explaining why, unlike the …

Popular Culture Informing Public Administration: Messages And Prospects For Social Equity, Sean Mccandless, Nicole M. Elias

Publications and Research

In the discipline of public administration, popular culture remains under-examined in scholarship and under-utilized in pedagogy. However, the field would benefit from greater integration of popular culture to expand understandings of governance, especially in that it provides important representations of and messaging about some of today's most pressing social equity issues. To contextualize popular culture in public administration, we use critical discourse analysis as a frame to demonstrate how popular culture can inform public administration, especially regarding social equity. We argue that popular culture should be more extensively covered in public administration, because it offers a lens for better understanding …

Perceived Employment Barriers Involving Program Managers Assisting Unemployed Young African American Males, Michael P. Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

For unemployed, young, African American males who face significant barriers to jobs, public employment training centers have become a critical last option. For 2016, the U.S. federal government appropriated more than $6.9 billion to states for Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act programs and approximately $3.4 billion in federal formula funding for partner programs. The research problem in this study concerns the lack of adequate employment-based policies and programs that guide the workforce employment process between program managers and recipients, in particular, young, African American males. Guided by Ingram, Schneider, and DeLeon’s theory of social construction and policy design, this study examined …

The Use Of Performance Measurement And Management In Small Ohio Municipalities, Yvonne M. Christopher

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

As the dominant public management paradigm today, performance measurement and management systems are fundamental to increasing efficiency, accountability, and service quality in the public sector. Research into the practice at all levels of government has been expanding for decades in developed countries. However, the small local governments that comprise most U.S. municipalities are frequently overlooked as a topic of academic inquiry in public administration. This study aims to shed light on the extent to which the performance measurement methods prevalent at the state and federal levels have spread to small municipalities. Using elite interviewing methods and the four-point approach to …