Digital Commons Network^™

Urban Decision Making For Transportation Investments: Portland's Light Rail Transit System, Sheldon Edner, G. B. Arrington Jr.

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Investment decisions for large transportation projects are complex, multifaceted phenomena. Generally requiring many years to bring to fruition, such decisions are often reduced at crucial junctures to raw political deals or technical data analysis on limited items. Throughout the range of alternatives considered, analyses completed and policy-making sessions which contribute to such investments, the imagery of a rational, sequential and wholistic decision making process and substance dominates. Recent debate concerning both the desirability of certain transit investments and the extent to which inappropriate intrusion into the decision making province of state and local government have occurred have highlighted at least …

Collective Bargaining: A Process Adopted By Oregon's Four-Year Institutions Of Higher Education To Support Faculty Members' Participation In Institutional Governance, Patricia Lillian Chadwick

Dissertations and Theses

An evaluative research survey involving 694 faculty members with an academic appointment in Oregon's 4-year unionized institutions of higher education was undertaken to determine whether or not collective bargaining has supported faculty rights for participation in institutional governance. Four hypotheses were formulated to study the relationship between the independent variable of collective bargaining and the dependent variable of institutional governance, specific to: (1) professional interest, (2) economic interest, (3) educational policy, and (4) academic and personnel policy. Data received from 486 respondents' questionnaires were used for the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance to test the four hypotheses. The four hypotheses …

Greater Portland: Experiments With Professional Planning, 1905-1925, Carl Abbott

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland, Oregon grew so rapidly in population and wealth between 1905 and 1912 that the city's business leadership called for a systematic plan for future urban growth. The City Improvement League accepted the architectural recommendations of Edward H. Bennett to develop outward from the city's center through a series of government buildings, neighborhood parks, and parkways. Unfortunately, the local economic boom collapsed in 1912 and ended any chances of implementing Bennett's plan. Six years later, prosperity returned and a new architectural proposal by Charles Cheney gained acceptance, only to be subverted by the post-World War I economic slump.

An Analysis Of The Affects Of Crisis On The Decision Making Practice Of A Dialysis Program: A Case Study, James Christopher Farley

Dissertations and Theses

In 1982 the Health Care Finance Administration mandated changes in the mechanism and financing of the End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Program by the provisions of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. These changes in finances and procedures became effective August 1, 1983 and have created a state of crisis for ESRD facilities program wide. This study analyzes a large non-profit dialysis program and how its decision making practices were affected 2 by the change in Medicare laws. Application of decision theory in health care provides a basis for this study on the affects of crisis on decision making.

This study …

Proceedings Of A Workshop On Interactive Graphics For Transportation Planners, Kenneth Dueker, Ross Roberts

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The workshop attracted transportation planners from transit and regional planning agencies, consulting firms, and local governments. It explored the use of interactive graphics coupled with multi-modal transportation planning.

Several key aspects of the use of interactive graphics were explored in panel discussions and demonstration workshop sessions. These aspects included the evolution of interactive graphics technology, the structured application of this technology in implementation, the operational environment, impacts on planning agencies and future applications of this technology.

The demonstration of applications was made possible by use of Metro's EMME/2 system. Metro is the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the Portland area. …

Rain, Eco-Net

RAIN: Journal of Appropriate Technology

Volume 10, Number 6

Special Issue: Art in Everyday Life; Cultural Animation; Grassroots Art; Bamboo

RAIN began in October 1974 as a publication of ECO-NET, an environmental education network funded by the Hill Foundation and an Environmental Education grant. Its office was based in the Environmental Education Center at Portland State University. With a focus on the Pacific Northwest, particularly Oregon, RAIN originally described itself as a “bulletin board” with an “emphasis on environmental/energy related and communications kinds of information” and interested in “the evolutionary possibilities of inter-disciplinary connections.”

The Outcomes Of A Quality Circle Program In An Electronics Manufacturing Firm, Martin L. Abbott

Dissertations and Theses

The literature on worker participation generally assumes that worker participation programs lead to positive work outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction) in more or less direct fashion. The current study challenges this assumption and posits that "desire for participation," and "attitudes toward participation," may affect the participation-satisfaction relationship. Data were gathered from a quality circle (QC) program at a large electronics manufacturing firm, using both quantitative (survey questionnaire), and qualitative (interviews, observation, meeting attendance) means. QC members and non members were compared on all attitude measures, and on general job satisfaction. The results indicated the following: (a) the participation-satisfaction thesis was not …

Effective Acquisition Of Basic Skills: An Elementary Schools Program, Linda L. Terhark

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate and to determine the effectiveness of the Basic Skills Program. This was a program developed at Clackamas Elementary School that implemented many of the effective school characteristics along with analyzing low-achievement areas in the California Achievement Test and organizing an instructional program that would teach to those low areas. This study compared achievement test results from the Spring pf 1982 for grades four, five, and six (approximately 140 students) with achievement test results from the Spring of 1983. The treatment to improve low areas as determined by the California Achievement Test results …

Report On Repeal Of Charter Amendments And Referral To Charter Review Committee (Multnomah County Measure No. 1), City Club Of Portland (Portland, Or.)

City Club of Portland

No abstract provided.

Organizational Innovation In A Professional School: A Case Study, Marie Streng Berger

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research was to apply specific organization development strategies in a professional school to test the applicability of Argyris' Theory and Method Model for this setting. The research was designed to determine the effectiveness of group decision-making processes before and after intervention. In order to accomplish this, the research included two phases. The purpose of Phase One was to involve all members in the organization development program so valid information could be collected about strengths, limitations, and problems of the organization. Data for this phase were collected by individual and group interviews. These interviews, while unstructured, were …

Organizational Decision Making And Participation In An Interorganizational Service Network, Vinod Valji Chohan

Dissertations and Theses

This study attempts to identify the variables associated with an organization's decision to participate in an interorganizational service network. The survev of literature on the subject supported the hypothesis that structural variables of complexity, formalization, and centralization and a psychological variable, the awareness of organizational interdependency, are associated with the decision to participate. Interorganizational participation was operationally defined in terms of various behavioral components: an organization's involvement with the coordinating agency, client referrals to and from other organizations and to and from the coordinating agency, and information exchanged with other organizations and with the coordinating agency. Using this framework, testable …

The Attitudes Of Youth Workers On Delinquency And Delinquency Programs, Gary Lee Dominick, Carol Swartz, Michael Orval Taylor

Dissertations and Theses

This research developed from our interest in juvenile delinquency. We wished to examine how youth workers think about the causes of delinquency, the structure of delinquency programs, and their own role as workers. These perceptions will be examined by looking at workers' responses to statements dealing with 1) juvenile delinquency causation, 2) programs for treatment and prevention, and 3) the role of the worker. The responses will be examined in the light of a theoretical framework reflecting the continuum between theories and programs based on individual causation and those emphasizing societal factors.

Leadership Styles And Staff Satisfaction In Four Nursing Homes: Implications For Service Delivery, Carol Nightengale

Dissertations and Theses

This is a study of four nursing care facilities in Portland, Oregon in 1975-1976, which examines the relationship between leadership style and staff satisfaction, leadership style and patient satisfaction, and staff satisfaction and patient satisfaction.

The Impact Of Ssi On The Social Security Administration: An Intraorganizational Study With Interorganizational Ramifications, Patricia A. Parker

Dissertations and Theses

In 1974 a revolutionary new income maintenance program was implemented in the United States. It was revolutionary in style because it provided a federalized income floor for the elderly, blind and disabled, previously provided for under various federal, state, and local welfare programs. The program was called Supplemental Security Income, or SSI.

The Social Security Administration, a long-standing institution in the financial community because of old age, survivors and disability insurance (OASDI) benefits, was chosen to administer SSI. SSI represented a new innovation for the Social Security Administration who had never before had to provide non-work-related benefits to indigents. In …

The Influence Of Tradition On The Process Of Organizational Change: A Study Of Two Oregon Child Care Centers: Edgefield Lodge, Troutdale, And St. Mary's Home For Boys, Beaverton, Helen Paula Grant

Dissertations and Theses

For over two centuries, child-caring institutions in the United States have helped families care for their children, and have been solicitous as well for the dependent, neglected, and retarded children. Since the founding of the first orphanage in the United States in 1737 by the Ursuline Sisters, after the ravage of an Indian massacre, child care has developed slowly from simple custodial care to institutions giving specialized care in some one single area. This change was a result not only of the need of children for specialized care but also of the advances in the nation's social, economic, and medical …