Digital Commons Network^™

2018 Foreign And International Legislative Review, Caitlin Skurky

Animal Law Review

This Review examines foreign and international legislation relating to animals proposed or passed in 2018 and early 2019. The Review specifically examines legislation in Vietnam, Switzerland, Spain, Canada, Luxembourg, the U.K., Ukraine, and Portugal, with a specific focus on legislation that seeks to increase animal welfare, reduce consumption of cruel animal products, or end violent animal practices.

The Impact Of Good Governance And Stability On Sustainable Development In Ghana, William Deiyan Towah

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Previous studies have lauded Ghana's commitment to sustainable development, but corruption and violence may affect sustainable development policies and initiatives related to poverty reduction, agricultural practices, environmental protection, and human development. The purpose of this holistic, qualitative case study was to identify and describe good governance practices in Ghana and threats to sustainable development. A Marxist conceptual lens guided the thematic analysis of data collected from artifact documents, field notes, and interviews of 20 key informants from various professions and diverse perspectives who were directly involved in the governance of Ghana or implementation of policies. Three primary themes emerged: (a) …

Political Control And Accountability In Ethiopian Rulemaking, Esayas Kassa Araya

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Administrative rules have played a central role in Ethiopian public administration since 1994 when the current constitution was adopted. However, if the formulation and implementation of the rules are not politically controlled, and proper accountability is not applied, these same rules could become threats instead of assurances of the rule of law and order. This case study explored what strategic controls and accountability measures are in place to regulate the rulemaking process. To inform the study, the political control of bureaucracy framework in general and the principal-agency model, in particular, were used. The central research question focused on strategies that …

Help-Seeking Experiences Of African American Men With Depression, Tiffany Coleman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research indicated that depression is now the leading cause of disability globally. Depression and help-seeking experiences among African American men have not been adequately studied. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the help-seeking experiences of African American men with depression. The theoretical framework was Andersen's Behavioral Model of Health Services. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants. Inclusion criteria were (a) African American men, (b) aged 18 through 65, (c) having a medical diagnosis of depression or symptoms of depression, (d) not currently in treatment, and English speaking. Six African American men with depression or depressive symptoms …

Perceptions Of Financial Bribery And Kickbacks On Nigerian Healthcare Public Policy, Philip Nwaogazie Elekwachi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Financial bribery and kickbacks are characteristics of corruption that are considered a serious threat to healthcare development in Nigeria. The influence of corruption leads to financial waste and negative health consequences for citizens. High demand for quality healthcare and other socioeconomic development infrastructures in the rural areas of the state provide opportunities for misappropriation of allocated healthcare development funds. Using Kingdon's multiple streams theory as the foundation, the purpose of this case study of a single city in Nigeria was to understand how state and city legislators and health administrators perceive the influence of corruption on senior healthcare development, its …

Internal Control Strategies For Compliance With The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002, Grant J. Lee

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Publicly traded corporations have dedicated time and money to adhering to the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002; however, some companies face challenges in internal control compliance with SOX. Using the transformational leadership theory as the conceptual framework, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies chief financial officers (CFOs) used to comply with corporate financial internal control policies. Data were collected using face-to-face, semistructured interviews with 3 CFOs of publicly traded manufacturing companies in Michigan and a review of documents. The selection criteria for participants included CFOs who have experience in SOX implementation …

Instructional Reading Practices For Third Grade African American Males, Kimberly Dawn Whaley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African American males often struggle to read on grade level. However, 3 East Texas Title I schools demonstrated exceptionally high levels of reading proficiency with this population. This study addressed the knowledge gap of understanding the instructional practices linked to high reading achievement of third grade African American males in Title I schools in East Texas. Guided by Ladson-Billings's theory of culturally relevant pedagogy, which builds upon academic success, cultural competence, and development of critical consciousness, and supported by Vygotsky's theory of social and cognitive constructivism, the reading instructional practices of the 3 schools were investigated. Research questions focused on …

Success Factors For Minority Small Business Sustainability, Tawny Barnes

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Minority small business owners significantly contribute to national and local economies. Only 50% of small firm owners sustain their businesses longer than 5 years. The purpose of the multiple case study was to explore the management strategies that minority small business owners used to sustain their businesses for longer than 5 years. The study's population consisted of 4 minority small business owners in the midwestern region of the United States to explore management strategies necessary for maintaining minority small firm operations. The conceptual framework for the study was general system theory. Data sources included semistructured interviews, social media information, company …

The Ferguson Effect On Police Officers' Culture And Perceptions In Local Police Departments, Rarkimm K. Fields

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Ferguson effect is a recent hypothesis that suggests police officers have been influenced by negative media coverage of police conduct. The problem this study addressed is how policing continues to deal with perception, civil liability, and accountability issues related to police misconduct when interacting with Latino and African-American communities. The research was conducted to examine influence the Ferguson effect may have had on the culture and perceptions of police officers in local police departments. With a phenomenological qualitative approach, the research data were collected from interviews with 7 police officers across 3 police departments. The theoretical background of Merton's …

The Impact Of Critical Incident Team Training On Arrest And Diversion Rates, Richard Wayne Foss

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Critical Incident Team (CIT) training program equips police officers with knowledge regarding mental illness and practical skills for effectively interacting with a mentally ill suspect. In addition to improving officer and suspect safety by decreasing the number of violent encounters between police and the mentally ill, CIT goals include reducing the number of mentally ill individuals who are arrested and providing them with assistance through community resources. However, there is a lack of empirical research on whether CIT training decreases arrest rates and increases diversion rates for mentally ill subjects. The purpose of this quantitative study was to measure …

Effective Manufacturers' Strategies For Service Innovations, Zebulon Fox

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the United States, more than 50% of managers offering services in the manufacturing industry report failed service initiatives. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that manufacturing managers used to sustain their business for longer than 5 years. The population consisted of 3 manufacturing organization managers offering business services to support petroleum and coal companies who have sustained their business operations in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States for longer than 5 years. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and organization documents were analyzed through the perspective of the strategic service innovation theory conceptual …

Out Of The Freezer And Into The Policy Fire: Quandaries In Reproductive Cryopreservation, Rebecca Feinberg

Scholarly Works

The field of assisted reproduction is advancing rapidly and is ripe for regulation and guidance. In 2018, over four thousand frozen eggs and embryos were lost to approximately one thousand patients at Ahuja University Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, due to an accidental thaw of a cryopreservation tank. The precedent that will be set by the Ahuja class-action case is significant for both past events and future possibilities and is core to the discussion of policy involving the cryopreservation of gametes and embryos.

Disciplinary Regulation Of Prosecutorial Discretion: What Would A Rule Look Like?, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

This Essay is the third part of a larger project examining the potential role of professional discipline in the regulation and supervision of prosecutors’ charging decisions. The first two parts of the project argued that courts have both the authority and the ability to exercise effective disciplinary review of charging decisions through the adoption of ethics rules and their enforcement in the disciplinary process. This Essay takes the next step in the project, considering the nature of rules that courts might adopt, by exploring potential rules targeting two improprieties: arbitrary and capricious charging decisions, and discriminatory charging decisions.

The Constitution As Poetry, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

Building upon a body of scholarship that compares constitutional interpretation to biblical and literary interpretation, and relying on an insight from a prominent nineteenth century rabbinic scholar, this Article briefly explores similarities in the interpretation of the Torah—the text of the Five Books of Moses—and the United States Constitution. Specifically, this Article draws upon Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin’s (“Netziv”) intriguing suggestion that the interpretation of the text of the Torah parallels the interpretation of poetry. According to Netziv, this parallel accounts for the practice of interpreting the Torah expansively in ways that derive substantive legal rules and principles far …

Advanced Artificial Intelligence And Contract, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

The aim of this article is to inquire whether contract law can operate in a state of affairs in which artificial general intelligence (AGI) exists and has the cognitive abilities to interact with humans to exchange promises or otherwise engage in the sorts of exchanges typically governed by contract law. AGI is a long way off but its emergence may be sudden and come in the lifetimes of some people alive today. How might contract law adapt to a situation in which at least one of the contract parties could, from the standpoint of capacity to engage in promising and …

Relationships And Ethics In The Land Use Game, Patricia E. Salkin, Thomas Brown, Aisha Scholes

Scholarly Works

Ethical considerations in the land use decision making process can be organized into a number of categories, including, first and foremost, the broad subject of conflicts of interest.1 Players in the land use game can find themselves in real or perceived conflicts situations based on personal financial interests resulting from investments, including businesses and real estate holdings (such as the location of their property vis-à-vis the location of the subject property before the Board), employment for themselves or members of their immediate family, and memberships in nonprofit organizations that may be either passive or active (e.g., simply dues paying member …

Contract Creep, Tal Kastner, Ethan J. Leib

Scholarly Works

Scholars and judges think they can address the multiple purposes and values of contract law by developing different doctrinal regimes for different transaction types. They think if we develop one track of contract doctrine for sophisticated parties and another for consumers, we can build a better world of contract: protecting private ordering for sophisticated parties and protecting consumers’ needs all at once. Given the growing enthusiasm for laying down these separate tracks and developing their infrastructures, this Article brings a necessary reality check to this endeavor by highlighting for scholars and judges how doctrine in contract law functions in fact: …

Defining Law, Tal Kastner

Scholarly Works

Commenting on Chaim Saiman’s book, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law, this essay views the difficulty of defining halakha as indicative of the universal challenge of defining the bounds of what constitutes “law.” Considering the dynamic of contingent norms, social context, history, and narrative that shapes the meaning of law, it focuses on a series of decisions by a federal district court judge in connection with the case of Bayless v. United States (1996) involving the sufficiency of reasonable suspicion to justify a police stop. Tracing the slippage in this case between holding and dicta, among other sources of authority …

Youth Coaches' Perception Of Their Role In A Young Athletes' Continued Participation, Ronald Roy Spencer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Abstract

Youth sports have been shown to be beneficial to the overall development of children and adolescents. Research showed youth sports participation helps children develop academically, physically, and mentally. However, there is a high attrition rate of youth sports participants.

What coaches think about youth's attrition in sports and their role in fostering or hindering young athletes' participation is not well known. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore youth coaches' perception of their role in a young person's decision to continue participating in their sport of preference. The conceptualizations of autonomy-supportive coaching strategy and Erickson's developmental theory …

Police Officers' Perceptions Of Changes In Their Behavior While Being Video Recorded, Steven Patrick Ufford

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Body worn cameras (BWCs) are a newer piece of equipment that has been issued to police officers in efforts to increase transparency and improve relations with the community. Researchers who have just recently begun studying the effects of BWCs have observed changes in behavior of officers who wear the equipment. Some of these changes potentially have an adverse effect on citizens and the officers who wear BWCs. Lipsky's street-level bureaucracy theory was utilized to examine police officer use of discretion when conducting field activities while wearing BWCs. The research question pertained to police officers' perceptions regarding changes in behavior while …

Successful Strategies For Energy Sector Enterprise Resource Planning Projects, Dora Kwei Arko

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Business leaders use enterprise resource planning (ERP) to integrate and streamline business functions and processes. Each year, the majority of these projects fail due to project managers' ineffective management of the project scope. The successful implementation of ERP software enhances the flow of information in organizations and tends to improve the performance of employees and job satisfaction, resulting in improved sustainability and profitability. The Leavitt organizational change management model was used as the conceptual framework for this multiple-case study. The purpose of the study was to explore the strategies project managers in the energy sector used to implement successful ERP …

Sustainable Development Economy: Macroeconomic Policy And Microeconomic Impact Of Public Private Partnerships, Richard Berkshire

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The impact of public private partnership (PPP) on Dallas, Texas economic development activities is debated through many forms of academic studies. The purpose of this study was to bridge the research gap in PPP impact on sustainable economic development from the perspectives of PPP practitioners. The central research question focused on the PPP executives' perspective on the evaluation of PPP programs within a 5-year period (2005 - 2010) in Dallas, Texas. The theoretical framework of this study was based on the policy feedback theory. A qualitative case study design was the case study approach and purposeful sampling interviews were the …

Leveraging Internal Resources For Business Sustainability In Independent Quick-Service Restaurants, Mario De' Nell Wallace

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Quick-service restaurant owners who fail to apply effective business strategies could risk business closure within the first 5 years of operations. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore effective strategies that independent quick-service restaurant owners used to sustain business longer than the first 5 years. Resource-based theory was the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected via semistructured interviews with 6 owners of independent quick-service restaurants in the southern region of the United States who sustained their businesses longer than the first 5 years, and from the review of business documents pertaining to sustainability. Data were …

Music Therapy Effects On Social-Communicative Response Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Raymond Payton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are challenged with communicative skills, which can negatively influence their emotional development. As children with ASD in the local school were not demonstrating functional communication skills as measured by the Assessment of Social Skills for Children with Autism (ASSCM), music therapy was introduced as remediation. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which music therapy increased the ASSCM scores. This single subject design study was guided by Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory, which holds that individuals are impacted by various environmental systems around them. The research question addressed the extent to …

Nurse Managers’ Self And Authentic Leadership In Relation To Their Job Satisfaction, L'Ouverture Ellis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a high cost to nurse manager turnover and added to this challenge is the difficult tasks that hospitals have of recruiting and retaining nurse managers. These difficulties make it challenging for healthcare providing institutions to achieve consistent positive patient and staff outcomes. The current study examined the relationship between self-leadership, authentic leadership, and job satisfaction with nurse managers. Three elements making up the theoretical framework of this research were self-leadership, authentic leadership, and job satisfaction. The 2 predictor variables were self-leadership and authentic leadership. An evaluation of whether a relationship existed between the predictors and the criterion, job …

Strategies For Small Business Survival For Longer Than 5 Years, Tashani J. Gaskins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small businesses play a key role in the health of the U.S. economy; however, approximately 50% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years of operation. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies used by owners of small businesses to sustain their businesses for longer than 5 years. The conceptual framework used was the resource-based theory. The population of this study consisted of 3 owners of small businesses in North Carolina who sustained their businesses for at least 5 years. The data sources included semistructured interviews of the participants as well as business websites, …

Ict And Critical Literacy In Middle School For 21st-Century Competencies And Critical Democracy, Joan Arelis Figueroa-Rivera

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Twenty-first-century competencies have been identified as vital thinking and working skills for the 21st century. Students could contribute to social change by using information and communication technology (ICT) while developing 21st-century competencies, but this type of experience is not frequent at schools. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the experiences of 2 middle-school teachers and their 6th-grade students as they used critical literacy strategies and ICT to promote 21st-century competencies and critical democracy in a Midwestern public school. This case study was guided by the critical democracy, critical pedagogy, and competency-based education theories. The research questions …

Counterterrorism And Human Rights Committees’ Influence On Terrorism And Human Rights Atrocities, Janice Marie Gravely

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The United Nations Counterterrorism and Human Rights Committees’ current collaborative practices have failed to reduce global terrorists’ activities and human rights abuses associated with counterterrorism activities. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and compare collaborative processes between the committees in combatting terrorism and human rights violations associated with counterterrorism. The researched was centered around two key questions: The similarities and differences with information sharing processes and the impacts of the committees’ collaborative processes on terrorists’ activities and human rights violations. For this study, the pragmatic paradigm theoretical framework was used, focusing on the descriptive exploratory design. …

An Analysis Of Junior Enlisted Personnel Attrition In The U.S. Army, Posey Grier, Jr.

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Junior enlisted personnel are the workforce of the U.S. Army and a recruiting pool for Warrant and Officer Candidate School training programs. Before fulfilling their initial obligation of 8 years, 25 to 30 percent of enlistees receive separation orders from the Army. Consequently, attrition in this group has created a substantial problem in maintaining a trained and ready Army. The purpose of this correlational study was to understand what factors contribute to unfilled service of enlisted personnel. Specifically, this study focused on the number of years of service before departure, the cause of the early separations, and the subcategories as …

Effects Of Maternal Obesity On Preterm Birth And Birthweight, La Tosha Headley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Obesity is one of the major risk factors for neonate low birthweight among reproductive women. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the association between 3 categories of obese status (moderate, severe, and very severe) and low neonate birthweight and preterm birth among women ages 18 to 39 years at all socioeconomic levels. Secondary data were obtained from 141,859 women ages 18-39 years living in the United States who had participated in the 2012-2015 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. Social-ecological theory was used to guide the study, and binary logistic regression was used for the analyses adjusting for …