Public Administration Commons^™

Perceptions Of The Homeless Toward Nonprofit Human Service Provider, Lequan M. Hylton

Theses and Dissertations

As the debate intensifies regarding developing remedies to meet the needs of America’s homeless, one solution is for governmental agencies to collaborate with and employ organizations from the nonprofit sector to assist with the needs of the homeless population. Included in the nonprofit sector, faith-based organizations (FBOs) have historically been a source of debate and contention in terms of collaborations with the government. However, Presidents Reagan, George H. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama have embraced the idea of including FBOs in the pool of service providers offering human services. In the Richmond, Virginia region, FBOs and nonreligious nonprofit …

Faculty Research Productivity In Saudi Arabian Public Universities: A Human Capital Investment Perspective, Abad Alzuman

Theses and Dissertations

In an attempt to transition from its oil-based economy, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is taking further steps towards building a knowledge-based economy. Saudi universities play a pivotal role toward the country’s attempts to achieve the desired sustainable economic growth. And because knowledge production is dependent on the human capital embedded in faculty members working at theses universities, the recommendations of the Saudi National Science and Technology Policy stressed the importance of enhancing research skills of faculty members and researchers at public universities using different means and initiatives. However, a little is known about the impact of the implemented initiatives …

Efficiency Of Unified Vs. Non-Unified State Judiciaries: An Examination Of Court Organizational Performance, William Raftery

Theses and Dissertations

State court systems function in much the same manner as any other government agency in terms of organization and management to utilize public resources in order to provide a public service. The question posed in the late 19th century was whether the courts should be organized and managed as they had been for centuries as local entities locally controlled and operated or transferred to the state level. The desired end was a more efficient use of public resources to achieve faster disposition of cases. This reorganization, called unification, was made up of three individual components: 1) consolidation required the reduction …

Determinants Of Turnover Intent In Higher Education: The Case Of International And U.S. Faculty, Jaehee Park

Theses and Dissertations

In spite of the increase in the number of the international academic workforce and their potential benefits, international status has been relatively under-studied in Public Management and Higher Education literature in comparison with studies of age, gender, and race. Given these realities, the present study identifies characteristics of internal and external variables that influence international and U.S. faculty turnover intentions in a large public South Eastern research university.

To understand the variations in short-term and long-term turnover levels while controlling for various demographic, structural, and external variables, eight Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression analysis were performed using turnover intentions as …

Understanding The Impact Of Leadership And Organizational Culture On Nonprofit Employees’ Commitment And Turnover Intention, Nancy A. Toscano

Theses and Dissertations

Child and family nonprofit organizations are essential for the implementation of United States public policy in their role as service providers. Human service nonprofit organizations held approximately 20,000 government contracts, totaling more than $100 billion in 2009 (Boris, deLeon, Roeger, & Nikolva, 2010). Almost 33,000 human service nonprofit organizations contract with the government to deliver services (Boris, et al., 2010). The services provided by these organizations are critical to the lives of vulnerable American citizens. These organizations depend on committed employees to serve this group, carry out the mission, and reach organizational goals. Employees are nonprofit organizations’ greatest resource, investment, …

Supporting Intrinsic Motivation And Public Service Motivation In The Local Government Sector: Evaluating The Effects Of Performance Appraisal Systems, Erin L. Luper

Theses and Dissertations

This study used an electronic questionnaire to evaluate the levels of intrinsic motivation, compared to extrinsic motivation, in front-line local government employees. This research also evaluated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and public service motivation (PSM). Further, this research assessed the effects of performance appraisal systems (PAS) on intrinsically motivated front-line local government employees.

Current research suggests that public sector employees are more intrinsically motivated than extrinsically motivated. This study found that, while the employees showed higher levels of intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivation, most of the respondents showed moderately high levels of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Additionally, the …

Leadership With Grace, The Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute At Virginia Commonwealth University, Susan Gooden, Nakeina E. Douglas

The Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute Publications

A remarkable lady of incredible talent and vision, Dr. Grace Edmondson Harris had a unique experience with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). A native of rural Halifax County in southern Virginia, she was denied admission to graduate study at VCU (then Richmond Professional Institute), a large public university in Richmond, Virginia. Ironically, later in 1967, Dr. Harris became the first African American female faculty member in the School of Social Work at VCU and ascended the ranks to become Dean of the School of Social Work, Provost, and Acting President prior to her retirement in 1999. Although Dr. Harris has strong …

Adjusting Holt-Winters Exponential Smoothing For External Intervention: A Mathematical Technique For Making Quasi-Judgmental Adjustments For Anticipated Changes, Daniel Wayne Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Public administration data is sometimes extrapolated through exponential smoothing. Sometimes such data may undergo a level shift because of a policy decision. The slope of the curve formed by connecting the periodic observations increases or decreases significantly for a brief period, thereafter returning to a slope similar to the slope preceding the policy change. This discontinuity might be called a ramp or a step. Forecasts made with exponential smoothing immediately before, during, or immediately after the ramp or step may be considerably inaccurate unless adjusted. A technique called adjusted exponential smoothing is proposed to reduce or eliminate the inaccuracy of …

Validation Of A Virginia Work Release Risk Prediction Model: A Methodology For The Improvement Of The Reliability Of Correctional Decision Makers, William Nathan Osborne Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

This study identifies and validates variables which are significant predictors of work release success on 439 Virginia work release participants. The variables were selected on the basis of whether they would exert internal or external control over the inmate, with a view toward offering empirical support to control theory. A retrospective longitudinal research design was employed by randomly selecting inmates who had participated in either of three work release centers from 1987 to 1991. Two of the programs housed male inmates while the other housed female inmates. Data were collected from inmate files on thirty-one variables over a six month …

The Diffusion Of Public Defenders In Virginia: A Study In Organization Adaption And The Relationships Between Values, Decisionmaking Processes, And Organizational Output, Cyril Woodvil Miller, Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Research into indigent defense issues has shown that the growth in the use of public defenders has been accompanied by increased bureaucratization and has paralleled the expansion of the right to counsel and the "due process revolution." The goal of this research is the development and testing of a model of organization adaptation which explains for public defender offices in Virginia the evolution of multiple and contradictory organizational goals, the means by which they balance conflicting values and goals, and the effect of resulting decision making processes on organizational output. The basic research question addressed is the relationship between values, …

Differences In Nursing Home Utilization And Clinical Outcome In Veterans Administration Nursing Home Patients, Christine M. Sheehy

Theses and Dissertations

Because of increasing costs and demand for nursing home care, studies are needed that can better describe the population of users and improve prediction of clinical outcomes and program requirements. The major purpose of this study was to explore the incremental and seven month outcomes of nursing home patients using the Andersen model. The design was longitudinal. Patients from one Veterans Administration (VA) hospital-based nursing home and six freestanding. VA contract community nursing homes were studied. Functional and cognitive ability were analyzed along with socioeconomic and demographic data. and utilization patterns.

A second purpose was to assess associations among variables …