Public Administration Commons^™

Assessing The Impact Of Intergovernmental Grant Policies In Education - The Case Of Florida, Nga (Angie) Le

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent decades, grant funding from federal and state governments has played an increasing role in school finance. However, prior research shows that education grants are not always effective, and the resources distributed to school districts are often not efficient. Increased federal and state funding does not always improve schools’ effectiveness but instead may trigger greater bureaucracy and a mass-production vision in local education administration.

This research aims to provide a theoretical foundation for and empirical evidence on the impact of intergovernmental aid in education and inform future policy reforms. This study investigates the effects of federal and state grant …

Governing Addiction: The Role Of The Government In Responding To The Opioid Crisis, Kaila Witkowski

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In light of the growing frequency of health emergencies and epidemics, state and local governments are beginning to take a more active role in response efforts. This role used to be exclusively held by health-related agencies such as health departments. Although public health has made significant progress in the study of these emergencies, they often ignore the existing strategies in the field of emergency management. Thus, limited research exists on the effectiveness of emergency management strategies within the context of public health emergencies. This research fills this gap by examining the impact of emergency management strategies used within the opioid …

Public-Private Partnerships In The United States: The Relevance Of Public Policy And Finance, Yanbing Han

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The infrastructure deficit is among the most significant challenges facing the United States. The Trump and Biden administrations called for using public-private partnerships (PPPs) to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. As distinct arrangements that are part of both the public and private sectors, PPPs pose critical questions to public policy and administration. They have also gained popularity as a result of the New Public Management and Collaborative Governance movements.

By synthesizing the theories of the economics of hybrid organizations, public choice, and public value, my research suggests that PPP formation, management, and performance evaluation require the strategic interactions of both …

Managing Collaborative Networks In Post-Disaster Recovery: A Case Study Of 2015 Nepal Earthquake, Barsha Manandhar

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Governing the network of public, private, and non-governmental organizations is increasingly becoming the standard practice to ensure effective post-disaster recovery and reconstruction processes and outcomes. While prior research has discussed different challenges in network settings, few studies have examined the challenges faced by public managers who lead post-disaster recovery networks. Similarly, there is a dearth of knowledge on how the management of these networks affects disaster-stricken populations are affected by the management of these networks. This dissertation addresses such lacunae using a case study of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), an organization established by the Nepali government to execute post-disaster …

Understanding Public-Private Partnerships: Strategic Alliances, Risk Aversion, And Policy Diffusion, Min Xiong

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have experienced tremendous growth worldwide since governments in the UK utilized private financing for public infrastructure in the 1990s. Throughout the past few decades, scholars have researched the concept, development, drivers, and performance of PPPs. However, the extant research stems predominately from the lens of governments and focuses on how governments screen and select private partners. A neglect of the private sector’s preference toward and selection of governmental partners would hinder scholarly understandings of PPP formation. Such overlook may also hinder the utilization and development of PPPs in public service delivery.

This dissertation uses three essays to …

Understanding The Individual And Organizational Attributes Of Servant Leadership In Local Governments, Pallavi Awasthi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Servant leaders are driven by a natural feeling to serve first which manifests into a conscious desire to lead. The servant leadership style emphasizes internalizing ethical behavior, along with empathy and service orientation in creating value for the community which is critical in public administration. While the servant leadership concept has gained much interest among business management scholars, it has received little attention in public administration. This dissertation aims to fill this wide gap in public administrative leadership scholarship by investigating the role of servant leadership in public administration.

Specifically, the dissertation seeks to understand individual (servant identity and moral …

Representative Bureaucracy In Government Contracting: Examining Supplier Diversity Policy Implementation, Evelyn Trammell

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Government organizations have struggled to balance democratic values of inclusiveness and equity with an efficient and effective bureaucracy since the early years of the administrative state. A representative bureaucracy offers a solution where effective and efficient public service delivery can be achieved while reflecting the interests of historically underrepresented social groups in policy decisions. The theory of representative bureaucracy states that organizational actors that share characteristics with constituents are more likely to respond to their interests through policies and implementation activities. Employing a mixed methodology, this study examines whether and how representativeness of local government decision-makers affects contracting policy implementation …

Understanding The Factors Determining Green Public Procurement Practices Among Local Governments In The United States, Ana Maria Dimand

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the wicked problems communities face worldwide is climate change. Among potential solutions and current efforts is green public procurement (GPP), an innovative policy approach to change business as usual in the governmental sector. Local governments in the U.S. annually spend approximately $1.72 trillion on purchasing goods and services. Given substantial purchasing power of municipalities, GPP practices at the local level can incite a transition toward a more sustainable society. This study is the first to delineate the levels and variations of existing GPP practices among U.S. localities and examine the factors that facilitate or hinder GPP engagement.

Collaborative …

Democracy And Bureaucracy Of Smart Place: Coral Gables, Fl And The Role Of Aspirational Content In Local Governance, Ramon Trias

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the role aspirational content on democracy and bureaucracy for governance of place in the United States. Place is a fundamental concept for municipal democracy and bureaucracy, as it defines the physical qualities of a community and their effect on people and quality of life. Smart Place would update theory and practices for local governance. Research reviewed process and content for the implementation of place, a gap in public administration theory. Literature review, historical research on 20^th century planning and zoning, research on 1920’s best practices on architecture and archival, qualitative findings and quantitative data on Coral …

Economic Development On U.S. Native American Reservations: A Case Study Of The Tribes Of Florida, Diane Benitez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unlike most native American reservations in the United States, the Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes in Florida are more economically developed. The purpose of this research is to understand this economic development process of the tribes in Florida. Accordingly, there are three key questions guiding this study:

1. What have been the priorities of the Native American reservation population in conceptualizing sustainable economic development?
2. What external institutional factors have enabled or hindered economic development on Native American reservations?
3. What internal tribal governance factors affected sustainable economic development on Native American reservations?

I interviewed Seminole and Miccosukee tribe members and leaders to obtain …

School Climate In The School Choice Era: A Comparative Analysis Of District-Run Public Schools And Charter Schools, Christopher Damian Duszka

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Comparative analyses of district-run public schools and charter schools are limited to performance outcomes. There is a dearth of research on how the school-types vary on factors consequential to performance such as school climate. Public-private distinctions, such as in organizational autonomy, value orientations, funding structures, and management practices, could result in school climate dissimilarities between district-run public schools and charter schools.

The aim of this dissertation is to assess the influence organizational factors have on school climate and determine if school-type affects school climate. Student and staff school climate survey data from the Miami-Dade school district were utilized for this …

Facing The Rising Tide: How Local Governments In The United States Collaborate To Adapt To Sea Level Rise, Vaiva Kalesnikaite

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While communities in the United States are already experiencing the effects of climate change, scientists project that sea level rise, increased precipitation, and record-breaking extreme weather events will devastate vulnerable regions in the following decades. The absence of federal strategies for climate change adaptation leaves state and city governments with broad discretion to undertake climate change adaptation measures. Yet cities may be unable to adapt to climate change without external assistance, particularly in states where the state leadership has not recognized the need to provide political and financial support to local governments. Collaboration allows cities to pool resources and work …

Election Administration Within The Sphere Of Politics: How Bureaucracy Can Facilitate Democracy With Policy Decisions, Nicholas S. Martinez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public bureaucracy finds itself in a strange place at the intersection of political science and public administration. Political science finds that, within representative democracy, discretion granted to bureaucrats threatens the nature of democracy by subverting politicians who represent the will of the people – bureaucracy vs democracy. At the same time, public administration holds that, in the interest of promoting democracy, bureaucracy should be objective in its implementation of policy in a way that eliminates the influence of politics from decision-making – politics vs bureaucracy. Those positions are seemingly contradictory in nature. From one perspective, bureaucracy is undemocratic because it …

Gender And Authority In The Public Sector: The Case Of Local Government Chief Administrative Officers In The United States, Sebawit G. Bishu

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2016, women represented 16.6% of all Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) in local governments across the United States. Previous studies have investigated gender disparities in managerial representation, which is explained by the glass ceiling phenomenon; however, little is known about whether the women that occupy these male dominated positions have the similar levels of responsibilities as their male counterparts. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to understand if gender disparities in levels of work authority manifest as a new form of the glass ceiling. Work authority in this study is operationalized as CAOs’ sanctioning authority (control over personnel operations) …

Government Capacity And The Acquisition, Implementation, And Impact Of Arra Funds, Nakhyeok Choi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examined transportation grants provided to states under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Some states acquired more grants and utilized them in a timelier manner than others. This dissertation examined why this is the case, utilizing System Theory and Resource Based Theory as the intellectual framework. Human resource and financial resource capacities were viewed as the principal drivers of success and studying this managerially controllable variables underpin the analysis.

Though many studies have examined ARRA since 2009, my dissertation is the first to simultaneously examine the three stages of the ARRA transportation grant process: acquisition, …

Factors Affecting The Adoption Of New Technology: The Case Of 311 Government Call Centers, Susan Caroline Young

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Government call centers (311) were first created to reduce the volume of non-emergency calls that were being placed to emergency 911 call centers. The number of 311 call centers increased from 57 in 2008 to about 300 in 2013. Considering that there are over 2,700 municipal government units across the United States, the adoption rate of the 311 centers is arguably low in the country. This dissertation is an examination of the adoption of 311 call centers by municipal governments. My focus is specifically on why municipal governments adopt 311 and identifying which barriers result in the non-adoption of 311 …