Public Administration Commons^™

The Politics Of Reorganizing Connecticut State Government: Altering Administrative Structures In The Land Of Steady Habits, Lesley A. Denardis

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Despite numerous attempts to reorganize state government aimed at streamlining, reducing, and creating greater efficiencies, the size and scope of Connecticut’s administrative apparatus has grown considerably over a fifty year period. This study will trace the political history of previous reorganization efforts with a particular emphasis on more recent attempts such as the Gengras (1970), Filer (1976), Thomas (1991), and Hull and Harper Commissions (1992). Observed trends follow national patterns: 1) reorganization commissions are cyclical in nature more likely to be undertaken in the wake of similar efforts at the federal level and 2) they are more likely to be …

Essays On Applications Of Behavioral Decision Making In Public Management And Policy, Navid Ghaffarzadegan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This is a three-essay dissertation on examination of behavioral decision making phenomena in the contexts of public management and policy analysis. I study how policymakers, government employees, and citizens behave, make decisions and learn from decision outcomes. I move toward prescriptive analysis and offer solutions that can improve government performance.

Stakeholder, Organizational And Environmental Influences On Nursing Home Regulatory Enforcement : A New Perspective, Tamika R. Black

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation proposes a conceptual framework that integrates stakeholder and compliance theory and employs a multi-method approach to examine the influence of stakeholders, bureaucratic discretion and external environment on nursing home inspections and enforcement. Negative binomial regression analysis was conducted on a population of 655 nursing homes in New York to identify determinants of variation in compliance and enforcement (as measured by deficiency citations). As hypothesized, organizational characteristics (i.e., nursing home bed capacity, sponsorship, occupancy rates and Medicaid revenue) were significant predictors of regulatory compliance and quality of care. Nursing home complaints, the presence of family councils, political party of …

Influence Attempts In Policy-Making Groups : A Case Study Of The Federal Open Market Committee, Julia Monkova

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The main objective of the dissertation was to understand how members of elite ongoing policy-making groups in organizations influence each other in the process of making policy. The research was conducted using the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve System as the case study; the verbatim transcripts of FOMC meetings as the data; and the open coding as the method.

Antecedents Of Government Employees' Organizational Citizenship Behavior : Impacts Of Prosocial Orientation, Organizational Identification And Subjective Ocb Norms, Dong Chul Shim

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study attempts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the antecedents of public employees' organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Using Deci and Ryan's Self-determination theory as an overarching framework, this study tests the argument put forth by public management researchers that public employees' OCB will be influenced by their personal beliefs and organizational values as well as by their general satisfaction with their work environment. Based on this notion, public employees' prosocial orientation, organizational identification and subjective OCB norms are thus examined as major antecedents of OCB in this study.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Vegetation Classification [Map], United States National Park Service

United States National Park Service: Publications

Colo vegetation map of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Strong City, Kansas, USA, from the Tallgrass Prairie NP Vegetation Mapping Project, created between April and June 2011. Includes a color-coded vegetation classification.

Homestead National Monument, Vegetation Mapping Project [Poster], Kelly Kindscher, Hayley Kilroy, Jennifer Delisle, Quinn Long, Hillary Loring, Kevin Dobbs, Jim Drake

United States National Park Service: Publications

Homestead National Monument was created in 1936 to celebrate the significance of the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted 160 acres of free land to claimants. This was one of the most significant and enduring events in the westward expansion of the United States. The site is the first tract homesteaded under the act by Daniel Freemen, and encompasses 184 acres in Gage County, west of Beatrice, Nebraska.

This unique site also hosts the oldest prairie restoration in the National Park system and the second-oldest tallgrass prairie restoration known. This park unit also has a small remnant of native tallgrass …

القياس والإفصاح المحاسبي للمسؤولية الاجتماعية في الوحدات الاقتصادية (دراسة تطبيقية في شركة أور العامة للصناعات الهندسية), سعود جايد شاكر, علي نعيم جاسم

Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economics Sciences

تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى تحديد إطار مفاهيمي للقياس والإفصاح المحاسبي عن المسؤولية الاجتماعية من حيث المفهوم والمتغيرات ومجالات التطبيق، والتعرف على أساليب ومداخل القياس والإفصاح عن معلومات المسؤولية الاجتماعية في القوائم الختامية التي تعدها الوحدات الاقتصادية. كذلك تهدف الدراسة إلى إمكانية تطبيق نماذج للمحاسبة عن المسؤولية الاجتماعية تتفق مفاهيمها ومتغيراتها مع ظروف وتركيبة البنيان الاجتماعي والاقتصادي للشركات العاملة في القطاع الصناعي العراقي، وذلك بهدف تقويم الأداء الاجتماعي لتلك الشركات. تم تطبيق هذه الدراسة من خلال اختيار إحدى شركات القطاع الصناعي في العراق (شركة أور العامة للصناعات الهندسية) بوصفها عينة لإعداد القوائم الختامية الاجتماعية مثل قائمة التدفقات النقدية وقائمة النشاط الاقتصادي/الاجتماعي …

وسائل القياس والإفصاح في المحاسبة البيئية (دراسة تطبيقية في محطة توليد الطاقة الحرارية في الناصرية), علي نعيم جاسم

Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economics Sciences

تهدف الدراسة الى بيان دور الوحدات الاقتصادية في المحافظة على البيئة واعتبارها جزءاً رئيسياً من اهدافها التي تسعى الى تحقيقها للارتقاء بمستوى الخدمات المقدمة لما لهذا الدور من أهمية في الحياة وخاصة في العراق الذي يعاني في الوقت الحاضر من بيئة ملوثة نسبياً. فقد وضع الباحث حلولاً لعملية القياس والافصاح عن التكاليف البيئية وخاصة في الشركات العامة التي تعمل في ظل ظروف صعبة وقاسية تفرضها اللوائح والقوانين. وفي اطار سعي الباحث لتحقيق هدف الدراسة استند الى الفرضية الرئيسية الاتية ((هناك علاقة وثيقة بين تحمل الوحدات الاقتصادية للكلف البيئية وبين المساهمة الكبيرة لها في مجال المحافظة على البيئة لتحقيق جزء من …

Two Octopuses Making Love: An Analysis Of Institutional Management Behaviors Across Four Brownfield Remediation And Redevelopment Project Networks In Rochester And Buffalo, Ny, Rob Alexander

Public Administration - Dissertations

With intensifying pressure to not only solve public problems by collaborating with actors situated outside the confines of city hall but also to address complex, long-term challenges like climate change adaptation and sustainability, local government public managers find themselves working in increasingly difficult public management environments. Currently, public management theory fails to fully prescribe management strategies and behaviors that enable managers to best achieve their goals in these situations. This dissertation addresses this gap between theory and practice by tracing the public management processes that lead to outcomes in a set of municipality-led brownfield remediation and redevelopment projects.

Utilizing an …

A Q Methodology Analysis Of Individual Perspectives Of Public Decision Making Influences Of Collaborative Processes, Perry D. Gross

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Suboptimal public policy formulation and implementation often result from traditional representative democratic practices. Increasing government fragmentation, eroding trust among policy actors, and an increasingly complex policy making environment contribute to this problem. Collaborative decision making is considered to be a pragmatic alternative by its advocates. The purpose of this research was to explore the claim that process dynamics lead participants to prefer collaborative approaches to decision making among local and regional transportation plans in a western state. The conceptual framework was the diversity, interdependence, and authentic dialogue (DIAD) theory-based model of collaboration in decision making. The research questions focused on …

The Relationship Between Cell Phone Use And Identity Theft, Lewis O. Saunders

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The growth of mobile phone use has paralleled increased reports of identity theft. Identity theft can result in financial loss and threats to a victim's personal safety. Although trends in identity theft are well-known, less is known about individual cell phone users' attitudes toward identity theft and the extent to which they connect it to cell phone use. The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine how cell phone use is affected by attitudes toward privacy and identity theft. The study was based on social impact theory, according to which people's attitudes and behavior are affected by the strength …

U.S. State Employee Pension Systems: An Investigation Into The Causes Of Unfunded Liabilities, Chuck Truesdell

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Defined benefit retirement plans for state employees have come under fire, both financially and politically, following recent market volatility and subsequent losses in pension investments. Asset losses matched with liabilities that are set years in advance translate to pressures on state policymakers and plan administrators to either find ways to improve the finances of these pension systems or transition to defined contribution plans that put the financial risk on individual employees rather than the state government. Because most states are legally and contractually obligated to pay retiree benefits regardless of the pension system’s financial condition — even to the point …

Three Essays Evaluating Choices Of Teachers And Administrators In Kentucky Public Schools, Nathan Barrett

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Public K-12 education is a large enterprise in the United States. Through local, state and federal sources, the U.S. allocated over $610 billion to K-12 public education in 2009 (NCES). Not only is the commitment of public funds for education substantial, the provision of K-12 education is primarily administered by the government in non-market settings through local school districts. It is this institutional environment that generates the impetus for evaluating how those in education make choices in the absence of markets.

Like traditional markets, non-market solutions often fail because the incentives facing individuals and agencies elicit choices which produce outcomes …

"Courting" Time: Assessing The Policy And Planning Issues Related To Adoption Of Case Processing Standards In The Kentucky Judicial System, John B. Dobson

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

No executive summary.

Haiti Earthquake January 2010: What Actions And Policies Can The Government Of Haiti Implement To Improve Emergency Management Response, Steve Cohen

Master's Projects

In 2010, Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake that destroyed much of its capital city and the governmental offices that should have guided the response to the disaster. This research focuses on how Haiti can benefit from the Caribbean Disaster Management Agency’s standards for disaster resilience as it works to recover from the earthquake. Unfortunately, Haiti has long been dependent on assistance from non-governmental organizations due to its extreme poverty; its recovery is complicated by the need to integrate disaster assistance and on-going economic and social assistance into its development of a more resilient society.

Assessing City Preparedness For A Biological Attack, Joseph T. Moore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The lack of preparedness by local communities in the event of a biological attack is a predicament that will result in chaos and an increase in casualties. Assessing city preparedness is essential in the event of a biological attack. The potential for an enormous number of casualties is real; it is imperative, therefore, for local communities to be prepared in the event of a biological attack. This descriptive single case study investigated whether one city in the southeastern United States is prepared for a biological attack. System theory provided the theoretical framework for this research, with the unit of analysis …

Public Safety Directors' Leadership Role For The Implementation Of The National Incident Management System, John C. Mccauley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) is the result of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5). NIMS requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a national policy template for state, local, regional, and federal agencies to work together during emergencies. One difficulty with NIMS is that state and local agencies interpret and implement NIMS requirements differently. Using Lusier & Achua's theory of integrative leadership and Burns, Bass, Kouzes, and Posner's concept of transformational leadership, this study examined the relationship between the leadership provided by city public safety directors (CPSDs) and effective NIMS implementation at the local level. Two research …

Digitizing Deliberation: Normative Concerns For The Use Of Social Media In Deliberative Democracy, Nicole M. Elias

Publications and Research

Deliberative democracy as a form of citizen engagement and social media as a means to achieving greater citizen engagement have both received considerable attention in recent years; however, little attention has been paid to the way deliberative democracy and social media function together. The central aim of this research is to highlight the normative considerations surrounding social media in a deliberative democratic process. To do this, the article uses Iris Marion Young's model of deliberative democracy that is rooted in inclusion, political equality, reasonableness, and publicity. Applying this model's normative values to the use of audience response systems demonstrates that …

Nevada County’S Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program: A Model For Other California Counties To Adopt?, Ralph J. Murrieta Jr.

Master's Projects

In May 2008, Nevada County became the first county in California to fully implement an Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) program under the guidelines established by Assembly Bill 1421 (Keller, 2011). The Assisted Outpatient Treatment Demonstration Project Act of 2002, more commonly known as “Laura’s Law”, established guidelines for the court ordering of treatment for persons incapacitated by a mental disorder (California Department of Mental Health [CA DMH], 2003).

Passed in September 2002, the bill was highly controversial leading up to its passage and remains a very divisive issue today (Fagan, 2010). This paper will focus on the provisions of the …

Drills And Exercises As Interventions To Improve Public Health Emergency Response, Donna Beth Knutson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center and the subsequent anthrax attacks highlighted the inability of an antiquated public health system in the United States to respond effectively to emergencies. Little documentation exists to define how public health agencies can improve performance. The overarching research question was the extent to which drills and exercises improve performance in public health emergencies. Adult learning theory and deliberate practice theory were explored in this context. The research data were from 50 state public health departments, which were required to report performance information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The …

The Campaign For Bias-Free Policing In Vermont: One State’S Resistance To The Localization Of Federal Immigration Agency, Amanda L. Park

Capstone Collection

There are roughly 1,500 immigrants from Mexico and Central America currently working on farms in Vermont, helping to sustain approximately half of all milk produced in the state. But the lack of adequate visa-to-work options leaves these individuals without proper documentation to be in the US. As such, they are vulnerable to exploitation by their employers, susceptible to harassment from the communities in which they live, and under constant threat of deportation by federal immigration agents. Now, the US Department of Homeland Security—in charge of domestic defense and immigration—is attempting to use local and state law enforcement officers in the …

مدى تطبيق واعتماد المصارف المحلية العراقية للحوكمة المصرفية.. دراسة ميدانية لعينة من المصارف العاملة في القطاعين الحكومي والخاص في بيئة العمل العراقية, محمد سمير دهيرب

Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economics Sciences

تهدف الدراسة إلى التعرف على الحوكمة المصرفية وفقا لمبادئ وقواعد الحوكمة الصادرة عن منظمة التنمية والتعاون الاقتصادي (OECD) ولجنة بازل Basel) ) للرقابة المصرفية، حيث جاءت الدراسة لتسلط الضوء على مفاهيم وأهداف ومزايا الحوكمة, وقد تم تطبيق الحوكمة المصرفية في عينة من المؤسسات المالية ومنها المصارف المحلية العاملة في البيئة العراقية باعتبارها الركائز الأساسية للاقتصاد الوطني واحد دعائمه وذلك باستخدام أسلوب استمارات الاستبانة في مجتمع الدراسة المتكون من (30) موظف. إن أهم ما جاء بالدراسة من استنتاجات، أن مبادئ الحوكمة عند تطبيقها من شأنها أن تؤدي إلى تحقيق العدالة والشفافية وحماية حقوق المودعين وتعمل على تخفيض معدلات الفساد المالي والإداري …

Corporate Speech In The Wake Of Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission, Eric Groonwald

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This paper provides an overview of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court case and subsequent ruling. Discussion includes the impact on corporate electoral speech, current disclosure and disclaimer laws and reform options.

Colorful Dialogue: Talking Towards Civic Engagement, Kate Olson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Noticing a need in the Mankato, Minnesota area to link new immigrants and refugees with the greater Mankato community, the YWCA Mankato started the Walking in Two Worlds program. The Colorful Dialogue, a part of the Walking in Two Worlds program, is a monthly community forum where long-time residents and newcomers, including immigrants and refugees, meet to discuss topics important for community building. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the program as a form of civic engagement. Two main questions shape the research: (1) Is the YWCA program, Colorful Dialogue an effective method of civic engagement? (2) Is …

The Role Of Medical Training Background In Patient Satisfaction, Mariam Zia Qureshi

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The number of international medical graduates (IMG) is increasing and their ability to satisfy patients has never been studied. The purpose of this study is to examine if there is a difference between the patient satisfaction scores of US medical graduates (USMGs) and IMGs. This is a retrospective study in which 2627 returned patient experience surveys of 55 physicians working in Medical Practice in South Western Mayo Health System were evaluated. These surveys were returned from August 2009 to August 2010. An independent t-test and t-inverse test was conducted with significance level of 0.05. The results of t-test lead to …

Community Down: The Loss Of Sergeant Joe Bergeron, John Edward Helcl Ii

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

What local government officials, administrators, and staff can expect and how to can help in the aftermath of a peace officer’s line-of-duty death within their community.

Public Sponsored Health Insurance To Improve Health Outcomes With Implications For Government Health Policy, Design, And Decision Making, Steven M. Wagner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This research sought to ascertain the extent to which providing public sponsored health insurance (PSHI) to previously uninsured Mexican-American Hispanics improves health outcomes among those requiring ongoing treatment to control diabetes. Prior research utilizing insurance access theory; access, equity, and health outcome interrelationship theory; health affordability theory; and financial and resource burden theory suggests the uninsured receive less care than the insured, with delayed treatment, leading to chronic conditions. This research tested each of those major theoretical constructs into a blended conceptual framework based on the notion that providing health insurance helps alleviate the disabling effects of diabetes among this …

Ethical Leadership And Good Governance In Nigerian Local Governments, Bartholomew Okechukwu Okagbue

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research literature identifies ethical leadership, a leadership grounded in ethical norms and practice, as a critical vehicle for achieving organizational goals and fostering good governance. However, little research on leadership has focused on the public sector, leaving a gap in the literature. Leadership in governance is a concern in local government in Nigeria; in spite of the 1976 reforms, the country still lacks good governance and corresponding socioeconomic development. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore an ethical leadership model, and determine how such a model could inspire and sustain good governance in Nigerian local government administration. …

Values, Perceptions, Conceptions, And Peacebuilding: A Case Study In A Mexico City Neighborhood, Mauricio Meschoulam

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mexico is not a country at peace. Despite the government's fight to restore stability, violence has erupted since 2006 in several areas of the territory. According to Vygotsky's social constructivism and to Galtung's integral perspective of peace, some elements of peacelessness are informed by values, perceptions, and conceptions about violence and peace. These topics have not been qualitatively investigated in Mexico. The purpose of this case study was to explore the process involving the social construction of values, perceptions, and conceptions in regard to organized criminal violence and peace possibilities in Mexico. Research questions focused on the role of mass …