Public Administration Commons^™

How Valuable Are Capstone Projects For Community Organizations? Lessons From A Program Assessment, David A. Campbell, Kristina T. Lambright

Public Administration Faculty Scholarship

Many MPA programs use capstone courses as culminating experiences to assess students’ capacity to apply program knowledge and skills to challenges facing public or nonprofit organizations. This paper examines whether capstone projects in one university’s MPA program were beneficial to organizational partners. Using data from a survey of capstone supervisors and 10 follow-up interviews, the paper finds that supervisor engagement, project location, and faculty involvement were significant factors in determining whether projects were beneficial to host organizations. The findings indicate that closer relationships among the three primary participants in capstone projects (student, supervisor, and instructor) will lead to more successful …

Human Sanitary Wastes And Waste Treatment In New York City, David J. Tonjes, Christine O'Connell, Omkar Aphale, R. Lawrence Swanson

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Henry Hudson first sailed toNew Yorkharbor 400 years ago. Since then,New York Cityhas both affected and been affected by water quality in greaterNew YorkHarbor. In this paper, we focus on sewers, sewerage, and sewage treatment inManhattanand their effects on theHudson River. It is clear that feedbacks among drinking water quality and quantity, population, public perceptions, regulations, and estuarine water quality exist, although their strength and character have varied over time. Early land uses damaged local water supplies found on ManhattanIsland. New Yorkthen began to exploit the large fresh water resources available to its north, which helped the City to expand …

تطوير السياحة ….مدخل للتنمية المستدامة في العراق, Faris Kareeem Buraihi

Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economics Sciences

تجاوزت السياحة بمفهومها المعاصر من مجرد كونها سفر وفعاليات ترويحية، إلى نوع من الصناعة لها أبعادها الاقتصادية والاجتماعية وضمن إطار نوع من تنظيم العلاقات والمصالح بين دول العالم لذلك تعد التنمية السياحية في الوقت الحاضر أحد أهداف التنمية الاقتصادية والاجتماعية الشاملة لما لها من قدرة على تحسين ميزان المدفوعات وتوفير فرص عمل وخلق فرص مدرة للدخل، فضلا عن المساهمة في تحسبن اسلوب ونمط الحياة الاجتماعية لعموم أفراد المجتمع.وفي العراق، طالما عانى القطاع السياحي في العراق من مشاكل ومعوقات عديدة أبرزها أداء السياسات الحكومية، فضلا عن الحصار الاقتصادي وما تعرض له العراق من حروب ودمار شديدين طالت معظم الأماكن السياحية، وابتعاده …

Jane Addams: Spirit In Action By Louise W. Knight, Mari Boor Tonn

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

The common temptation to perceive greatness as imprinted at birth, however, is skillfully disabused in Louise Knight’s meticulous, insightful,and often poignant biography, Jane Addams: Spirit in Action, which traces the complicated odyssey of a well-heeled idealist—initially conflicted by her material privilege, disappointed by gender-codes confining her ambitions, and haunted by familial ghosts and duties—into the pantheon of U.S. political idols. Of particular interest to rhetorical scholars, Knight weaves into Addams’s arresting tale her early baptism into public speaking, writings that shaped her expression in public forums, rhetorical strategies she employed, and platform failures as well as successes. A prolific speaker, …

Transit In A Border Zone: The Demand For Public Transportation In Three Texas Border Cities, Adam Gregory Walke

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Factors affecting the demand for public transportation include those, like fares or the level of service, that transit administrators can directly influence as well as those, like gasoline prices, that are beyond administrators' control. This study considers both but focuses on the latter and, more specifically, on how proximity to an international border affects transit ridership. Pedestrian border crossings have a significant effect on ridership levels in El Paso, Brownsville, and Laredo, Texas. Also, ridership correlates positively with the purchasing power of the peso in Laredo and with Mexico's industrial production index in El Paso. In the context of prior …

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 …

You Don't Know What You Don't Know: Investigating The Information Needs Of Clients Of Web Based Public Sector Information Services, Julie Ann Johnson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research grew from two frustrations. The first was the personal frustration experienced when attempting to find information on websites; especially government websites. Often the sites were loaded down with all sorts of information such as corporate organisation charts and press releases but lacked the information which would allow clients to interact effectively with the agency or meet their information needs and move on. The second frustration was that of Edith Cowan University students who battled with a diverse, overlapping and incomplete set of both online and paper based resources as they sought to make decisions about their selections of …

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 …