Public Administration Commons^™

The Effects Of Representation On Student Educational Outcomes In Wayne County, Michigan, Stacey Princess Deering

Wayne State University Dissertations

Representation in education has been studied for decades by experts and scholarly researchers. Most researchers utilized the bureaucratic representation framework to analyze the impact of representation in education and the public sector. The framework incorporates three levels that are examined through a standard analysis referred to as street, managerial, and political (elected officials). I conducted a cross-sectional analysis to assess the impact of representation on students’ educational outcomes across the 32 school districts located in Wayne County, Michigan. Approximately 1.8 million Michiganders reside in Wayne County, making it the largest county in the state, encompassing the highest populated city, Detroit, …

Assessing Local Public Officials' Roles, Challenges, And Opportunities Encountered When Integrating Newcomers: A Case Study To Evaluate The Cities Of Rochester And Worthington., John Dassou

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Immigrants’ integration plays an important part in policy concerns and goals in many local governments since it is a major issue for local officials to integrate immigrants and incorporate them into the host community successfully. Concurrently, it is important to know the roles of local public officials, host communities, and immigrants in the process. The purpose of this study is to assess the challenges that local officials face, and how they handle these encounters effectively and efficiently. Greater collaboration between all stakeholders, social cohesion, and collective efforts implies the idea that immigrants’ integration depends on many players and factors. It …

Examining Disparities In Pre-Conviction Detention: A Race And Gender Analysis Of Criminal Charging And Detention Practices In Ramsey Countyention Practices In Ramsey County, Gabriel P. Exman

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Race and gender disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system are well documented, primarily in sources of national post-conviction data. However, localized and pre-conviction studies remain limited. This study examined race and gender disparities in pre-conviction detention outcomes and charge severity in Ramsey County, Minnesota, between 2017 and 2019. Using a descriptive, exploratory quantitative design and a retrospective single-cohort analysis, the researcher analyzed trends in arrests, charge severity, and pre-conviction incarceration duration across race and gender groups. Findings indicate disparities in both charge rates and pre-conviction detention durations, with Black men and Native American women experiencing longer periods of incarceration. …

Minnesota's Path To Prosperity: A Single Case Study Examining The Evolution Of Children's Programs And The Birth Of The Department Of Children, Youth And Families (Dcyf) - Implications For The Well-Being Of Minnesota Families, Shaneen D. Moore

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

This case study research inquiry delves into the possibilities of restructuring children's programs, with a specific focus on the establishment of the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) in Minnesota. The goal is to address and rectify ongoing challenges in the current system by employing a human-centered design approach. These challenges encompass program silos, restricted access to essential resources, and the pervasive scarcity mindset that detrimentally affects the well-being of Minnesota families. The study endeavors to investigate how the restructuring, realignment, and innovation of children's services can result in an adaptive, transformative, and people-centric system capable of providing holistic …

Through The Lens Of Social Media: Examining The Relationship Between Exposure To Social Media Videos Of Police Misconduct And Perceptions Of Legitimacy And Cooperation With Campus Police, Kamal Alhassan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how exposure to social media and internet news videos depicting police misconduct influences college students' perceptions of campus police legitimacy, procedural justice, and willingness to cooperate. Although prior research has demonstrated the impact of media portrayals on perceptions of municipal police, limited attention has been given to campus policing contexts. Guided by Tyler’s process-based theory of police legitimacy and Gerbner’s cultivation theory, this quantitative study surveyed 400 students at a large public university in the Southeastern Mid-Atlantic region. Measures included self-reported viewing and engagement with police misconduct content on social media, internet, and traditional media platforms, as …

The Dance Of Human Affairs: Public Administration Leaders’ Perceptions Of Candor’S Impact On A Sense Of Belonging, Aaron Dimmock

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines public administration leaders’ perceptions within the executive branch of the state government studied to determine if the components of radical candor, care personally and challenge directly, are associated with the sense of belonging in a public administration setting. Questions from surveys conducted by the state government studied were used to create the variables analyzed in this study. To the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first study to apply components from the Radical Candor® Framework to determine a relationship with sense of belonging in a public administration setting.

The significance of these components was tested through a quantitative, …

Annual Report For Fy25, Tennessee. Department Of General Services

Annual Reports

This annual report briefly describes the business units in General Services and financial transactions made during the fiscal year.

Examining Drug Policy In Portugal And Greece, Collin Fernandes

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the divergent drug policies implemented in Portugal and Greece, analyzing why Portugal's comprehensive decriminalization model has been more successful than Greece's partial approach. Since 2001, Portugal has pioneered a drug policy that decriminalizes all drugs for personal use while investing in harm reduction services, rehabilitation, and social reintegration. In contrast, Greece maintained criminalization while implementing more limited harm reduction measures, particularly through OKANA (the Organization Against Drugs). The research highlights how economic factors, particularly the 2008 financial crisis and austerity measures, negatively affected both countries' programs but hit Greece's initiatives with greater severity. Portugal's programs have remained …

Managing Artificial Intelligence In The Public Sector: Adoption, Implementation, And Results, Tzuhao Chen

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), governments around the world are increasingly exploring how AI can enhance decision-making and improve public service delivery. A growing body of research has examined governmental use of AI, offering insights into several key areas: (1) domains of application, (2) potential benefits and risks of AI initiatives, and (3) adoption and implementation processes, including critical determinants and results. However, two significant gaps remain in the literature. First, there is limited understanding of how the unique characteristics of AI may transform government service delivery and internal operations. Second, while many studies on AI-related managerial …

Walk The Talk? Public Libraries And Organizational Responsiveness To Marginalized Communities, Soohyun Park

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Public libraries are public service organizations, playing a critical role in ensuring equitable access to education and information for the community. Despite their growing importance, there is limited empirical evidence on how local libraries respond to the needs of diverse socioeconomic populations within their communities. This study examines the collection management decisions of local public libraries to assess whether they make differentiated service decisions and what factors influence their responsiveness. Using the concept of organizational responsiveness, it explores organizational responsiveness through the lens of equitable distribution of public service benefits and considers the role of public administrators in shaping those …

The Invisible Costs Of Privatizing Welfare: Administrative Burdens In Contracted Medicaid, Soyun Jeong

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Why do governments favor contracting out social services? Do private actors guarantee a better service experience for citizens? How should we understand the trade-off between efficiency and high-quality service delivery? These are the central questions that motivate this dissertation. Focusing on Medicaid, one of the largest social safety net programs in the United States, this dissertation investigates the impact of outsourcing Medicaid delivery to private health insurance companies. It explores how this privatized structure generates administrative burdens and shapes policy feedback effects. Theoretically, this project seeks to bridge the administrative burden and policy feedback literature by examining how burdensome policy …

Understanding How County Governments Strategically Plan And Strategize Technology: A Multiple Case Study In New York State, Battulga Buyannemekh

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Embedded in the communities they serve, local governments increasingly leverage technology to modernize processes and operations to digitally transform public services and interactions with stakeholders to create and add value. Concomitantly, they must ensure that the use of technology does not threaten the rights and safety of individuals and organizations. Digital transformation requires alignment of technology with institutional, organizational, and environmental factors in addition to persistent innovations in technology, policy, and management. This balancing act hinges on governments’ capacity for strategic technology decision-making. As technology’s value propositions expand and local governments become more reliant on it, there is a growing …

Challenges In Financial Prosperity: Cutback Management And Bounded Rationality In New York State School Districts, Moontae Hwang

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The Great Recession posed unexpected fiscal challenges for public sector entities, particularly small and mid-sized organizations such as school districts, which operate with limited revenue flexibility and constrained managerial capacity. While the recession was a macroeconomic event, which could be an exogenous shock to state and local governments beyond their control, state and local policy responses played a critical role in shaping its long-term effects on local public services. Scholars have emphasized the importance of long-term perspectives among policymakers and public managers to sustain the quality of public services during crises. However, the heightened uncertainty of the recession also constrained …

Corruption And Foreign Direct Investment In Ghana: Empirical Assessment Of The Mediating Role Of Institutional Quality And Political Stability, Isaac K. Yeboah

Graduate Research Posters

Background: Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) provides more than just capital; it introduces technology and managerial expertise, contributing significantly to economic growth. However, corruption, measured by the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), deters inflows. This study examines how Ghana’s CPI relates to FDI, with institutional quality and political stability as mediators accounting for GDP, inflation, and exchange rates as covariates.

Methods: A non-experimental quantitative design that adopts a multivariate deductive approach is used to test the theoretical propositions, and uses data from 1995 to 2022. CPI data are sourced from Transparency International, FDI from the IMF, and institutional quality and …

The Impact Of Age-Friendly Policy On New York State: How Executive Order-190 And Executive Order-23 Shape Community Development For All Ages, Trista Bercarich

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

The demographic shift toward an aging population has created an urgent need for policies that promote inclusive, livable communities for all ages. This quantitative study examined New York State’s implementation of Age-Friendly policy through Executive Order 190 (2018) and Executive Order 23 (2022), which collectively advance the integration of health, accessibility and community participation across state and local systems. Guided by environmental gerontology and psychology, aging in place and successful aging frameworks, this research utilized an adapted version of the AARP Livable Communities Survey to assess residents’ perceptions of livability with the eight AARP domains. The cross-sectional online survey (n …

Gods Guns: Why Firearms And Firearm Culture Remain Sacred To Rural Americans, Thomas Westrick

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

With ample evidence demonstrating a link between low levels of gun regulation and high levels of firearm fatalities, it seems intuitive that Americans would want to increase the level of firearm regulation to bring down the level of violence. However, the target population, white males living in rural areas of the State of Indiana and practicing the Christian Evangelical Protestant tradition, display high levels of resistance to new firearm regulation. This study sought to explore that resistance through the lens of the rural gun culture with an interpretivist qualitative design using reflexive thematic analysis to answer the research question: How …

Sunset Provisions In The Local Tax Code: Perspectives Of City Leaders In Arkansas Cities Of The First Class, Sara R. Deuster

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

Unlike their federal and state counterparts, local governments do not have someone to pass the buck to when it comes to carrying out public programs and have a limited means to generate their own source revenue to sustain non-enterprise government services. Taxation is the primary means local governments rely on to generate such revenue. With the responsibility to provide services, maintain infrastructure, and accommodate growth, municipalities must capitalize on the taxing authority allowed by their respective state. The purpose of this study was to seek understanding on how city leaders in Arkansas cities of the first class view the use …

Exploring The Impact Of Collaboration Processes On Policy Networks Success: A Case Study Of Food Policy Councils, Beomgeun Cho, In Hae Noh, April M. Roggio, Luis Felipe Luna-Reyes

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Innovative forms of collaborative governance have evolved to address a diversity of wicked problems. Collaboration processes involved in these forms of governance appear to have a paradoxical nature, where the necessary inclusiveness and diversity of actors may also be important obstacles for a successful collaboration. We apply theories of collaborative and network governance, and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, to explore the impact of collaboration process characteristics (network density, diversity, inclusion and participation) on 12 food policy councils. Our findings suggest that collaborative arrangements where diverse stakeholders have equal and inclusive access to active deliberation constitute one path to effective outcomes.

Promoting And Developing Industrial Organic Clusters In Egypt: Case Study Of Damietta Furniture Cluster, Nermen Abdelmoula

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the development of industrial clusters in Egypt, with a specific focus on the Damietta Furniture Cluster, an organic industrial cluster known for its rich tradition in furniture craftsmanship. These industrial clusters, which are primarily composed of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), are characterized by the geographical concentration of interconnected firms and institutions, play a critical role in fostering economic growth, innovation, and competitiveness, particularly in emerging economies. The research explores the key factors affecting the development of the Damietta Furniture Cluster, identifies the challenges it faces, and provides policy recommendations to enhance its growth and global …

The Role Of Innovation Hubs In Driving Local Entrepreneurial Behavior: The Case Of Creativa Innovation Hubs In Qena And Aswan, Lamees Koura

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the role of innovation hubs in driving innovation and entrepreneurial behavior among local communities, ultimately contributing to the development of better national entrepreneurship ecosystems. The researcher employed a qualitative methodology using a case study approach to conduct an empirical investigation to obtain deeper insights into the innovation hubs phenomenon using the Creativa Innovation Hubs initiative in two governorates in Upper Egypt, Qena and Aswan. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with twenty individuals between beneficiaries and managers of Creativa innovation hubs. The study demonstrated that government efforts to promote entrepreneurship through the Creativa Innovation Hubs Initiative significantly influence …