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- Title
- It Strategy and Web-Based Transaction Technology in Small Organizations.
- Creator
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Posey, Risette, Berry, Frances Stokes, Barrilleaux, Charles, Brower, Ralph, Klay, William Earle, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This study was undertaken to examine the extent to which web-based transaction technology has diffused in small North Florida nonprofit organizations and to study what, if any, relationship exists between the adoption of web-based transaction technology and the adoption of other technologies in these organizations. The study also examined the nature and frequency of strategic technology planning in these organizations, and their relationship to the adoption of web-based transaction technology...
Show moreThis study was undertaken to examine the extent to which web-based transaction technology has diffused in small North Florida nonprofit organizations and to study what, if any, relationship exists between the adoption of web-based transaction technology and the adoption of other technologies in these organizations. The study also examined the nature and frequency of strategic technology planning in these organizations, and their relationship to the adoption of web-based transaction technology. This work is important and necessary as a means of understanding how popular, useful, and potentially powerful technologies are introduced and used in small organizations, to understand what, if any, technological complexities may be associated with the adoption of this potentially powerful technology. We also seek to understand the different formal and informal means by which these nonprofit organizations consider, then move to introduce and set permanently into organizational habit patterns, new technologies.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0467
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- This Way Please: The Role of the Middle East and the United States in Shaping the Iraqi Refugee Crisis.
- Creator
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Draper, Blake A., Garretson, Peter, Carlson, Elwood, Souva, Mark, Program in International Affairs, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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The Iraqi Refugee Crisis began in 2006 as a result of the instability and violence that prevailed in Iraq following the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation. Instead of being directed to camps, Iraqis flowed across international borders of Middle Eastern states nearby Iraq to live in urban centers and face varying levels of legal accommodation and deteriorating economic security. The policies of individual states in the Middle East, along with complex demographic factors, have influenced where...
Show moreThe Iraqi Refugee Crisis began in 2006 as a result of the instability and violence that prevailed in Iraq following the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation. Instead of being directed to camps, Iraqis flowed across international borders of Middle Eastern states nearby Iraq to live in urban centers and face varying levels of legal accommodation and deteriorating economic security. The policies of individual states in the Middle East, along with complex demographic factors, have influenced where Iraqis have gone. The role of the United States in affecting the destination choices of Iraqis is examined in this paper because of the powerful position of the US in the Middle East region and its role in creating the refugee crisis. The evidence reveals that the diplomatic relations between Middle East host countries and the United States, and the self-serving political interests of those states has created and maintained a regime in which Iraqi refugees are stuck primarily in host countries along Iraq's western border. The states involved in the Iraqi Refugee Crisis have applied political self-interest to their adherence to mechanisms of international law to which they are subject. A realist perspective of international relations is employed to explain the stability-seeking, risk-averse behavior of the states influencing the direction of migration. The purpose of this paper is to determine the destination choices of Iraqi refugees and explain the factors that dictated those choices.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0672
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Local Official's Incentives and Policy-Making: Through the Lens of the Politics Administration Relationship.
- Creator
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Zhang, Yahong, Feiock, Richard C., Barrilleaux, Charles, Berry, Frances Stokes, Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This research builds on the studies of politics-administration relationships at local government level. According to the public administration literature, the politics-administration relationship has dynamically evolved from orthodox dichotomy to modified dichotomy and to partnership models. Accepting the notion that professional administrators are important policy-makers along with elected officials, which is identified in modified dichotomy and partnership models, this study raises three...
Show moreThis research builds on the studies of politics-administration relationships at local government level. According to the public administration literature, the politics-administration relationship has dynamically evolved from orthodox dichotomy to modified dichotomy and to partnership models. Accepting the notion that professional administrators are important policy-makers along with elected officials, which is identified in modified dichotomy and partnership models, this study raises three empirical questions: How are elected and appointed executives different as policy-makers? What factors determine their interaction patterns in policy-making? And, do these two types of policy-makers have different policy preferences that account for their policy behavior? To answer these questions, this study systematically identifies incentive structures faced by local elected officials and professional administrators through integrating rational choice and sociological institutional approaches. In this framework three categories of factors that shape local officials' policy behavior are specified: organizational authority, social contexts, and career status, with each indicating authority-based, social-based, and individual-based incentives. This framework not only considers incentive factors that induce certain policy behavior, but also includes constraint factors. The main proposition is that elected officials and appointed administrators, imbedded in different social settings and with different career interest, face distinct incentives to policy-making and hold different policy preferences. Using the data collected though the mayor survey and city manager survey conducted in Florida cities in 2006, three sets of empirical models—mayor-manager difference models, policy leadership model, and policy choice models—are operated to address each empirical question. The purpose for the mayor-manager difference models is to investigate whether the survey data provide empirical validation for the theoretical incentive structure framework. The models of policy leadership and policy choices apply the incentive structure framework to explore policy-making patterns, which examine the usefulness of the framework. The results of these models lend preliminary support for the framework.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0541
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- A Structural Examination of Collaborative Relations Between Nonprofit Organizations in the Greater Jacksonville Area.
- Creator
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Word, Jessica A., Brower, Ralph S., Connerly, Charles, Berry, Frances S., deHaven-Smith, Lance, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This research examines the extent to which nonprofit organization engage in collaboration as a strategic tool using the lenses of network theory, strategic alliances, and interorganizational relations literature. It provides a unique insight into the ways in which nonprofit organizations operate by using the lenses of literature developed to examine both for-profits and governments collaborative behavior. This study contributes several important findings to furthering our understanding of...
Show moreThis research examines the extent to which nonprofit organization engage in collaboration as a strategic tool using the lenses of network theory, strategic alliances, and interorganizational relations literature. It provides a unique insight into the ways in which nonprofit organizations operate by using the lenses of literature developed to examine both for-profits and governments collaborative behavior. This study contributes several important findings to furthering our understanding of collaboration within the nonprofit sector. The findings of this study suggest that there are two key elements that determine the degree to which nonprofit organizations participated in collaborations: demand for the goods and services they provide and the social structure of everyday relationships that the organizations maintain. These findings suggest that the two dominant forces at work in the extent of collaborations between nonprofit organizations are the need to keep up with demands from the community in order to fulfill the organization's mission and access to both information and opportunities to partner with others through a network. The findings also suggest power of organizations within a network setting or betweeness centrality reduces the extent to which nonprofit organizations collaborate. The second area in which this research contributed new understanding was through the examination of the networks themselves and what these examinations suggested about differences between types of nonprofits and functional networks of nonprofit organizations. Specifically, the network findings point to several emerging types of organizations such as management service organizations and volunteer referral organizations that could have important implications for the health and structure networks of nonprofits in local settings. These organizations seem to be key bridge builders between organizations operating in communities and could prove useful tools for creating stability in exchange of information and communication in local communities. In particular, this suggests that the sector itself is creating stability that Provan and Milward (2000) suggested was important to effectiveness of social service delivery networks. In contrast to their findings, the key organizing actors found in the networks of this study did not have the coercive power of control over funding that was suggested as a key feature of delivery networks they described. However, they were powerful in other respects including the potential to control access to resources such as information and/or volunteers.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0755
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- A Case of the Global-Local Dialectic: Decentralization and Teacher Training in Banten, Indonesia.
- Creator
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Young, Michael S., Milligan, Jeffrey Ayala, Carroll, Pamela, Rutledge, Stacey, Luschei, Thomas, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This study examines the social and cultural contexts, and factors of global and local sources, which influence teacher preparation and which may serve to impede or facilitate the training of public and private school English teachers at the "University of Banten," in Serang, Indonesia. A central question of the ethnographic case study is how, and to what extent professors are modeling and encouraging active-learning methods in the students' English and Education courses in response to...
Show moreThis study examines the social and cultural contexts, and factors of global and local sources, which influence teacher preparation and which may serve to impede or facilitate the training of public and private school English teachers at the "University of Banten," in Serang, Indonesia. A central question of the ethnographic case study is how, and to what extent professors are modeling and encouraging active-learning methods in the students' English and Education courses in response to decentralization reforms. The specific focus is on student-teacher preparation pedagogically and instructionally, knowledge of curriculum utilization and development in relation to Indonesian decentralization policy, and the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC-KTSP) standards for English instruction, the PAKEM Active Learning methods, and the Local Content Curriculum (LCC). Uniquely, it examines English and teacher-training responses representative of the realities of localization and globalization, and is concerned with increased levels of teacher autonomy and decision-making in contemporary Indonesia. The study also explores the implementation of decentralization and English instruction, and how past center-periphery cultural and political traditions affect response to educational reforms. A discussion of theories of educational decentralization builds a framework for situating the present contexts of Indonesian education reform in order to identify specific challenges which impact English teacher preparation and the knowledge and implementation of contemporary decentralization of education policies. The knowledge and implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC-KTSP) curriculum and instructional standards for English instruction, the concept and implementation of PAKEM Active Learning methods, and the Local Content Curriculum (LCC), which represent major elements of decentralization policy, autonomy, and self-motivation for learning, were explored thematically through ethnographic analysis. The analysis and discussion follow in-depth accounts of professors, teachers and students at the campus over 10 months and provides extensive and diverse evidence of dynamic responses to policy changes. Lecturers and teachers were well informed about and engaged in the implementation of current decentralization of education reforms, including the integration of the CBC curriculum standards with active learning methods in instruction, and the development and implementation of Local Content Curriculum courses. Global influences generally were not viewed as threatening to local, traditional cultural teaching practices, but as potentially advantageous means for improving schooling.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0743
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- The Case of the Commercial Fisheries Constitutional Net Ban Amendment in Florida: An Illustration of the Impact of Special Interest Associations on Institutional Change.
- Creator
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Smith, Nevin, Brower, Ralph S., Brooks, Jeffrey, Chackerian, Richard, deHaven-Smith, Lance, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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The research question is how does institutional change take place? The question is answered in part by the case of the impact of special interest associations on the net ban in Florida. The constitutional ban on the use of most types of nets, including all gill nets by commercial fishers in near-shore Florida waters grew out of a conflict between commercial and recreational fishing interests. Once voted into the state constitution by the citizenry, the amendment banning the use of certain...
Show moreThe research question is how does institutional change take place? The question is answered in part by the case of the impact of special interest associations on the net ban in Florida. The constitutional ban on the use of most types of nets, including all gill nets by commercial fishers in near-shore Florida waters grew out of a conflict between commercial and recreational fishing interests. Once voted into the state constitution by the citizenry, the amendment banning the use of certain nets became the latest in a series of government regulations focused on limiting saltwater fishing activities in state waters. State regulatory activities related to saltwater fishing began in the 1800's and, over time, a large number of organizations and individuals have focused their activity on the public policies surrounding saltwater fishing. Participant activities in this issue based organizational field which begin in the 1940;s are a useful way to seek insight into how institutional change occurs. This case study about the emergence of the constitutional plebiscite commonly known as the "Florida Net Ban" has been completed to provide the opportunity to increase our understanding of institutional change. The case was developed from three primary independent views provided by professional private sector public policy participants set against a general background drawn from rural fishing informants. Two views were developed from different elements of the commercial fishing industry and the associations that represent them. The third view was provided by organized recreational fishing interests. Institutional persistence in each of the three institutional pillars described by Scott; isomorphic institutional transfer as described by North; and the coevolution of institutions and organizational fields as described by Hoffman are employed in the analysis of the case to build theory about institutional change. The case provides additional insight into institutional change related to organizational fields and the importance of public entrepreneurial activity that is associated with such change. The case provides insight into the importance of making strategic and tactical choices in response to changing institutional environments to ensure maximum long range favorable policy outcomes. The case also provides perspective on how each of the three institutional pillars, provided by Scott, under go independent change
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0351
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Decentralized Governments, Networks and Interlocal Cooperation in Public Goods Supply.
- Creator
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Shrestha, Manoj K., Feiock, Richard C., Scholz, John T., Berry, Frances S., Klay, William Earle, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Political fragmentation is often considered superior for advancing allocation efficiency in the provision of public services. On the other hand, the multiplicity of local governments in a metropolitan area, acting alone, can produce diseconomies of scale and externality problems constraining Pareto-efficient supply of public services. Local governments in the U.S. federalist system address this dilemma by engaging in voluntary interlocal cooperation, typically formalized through interlocal...
Show morePolitical fragmentation is often considered superior for advancing allocation efficiency in the provision of public services. On the other hand, the multiplicity of local governments in a metropolitan area, acting alone, can produce diseconomies of scale and externality problems constraining Pareto-efficient supply of public services. Local governments in the U.S. federalist system address this dilemma by engaging in voluntary interlocal cooperation, typically formalized through interlocal service agreements. These service agreements provide an important but little understood aspect of horizontal federalism. Local governments' choice of interlocal cooperation, their resource commitment to interlocal cooperation, and the mechanism they utilize to sustain cooperation are constrained by the asset specificity and measurement difficulty problems they face in interlocal service exchange. This dissertation explains how asset specificity and measurement difficulty influence the choice and the level of interlocal cooperation, as well as how these transaction cost dimensions shape the structure of service agreements that offset the transaction risks and sustain the cooperation for efficient public service provision. Transaction cost analysis provides one approach to understand interlocal service cooperation since it involves exchange between local jurisdictions similar to the private exchanges that transaction cost economics was developed to explain. A national analysis of cities' interlocal expenditures across multiple services shows that interlocal cooperation increases with asset specificity, but it follows an inverted U-shaped relationship with measurement difficulty, implying increased service cooperation up to a certain level of measurement difficulty and then decline thereafter. The main reason for the increase in interlocal exchange is that a rise in transaction costs associated with greater asset specificity and measurement difficulty hinders market exchange. Interlocal cooperation, thus, provides the next best alternative for jurisdictions facing transaction risks. But what do local governments do to mitigate the increased transaction costs in order to maintain the interlocal agreements? The analysis demonstrates that they go beyond dyadic agreements and embed their exchange relationships to mitigate the transaction risks. The micro-level analysis of interlocal service agreements across multiple services for all the general purpose local governments in Pinellas County, Florida reveals that when transactions risks are relatively low, buyer governments tends to confine service relationships to a single provider government that can establish credibility of commitment to protect the buyers. As transaction risk increases with the potential for a reverse hold-up problem, however, buyers avoid dependence on a single provider. Instead, they develop a broader network of agreements with multiple providers to minimize the power of a single provider. This research develops a unique extension of transaction cost theory that includes exchange embeddedness to provide a stronger foundation for understanding interlocal service cooperation specifically, and the broader arena of self-organizing activities of local governments in politically fragmented systems more generally.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0324
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Institutions, Political Market, and Local Land Use Policy Change.
- Creator
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Yoo, Dongsang, Feiock, Richard C., Chapin, Timothy S., deHaven-Smith, Lance, Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This dissertation seeks to understand the prolong question, "why local communities adopt or change land use policies." The previous literature has provided partial and incomplete explanations about this issue. Property rights model does not explicitly consider the role of institutions and community interests while interest group models tend to put communities' physical characteristics as control variables. Because political economy view concentrates on the political variations, they consider...
Show moreThis dissertation seeks to understand the prolong question, "why local communities adopt or change land use policies." The previous literature has provided partial and incomplete explanations about this issue. Property rights model does not explicitly consider the role of institutions and community interests while interest group models tend to put communities' physical characteristics as control variables. Because political economy view concentrates on the political variations, they consider social and economic variables lightly. More importantly, they all ignore the role of informal institutions on local land use policy change. They are not wrong; rather they just provide partial explanations. To integrate those partial explanations and understand fully the land use policy world, it is required to construct a more comprehensive framework. In this research, I used the political market framework built upon Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to establish a comprehensive framework for local land use policy. Political market framework based on the IAD framework is a useful tool to integrate those partial aspects into a framework. Local land use policy decision, which creates distributional conflicts among community members, is a political process. In the process, various actors interact for articulating their preferences in a land use policy. Political market approach provides a useful tool to understand what values these actors have and how they are articulated in a land use policy. Political system of local governments works as formal institutions to provide incentives or constraints to a land use policy. To test why local land use policies are changed pro-environmental, I identify the variations of local comprehensive amendments in Florida cities. Comprehensive plans are policies since they constrain "who gets what." Local governments change their plans in a certain direction (pro-environmental) because they have their own institutional arrangements, community characteristics, and physical characteristics. To test the influences of these variables, I tested two models: Panel Probit Model for conservation amendments; Heckman Selection Model for the ratio of large to small scale amendments of future land use map. The results show that institutions really matter in local land use policy change. Strong mayor, district election type, turnovers of council members, and administrative capacity influence pro-environmental policy changes. The most important find is that informal institutions of social capital also constrain actors, or provide pro-environmental incentives to the local actors. In addition, community interests and physical characteristics are not ignorable. They have also significant influence on the policy change. From this research, I found that these community interests can be easily articulated in a land use policy when they go through particular institutions. Interaction terms provide that various pro-environmental interests are moderated by mayor form of government and election type as well as informal institutions. Another important finding is that rule should be considered as a configurational form, not an additive form. I define strong mayor council form from the consideration of other relevant rules such as mayor elected directly, administrative power, appointment and budget power, and veto power, even though it is still limited configuration. Only the form of government that a city charter provides does not work well in a complex political system. This study has academic and practical significance. First, by integrating four models and constructing a more comprehensive explanation, this study brings sharper theory and better understanding to local land use policy. Second, the influence of institutions has been limited to formal institutions. Adding informal institutions in the framework may provide more consistent impact of institutions on local land use policy change. Third, using dynamic interaction terms in the framework proves how institutions matter on community interests as well as additive influence of institutions on policy outcome. Finally and practically, this study may provide some clues about the solutions to environmental preservation and efficient growth management practices. Formal institutions matter since it shape incentives and constraints on policy actors. However, those institutions need much of transaction costs to be established and changed. Informal institutions, even though it is not constructed easily, play roles to reduce transaction costs of addressing problems and distributional conflicts, and provide and more efficient way to local administration of growth management.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0688
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Social Equity and the One Florida Initiative: Minority Student Admission, Retention, and Graduation in the University System.
- Creator
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Duffourc, Danielle, Guy, Mary E., DeHaven-Smith, Lance, Lick, Dale, Bowman, James, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Executive Order 99-281 (1999), commonly known as the "One Florida Initiative," abolished affirmative action policies in university admissions, state employment, and state contracting. This dissertation studies the impact that the implementation of this initiative has had on the admission, retention and graduation rates of minority students in Florida's university system. Quantitatively based trend analyses are used to examine changes in the university system during the ten years surrounding...
Show moreExecutive Order 99-281 (1999), commonly known as the "One Florida Initiative," abolished affirmative action policies in university admissions, state employment, and state contracting. This dissertation studies the impact that the implementation of this initiative has had on the admission, retention and graduation rates of minority students in Florida's university system. Quantitatively based trend analyses are used to examine changes in the university system during the ten years surrounding implementation. These analyses are supplemented by an examination of the programs put into place at each individual university in the absence of affirmative action and qualitatively-based interviews with four subject matter experts. Finally, a discussion of how these findings inform equity policies on a theoretical and on an empirical level is provided.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0653
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Public Economics, Institutions, and Financial Management of Debt Financing in Local Governments.
- Creator
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Bae, Sang-Seok, Feiock, Richard C., Zuehlke, Thomas W., Bradley, Robert, Klay, Earle, Berry, Frances S., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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With the data from Florida cities' comprehensive annual financial reports, first, we identified and categorized debt into three groups: (1) general obligation (GO) bonds, (2) notes, loan, leases, certificates of participation (NLL), and (3) governmental revenue (GR) bonds. This dissertation investigates Florida cities' debt issuance incorporating three perspectives: institutions, financial management, and public economics. First, we introduce the relationship between the GO bond limit and...
Show moreWith the data from Florida cities' comprehensive annual financial reports, first, we identified and categorized debt into three groups: (1) general obligation (GO) bonds, (2) notes, loan, leases, certificates of participation (NLL), and (3) governmental revenue (GR) bonds. This dissertation investigates Florida cities' debt issuance incorporating three perspectives: institutions, financial management, and public economics. First, we introduce the relationship between the GO bond limit and local debt financing, and develop hypotheses for the empirical tests. Second, we examine how governance structure shapes a city's debt issuance. However, we did not find any effects of GO bond limit and governance structure on local debt issuance amounts. We also began this study attempting to explain the local government's debt financing from the financial management perspective. If cities have higher financial management capacity, it was argued, they are likely to issue larger debt amounts than cities with lower financial management capacity. Overall, test results present that financial management capacity has no effect on the debt issuance amount. From the public economics perspective, first, this study examines the effect of interjurisdictional competition on cities' debt issuance based on Jensen and Toma's model. Test results reveal that interjurisdictional tax competition does not influence a city's debt issuance. Jensen and Toma's model is extended to explain the relationship between intergovernmental or overlapping government tax competition and debt financing. We contend that Jensen and Toma's model is suitable to explain the relationship between overlapping government tax competition and their debt issuances. Empirical tests show that, in Florida, there is no serious problem of intergovernmental tax competition which induces overlapping governments' debt issuances. This study also applies the flypaper effect to local government's debt financing. A weak flypaper effect is found in local governments' issuances of GO bonds and NLL while there is scant wideness for fiscal illusion in GR bond issuance. We also find that local sharing is related to the flypaper effect in debt issuance but state sharing is not.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0894
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Local Government Management Innovation Nested in State Government Levels: Local Service Delivery Contracting and Performance Measurement.
- Creator
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Hsieh, Jun Yi, Berry, Frances S., Reynolds, John, Feiock, Richard, Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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The interaction of policy and management presents a close relationship in administrative practices. This dissertation estimates the impacts on use of local performance measures related to local service contracting. The previous research only tested individual state level or local level, rather than estimated how state factors influence local practices. For example, the hierarchical rules, mandates, and laws made by state levels might affect the adoption rates of local management innovation....
Show moreThe interaction of policy and management presents a close relationship in administrative practices. This dissertation estimates the impacts on use of local performance measures related to local service contracting. The previous research only tested individual state level or local level, rather than estimated how state factors influence local practices. For example, the hierarchical rules, mandates, and laws made by state levels might affect the adoption rates of local management innovation. As well, the previous efforts only used cross-sectional data to understand the adoption of local management innovation, which may overlook the changes over time that take place in local management performance measurement innovation. In this dissertation, the propensity to "implement" the adoption of a new management instrument has been studied under the rubric of management innovation, specifically as adopting a variety of performance measurement in local service delivery contracting. To analyze the "diffusion" characteristic of space and time, the model strategies employed in this dissertation include the local level and state level with a time growth curve estimated by Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) and Hierarchical Generalized Linear Model (HGLM). To enhance understanding of the adoption and the process of management innovation, the study employs panel data drawn from the survey of 1992, 1997, and 2002 International City and County Management Association (ICMA) city administrators' responses to local service delivery programs on municipal and county governments nested in state levels to test the adoption of local performance measures related to service contracting. This dissertation intends to estimate the relationship about how contract management capacity and state factors influence the rate of use of performance measurement, and to compare two group differences of private contracting, and nonprofit contracting employed by local governments nested in state levels. Beyond our expectations, the diffusion of local performance measurement nested in state level did not significantly change over time, but the findings with the growth curve models showed that the adoption of performance measurement indeed had grown over our observed time. In general, the local contract management capacity (e.g., feasibility assessment, evaluation, and implementation) significantly matters to the adoption of three types of performance measurements (e.g., citizen satisfaction, cost, contract compliance). In individual, the contract management capacity and state factors (e.g., state divided government, state reinventions) significantly impacts the use of performance measurement for private contracting. However, the state factors weakly influence the adoption of performance measurements when local governments employed nonprofit contracting. Several factors--structural and institutional heterogeneity-- can explain these differences in use of performance measures related to private contracting, and nonprofit contracting. The empirical findings also show that state factors have a large impact on the adoption of performance measurement related to service delivery contracting. The findings suggest that local practices are indeed embedded in multilevel diffusion that may be unobserved by the previous studies in public administration research.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3699
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Constitutional Change in Local Governance: An Exploration of Institutional Entrepreneurs, Procedural Safeguards, and Selective Incentives.
- Creator
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Johnson, Linda S., Feiock, Richard C., Barrilleaux, Charles, Brower, Ralph, Berry, Fran, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This dissertation extends research in local governance constitutional change in a new direction and integrates several models of institutions to explain patterns of municipal charter change. This approach presents a new understanding of institutions, actors, and change in the municipal charter. One of the most important implications of this study is that multiple perspectives on the dynamics of local governance can be incorporated into a testable theory. This interconnection provides a...
Show moreThis dissertation extends research in local governance constitutional change in a new direction and integrates several models of institutions to explain patterns of municipal charter change. This approach presents a new understanding of institutions, actors, and change in the municipal charter. One of the most important implications of this study is that multiple perspectives on the dynamics of local governance can be incorporated into a testable theory. This interconnection provides a comprehensive and dynamic perspective of the competition for governance rules. This study differs from other studies of local constitutional change in five ways. First, the study concentrates on change in the most embedded level of the local institution, the local constitution. Second, it builds on Maser's (1998) transaction resource theory of local constitutional change by incorporating selective incentives for maintenance or change and including rejected proposed rules. Third, the study views all forms of charter change as constitutional change which allows the theory to include both charter revision and the more radical city-county consolidation as a continuum of local constitutional change. Fourth, the study integrates entrepreneurs and demanders of the status quo into the theory of competition for governance rules and procedural safeguards, extending Ostrom's Institutional Analysis Framework (1990). Finally, it moves entrepreneur studies to the constitutional level and argued that actors try to induce change in order to lock their preferences into the system. Two methods are used to provide empirical evidence of maintenance or change in the system. The first method, case studies allow in-depth explorations of complex entities for evidence of dynamics, but can be difficult in comparing multiple complex systems. The second method, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, a Boolean method, integrates complex multiple characteristics of system complexity with in-depth characteristics of diverse entities to explore the phenomenon. The central findings of the study focus on the choice of rules and the actors. In proposed consolidation charters, the electoral system rules that provide a safeguard for representation will be supported by minorities. Property owners, farmers, and business groups support rules that reduce the costs of government and protect their access to the governance structure.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3557
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Contracting Out Local Government Services to Nonprofit Organizations.
- Creator
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Jang, Hee Soun, Feiock, Richard C., Weissert, Carol S., Berry, Frances S., Brower, Ralph S., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This dissertation empirically tests theoretical arguments that contracting out municipal services results in lower service expenditures. Two research questions are investigated; what accounts for local government service provision and production decisions? And, to what extent do contracting out and the choice of sectors from which contractors are drawn influence levels of service expenditures by local governments? These questions are investigated by applying a transaction cost framework to...
Show moreThis dissertation empirically tests theoretical arguments that contracting out municipal services results in lower service expenditures. Two research questions are investigated; what accounts for local government service provision and production decisions? And, to what extent do contracting out and the choice of sectors from which contractors are drawn influence levels of service expenditures by local governments? These questions are investigated by applying a transaction cost framework to develop testable hypotheses and explain fiscal impact of municipality's service production arrangements. The empirical analysis focuses on the decision to contract out services and the resulting cost savings (if any) that result from contracting out. Six service areas for which expected transaction costs are significant were selected for analysis. These services also vary in terms of their service characteristics based on the tangibleness of service outputs and the complexity of service products. The services examined are: 1) electric utilities, 2) fire protection, 3) police, 4) parks, 5) libraries, and 6) public health services. The empirical results indicate that service specific characteristics are key determinants of contracting out decisions, the choice of sectors, and the cost savings realized from service production choices. Nonprofit production is concentrated in the softer social and human service areas. While some of the conventional thoughts on the inefficiency of government monopoly are consistently supported across all selected six services, the cost savings from private contracting to for-profit firms are only realized for electricity and fire protection service. Nonprofit organizations are an attractive option when municipalities face transaction cost incurred from difficulty in measurability of service outputs and high costs to monitor multiple dimensions of service quality. It has been found that independent nonprofit service market for lowering bidding price is important for local contracting out. This dissertation suggests that local governments may be able to partially overcome tradeoffs between cost and quality of publicly provided services by contracting out the delivery to nonprofit organizations.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3561
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Emotional Labor in Public Service Work.
- Creator
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Jin, Myung, Guy, Mary E., Brower, Ralph S., Perrewé, Pamela, Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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A number of scholars are increasingly turning their attention to the effects of emotional labor on organizational performance (Hochschild, 1983). The literature's focus on private industry reports a negative influence on its consequences for individual performance. Recent research in other fields, such as psychology, business, and public administration, however, has shown mixed results, with some reporting a positive impact on both individual and organizational performance. Previous research...
Show moreA number of scholars are increasingly turning their attention to the effects of emotional labor on organizational performance (Hochschild, 1983). The literature's focus on private industry reports a negative influence on its consequences for individual performance. Recent research in other fields, such as psychology, business, and public administration, however, has shown mixed results, with some reporting a positive impact on both individual and organizational performance. Previous research was limited to examining for-profit service industries where concern for customer satisfaction is a priority. In contrast, public service by its own nature is "regulatory" and workers' incentives are less likely to include pecuniary benefits either for themselves or their organizations. By integrating awareness of emotion work in theory building, this study seeks to present the unique influence of emotional labor in work that ranges from regulating business transactions to controlling personal behavior for both workers and citizens. Additionally, by integrating previous research, the dissertation presents a comprehensive model of the antecedents and consequences of performing emotional labor. This study examines how workers' recognition of the need for emotional labor affects the degree to which they perform it and how it affects their pride in work and burnout. Hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling will be used to test hypotheses.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3507
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Assimilation or Transformation?: An Analysis of Change in Ten Secondary Science Teachers Following an Inquiry-Based Research Experience for Teachers.
- Creator
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Blanchard, Carrie, Davis, Nancy T., Stallins, J. Anthony, Gilmer, Penny J., Southerland, Sherry A., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This dissertation examines the role of agency in county level decision making regarding Wal-Mart development within Florida counties. Framed by the theories of principal-agent, local government decision making and open systems this research examines key factors that influence a decision to allow or disallow a Wal-Mart. The method Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is employed to both theory test and theory build around the factors of agency, with the findings demonstrating that county...
Show moreThis dissertation examines the role of agency in county level decision making regarding Wal-Mart development within Florida counties. Framed by the theories of principal-agent, local government decision making and open systems this research examines key factors that influence a decision to allow or disallow a Wal-Mart. The method Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is employed to both theory test and theory build around the factors of agency, with the findings demonstrating that county poverty rates and staff recommendation are significant factors in a decision to allow a Wal-Mart.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3660
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Local Land Use Choices: An Empirical Investigation of Development Impact Fees in Florida.
- Creator
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Jeong, Moon-Gi, Feiock, Richard C., Ihlanfeldt, Keith, Berry, Frances S., Bradley, Robert B., Klay, Earle, Wolfson, Gabriela S., School of Public Administration and Policy,...
Show moreJeong, Moon-Gi, Feiock, Richard C., Ihlanfeldt, Keith, Berry, Frances S., Bradley, Robert B., Klay, Earle, Wolfson, Gabriela S., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
Show less - Abstract/Description
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What factors account for local institutional choices such as adoption of impact fees? Is there a pattern to impact fee adoptions? These questions are of critical importance because in the United States, local governments are primarily responsible for defining property rights concerning how people use land and providing basic public services to citizens. The theoretical framework to investigate impact fee adoption combines political market approaches based in interest group theories of...
Show moreWhat factors account for local institutional choices such as adoption of impact fees? Is there a pattern to impact fee adoptions? These questions are of critical importance because in the United States, local governments are primarily responsible for defining property rights concerning how people use land and providing basic public services to citizens. The theoretical framework to investigate impact fee adoption combines political market approaches based in interest group theories of property rights and diffusion theories of innovation. This framework identifies the local demanders and suppliers, intergovernmental institutions, administrative capacity, diffusion, and financial conditions. Empirical analysis focuses on adoption of impact fees—transportation, parks, fire/EMS, police/corrections, school, and library—in 66 Florida counties from 1977 to 2001, using event history analysis. The first impact fee in Florida was parks impact fees adopted by Broward County in 1977. The first ten adoptions occurred in counties located in the southern and central regions of Florida except for Holmes County, and the adoptions spread to the northern counties in the mid- and late 1980s. Counties have frequently changed impact fee schedules. Parks impact fees have been changed more often—about 4 times on average—than any other type of fees. The empirical results regarding determinants of impact fee adoptions provide several key lessons. First, the results suggest that interest groups such as high-income citizens and the development community have a significant influence on impact fee adoptions. Second, motivations of local government decision makers promote controversial impact fee adoptions such as school impact fees. Third, Florida counties experienced significant increase in the impact fee adoptions after the Growth Management Act of 1985 and case laws in 1983. Fourth, counties are more likely to adopt impact fees if more neighboring counties have adopted impact fees. Fifth, administrative capacity as a critical resource influences impact fee adoptions. Counties having employees with professional and skilled expertise are more likely to adopt impact fees. Sixth, previous studies on determinants of impact fee adoptions attributed the adoption of impact fees to local growth, especially population growth. The empirical findings provide consistent and strong effects of local growth on impact fee adoptions.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2004
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3528
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- A Grounded Analysis of the Sensemaking Process of Korean Street-Level Fire Service Officials.
- Creator
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Jeong, Hong-Sang, Brower, Ralph S., Losh, Susan C., Guy, Mary E., McCreary, Samuel M., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This is a study to critically explain how Korean street-level fire service officials make sense of problematic working situations in which they find themselves. The study wanted to three interrelated questions. First, how do Korean street-level fire service officials, through the process of conscious meaning construction, enact their problematic situations and adjust their meanings to the enacted situations? Second, how do the officials consciously draw upon existing institutional practices...
Show moreThis is a study to critically explain how Korean street-level fire service officials make sense of problematic working situations in which they find themselves. The study wanted to three interrelated questions. First, how do Korean street-level fire service officials, through the process of conscious meaning construction, enact their problematic situations and adjust their meanings to the enacted situations? Second, how do the officials consciously draw upon existing institutional practices in the constructions of meaning and develop these institutional practices through such meaning constructions? Third, how do they, through social interactions with others, accomplish the meanings of problematic situations? My answers to these questions were drawn from a grounded analysis of forty five sensemaking episodes that I collected from individual interviews. To clarify the ways in which my research participants had handled their unstructured working situations, the analysis included a multi stage iterative process. First, I examined their personal stories of the situations. Second, I developed codes inductively from their stories. Third, I generated theoretical assertions of the process in which they had constructed particular meanings of the problematic situations before them. As patterns and anomalies emerged, I used data to validate them in an iterative way, going back and forth between theory and data. Finally, the analysis concluded with a grounded model of the meaning construction (sensemaking) process. On the basis of such a data analysis, the study shows Korean street-level fire service officials' sensemaking process as one in which they consciously update the initial working relationship that they have to the physical things in their world of work, or actively construct a new dimensional working relationship with the physical things in-relation-to the social encounterers in the field of their work.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3527
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Three Essays on Tax Collection: A Historical Review, A Formal Model, and an Empirical Test of the Government's Contractual Choice of Tax Collection Between Tax Farming and Tax Bureaucracy.
- Creator
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Jang, Sungkyu, Eger, Robert J., Holcombe, Randall G., Berry, Frances S., Matkin, David S. T., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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The purpose of this dissertation is to explore questions about the government's contractual choice of tax collection between tax farming and tax bureaucracy. It is commonly assumed that tax collection is an inherent function of the government. However, historically governments commonly contracted with private agencies known as "tax farmers" to enhance their tax collection capacities until the nineteenth century. Tax farming is an efficient tax collection method, but it encouraged private tax...
Show moreThe purpose of this dissertation is to explore questions about the government's contractual choice of tax collection between tax farming and tax bureaucracy. It is commonly assumed that tax collection is an inherent function of the government. However, historically governments commonly contracted with private agencies known as "tax farmers" to enhance their tax collection capacities until the nineteenth century. Tax farming is an efficient tax collection method, but it encouraged private tax collectors to exploit taxpayers to maximize their own expected return. The dissertation tries to answer the following three research questions. First, why did governments outsource tax collection to tax farmers until the eighteenth century, and why have governments fully developed their own tax bureaucracy since the nineteenth century? Second, what are the conditions under which each tax collection contract is optimized, and what are the expected values of optimal tax collection contracts? Third, what are the effects of different tax collection contracts on administrative effectiveness and procedural fairness in contemporary government? To explore these questions, I have used the theory of agency where the principal (the government) incentivizes the agent (the tax collector) to input a high level of effort to implement delegated tasks by offering performance-based compensation. Alternatively, the principal can force the agent to input a minimal necessary level of effort by setting a monitoring system with fixed compensation. The study examines the tax collection process, exploring questions about the government's contractual choice of tax collection methods, outsourcing or insourcing the tax receivables collection process. To explore this understudied aspect of the governments' tax collection process, I explore both the effectiveness and fairness of the tax receivables collection process. My first essay is from a historical perspective, my second essay address a theoretical model of the process, and my third essay examines the process empirically across the 50 states. The first essay (Chapter 2) reviews tax collection history in Europe, the Islamic world, and Asia through the lens of the theory of agency to explore the question of why tax farming had been predominant until the eighteenth century, and why government-run tax bureaucracy have been predominant since the nineteenth century. The historical analysis focuses on identifying generalizable underlying mechanisms of tax collection contracts and key exogenous factors affecting the government's choice of tax collection contract forms. The second essay (Chapter 3) analyzes optimal conditions and relative value--the net effect of costs and benefits--of tax collection contracts through the development of a formal model of tax collection underpinned by the historical review and theory of agency. The dynamic and static optimization processes will be used to generate comparative statics. The third essay (Chapter 4) measures the effects of different contract forms on administrative effectiveness and procedural fairness in tax collection. Using panel data for the years 2000 to 2011 in state governments in the U.S., I test the following key hypothesis: delinquent tax collection outsourcing is financially effective, but it negatively impacts procedural fairness, such as the taxpayer' rights, in tax collection. The results imply two things. First, in terms of the administrative effectiveness, private tax collection reduces tax administration cost, but it has no statistical effect on the recover delinquent taxes. Second, in terms of the procedural fairness, private tax collection increases the number of tax appeals filed in the tax appeal division within state tax department, but it decreases the number of tax appeals filed with outside-independent tax appeal agency.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-5369
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Value-Added Models, Outcome-Based Teacher Performance, and the Teaching-Learning Process.
- Creator
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Miller, David Ryan, Eger, Robert J., deHaven-Smith, Lance, Herrington, Carolyn, Roehrig, Alysia, Semykina, Anastasia, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State...
Show moreMiller, David Ryan, Eger, Robert J., deHaven-Smith, Lance, Herrington, Carolyn, Roehrig, Alysia, Semykina, Anastasia, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
Show less - Abstract/Description
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Current educational reform efforts are focused on enhancing school and teacher accountability as a means of improving student learning. One policy initiative resulting from these efforts is the inclusion of outcome-based teacher performance (OTP) as a component of teacher evaluations. OTP is defined as a teacher's contribution to the learning outcomes of her students. An increasingly popular method for measuring OTP is a set of statistical techniques known as value-added models (VAMs)....
Show moreCurrent educational reform efforts are focused on enhancing school and teacher accountability as a means of improving student learning. One policy initiative resulting from these efforts is the inclusion of outcome-based teacher performance (OTP) as a component of teacher evaluations. OTP is defined as a teacher's contribution to the learning outcomes of her students. An increasingly popular method for measuring OTP is a set of statistical techniques known as value-added models (VAMs). Despite their popularity, the validity of VAM estimates of OTP has not been fully established. This dissertation contributes to the ongoing validity debate by evaluating the construct validity of VAM estimates. Specifically, construct validity is evaluated by examining the theory of the process by which teachers contribute to student learning that is implicit to VAM estimation of OTP. Embedded within each VAM is a set of theoretical implications about the teaching-learning process. In addition, the identifying conditions necessary for the estimation of OTP from observational data impose restrictions on the teaching-learning process and therefore have theoretical implications. Evaluation of these implications indicates that most are inconsistent with theoretical, empirical, and logical evidence how teachers contribute to student learning outcomes. This evidence weakens the validity of the claim that VAMs can be used to measure OTP. The degree to which this claim is weakened, however, remains a question for future research.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-5404
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Reducing the Margin of Error: Investigating Psychological Contract Violations within the Public Sector.
- Creator
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Hill, Neysa, Brower, Ralph, Ferris, Gerald, Berry, Frances, Dehaven-Smith, Lance, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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As state governments grapple with reconciling budgets, administrative changes, political upheaval and technological advancements public employees are confronted with years without raises, wavering objectives, heavy workloads, and the push for an increased cadre of skills. The researcher asks the question, what are the dynamics of psychological contract violations within the public sector? Psychological contracts have the potential to become an employee's assurance when the working environment...
Show moreAs state governments grapple with reconciling budgets, administrative changes, political upheaval and technological advancements public employees are confronted with years without raises, wavering objectives, heavy workloads, and the push for an increased cadre of skills. The researcher asks the question, what are the dynamics of psychological contract violations within the public sector? Psychological contracts have the potential to become an employee's assurance when the working environment seems tumultuous. Individuals utilize contracts to promulgate daily work endeavors and career aspirations. It is plausible that employees believe that their psychological contract can be a source of stability when there is organizational uncertainty. Through the use of qualitative methodology this research will interview public education and public law enforcement employees to uncover how public sector employees interpret and react to the occurrence of psychological contract violations.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-5362
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Florida's Community Hospitals: Service Delivery Choices and Policy Implications.
- Creator
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Crowell, Elsie Bradwell, Guy, Mary E., Cowart, Marie, Bradley, Robert, deHaven-Smith, Lance, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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During the past quarter century, efforts have been made to control rising hospital costs, which are the largest component of U.S. health care expenditures. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship among five community characteristics and hospital ownership types; determine whether there are differences in operational performance (cost and efficiency) between private nonprofit and private for-profit hospitals; and propose an answer to the question - Why do local governments...
Show moreDuring the past quarter century, efforts have been made to control rising hospital costs, which are the largest component of U.S. health care expenditures. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship among five community characteristics and hospital ownership types; determine whether there are differences in operational performance (cost and efficiency) between private nonprofit and private for-profit hospitals; and propose an answer to the question - Why do local governments contract-manage their hospital operation? Using a mixed-method research design, the findings are: (1) there are mixed results in the relationship between community characteristics and hospital ownership types; (2) there are no significant differences in operational performance of private nonprofit and private for-profit hospitals; and (3) hospitals pursue contract management services to gain hospital management expertise, financial management, medical and information technology, and human resource management and recruitment. The implications of this study calls for a broader examination of operational performance among hospital ownership types and policy direction on the goals and mission of a public private venture such as contract management.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-2984
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Politics, Institutions, and the Implementation of Growth Management Policy in Florida Cities.
- Creator
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Kang, In-Sung, Feiock, Richard C., Lloyd, Donald A., Berry, Frances, deHaven-Smith, Lance, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This study originated from the following two questions: to what extent do city governments engage in policy actions to restrict development and manage growth; and how do local political institutions shape the restrictiveness of local growth management? To answer the questions, first of all, this dissertation identifies variations in the exercise of growth management powers across cities based on financial data gathered from fiscal reports filed with the Florida Comptroller, and policy...
Show moreThis study originated from the following two questions: to what extent do city governments engage in policy actions to restrict development and manage growth; and how do local political institutions shape the restrictiveness of local growth management? To answer the questions, first of all, this dissertation identifies variations in the exercise of growth management powers across cities based on financial data gathered from fiscal reports filed with the Florida Comptroller, and policy implementation/adoption data gathered in a mail survey conducted by the author in collaboration with Richard Feiock and Antonio Tavares. Information on city level political institutions and governing structures is gathered from the International City Management Association's (ICMA) 2001 Form of Government Survey. Based on information about growth management expenditure and policy adoption/implementation, this study examines a broad set of government institutions extended to include the size and organization of city councils and standing committees. This research focused on the implementation and exercise of discretionary powers as well as policy adoption in relation to growth management based on a political market approach. In the political market approach, focusing on the demander and supplier help us understand internal forces of growth management policy. Finally, acknowledging that the underlying theory of institutions in this work is applicable to cities, this study attempts to identify cities' spatial impact on expenditures for growth management. Referring to policy diffusion theory, we review the impact of neighboring cites' on comprehensive planning expenditure as identifying the internal and external forces by using of political market and spatial effect model. In this research, the followings are the core parts we focus on implementation of growth management policy: local comprehensive planning expenditures, zoning request approval, and policy enforcement of the innovative policies. We considered the role of local institutions as supplier, political economy demands, and municipal context. For the hypotheses tests, we employ three different kinds of statistical analysis: spatial regression, ordered probit, and probit analysis.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3353
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- A Voice Crying in the Wilderness: Legislative Oversight Agencies' Efforts to Achieve Utilization.
- Creator
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VanLandingham, Gary Ryan, Berry, Frances, Weissert, Carol, deHaven-Smith, Lance, Klay, Earle, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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State legislatures face many challenges in obtaining reliable information about the policy choices they face and the effectiveness of previously established programs, and they have limited ability to enforce agency compliance with program directives. To help address these challenges, most state legislatures have created oversight offices and have endowed them with significant resources and access to information. These offices provide program evaluation and policy analysis services to their...
Show moreState legislatures face many challenges in obtaining reliable information about the policy choices they face and the effectiveness of previously established programs, and they have limited ability to enforce agency compliance with program directives. To help address these challenges, most state legislatures have created oversight offices and have endowed them with significant resources and access to information. These offices provide program evaluation and policy analysis services to their parent legislatures, and their work is intended to help improve legislative decision making and oversight. However, these intended benefits will not be realized unless legislatures actually use the information produced by these offices. Research utilization literature has identified steps that the offices can take to promote use in legislative environments. These steps can be categorized into two overall strategies—developing strong networks with decision makers, and astute marketing of research products. However, there has been little empirical information on whether these strategies are actually being used, or whether when used are related to increased satisfaction with and use of research products in the legislative environment. This study bridges this gap and identifies and analyzes the strategies that state legislative oversight offices are using to promote use of their work in the legislative process, and assesses how differences in the offices' networking and marketing activities is related to how their work is valued and used by key stakeholders—legislative staff in leadership, appropriations, and committee positions. The institutional design of the offices—whether they are located within auditing or legislative units—and the research standards they have adopted— whether they conform to Government Auditing Standards which stress organizational independence or other standards that stress utility to stakeholders—are found to be key variables related to both the offices' utilization activities and legislative stakeholder satisfaction and use of their work products. The study advances scholarship relevant to knowledge utilization and the policy process and provides practical information that evaluators and policy analysts can use to increase their value and impact and serve as an effective voice speaking truth to power rather than a voice crying in the wilderness.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4583
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Institutional Collective Action and Special Purpose Governments: Special District Formation and Regional Governance.
- Creator
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Farmer, Jayce Lavalle, Feiock, Richard C., Iatarola, Patrice, deHaven-Smith, Lance, Wolfson, Gabriella S., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Fragmented local governmental units will cooperate to address needs that span across regional boundaries while retaining local autonomy. These efforts, referred to as institutional collective action (ICA), come forth when local governments voluntarily form institutional arrangements to address common goals. Multiple jurisdictions are seen as working together to enhance their own interests, while still contributing to the needs of the broader region. Such efforts allow local governments to...
Show moreFragmented local governmental units will cooperate to address needs that span across regional boundaries while retaining local autonomy. These efforts, referred to as institutional collective action (ICA), come forth when local governments voluntarily form institutional arrangements to address common goals. Multiple jurisdictions are seen as working together to enhance their own interests, while still contributing to the needs of the broader region. Such efforts allow local governments to augment the provision of their services and address citizens' demands where doing so on an individual basis may be more difficult, specifically when limitations exist that hinder governments from taxing and borrowing for service production. As with individual collective action, ICA is easier when the number of actors is small and homogenous, and when they share common goals. The costs of acting collectively must also be lower than the costs of individual actions. When these conditions are not met, barriers to ICA will exist leading to fewer incentives to cooperate. This problem creates a need for less voluntary mechanisms to address regional goals, while maintaining some measure of self governance. This research argues that regional special districts provide this mechanism. To explore this proposition, this dissertation investigates when and how local governments create regional special purpose governments. The specific focus is on county governments, and their choices to use multi-jurisdictional special districts when faced with barriers to institutional collective action. This question is addressed using descriptive and empirical analyses. To conduct the descriptive analysis, surveys were conducted among 18 special districts that explored the implications of barriers to voluntary cooperation on regional special district formation. The empirical portion of this study was conducted using data for 790 counties collected from the U.S. Census of Governments for the periods of 1992 and 2002. Logistic and Poisson regression analyses were used to analyze these data. The major lesson which was brought forth tells us that it is important to consider the implications of the service sector when examining special district usage. The consideration of barriers to institutional collective action revealed that conditions did not have uniform effects among the various service sectors. In order for various types to be used, regional needs had to exist; however, the extent of those regional needs were based upon specific contextual factors.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4501
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Sustainability, Smart Growth and the Improvement of Public Health: Regarding Healthy Urban Governance and Physical Environment.
- Creator
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Park, Sang Chul, Feiock, Richard C., Arpan, Laura, deHaven-Smith, Lance, Lee, Keon-Hyung, Coutts, Christopher, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Recent research on local sustainability investigates the challenges to public health triggered by health disparities and inequalities. Modern public health sectors recognize that health behavioral changes among small groups and populations are not enough to promote health equality and healthy communities. Many health professions stress that the physical environment has become a key feature for reducing health disparities and accomplishing community wealth by which the environment must be...
Show moreRecent research on local sustainability investigates the challenges to public health triggered by health disparities and inequalities. Modern public health sectors recognize that health behavioral changes among small groups and populations are not enough to promote health equality and healthy communities. Many health professions stress that the physical environment has become a key feature for reducing health disparities and accomplishing community wealth by which the environment must be managed by social, economic, and demographic circumstances. To deal with modern public health concerns and the interests of physical environment, many local governments devise a comprehensive plan to address public health improvement. The purposes of the comprehensive plan are to integrate public health interests with local policy sectors as well as to seek developmental growth and environmental protection. While many local governments attempt to reconnect between the comprehensive plan and the goals of public health, not all local governments do provide a comprehensive plan for public health improvement. The variation among local governments can be explained by the concept of healthy urban governance which includes the nature of urban politics, collaborative actions, and existing population health status. Since healthy urban governance retains interactive processes to produce a comprehensive set of urban plans, the political market framework and urban governance are applied to help understand interactive processes in terms of inter-sectoral and inter-organizational collaboration; consensus building; and advancement of political bargaining and negotiating instead of one-single way of urban plan. This dissertation investigates four questions to explore the policy choice of comprehensive planning to explicitly address public health: 1) which local contextual factors affect the adoption of the comprehensive plan, 2) to the extent of the first question, which factors including urban politics and collaborative planning governance create the integrative set in order to incorporate public health in local policy sectors , 3) which health outcomes and factors associated with the existing population health status influence the adoption of the plan, and finally 4) to the extent of third question, what are the direct and indirect causalities among health factors, urban politics, and the adoption of the plan. In terms of the above research questions, this dissertation highlights three theoretical perspectives. The first perspective is urban politics by which a political institution takes into account the mediating effect of institutions as a product of interactive processes among elected politicians, the community, and interest groups. It is more likely for the politics in healthy urban governance to be highlighted in terms of collective will and whether or not a political institution can pursue a majority rule. Second is the multidisciplinary policy action which encompasses the joint actions among inter-sectoral and inter-organizational collaboration. This perspective suggests that, rather than bureaucratic fragmentation, health policy oriented specialization and professionalization, the multilateral policy actions should be operated in light of collective will, shared norms, and agreements. Third is a place-based population health which views population health as differently shaped by existing physical, social, and environmental conditions. Moreover, this view concentrates on the presumption that the creation of efficient and effective interaction among people, environment, and economy comes first so as to increase high accessibility toward physical activities; so as to promote social inclusion; and so as to enhance social connectivity. In five published data sources (i.e, 2011 survey of `Comprehensive Planning For Public Health', U.S Census Bureau, National Population Health in Wisconsin Health Institute, Municipal Year Book), Heckman Selection Model and Path analysis are utilized as analytical methods. The empirical results explore whether urban politics, collaborative planning governance, and place-based population health influence the adoption of the comprehensive plan and the integrative sets of the plan. The empirical evidence shows that the adoption and integrative set of the comprehensive plan for public health improvement are a product of the willingness of local politics which represent governmental responsibility and accountability; a product of inter-sectoral policy collaboration; a product of collective action between local planning agencies and health departments; a product of poorly-shaped community health status; and a result of the mediating role of political institutions with community health status. This dissertation suggests that the combination of entire urban plan and the goals of public health is an aggregated preference of citizen, local politics, governing bodies, interest groups, and existing population health status, and physical environment. To achieve the comprehensive set of the urban plan, the local politics should have not only a strong willingness to commit but also a mediating role reflecting community-wide needs of population health. On the other hand, the administrative function of both planning and health agencies should create a collective will to reduce organizational and policy sectoral goal conflicts, resulting in multidisciplinary policy commitments and formulation of an integrative set of urban plan. Lastly, this dissertation provides an agenda for future research. First, the effects of regional organizations and state governments can be expanded by the assumption that the benefits of physical environment cannot be isolated. Regional-wide organizations, as much as the unit of local government, can have a critical role in attracting the collective actions of local governments which attain the summative benefits of improved public health. Second, while this dissertation tests the policy output of local government, the policy outcome of the comprehensive plan for public health must be investigated in the future. Since the data for the adoption and integrative set of comprehensive plan are restricted in 2011, testing health outcomes cannot be attributed to the effect of the plan. To establish a synthesis of theoretical and analytical models, this dissertation will be expanded from analysis of policy output of local government to analysis of policy outcomes as improved public health.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-5094
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Policy Networks, Environmental Impacts and Economic Consequences of Clean Energy in the U.S: A National, State and Local Investigation.
- Creator
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Yi, Hongtao, Feiock, Richard C., Scholz, John T., Berry, Frances S., Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This dissertation contributes to the public policy literature by examining energy policy in the U.S. In a three paper format, this dissertation investigates different dimensions of energy policy. First, it covers both policy process and policy analysis. Second, it covers different levels of governance in the U.S. All three levels of governance, national, state and local levels, are covered in this study. Third, it examines different aspects of energy policy, including network interactions...
Show moreThis dissertation contributes to the public policy literature by examining energy policy in the U.S. In a three paper format, this dissertation investigates different dimensions of energy policy. First, it covers both policy process and policy analysis. Second, it covers different levels of governance in the U.S. All three levels of governance, national, state and local levels, are covered in this study. Third, it examines different aspects of energy policy, including network interactions among policy actors, environmental impacts and growth of green jobs. In the first paper, I investigate the formation of networks among the clean energy NGOs in the U.S. With network data collected on the hyperlinks from the websites of these NGOs, testable hypotheses are proposed to test the driving mechanisms for the energy policy networks in the U.S. In the second paper, I evaluate the effectiveness of these policy tools in reducing carbon emissions in electric power sector. With a panel data set for 48 continental states from 1990 to 2008, three fixed-effect panel regressions are estimated to test the impacts of these policy tools on total carbon emissions, electricity generation and carbon intensity. In the third paper, I examine the short-term direct employment effects of state and local clean energy and climate policies in U.S. metropolitan areas (MSAs) in year 2006.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-5291
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Rulemaking as a Form of Bureaucratic Response.
- Creator
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Terman, Jessica, Yang, Kaifeng, Reenock, Christopher, Berry, Frances, Brower, Ralph, Feiock, Richard, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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There is a vast literature concerning the political control that elected officials have over agency actors in the development of bureaucratic policymaking outputs. In the context of rulemaking, I theorize that, while political signals play a role in agency response, bureaucratic decision-making is also influenced by agency attention, institutional design and path dependency. Furthermore, I suggest that managers use different strategies in terms of the magnitude and timeliness of their...
Show moreThere is a vast literature concerning the political control that elected officials have over agency actors in the development of bureaucratic policymaking outputs. In the context of rulemaking, I theorize that, while political signals play a role in agency response, bureaucratic decision-making is also influenced by agency attention, institutional design and path dependency. Furthermore, I suggest that managers use different strategies in terms of the magnitude and timeliness of their response according to the uncertainty surrounding the aforementioned influences. I use a three-level random intercepts poisson model with quasi-likelihood estimation to analyze an original dataset containing 35 years of rulemaking activity for centralized contracting rules in Florida. I also conduct a qualitative analysis to examine how the nature of rulemaking changes over time. The results suggest that, in addition to political signals, agency attention, path dependency and institutional design also influence bureaucratic response.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-5226
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- A Study on Charter School Effects on Student Achievement and on Segregation in Florida Public Schools.
- Creator
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Choi, Seungbok, Berry, Frances Stokes, Becker, Betsy Jane, Brower, Ralph, deHaven-Smith, Lance, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Charter schools have now been in operation for two decades in the U.S., and for 15 years in Florida. Florida took the third place in the U.S. in the number of charter schools operated and the student enrollment in 2010. This study examined the assumed effects of charter school policy on the public school system: charter school effect on student achievement in charter schools and in TPSs, and segregation effects and stratification effects on charter schools and traditional public schools (TPSs...
Show moreCharter schools have now been in operation for two decades in the U.S., and for 15 years in Florida. Florida took the third place in the U.S. in the number of charter schools operated and the student enrollment in 2010. This study examined the assumed effects of charter school policy on the public school system: charter school effect on student achievement in charter schools and in TPSs, and segregation effects and stratification effects on charter schools and traditional public schools (TPSs). I applied three perspectives to investigate charter school effect on student achievement: School effectiveness theory, Market competition theory, and Social inequality theory. The racial/ethnic segregation effect and the socio-economic stratification effect were examined longitudinally and cross-sectionally. Datasets of primary and secondary public schools and county educational and demographic information covering 1998 to 2010 were obtained from multiple sources: the Common Core of Data from NCES, the Florida School Indicator Report, the Florida Department of Education, Florida Statistics Abstract, and Census Bureau. Hierarchical linear modeling was utilized to explore charter school effect in different organizational levels and hierarchical multivariate linear modeling was used to take into account the closely correlated relationships of the demographic compositions in public schools. The analyses of student achievement in charter schools and traditional schools indicated that charter schools and traditional public schools are significantly different from each other, and that the school characteristics were more influential on the school performances than county characteristics or the year effects, especially in the higher grades. Some charter schools achieved better in some subjects and grades in that they started at the lower scores than TPSs but grew faster during the period of 1998-2010. However, the charter school effectiveness turned out to be insignificant or even negative when control variables were introduced such as educational factors and demographic compositions. Market competition theory could not explain the variations in schools' FCAT scores, while social inequality theory explained them better. The findings of this study did not support the School Effectiveness Theory nor the Market Competition Theory in charter school movement. Instead, Social Inequality Theory was proved to be relevant to understand the differences in public school academic achievement. The analyses of segregation and stratification effects showed that charter schools were more racially and socio-economically segregated, and that they exacerbated the segregation and stratification in traditional public schools. The analyses of the Dissimilarity Index (DI) distribution among charter schools and TPSs revealed that the demographic compositions in charter schools deviate more from the county means than do TPSs during the period of 1998 through 2009. Charter schools had much lower proportion of free/reduced price lunch program students than TPSs in every school level, which was negatively related to the percentage of white students but positively to the percentage of black students. The years of charter school policy adoption in a county have similar effects on both groups: The longer it was since a county introduced charter school policy, the fewer black students and the more white students would enroll in charter schools. Overall, charter schools were likely used as pockets for white flight and self-isolation as well and exacerbated socio-economic stratification in public schools. The analyses of charter school DIs supported the warnings of white flight, self-isolation, and socio-economic stratification (Carnoy, 2000; Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield, 2003; Rivkin, 1994). Findings of this study suggested that the increasing proportion of black students and free/reduced price lunch program recipients have enrolled in TPSs for all school levels along the years during the period of 1998-2009, but that the percentages of white students in TPSs have decreased year by year even though the rates are small. The analyses implied that charter schools were likely to locate around TPSs that had a higher proportion of a certain demographic group: The higher proportion of a certain demographic groups in a certain area would induce charter schools targeting these groups. Hierarchical multivariate linear models (HMLM) were introduced to detect the relative relationships between demographic groups. The multivariate analyses suggested that middle school charters were likely to locate around the TPSs with more white students and fewer Hispanic students, while elementary charter schools opened more around the TPSs with fewer black students. The location and targeting strategies of charter schools affected also the racial/ethnic distributions in high TPSs, even though the relationship got weaker. The proportions of free/reduced lunch program students in TPSs havd a consistently and significantly negative influence on the proportions of white students and a positive influence on the percentages of black and Hispanic students in TPSs. The academic performances of TPSs were highly and negatively related to the proportion of black students, while the relationship becomes much weaker to the percentage of white students and neutral to that of Hispanic students. The cross-sectional multivariate analyses suggested that charter schools created more racially segregated educational institutes in public education in Florida. The racial/ethnic compositions in TPSs were closely interrelated to the issues of the socio-economic stratification and residential division (Carnoy, 2000; Frankenberg, et al., 2003; Rivkin, 1994). The comparisons of the explained variance proportions by HMLM models and those of other models revealed that the percentages of white students were much more sensitive to the socio-economic and residential factors than the proportions of black students were, while the proportions of Hispanic students were much more sensitive to the charter school factors. The findings of this study highlighted the critical role of social context in public educational policies and the importance of policy design. This study rediscovered the old but important principle that charter school policy makers need to take into account the expectable but ignored or unintended consequences of the policy in public education system and the impacts of the policy on the non-choosers in TPSs as well.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4770
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- George Washington: Progenitor of American Public Administration Theory.
- Creator
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Cook, Scott A. (Scott Alan), Klay, William Earle, Brower, Ralph, deHaven-Smith, Lance, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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In this dissertation I use an institutional framework to examine the contributions of George Washington to public administration theory and practice. The best way to understand current public administration theory is to examine its historical roots. Institutions are a part of culture, and thus, public administration's institutions have passed from generation to generation along with our other cultural beliefs and values. As the first commander in chief of the Continental Army, the only...
Show moreIn this dissertation I use an institutional framework to examine the contributions of George Washington to public administration theory and practice. The best way to understand current public administration theory is to examine its historical roots. Institutions are a part of culture, and thus, public administration's institutions have passed from generation to generation along with our other cultural beliefs and values. As the first commander in chief of the Continental Army, the only president of the Constitutional Convention, and the first president of the United States, Washington was frequently in positions to establish precedents that could later become institutions of American public administration. In my dissertation, I use grounded analysis and primary documents from archives to uncover Washington's theories and practices. I then match these findings to some of the most important institutions in American public administration. This research is important for three principal reasons. One, as the first administrator of the federal government, Washington was in the position to set precedent in public administration theory and practice. Two, understanding the historical development of public administration enhances our understanding of current public administration theory and practice. And three, there is a gap in the literature because current scholars have not studied Washington's contributions to public administration. In addition to uncovering Washington's general theory of public administration, I describe his contributions to theory and practice in the areas of military administration, education, Progressivism, financial management, and public-private partnerships. Washington's general theory is based on a combination of virtue ethics and utilitarianism. Using his theory, he helped originate institutions such as the federal budgeting process and the military's professional reading program, he serves as a role model for such institutions as civilian control of the military and government accountability, and he indicated the direction of such institutions as merit selection and public education.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4779
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Proenvironmental Behavior in Public Organizations: Empirical Evidence from Florida City Governments.
- Creator
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Azhar, Aisha, Yang, Kaifeng, Ferris, Gerald, Brower, Ralph, Bowman, James, Feiock, Richard, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Pro-environmental behavior (PEB) has received considerable attention in business and other social sciences disciplines. However, no study has examined the link between workplace and non-workplace PEB; almost no research study has focused on public employees' workplace PEB; and little is known as to how salient public organizational characteristics influence public employees' PEB. Building upon the existing theories in other disciplines, this dissertation examines the extent to which PEB...
Show morePro-environmental behavior (PEB) has received considerable attention in business and other social sciences disciplines. However, no study has examined the link between workplace and non-workplace PEB; almost no research study has focused on public employees' workplace PEB; and little is known as to how salient public organizational characteristics influence public employees' PEB. Building upon the existing theories in other disciplines, this dissertation examines the extent to which PEB exists in public organizations, and investigates how PEB is influenced by several salient characteristics of public organizations, i.e. public service motivation (PSM) and civic participation categorized as civic engagement and cognitive engagement. Data were collected by means of self-report surveys from public employees of two city governments in Florida-- Tallahassee and Lakeland. Confirmatory factor analysis and multiple and logistic regression analyses were employed to test the proposed model. The findings indicate that public service motivation positively influences non-workplace PEBs. Civic engagement negatively and cognitive engagement positively influences the workplace and non-workplace PEB. The barriers as moderator significantly influences the positive relationship of PSM and workplace and non-workplace PEB, the negative relationship of civic engagement and workplace PEB and positive relationship of cognitive engagement with workplace PEB. Among organizational factors, green culture and transformational leadership support workplace and non-workplace PEBs. The findings demonstrate that public organizational characteristics potentially influence employee environmental orientations not only at workplace but also in non-workplace settings.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4700
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Green Governance Innovation: The Institutional Political Market for Energy Sustainable Communities.
- Creator
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Bae, Jungah, Feiock, Richard C., Scholz, John T., Berry, Frances S., Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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What is green governance? Governance is generally defined as steering rather than rowing the changing processes of policy decisions and actions across the boundaries of the private, public and civic sectors (O'Leary, Gerard, and Bingham 2006a). Increasingly, this concept of governance has been widely employed in policy areas such as service delivery, emergency management, education and environment (Biermann et al 2009).Green governance promotes sustainability through both governmental and...
Show moreWhat is green governance? Governance is generally defined as steering rather than rowing the changing processes of policy decisions and actions across the boundaries of the private, public and civic sectors (O'Leary, Gerard, and Bingham 2006a). Increasingly, this concept of governance has been widely employed in policy areas such as service delivery, emergency management, education and environment (Biermann et al 2009).Green governance promotes sustainability through both governmental and nongovernmental entrepreneurism as well as through partnerships and collaborations. Three important but little understood elements of adoption of governmental programs and policy tools on local sustainability and climate protection are: mobilization of entrepreneurs in the community and within government to promote innovation that alters citizens behaviors to encourage sustainability (Krause 2011), political institutions to structure incentives to promote sustainability in the community or governmental operations (Cook 2010; Keohane, Revesz and Stavins 1997), networking to link local governments within a metropolitan region, and inter-organizational coordinating across governmental authorities, for-profit and nonprofit entities to promote energy and environmental sustainability (Schneider et al. 2003; Krause 2010). In the U.S. only a minority of communities have made substantial progress toward green governance. For instance, Jepson (2004) shows the variance of sustainable development which has taken action in terms of thirty-nine policies and techniques in U.S. cities. On the face, it appears that there are substantial obstacles to collective action toward local green governance (Carolyn and Schneider 2003; Krause 2010; Feiock et al. 2009). A critical question this dissertation addresses is how to explain the variation across communities, and how some communities have overcome the barriers to green governance and others not? One approach to understanding the transition to green governance is based on market supply and demand logic. Property rights theories argue that governance institutions emerge in response to scarcity and changes in relative prices (Libecap 1989; Alchian and Demsetz 1973; North 1990). Demand for new institutions is generated by the potential efficiency gains (Alchian and Demsetz 1973). This simple model provides a powerful and parsimonious explanation for institutional change but it neglects the role played by political institutions. Feiock and Lubell advance a political market model that highlights the role of political institutions (Feiock 2006; Lubell, Feiock and Ramierez 2005; 2009). One limitation of the Feiock (2006) and Lubell (2005) approach to political market explanations is emphasis on formal political institutions to the exclusion of the role of network relationships as informal institutions. This dissertation modifies and extends this political market model to advance an explanation of local green governance transition and to test it empirically. In other words, the primary concern here is about the "institutional political market explanation for green governance innovation". Cities are the central actors for framing values and diffusion of knowledge in ways that can complement command-control regulations and market competition. Cities shape public and private sector energy efficiency and conservation through a wide array of activities and responsibilities including transportation, land use regulation and building code policy decisions (Coenen and Menkveld 2002; Krause 2010). They also support energy conservation innovations and greenhouse gas mitigation programs through their own utilities as well as through programs that jurisdictions coordinate with utility companies. Thus cities play a critical role in fostering energy efficient technologies, improving existing and new construction building efficiencies and establishing energy system integration to enhance sustainable community developments. While extensive literature exists on the transfer of technologies and partnerships (Bozeman 2000; Link 2005), far less research exists examining the role of local governments in sustainability. Therefore, the investigation of local governments' roles affecting the variation of green governance is itself a unique contribution, raising questions about the motivations and capacities of municipalities to play that role.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4701
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Understanding Cross-Sector Collaboration in Emergency Management: The Dynamics of Vertical and Horizontal Networks.
- Creator
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Chang, Kaiju, Berry, Frances S., Weissert, Carol, Feiock, Richard C., Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Studies of local emergency management and homeland security collaboration have rapidly grown in the public administration research. Local governments are viewed as key actors in the U.S. to coordinate national counterterrorism efforts and provide functional activities relevant to emergency management. However, the discussions about why local governments collaborate based on the analysis of different types of collaboration in this area are still limited. Through using the mixed-methods...
Show moreStudies of local emergency management and homeland security collaboration have rapidly grown in the public administration research. Local governments are viewed as key actors in the U.S. to coordinate national counterterrorism efforts and provide functional activities relevant to emergency management. However, the discussions about why local governments collaborate based on the analysis of different types of collaboration in this area are still limited. Through using the mixed-methods approach, this dissertation develops a framework under the perspectives of organizational internal factors, organizational external factors, and emergency management/homeland security capacity to empirically study the determinants of collaboration in the context of emergency management and homeland security at the local level according to three types of collaboration: vertical, horizontal-interlocal, and horizontal-intersectoral collaborations. The ICMA 2005 Homeland Security Survey data is used to conduct the empirical analysis. This research also interviews city and county local emergency management managers in Florida to understand their 1) motivations behind each type of collaboration, 2) definitions of collaboration, 3) perceived obstacles of collaboration, 4) practical collaborative activities in both vertical and horizontal contexts, and 5) opinions on the influences of organizational internal and external factors on collaboration. The findings of this research show that factors related to resource shortage in money and information, mutual understanding, financial resource dependence on higher levels of government, and the adoption of national standard have different impacts on different types of collaboration. Organizational attention is a critical factor to all three types of collaboration. Local emergency management/homeland security capacity can be a significant determinant and mediator. From the practical point of view, horizontal collaboration is more common than vertical collaboration. For local governments, seeking resources and training opportunities can explain most parts of vertical collaboration. However, in the horizontal context, a local government not only plays a part as a resource-seeker but also as an assistance-provider to their governmental and non-governmental partners. In sum, this study helps us to gain a theoretical and practical understanding of local emergency management and homeland security collaboration in the United States.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4765
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Local Government Joint Ventures: Cooperation and Competition for Economic Development.
- Creator
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Hawkins, Christopher V. (Christopher Vincent), Chapin, Tim, Feiock, Richard, Connerly, Charles, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Voluntary cooperative arrangements are being established among local governments for economic development purposes. However, there is a lack of empirical research that explains the conditions under which cooperative joint ventures are formed. Extending the Institutional Collective Action framework to the policy area of economic development, this dissertation explores how local government units overcome transaction costs that pose barriers to acting collectively. Survey research methods are...
Show moreVoluntary cooperative arrangements are being established among local governments for economic development purposes. However, there is a lack of empirical research that explains the conditions under which cooperative joint ventures are formed. Extending the Institutional Collective Action framework to the policy area of economic development, this dissertation explores how local government units overcome transaction costs that pose barriers to acting collectively. Survey research methods are used to collect data on intergovernmental relations from 425 local governments with a population of 10,000 or more in 12 metropolitan areas. A logistic regression model is used to test the extent to which a combination of community characteristics and intergovernmental network resources influence voluntary cooperation. The findings suggest that among the factors that influence the formation of joint ventures is frequent communication among economic development officials and planners, cooperative norms and trust, and the competitive development activity of local governments.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4200
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- A Human Capital Model of the Defense-Growth Relationship.
- Creator
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McDonald, Bruce D., Eger, Robert J., Marquis, Milton H., Berry, Frances S., Bowman, James S., Matkin, David S. T., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State...
Show moreMcDonald, Bruce D., Eger, Robert J., Marquis, Milton H., Berry, Frances S., Bowman, James S., Matkin, David S. T., School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
Show less - Abstract/Description
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One of the most important questions rising out of the War on Terror and the end of the Cold War is how changes in a country's defense spending will affect its economic performance. Despite the significant amount of work on the defense-growth relationship, a consensus has failed to be reached within the literature as to whether a relationship does exist, its direction, and how it should be modeled. In this dissertation, the defense-growth relationship is investigated by looking at the effect...
Show moreOne of the most important questions rising out of the War on Terror and the end of the Cold War is how changes in a country's defense spending will affect its economic performance. Despite the significant amount of work on the defense-growth relationship, a consensus has failed to be reached within the literature as to whether a relationship does exist, its direction, and how it should be modeled. In this dissertation, the defense-growth relationship is investigated by looking at the effect of changes in the defense sector's human capital investments on growth. After theoretically deriving a human capital based model, the model is empirically tested with U.S. data for the time period 1949 to 2009. By doing so, previous scholarship on the defense-growth relationship is advanced by contributing to the theoretical foundation and theoretically deriving a model which uniquely captures the on-the-job training that enlisted soldiers and officers receive. The results show that the sector's investments have a positive effect on the economic growth of the United States. This effect is both direct and indirect. Directly, the sector's investments influence the economy's growth rate as a form of on-the-job training. The results show that approximately 18.9\% of economic growth can be attributed to the investments.Indirectly, they influence the production of a military good, which further influences general production. According to the calibrated parameters, a 1\% increase in the military good is expected to produce a 0.034\% increase in total economic output.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-5028
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Effects of Rapid Urbanization on Livelihoods in the Peri-Urban Areas of Accra, Ghana.
- Creator
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Oduro, Charles Yaw, Doan, Petra, Cobbe, James, Chapin, Timothy, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Rapid urbanization in the Third World is one of the major developmental issues that have attracted the attention of policy makers at international, national and sub-national levels. However, emphasis on the distinction between rural and urban areas often causes policy makers and planners to lose sight of important rural-urban linkages that need to be considered in the research and policy-making/planning arenas. Rural-urban linkages are probably most evident in peri-urban areas where the...
Show moreRapid urbanization in the Third World is one of the major developmental issues that have attracted the attention of policy makers at international, national and sub-national levels. However, emphasis on the distinction between rural and urban areas often causes policy makers and planners to lose sight of important rural-urban linkages that need to be considered in the research and policy-making/planning arenas. Rural-urban linkages are probably most evident in peri-urban areas where the growth of cities leads to the transformation of smaller communities. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of rapid urbanization on livelihoods in the peri-urban areas of Accra, Ghana, using the case study approach. The study focused on four of the peri-urban communities that surround the city of Accra, namely Kwashiekuma, Medie, Bortianor and Ofankor. It involved a qualitative analysis of the effects of the city's growth on the livelihood assets of residents in these communities; how the residents construct livelihood strategies in response to changes in livelihood assets; and how these changes are reflected in their livelihood outcomes (quality of life). The study has revealed several changes in livelihood assets resulting from urban expansion. These include: an increase in the range of uses and value of land and other forms of natural capital; extension of urban infrastructure (e.g. roads, electricity, private schools and health facilities) to peri-urban areas; an increase in the size and variation in the quality of the housing stock; and increased acquisition of formal education and non-agricultural vocational skills. In addition, the communal spirit that characterizes indigenous, rural communities and enable residents to extend mutual support to one another in times of need has declined in peri-urban communities, although some residents, particularly recent migrants, are able to maintain social capital that goes beyond their immediate place of residence. Residents and non-residents of peri-urban communities respond to these new opportunities by devising new livelihood strategies. Examples include the leasing of land to developers and other investors, extraction of natural resources such as stones and sand, agricultural intensification, waged employment, trading, diversification of employment and income sources, among others. However, the study also shows that there are differential effects of urbanization on the livelihoods and living conditions of peri-urban residents. While some residents have the ability to improve upon their living conditions by taking advantage of the opportunities created by urbanization, many others are worse off because they lack the capacity to utilize these opportunities. This negative effect is particularly serious among subsistence farmers, who are mainly indigenous and long-term settlers who lose their livelihoods as arable lands get converted to residential and other uses. The findings of the study point to a number of critical issues that need the urgent attention of policy makers and planners in order to ensure sustainable urban development. One of them is the need for the District Assemblies (local governments) to manage physical growth in a manner that protects the natural environment using a joint, multi-level participatory planning approach. The Assemblies should also incorporate peri-urban livelihood issues into urban policy making and planning so as to minimize the negative effects of urban growth on a section of the population, especially subsistence farmers. Measures should include the protection of fertile farmlands, helping farmers to adopt appropriate and environmentally friendly farming methods, and empowering the youth to find alternative sources of livelihood. Other pertinent issues needing attention include the need to improve upon land administration and strengthen the planning and regulatory capacity of District Assemblies.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4634
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Policy Tool Bundling: Predicting the Selection of Policy Instruments Using Bayesian Multivariate Probit Analysis.
- Creator
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Kassekert, Anthony J., Feiock, Richard, Zuehlke, Tom, Yang, Kaifeng, Berry, Frances Stokes, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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The choice of economic development incentives involves a complex system of political and economic considerations. Policy tools theory has largely focused on the individual characteristics of each particular tool and has not considered interactions among instruments or explained why multiple tools are used simultaneously in practice. Extant research has overlooked interdependence among policies and the fact that policies may serve as substitutes or compliments to each other. Building on...
Show moreThe choice of economic development incentives involves a complex system of political and economic considerations. Policy tools theory has largely focused on the individual characteristics of each particular tool and has not considered interactions among instruments or explained why multiple tools are used simultaneously in practice. Extant research has overlooked interdependence among policies and the fact that policies may serve as substitutes or compliments to each other. Building on theories of policy tools and policy diffusion, a theory of policy bundling is developed in this dissertation to explain why multiple tools are used in conjunction with one another to solve public problems. A diverse set of motivations and strategies are formed to explicate why bundling occur. The theory of policy tool bundling is empirically tested using panel data from the state of Georgia. The presence of policy tool bundling is assessed by modeling four economic incentives simultaneously with a multivariate probit model estimated using Bayesian methods. The results demonstrate that bundling is occurring between free or reduced cost land and expedited permitting and also between free or reduced cost land and industrial development bonds. No evidence of bundling was found between other incentives indicating that while policy bundling does occur in economic development, many of the observed relationships between policies are not strategic.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3323
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- The Influence of Actor Attributes and Social Relations on Game Transition: Formal Model and Empirical Analysis of Collective Action and Collaborative Economic Development Policy.
- Creator
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Lee, In Won, Feiock, Richard C., Scholz, John T., Yang, Keifeng, Lee, Keon-Hyung, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Economic development policy in jurisdictionally fragmented metropolitan areas is often characterized as a competitive environment in which local governments compete for jobs and growth. However, the positive and negative intergovernmental externalities from growth create demands for more integrated development approaches that can address economies of scale, urban sprawl, income inequality, environmental impacts, and other regional issues. This dissertation examines the formation of regional...
Show moreEconomic development policy in jurisdictionally fragmented metropolitan areas is often characterized as a competitive environment in which local governments compete for jobs and growth. However, the positive and negative intergovernmental externalities from growth create demands for more integrated development approaches that can address economies of scale, urban sprawl, income inequality, environmental impacts, and other regional issues. This dissertation examines the formation of regional economic development partnerships among local government to explain patterns of local government cooperation in pursuing economic development. The traditional game theoretic approach, based on assumptions that actors are motivated by rational calculation of benefits and costs, provides useful insights for understanding the essence of the collective action problem, but it provides only a limited and incomplete explanation for the emergence and sustainability of regional development collaboration. This dissertation investigates how the social context in which a game is embedded can determine which game the actors are supposed to play and, therefore, shapes the action of players. In other words, social structures should be considered to be both the medium and the outcome of the players' activities. A formal model of regional partnership formation is developed, taking into account actors' attributes and social relations. Propositions regarding how contextual and relational factors affect regional partnership formation are derived from this model and empirically tested.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3169
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Collaboration Among Governmental Organizations: Economic Development Policy Networks Among Local Governments.
- Creator
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Lee, Youngmi, Feiock, Richard C., Scholz, John T., Berry, Frances S., Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Fragmented jurisdictions in a metropolitan area have pursued individual economic benefits through competition with others. Intense development competition has produced negative economic externalities. Therefore, local governments have strategically considered collaborating with other jurisdictions in order to maximize benefits and minimize costs through collective actions. However, collaboration among individual communities potentially involves collective action dilemmas endemic to the...
Show moreFragmented jurisdictions in a metropolitan area have pursued individual economic benefits through competition with others. Intense development competition has produced negative economic externalities. Therefore, local governments have strategically considered collaborating with other jurisdictions in order to maximize benefits and minimize costs through collective actions. However, collaboration among individual communities potentially involves collective action dilemmas endemic to the fragmented metropolitan area. Therefore, jurisdictions strategically create and develop informal collaborative networks with others, depending on the conditions where local jurisdictions are involved. While previous studies have focused on the influence of collaborative mechanisms on economic outcomes and emphasized the importance of the roles of networks (Lee, 2009, Feiock, Steinacker, and Park 2009, Olberding 2002), this study focuses on how the networks emerge and evolve at the micro-level, especially in the economic development policy arena. This dissertation began with the research questions: how do local jurisdictions cope strategically with collective action, how do they efficiently and effectively resolve problems through informal policy networks, what motivations lead local jurisdictions to enter collaborative networks, and what effects influence the selection process of collaborative partners for local economic development. In order to answer the aforementioned questions, this study applied the institutional collective action framework (Feiock and Scholz 2010) and the cross-sectional and the longitudinal network analysis proposed by Snijder and his colleagues with the SIENA program. The micro-level analysis reveals that in the economic development policy arena, local jurisdictions prefer close-clustered relations with others, rather than loosely connected relations to central coordinators. The analysis also showed that a small number of county governments primarily play crucial coordinating roles in economic development policy networks of a metropolitan area. On the other hand, the results of the effects of homophily and resources on the selection process of collaborative partners for local development confirm that jurisdictions with insufficient resources more actively search for collaborative partners to supply resources, and that they tend to collaborate with others that share the similar political institutions and socio-economic conditions. The results help us understand the partner selection process in interjurisdictional collaboration in a metropolitan area that standard transaction costs economics cannot account for. By examining informal economic development policy networks in the decentralized metropolitan area, this dissertation provides new insights into understanding how fragmented jurisdictions within a metropolitan area self-organize to resolve problems and conflicts that result from competition between jurisdictions, and what motivations lead collaborative governance among local jurisdictions involved in economic development issues.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3152
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Environmental Local Public Goods: Open Space Preservation and Multi-Level Analysis.
- Creator
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Lee, Se Jin, Feiock, Richard C., Herrington, Carolyn, deHaven-Smith, Lance, Lee, Keon-Hyung, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Open space preservation is a critical issue responding to undesirable sprawl. Over the past decades, responding to such trends of expansion and sprawl, open space protection has become more intense. Thus, local, regional, state governments have become increasingly concerned with growth and land preservation. More explicitly, state growth management has implemented in a broad set of social goals and policy tools in the era of smart growth (Bosselman and Callies, 1971; Gillham, 2002). State...
Show moreOpen space preservation is a critical issue responding to undesirable sprawl. Over the past decades, responding to such trends of expansion and sprawl, open space protection has become more intense. Thus, local, regional, state governments have become increasingly concerned with growth and land preservation. More explicitly, state growth management has implemented in a broad set of social goals and policy tools in the era of smart growth (Bosselman and Callies, 1971; Gillham, 2002). State smart growth has concentrated on a mix of higher density residential development in order to protect open space and natural resources (Ingram et al, 2009). At local level, growth management has been implemented through the planning and regulatory tools of comprehensive plans, zoning ordinances, subdivision regulations, and capital improvement programs (Porter, 1997). Despite open space preservation is a political process, extant studies on the decision of land preservation fail to consider within political process. The purpose of this dissertation investigates what factors account for local open space preservation applying political market framework. First analysis aims to examine the impact of state growth management on local open space preservation as well as the impact of the contextual factors of county governments More specifically, with advanced methodology, Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM), it examines whether strong involvement of state level government influence open space protection made by local level governments. Second analysis examines how local political institutions' supplies and environmental interests' demands account for local open space protection with panel data of Florida Communities Trust (FCT) applications, Florida's state-wide land acquisition program, from 2001 to 2008. The empirical results show that, first, strong involvement of state government on local open space preservation leads to better outcomes. It theoretically and empirically means that contextual and political circumstances of state level government perform an additional explanation on the variation among county level. Second, local political institutions play a significant role in open space preservation. In addition to formal institution, networks as an informal institution are key driver of open space preservation. This result implies that governmental partners such as federal and states agencies and horizontal partners such as land trusts, environmental organization and non-profit organization are important in that local government can make wider array of financing mechanisms and get much of information from networks with governmental and horizontal partners. Third, environmental preservation constituencies measured by land trusts in the first analysis and environmental specialty license tag revenue in the second analysis have positive influence on open space preservation. Unlike land use regulation, development or growth machine interests have no influence on open space preservation. In sum, this dissertation confirms that strong involvement of state government influences the effort of local government on open space preservation. Open space preservation is the outcome of political institutions and environmental demands. This dissertation also suggests future study. First, future study will explore the link between open space preservation and various regulatory tools or strategies such as zoning ordinance, conservation easement, impact fees, and so on, to growth control. Another future study will be a national-wide study how state level government influences the outcome of local government with Intercept-As-Outcome Modeling. This study must provide in-depth and better understanding of dynamics of configuration of policy outcome. Networks are critical element of open space preservation and more broadly smart growth and sustainable development. Thus, Network analysis will examine relationships between public, private, and nonprofit actors, such as the Trust for Public Lands to investigate the role of both formal and informal institutions in configuring open space preservation and land acquisition decisions.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3148
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Rater Motivation in Performance Appraisal of Public Organizations: Effects of Motivating Factors on Appraisal Accuracy.
- Creator
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Park, Seejeen, Berry, Frances S., Ferris, Gerald R., Bowman, James S., Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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While there is a robust business management research field on rater motivation related to personnel appraisals, almost no research in the public sector exists on this topic. This paper makes the case for a theory based, on the public sector, and offers a preliminary model of rater motivation focused on the performance appraisal context. Expansion and empirical testing of comprehensive models of rater motivation is also offered and comparative perspective is sought by accounting for...
Show moreWhile there is a robust business management research field on rater motivation related to personnel appraisals, almost no research in the public sector exists on this topic. This paper makes the case for a theory based, on the public sector, and offers a preliminary model of rater motivation focused on the performance appraisal context. Expansion and empirical testing of comprehensive models of rater motivation is also offered and comparative perspective is sought by accounting for organization culture differences between the U.S. and Korea public organizations. The rater motivation theory, in this study, is built using three primary factors related to how accurately a supervisor is willing to conduct a performance appraisal: 1) incentive structure (incentives and disincentives), 2) felt accountability, and, 3) public service motivation. The main interest is how the three primary factors affect the outcome of perceived performance rating accuracy of the raters. In addition, this study also examines the variations in perceived rating accuracy depending on the existence of a reward system for accurate appraisers and a forced distribution rating system. The logics of Vroom's expectancy theory and Skinner's reinforcement theory are used in explaining the relationship between variables. The findings suggest that all three determinants of rater motivation positively affected perceived performance rating accuracy of the raters. Also, it was revealed that the presence of a forced distribution system negatively influenced the rating accuracy. The availability of reward systems for accurate appraisers also had a positive influence on perceived rating accuracy but was only partially supported. Contradictory to this study's expectation, raters in U.S. generally perceived lower rating accuracy than Korean raters. Overall, the findings contribute to developing a preliminary comprehensive model of rater motivation designed for the public sector, and they have implications for both the public administration literature and practice.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-7961
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Coproduction as a Service Delivery Mechanism: The Role of Information, Government, and Individuals in Producing Environmental Public Goods.
- Creator
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Curley, Cali, Feiock, Richard, Coutts, Christopher, Berry, Frances, Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This dissertation proposes a new theoretical approach to the study of coproduction; it does so by providing a refined definition of the phenomenon, and responds to two of the largest criticisms of the literature, and incorporating the impact of information on the rate of participation in programs considered coproduction. Included in this new theory is a detailed account of the role of the individual, the role of government and the interactions between the two in jointly producing a public...
Show moreThis dissertation proposes a new theoretical approach to the study of coproduction; it does so by providing a refined definition of the phenomenon, and responds to two of the largest criticisms of the literature, and incorporating the impact of information on the rate of participation in programs considered coproduction. Included in this new theory is a detailed account of the role of the individual, the role of government and the interactions between the two in jointly producing a public good. This new conceptualization identifies three forms of coproduction: enabled, voluntary, and incentivized. Energy policy is used as an arena in which to test two of these forms of coproduction in an empirical analysis. This research suggests that information and the source of that information along with the monetary costs of participation are the largest barriers to participation in programs that result in coproduction and that the magnitude of these impacts changes according to the form of coproduction. The role of traditional media, newspaper articles, in providing information is examined through content analysis. I detail the impact that clusters of information from newspaper articles may have on policy participation. In addition, I examine participation in three programs offered by the City of Tallahassee. The programs that are examined in depth are a free energy audit program which provides information to customers about how to reduce energy consumption, the rebate program that offers one-time monetary payments that reduce the overall costs of updating appliances, and the low-interest loan program that incentivizes participation through a reduced interest rate guaranteed for the length of the loan up to five years. These three programs fall into two of the three categories of coproduction and are examined for their ability to produce the public good and the determinants of participation. These determinants help to examine differences between the groups of participants, the differences in motivations, the reliance on incentives, and the role of information in participation.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-8968
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Locus of an Emergent Field: Framing Emergency Management Knowledge, Values, and Priorities within Current Academic Curricula.
- Creator
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Dilling, Janet, Klay, William Earle, Cohen-Vogel, Lora, Brower, Ralph, Berry, Frances, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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The field of Emergency Management is in a period of dramatic knowledge expansion. Practitioners from diverse public and private organizations and all levels of government are enjoying increased visibility and resources in combating a string of media enriched disaster events. A growing number of scholars and practitioners from multiple originating disciplines are bringing together an ever-increasing body of written work to support the recognition of Emergency Management as a profession and as...
Show moreThe field of Emergency Management is in a period of dramatic knowledge expansion. Practitioners from diverse public and private organizations and all levels of government are enjoying increased visibility and resources in combating a string of media enriched disaster events. A growing number of scholars and practitioners from multiple originating disciplines are bringing together an ever-increasing body of written work to support the recognition of Emergency Management as a profession and as a field for academic inquiry. This development in the United States has been propelled by the expansion of emergency management issues across disciplines, the establishment of a large number of academic programs across the country, and increasing visibility of disaster and its consequences, including the most recent emphasis on terrorism and homeland security. This study seeks to determine the degree of alignment between the perceptions of academics and practitioners in the field. To that end, this study addresses two research questions: 1) based on existing academic curricula, what are some of the core knowledge components of Emergency Management and what is the relative emphasis placed on each of the identified components; and 2) how and to what extent does the curricula content create intersection between originating disciplines and institutions of emergency management practice, or more plainly stated, between academics and practitioners.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-0331
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Emotional Labor in Public Service Roles: A Model of Dramaturgical and Dispositional Approaches.
- Creator
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Hsieh, Chih-Wei, Guy, Mary E., Brower, Ralph S., Ueno, Koji, Bowman, James S., Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Recent studies on emotional labor address how worker emotional behavior is influenced by and influences organizational routines. To build upon existing theories, this dissertation investigates the determinants and consequences of emotional labor from a perspective on the interaction of self and organization. More specifically, the dissertation offers a model of emotional labor that combines dramaturgical and dispositional approaches. In this model, display rules (the standards for appropriate...
Show moreRecent studies on emotional labor address how worker emotional behavior is influenced by and influences organizational routines. To build upon existing theories, this dissertation investigates the determinants and consequences of emotional labor from a perspective on the interaction of self and organization. More specifically, the dissertation offers a model of emotional labor that combines dramaturgical and dispositional approaches. In this model, display rules (the standards for appropriate expression of emotions on the job) and individual/organizational well-being (i.e., emotional exhaustion and service performance) act as the antecedents and consequences of emotional labor respectively. In addition, it posits that there can be mutual influences between organizational settings and personal traits on emotional behavior. Thus, individual differences—including public service motivation and emotional intelligence—are hypothesized to moderate the relationships among the antecedents, dimensions, and consequences of emotional labor. The data for hypothesis testing were collected by means of self-report survey, developed on the basis of a theoretical analysis of relevant literature. Questionnaires were administered to the Certified Public Manager (CPM) program students who are currently working full-time in service occupations in Florida. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderated multiple regression (MMR) analysis were employed to test the proposed model. Analytical results provided support for hypotheses set forth regarding the determinants and consequences of emotional labor, while the majority of the moderating hypotheses failed to be supported. The findings include: positive display rules (what to express on the job) contribute to more attempts to modify inner feelings to match the required emotional displays. In contrast, negative display rules (what not to express) result in the adjustment of observable emotional expressions to pretend feeling a desired emotion. Also, the increased emotional inauthenticity opens a window for a greater risk of job stress. In addition, more emotive efforts made by employees to approximate the desired emotion lead to better service performance. However, emotional inauthenticity often results in poor service performance. Finally, workers with higher levels of compassion will exert more efforts to comply with organizational rules and norms and report less emotive dissonance when dealing with clients/customers. Besides, commitment to public interest, compassion, and effective emotional regulation contribute to better service performance. The work advances the understanding of the subtleties of emotional labor in public service roles. Information provided not only reconciles the disputes between the dramaturgical and dispositional approaches of emotional labor, but also allows practitioners to better target their emotion management strategies and limit the potentially harmful consequences to worker health and performance. Findings demonstrate that the attention paid to the tasks performed by employees who work "with heart" to deliver services is of vital importance to enhance public service.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3698
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- The Political Economy of Energy Based Green Economic Development: Policy Tools and Their Use for Local Energy Based Green Economic Development.
- Creator
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Ha, Hyunsang, Feiock, Richard C., Chapin, Timothy C., Berry, Frances S., Lee, Keon-Hyung, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Local economic development is in transition to "green economic development." Local governments in the U.S. and other countries have adopted a variety of policy tools to promote green economic development and are appying them to to their local economies. The success of these efforts may depend on whether local officials have a systematic understanding of green development and how it is different from more conventional economic development approaches. One purpose of this study is to enhance our...
Show moreLocal economic development is in transition to "green economic development." Local governments in the U.S. and other countries have adopted a variety of policy tools to promote green economic development and are appying them to to their local economies. The success of these efforts may depend on whether local officials have a systematic understanding of green development and how it is different from more conventional economic development approaches. One purpose of this study is to enhance our understanding of green development policy by advancing a theoretical framework and identifying empirical evidence to account for local green econmic development activities and policies. The most basic but essential task is to understand when and how policy tools are used. The factors influencing conventional economic development activities and green economic development activities are drawn from three explanatory approaches in the literature on urban policy and econmic development: the economic pressure model, the political/institutional choice model, and development/environmental coalition model. These explanatory models are adapted and extended to account for energy based green economic development policy including the promotion of energy efficient technology, promotion of renewable energy development, and regulatory relief targeted to energy efficincy and renewables. This investigation produces several potentially important findings. First, local decision makers' perceptions and motivations regarding the importance of green businesses and industries significantly influence the use of each of the four policy tools. Additionally, neighborhood and environmental protection organizations, which have not had much impact on conventional development, have a significant influence on green development policy. Also, a community's standard of living and collaborative activities for green development are linked to regulatory relief for energy efficient technology development by local governments. Some of the same factors that determine conventional economic development activities such as administrative capacity, economic stress, development competition, voters' preference, and support of private organizations also influence the use of green economic development policy tools. An unanticipated finding is that Florida citizens registered as members of the Democratic or Green Party in Florida are less likely to support incentives and regulatory relief for renewable energy development. This curious result may reflect factors unique to Florida or cleavages in environmental voting blocks over renewable energy. Certain renewable energy sources are controversial and are purported to generate energy sprawl and negative environmental externalities. In Florida, renewable energy policy may be associated with Republicans because incentives and regulatory relief have usually been favored tools of the Christ administration. Since 2006, the Republican Party in power has emphasized climate changes and promoted renewable energy development. This study concludes that the development incentives for local green economic development are the product of political bargainig and collective action among stakeholders, rather than a product of economic pressures or conditions. This is in stark contrast with regulatory relief for green economic development. While regulatory relief for the use of energy efficient technology is significantly influenced by economic pressure and conditions, regulatory relief for renewable energy development is substantially influenced by political choice and stakeholders' activities. Comparison of development incentives and regulatory relief also provides new insights. Incentives for energy efficient technology are influenced by political/institutional factors and stakeholders' power and roles. In contrast regulatory relief to promote energy efficient technology development is shaped more by community economic pressures and conditions. However, both incentives and regulatory relief for renewable energy development are influenced by political bargaining and the power of environmental advocacy coalitions. The conclusion urges local governments or decision makers to pay attention to the distinctions highlighted in this analysis in the design, adoption and implementation of policy tools for green economic development.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4347
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Capacity Development and Leadership Challenges in the NGO Sector of Pakistan.
- Creator
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Afaq, Amer, Brower, Ralph S., McDowell, Stephen, deHaven-Smith, Lance, Klay, William Earle, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have gained prominence and attention at the local, national and international scene during the last two decades. NGOs are considered as important actors on the landscape of development. The NGO sector in Pakistan is gradually expanding, yet it is less mature as compared to other countries in South Asia. Most of the research available on NGOs studied the importance and role of NGOs, the impact of NGOs on social services and government - NGO relationships....
Show moreNon-governmental organizations (NGOs) have gained prominence and attention at the local, national and international scene during the last two decades. NGOs are considered as important actors on the landscape of development. The NGO sector in Pakistan is gradually expanding, yet it is less mature as compared to other countries in South Asia. Most of the research available on NGOs studied the importance and role of NGOs, the impact of NGOs on social services and government - NGO relationships. Nevertheless, capacity development, institutional strengthening and leadership development in NGOs have been largely ignored or given less attention. One goal of this study is to fill this gap and study the capacity development and leadership challenges in the NGO sector of Pakistan. Capacity development is one of the central ideas within contemporary international development. This emerges from the belief and experience that addressing social, economic and environmental issues requires greater competencies everywhere in society. This dissertation has three principal purposes: (a) to understand the dynamics and factors shaping the capacity development of NGOs in Pakistan; (b) to elaborate the pressures and challenges faced by NGOs for capacity and leadership development and (c) to generate theoretical propositions for successful capacity building interventions. In the process of achieving these goals a more general understanding of the interactions among the various stake holders in the NGO arena and the internal and external environment of NGOs were studied. This study observes that capacity development is an ongoing and long term activity that involves a wide range of actors whose participation and contributions are important. It is not a onetime activity by an outside agent. Similarly, successful capacity development interventions need to have ownership from those for whom they are designed. It is a multifaceted concept and there is no single accurate way to define and implement it. It is conceptualized and implemented by stakeholders according to their contextual situations and preferences. NGOs are successful in attaining a unique position in the development sector of Pakistan. However, this new and increasing role of NGOs has implications for organizational capacity development and skills of the NGO staff. This study supports the idea that too much emphasis on the top leadership ignores the role and importance of rank and file managers where much of the organizational knowledge exists. Also, the over emphasis on top leadership hinders the capacity development of middle level managers. The government lacks a well-established policy framework with regard to the roles and responsibilities of the NGOs in service delivery and development sector. The findings here suggest that government needs to play a more proactive role by undertaking proper institutional arrangements for NGOs where they can perform and deliver and at the same time they can be held accountable. For survival and sustainability of NGOs it is important to explore alternate sources of funding especially from private philanthropy. People in Pakistan donate large amounts of charity to religious organizations but they do not consider funding NGOs with their charities. Scholars and researchers may explore this issue further. People can be encouraged to consider donating for addressing issues like development and improvements in social services through NGOs. This study proposes that for successful and sustainable capacity development of local NGOs donors have to focus more on local NGOs and establish close ties with them in addition to the larger national level support organizations. Trust is an overarching factor that plays an important role in shaping the partnership between government and NGOs on one hand, and promoting collaboration between donors and the government on the other hand. In order to improve trust relations a genuine understanding of mutual expectations and agreements on different roles and responsibilities is expected of each stakeholder. The findings of this study demonstrate that the capacity development efforts of the three stakeholders are not properly triangulated and there exists a trust deficit among the NGOs, the government and the donors and which needs attention.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-8518
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Interlocal Collaboration on Energy Efficiency, Sustainability and Climate Change Issues.
- Creator
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Chen, Ssu-Hsien, Feiock, Richard C., Yang, Kaifeng, Cartes, David, Zhao, Tingting, Berry, Frances Stokes, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Interlocal energy collaboration builds upon network structures among local policy actors dealing with energy, climate change and sustainability issues. Collaboration efforts overcome institutional collective action (ICA) dilemmas, and cope with the problems spanning jurisdictional boundaries, externalities, and free-rider problems. Interlocal energy collaboration emerges as the agreements in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction, pollution control, land use, purchasing, retrofits,...
Show moreInterlocal energy collaboration builds upon network structures among local policy actors dealing with energy, climate change and sustainability issues. Collaboration efforts overcome institutional collective action (ICA) dilemmas, and cope with the problems spanning jurisdictional boundaries, externalities, and free-rider problems. Interlocal energy collaboration emerges as the agreements in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction, pollution control, land use, purchasing, retrofits, transportation, and so forth. Cities work collaboratively through contractual mechanisms (i.e. formal/informal agreements) and collective mechanisms (i.e. regional partnerships or membership organizations) on a variety of energy issues. What factors facilitate interlocal energy collaboration? To what extent is collaboration through interlocal contractual mechanisms different from collective mechanisms? This dissertation tries to answer these questions by examining: city goal priority on energy related issues as well as other ICA explanatory factors. Research data are drawn mainly from the 2010 national survey "Implementation of energy efficiency and sustainability program" supported by National Science Foundation and the IBM Endowment for the Business of Government. The research results show that city emphasis on common pool resource, scale economies and externality issues significantly affect individual selection of tools for energy collaboration. When expected transaction costs are extremely high or low, the contractual mechanism of informal agreement is more likely to be selected to preserve most local autonomy and flexibility; otherwise, written and formal tools for collaboration are preferred to impose constraints on individual behavior and reduce the risks of defection.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3831
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Examining Organization Learning in Public Sector Organizations: From the Perspective of Floirida Municipal Governments.
- Creator
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Jang, Hoseok, Berry, Frances Stokes, Ueno, Koji, deHaven-Smith, Lance, Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Public sector organizations currently operate in an environment of change and choice (Berry, 2007). In particular, the complex governance and unpredictable nature of the contemporary public sector environment have challenged governments' attempts to improve their performance and accountability. Organizational learning is the key to performance improvement in changing and uncertain environments (Argyris and Schon, 1996; Schein, 1993) because it is based on new knowledge development or...
Show morePublic sector organizations currently operate in an environment of change and choice (Berry, 2007). In particular, the complex governance and unpredictable nature of the contemporary public sector environment have challenged governments' attempts to improve their performance and accountability. Organizational learning is the key to performance improvement in changing and uncertain environments (Argyris and Schon, 1996; Schein, 1993) because it is based on new knowledge development or performance information use, which in turn enables managers to make better decisions to improve performance. In this respect, organizational learning is an important component of the current performance management reforms or managing for results, which focus on collecting, distributing, and using performance information to improve government organizations' performance. Although organizational learning is a critical domain in performance management, empirical understanding of organizational learning in the public sector settings is limited. Thus, this study attempts to advance both theoretical and empirical research on organizational learning in the public sector, using data from the Organizational Learning and Performance Management Survey 2010: Florida Municipal Governments. The overall research question of this dissertation is: what factors influence organizational learning in Florida municipal governments? In particular, this study attempts to assess if there are differences in the antecedents of single-loop and double-loop learning. In this study, therefore, we use two dependent variables which consist of indicators for single-loop and double-loop learning respectively, in our models to examine a facilitative environment or condition for organizational learning. To answer this research question, based on past research, this study develops a theory composed of six factors to assess what seems to impact single and double-loop learning based on: 1) structural factors, 2) cultural factors, 3) learning forums, 4) performance management systems, 5) network characteristics, and 6) external stakeholder's participation. We found strong support for our organizational learning models, and variables representing each of the six theoretical factors were significant. Research results indicated that there are some different patterns of effects and different impacts for single-loop and double-loop learning. The goal and mission orientation, strategic planning, external networks, and political officials' participation are facilitative factors to double-loop learning but do not have a significant relationship to single-loop learning, while the utilization of IT is important to single-loop learning but not to double-loop learning. Moreover, the impacts of decentralization, risk-taking culture, and learning forums are stronger in double-loop learning than in single-loop learning, while the impact of internal network is greater on single-loop learning than on double-loop learning. Low formalization, resources, and benchmarking, however, were unexpectedly found to have negative relationships with at least one type of organizational learning. Moreover, we found the mediating effect of single-loop learning on double-loop learning. Overall, the findings provide insight into antecedents of and strategies for fostering single-loop and double-loop learning, and ultimately performance improvement of local governments.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3553
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Institutional Choice in Local Economic Development Organizations.
- Creator
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Park, Jongsun, Feiock, Richard C., Barrilleaux, Charles, deHaven-Smith, Lance, Lee, Keon-Hyung, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Economic development is always a central concern for local governments, and has become increasingly important as the federal role in this area has been reduced in the last two decades. More recently, county governments have extended their activities in order to be closer to the people having greater needs and preferences resulting from economic decline and suburbanization. Economic development has become a major priority among counties. This dissertation takes an encompassing approach to...
Show moreEconomic development is always a central concern for local governments, and has become increasingly important as the federal role in this area has been reduced in the last two decades. More recently, county governments have extended their activities in order to be closer to the people having greater needs and preferences resulting from economic decline and suburbanization. Economic development has become a major priority among counties. This dissertation takes an encompassing approach to institutions that focus primarily on institutions as organization-level governing structures, but also views organizations and their choices of institutional structures as shaped by the larger institutional environments in which they are embedded. Local organizations have obvious importance for development priorities, policies, and success, but we know very little about the organizations and institutions for promoting local growth, or how and why they have chosen and changed over the past two decades. Especially, there is greater importance of local organizations in counties, because they have larger resource bases than municipalities, and stronger local identification which can facilitate economic development programs and policies. This study asks these three questions focusing on organizational choices for economic development in U.S. counties. How do communities organize themselves to promote economic development? Have county governments changed their organizational arrangements for promoting economic development? What accounts for organizational choice in three dimension of county economic development organizations: 1) internal organizations in departmental function; 2) locus of active organizations; 3) regional partnership organizations? With 500 respondents of the survey for statistical analyses, in internal organizations of county governments, the dominant choice was to place the department under the control of the county commission, administrator or manager, while the second was a separate department type in 2009. Also, the results indicate that counties with economic decline rely on separate type to robust economies, and specific interests and inter-local networks influence change of organizational arrangements positively in the structure of county governments. In the locus of development authority, public organization was the most dominant organizational arrangement for economic development in counties. Public-private organization was the second in 2009. In addition, the results of statistical analyses show that counties with economic decline and a reformed form of government rely more on public-private organizations to promote economic condition, while stronger environmental interest choose public organizations as the active actor for county economic development. Specific interests (pro-development interest and pro-environment interest) have affected change of development groups for the last 10 years. In 2009, about 80% of county governments joined in regional partnership organizations. The analysis indicates that stronger environmental interest, a reformed form of government, and a closer inter-local network are positively related with participating in the regional partnership organizations. Also, specific interests (pro-development interest and pro-environment interest) and a reformed form of government have made the county governments affiliate with the regional organizations between 1999 and 2009. Finally, this dissertation confirms that counties have chosen and changed their organizations for economic development reflecting public demands, specific interests, and inter-local relationships.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-2246
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- A Three Order Network Governance Framework and Public Network Development: Evidence from Community-Based Care (CBC) Networks in Florida.
- Creator
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Kim, Bok-Tae, Berry, Frances S., Ahn, T. K., Feiock, Richard, Yang, Kaifeng, School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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Community-based care networks have become more prevalent in health and human services over the past twenty years (Rice 2001; Romzek and Johnston 2002; Smith and Smyth 1996; Provan and Milward 1995, 2001; Lynn 1996), spurred on by the twin trends to privatize substantial service delivery and decentralize social services to local communities. Research has flourished to study how these networks operate and what types of performance outcomes result from their operation. Within the field of public...
Show moreCommunity-based care networks have become more prevalent in health and human services over the past twenty years (Rice 2001; Romzek and Johnston 2002; Smith and Smyth 1996; Provan and Milward 1995, 2001; Lynn 1996), spurred on by the twin trends to privatize substantial service delivery and decentralize social services to local communities. Research has flourished to study how these networks operate and what types of performance outcomes result from their operation. Within the field of public management, network research has evolved from a study of policy implementation to discussing types of networks, management skills, and even the impact of networking on broader agency goals. While researchers who study interorganizational relationships provided new insights into the design of public networks (e.g., Goldsmith and Eggers 2004; Keast et al. 2004; Klijn and Koppenjan 2006) or suggested approaches to managing the coordination process in network-settings (e.g., Whetten 1981; Kickert et al. 1997; Lynn, Carolyn, and Hill 2001; Agranoff and McGuire 2003), their analysis has generally failed to capture empirically the dynamic processes of network development although there are exceptions (e.g., Ring and Van de Ven 1992; Romzek and Johnston, 2002; Agranoff and McGuire, 2003; and Mandell and Keast, 2008). Through extensive fieldwork and using a variety of theoretical literatures, this study develops a framework of three stages of network development, using the example of community-based care (CBC) networks in Florida that deliver children's welfare and protective services. In Florida, the state Department of Children and Families has awarded contracts to formally designated lead agencies (including nonprofit, private and public sector agencies) in twenty two districts to coordinate and manage the delivery of services through service providers that contract with the lead agency. This CBC network has existed since 1997 and thus a comparative case study assessment of that development process is timely and able to capture the dynamic development of the CBC networks. This dissertation builds a comprehensive framework for community-based network governance. I posit that there are three orders of the network development process: Order One is network configuration; Order Two is network coordination, and Order Three is network self-regulation. In the first sage—network configuration—the network managers focus on assessing the internal and external conditions of the potential network, and then selecting the best fitting network governance structure to fit those conditions. Important conditions related to the external community include market competition and community resources, while the internal conditions include prior cooperation experience, resource dependence, and homophily. Theoretical insights from population ecology and transaction cost economics are used in this framework. In the second stage—network coordination—managers draw upon incentives and sanctions from theories of performance management, psychology, principal agency theory, social coordination, and stewardship theory to build strong coordination and performance mechanism so the network achieves is goals. The third stage is called network self-regulation, and draws on social capital and public management theories for how lead agency managers involve middle managers, attend to network stability issues and bring all the service provider partners into a close working relationship to continue improving operations and strategic goal achievement. The study answers three major questions that relate to the three order network governance framework: 1. How does one understand and describe the three stages of network development, the network configuration order, the network coordination order, and the network self-regulation order as they are linked together in a CBC network system? 2. What are the critical internal and external conditions of the CBC networks affecting network development direction as well as network configuration? What type of network configuration and what modes of network coordination are important for explaining how and why CBC network systems developed and are maintained over time? What relationships exist among these factors that impact the CBC network development over time? 3. What network developmental strategies and managerial approaches are used to drive the network development process from one stage to another? The dissertation finds empirical support for the three network development stages, and includes the development of twelve propositions that should be further tested through larger samples of networks and with different types of networks. The case studies allow us to detail a variety of coordination activities that are crucial for the successful achievement of the second order network coordination stage and the subsequent development of the third order network self-regulation stage. Finally, the dissertation develops two typical process frameworks called the linear development process, and the recursive development process, that describe the issues and tribulations that networks face depending on whether they begin with weak and/or strong internal and external conditions as they develop towards having both internal and external conditions strong which should result in the best functioning and performing community-based care networks.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-3068
- Format
- Thesis
- Title
- Muslim Women's Experience in Urban Public Spaces in a Multicultural American Context.
- Creator
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Mohamadi, Asal, Miles, Rebecca, Garretson, Peter, Doan, Petra, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida State University
- Abstract/Description
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This study seeks to understand the everyday experiences of Muslim women in public spaces of a multicultural environment. Moreover, it explores how planning should address the experiences of this particular group. The urban context of interest for this study is New York City because it hosts a multitude of immigrants from an array of cultures and ethnicities thus providing an ideal template of a multicultural city. Phenomenology is obviously well suited to a study of the phenomenon of public...
Show moreThis study seeks to understand the everyday experiences of Muslim women in public spaces of a multicultural environment. Moreover, it explores how planning should address the experiences of this particular group. The urban context of interest for this study is New York City because it hosts a multitude of immigrants from an array of cultures and ethnicities thus providing an ideal template of a multicultural city. Phenomenology is obviously well suited to a study of the phenomenon of public space for Muslim women in a particular context, and is the research approach adopted here. Based on data collected through semi-structured interviews and cognitive mapping, this study identifies six core themes, all of which address the importance of religion and culture in the way individuals experience the built environment. First, for the participants of this study the neighborhood environment is experienced as a space with its own religious identity. Mosques and Islamic centers are influential in forming this experience. Second, the built environment is also experienced as a cultural space. Arab stores, Arabic signage, and Arabic language are identified as important factors in shaping their cultural experiences. Third, most of the participants experience both Bay Ridge (the study area) and Brooklyn as physically diverse areas. The mixed-use design gives Muslim women an opportunity to move around more conveniently, without being dependent on their male family members. It also facilitates the process of integration for new immigrant women into the host country. Fourth, the participants experience being different from non-Muslims and they describe how the attitude of other people contributes to their feelings and experiences. Fifth, being exposed to people from different cultures, being in a place with racial and ethnic diversity is associated with pleasant experiences for the participants. And sixth, the last theme suggests that women of this study may experience the pressure of representing Islam positively to non-Muslims in public spaces, while at the same time they feel the pressure of upholding reputation and family honor within the community of Arabs. The findings of this study with its multicultural context suggest that the social construct of space is fluid. Gender, the control of space by the state, and the ethnic/racial/religious composition of space all contribute to how public spaces are experienced by users. The predominant presence of men, police, and social homogeneity (Muslim-only environment, White-only neighborhood, etc) makes the participants of this study experience a more private space . A lesser prevalence of men, less control of space by police, and more exposure to people from different ethnic and religious groups make spaces feel more public to the Muslim women of this study. The study's findings also suggest which places help women create meaning out of their neighborhood lives; mosques, parks and ocean views, ethnic avenues (with an emphasis on Arabic language), shopping centers (the street as a shopping district), and home appeared on almost all women's maps. There were also meaningful places to which women are not welcomed. These places were under the control of Arab men of the neighborhood, through the mechanism of their gaze. As others have advocated, the findings of this study suggest that planners should design spaces in such a way that people of different ethnicities, with different sets of values, have the opportunity to encounter each other. This would promote recognition of individuals who may feel marginalized. For Muslim women in particular, it would require ensuring that services are provided in a manner that allows Muslim women to benefit, i.e. that fits their beliefs. For example, a more visible design of parks and enough lighting as well as an appropriate location (for instance close to mosques or other cultural-religious spaces) would make services more accessible to this group of individuals. This type of planning might also suggest advocating ethno-religious festivals, which can further the recognition of the ethnic or religious values of Arab Muslims and educate non-Arabs and non-Muslims about them. The involvement of ethnic organizations in community planning boards (or at least advocating for them) may be a key factor in integrating minorities into the planning processes.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- FSU_migr_etd-4635
- Format
- Thesis