Public Administration Dissertations and Theses

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Street-Level Judgments: How the Role of Judges Influences the Decision to Collaborate in Juvenile Courts
(University of Kansas, 2019-08-31) Grayer, Misty Johnson; Epp, Charles R; Doan, Alesha E; Donovan, Brian L; O'Leary, Rosemary; Portillo, Shannon K
The use of problem-solving collaborations, much like in other areas of public management, is widespread in the United States juvenile court system. These problem-solving collaborations include, but are not limited to, problem-solving, or accountability, courts; citizen review panels; and multi-disciplinary or inter-agency review teams. As expected in public administration discourse, the notion of collaboration is deemed an imperative, and many juvenile court judges engage their courts in collaborative partnerships in order to provide innovative solutions to meet the needs of vulnerable youth and their families. Nevertheless, the use of problem-solving collaborations is often at odds with some of the central features commonly associated with the judicial system, particularly as it relates to notions of accountability, due process, and representation. Some scholars, in fact, argue that the presence of collaborations shifts the role of judges from objective arbiters to more centralized, team-player roles. This dissertation explores the factors that lead juvenile court judges to engage problem-solving collaborations. Relying on neo-institutional theory, street-level bureaucracy theory, and collaborative governance theory, and using semi-structured interviews and document analysis, I find that judges use their discretion in their dual roles as street-level bureaucrats and as managers to determine whether and how to collaborate. Specifically, I argue that juvenile court judges are most likely to engage problem-solving collaborations when such collaborations promote the goals of the court and when the use of collaboration aligns with a judge’s own conception of his/her professional identity.
The Influence of Business Interest Groups in Urban Policymaking: An Empirical Exploration of a Low Salience Policy Setting
(University of Kansas, 2019-08-31) Martel, JC; Daley, Dorothy; Krause, Rachel; Maynard-Moody, Steven; Feiock, Richard; Ekerdt, David
The lack of a national comprehensive climate change policy in the United States has prompted cities to take the lead on urban sustainability actions. Extent research has explored various political, socio-economic and institutional factors to explain why some cities pursue sustainability actions and others do not. The role of organized interest groups – particularly business interest groups – is unclear as to whether their involvement correlates with more or less likelihood of sustainability policy adoption. The pluralist nature of the American political system suggests that various organized interests compete to advance their policy positions, and business interest groups have generally been theorized as economically rational profit-maximizers who would presumably oppose environmental regulation. The overall rise in environmental awareness (Yale University and George Mason University, 2017) raises the possibility that business interest groups will support urban sustainability policies, as firm can be profitable while also limiting environmental impacts. This dissertation explores how various types of business interest groups effect the adoption of select urban sustainability policies that regulate the environmental impacts of buildings. My rationale for studying buildings is that urban sustainability is too broad of a concept to get at the nuances of interest group activity occurring in each sector, and distinctive business interest groups participate in urban policy processes depending on what sector is being regulated as many firms only work in one sector (e.g., buildings, transportation, water). Further, urban sustainability research commonly operationalizes business interest groups as one group which assumes a singular profit interest, but not all businesses respond to urban sustainability in the same way. I segment the business interest groups in an attempt to measure the effects of distinctive organized interests within a single industry – the construction industry. I generate sector-specific business interest group data rather than relying on survey data or general proxies for business interests which are more common approaches in urban sustainability research. This work overcomes the issue with obtaining business interest group data in cities by using an algorithmic approach to data collection using the Python programming language for text mining industry association websites and member directories. Using various regression methods, my findings suggest that this approach to operationalizing interest groups has merit. The segmented business interest groups have divergent effects on the energy efficiency and green building policies with traditional construction interest groups having a negative effect on policy adoption while ‘green’ construction groups have a positive effect (Chapter 3 and Chapter 4). In Chapter 5, I explore the effects of organized interests on reported energy savings in published studies using a regression-based meta-analysis approach. My results suggest that organized interests have an effect on reported energy savings, supporting a theory of advocacy bias in information sharing. On a theoretical level, this research contributes to understanding business interest groups in local urban policymaking in a low salience policy setting. It provides the insight that some segments of business interest groups are likely to have a positive effect on urban sustainability and environmental policy adoption while other segments are likely to have a negative effect, so it is important to segment business interest groups rather than treating them as one group with the same motivations. Also regarding theory, this work supposes that the buildings policy domain is low salience but it does attract political participants, albeit a narrowly focused group of technical professionals, which is divergent from some extent literature that suggests that low salience policy issues do not attract interest groups. Considering other urban sustainability sectors as low salience may be appropriate, as other areas may also attract groups of technical experts more so than citizen groups. Methodologically, this research promotes algorithmic data collection as a way to overcome difficulties in collecting city-level data.
Beyond Adoption: The Influence of Local Institutional Arrangements on Sustainability Policy Implementation and Management
(University of Kansas, 2019-05-31) Park, Young Shin; Krause, Rachel; Daley, Dorothy; O’Leary, Rosemary; Feiock, Richard; Maley, Corey
As we are more than a decade into describing and understanding local sustainability as a major phenomenon, local governments now face new challenges as they begin moving from commitment (i.e. stage of adopting sustainability goals and initiatives) to action (i.e. stage of implementing those). Research on post-adoption challenges is slowly emerging yet is still far from constituting a concrete understanding of the effective implementation of sustainability programs. This dissertation helps fill these gaps. It identifies the needs and challenges facing local governments in realizing their sustainability goals and, more importantly, investigates institutional conditions that may ease these challenges. In particular, it examines the following two topics that are known to be critical, yet challenging to achieve, for the effective implementation of sustainability programs: collaboration and performance management. The broad definition of sustainability, as embedded in its three-legged stool trope – environment, economy, and equity – means that many sustainability pogroms are likely to exist beyond the sole purview of a single department. In fact, according to a recent study, some cities have created an office entirely responsible for sustainability management, but in most cases, sustainability program management is diffused across several departments, such as land-use management, water quality control, and infrastructure maintenance. Thus, while the cross-cutting nature of sustainability necessitates collaboration among local departments involved in sustainability management, this can be challenging given the functionally departmentalized structures commonly found in our local governments. Therefore, two chapters of this dissertation examine how various institutional arrangements and conditions shape inter-departmental collaboration in sustainability management with one at the implementation stage (Chapter 1) and the other at the evaluation stage (Chapter 3). Performance management is another topic that is under-researched in sustainability literature despite its potential to advance local sustainability efforts. The data-driven approach to sustainability management is rising, as found through multiple publications of best practices and case studies, yet research evidence as to what conditions effective sustainability performance management occurs under is largely lacking, especially employing large-N data. Chapter 2 thus investigates how local governments are using performance information for sustainability management and what institutional conditions may promote such evidence-based practice using information from their performance management systems. Through the examination of the three research questions, this dissertation provides an empirical understanding of local governments’ sustainability efforts at post-adoption stages and, more importantly, identifies various institutional factors that may impede or advance efforts. In order to better assess the connection between institutional conditions and managerial practices, this dissertation employs two prominent institutional theories: rational-choice institutionalism that focuses on the role of formal institutions, such as structure, mechanisms, and resources, for understanding organizational behavior, and sociological institutionalism that broadly considers and emphasizes informal institutions, such as culture, personal networks, and symbol systems that convey meanings and social cues (Hall and Taylor 1996; Lounsbury and Ventresca 2003). Overall, this dissertation provides supporting evidence for the latter in fostering a collaborative, data-driven approach to sustainability management (CH1 and CH2). Yet, it also finds that these cultural and social cues must be directly tied to the specific action or change an organization desires to make (CH2 and CH3). This point is further confirmed in the cases of formal institutions. While formal institutions tend to have relationships that are either indirect (CH1) or of small magnitude (CH2 and CH3) with the outcome of interest in each chapter, the magnitudes of the relationships are fairly substantial when designed to target a specific action (CH3). Overall, on a theoretical level, this dissertation contributes to the rich collection of institutional studies by employing prominent theoretical perspectives and providing empirical evidence from an under-researched topic area: sustainability. This dissertation reveals a complex picture of an institutional environment where local governments translate ambiguous sustainability goals into concrete plans and actions. The implications of the study findings are discussed for both practice and future research. On a practical level, this dissertation utilizes several original large-N datasets and explores the needs for and drivers of collaborative and data-driven management of sustainability programs beyond the anecdotal evidence found in case studies and best practices. While qualitative evidence offers an invaluable source of understanding of local sustainability efforts, its limitation in generalizing findings requires co-efforts from quantitative research to establish a robust and systematic body of research evidence for effective sustainability management. This dissertation, therefore, suggests some potential ways in which our local governments can design their institutional contexts in such a way that they help them realize sustainability goals they arduously put in place.
Three Essays on the Economics of For-Profit Colleges
(University of Kansas, 2018-05-31) Shannon, Eric William; Fowles, Jacob T; Goerdel, Holly T; Krause, Rachel M; Lane, Bradley W; Saatcioglu, Argun
This dissertation consists of three studies regarding the growing role of for-profit colleges and universities in the United States. Analyzing the behaviors of these institutions through a microeconomic lens, I investigate the ways in which the internal and external environmental factors in which for-profit colleges and universities operate influence their behaviors as well as impact on traditional colleges and universities. The three separate research questions asked by this dissertation are all analyzed using sophisticated quantitative econometric models. The substantive conclusions of this dissertation is that many of the assumed behaviors of for-profit colleges and universities – such as the predatory targeting of minority communities – are not empirically realized. Additionally, this dissertation illustrates that the competitive forces introduced by for-profit colleges and universities may lead to positive increased in the efficiency of public institutions. For all three chapters, practical policy recommendations are forwarded in order to promote evidence-based policymaking as it relates to for-profit colleges and universities. Major empirical contributions of this dissertation include one of the first applications of a novel bias correction – the split-panel jackknife - to a substantive policy area as well as a comparison and discussion of the quasi-experimental methodologies used by researchers in applied policy analysis.
What Happens at the Intersection of Policy and Practice? Examining Role Conflict and Professional Alienation of Occupational Therapy Professionals in Complex Environments
(University of Kansas, 2016-12-31) Hildenbrand, Wendy C; Maynard-Moody, Steven; Fox, Michael; Getha-Taylor, Heather; Goodyear, Marilu; Weir, Joseph
ABSTRACT To examine what happens at the intersection of policy and practice, this dissertation utilizes a three-article format to advance public administration scholarship and contribute to health system research about occupational therapy. This work creates bridging links between public administration scholarship in the areas of street-level bureaucracy and policy alienation and the occupational therapy profession. The articles combine to inform the occupational therapy community by providing empirical findings to validate role conflict and professional alienation experiences of practicing occupational therapy professionals when implementing policy in practice. The Article One thesis asserts that while policy content matters, it is vital to understand the context of policy, and by extension, the context of practice as a response to policy implementation. Drawing on institutional theory, this work offers an historical review of policy-specific critical junctures in occupational history and how policy has influenced occupational therapy practice. Article Two connects institutional theory, street-level bureaucracy scholarship, and policy alienation research to explain the experience of role conflict related to implementation of productivity standards for occupational therapy professionals. Article Three utilizes street-level bureaucracy theory and policy alienation scholarship to provide the foundation for introducing “professional alienation” as an extension of policy alienation constructs. The article examines the extent to which occupational therapy professionals feel pressured to alienate core professional values, such as client-centered care, in practice. Articles Two and Three present the empirical findings from this original research study, which employed online survey methodology to explore the relationship of professional profile characteristics and work context factors with the two dependent variables of interest – role conflict and professional alienation. T-tests and multiple regression analyses indicate that professional profile characteristics such as professional credential/status and direct treatment provider designation influence role conflict and professional alienation. Work context factors that contribute to role conflict and professional alienation appear related to practice parameters and policy expectations in specific practice environments such as long term care/skilled nursing facilities and pediatric practice settings. This study lends support for future research including frontline storytelling of occupational therapy professionals, exploration of context differences, and coping strategies of frontline workers.
OMBUDS AND TITLE IX COORDINATORS: PROCEDURAL CONVERGENCE OF UNIVERSITY DISPUTE RESOLUTION MECHANISMS FOR HANDLING SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
(University of Kansas, 2015-05-31) Pappas, Brian; Epp, Charles; Frederickson, George; Goodyear, Marilu; Maynard-Moody, Steven; O'Leary, Rosemary; Shelton, Robert
This dissertation examines university non-law organizational dispute mechanisms (Ombuds and Title IX Coordinators) and their handling of sexual misconduct disputes. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague Letter to all colleges and universities receiving federal funding. In the letter, the Department of Education substantially redefined compliance with Title IX’s requirements regarding the university response to sexual abuse by faculty, staff or students. The 2011 letter imposed new liabilities on colleges and universities and greatly increased attention to the problem of sexual misconduct at universities. In response, universities faced a growing number of lawsuits, a proliferation of advocacy groups, and a White House Task Force on Protecting Students from Sexual Assault. What, precisely, universities should do in response to these pressures remains somewhat unclear. Universities face a dilemma in determining how to create fair, consistent, and reliable processes that respect the rights of both alleged perpetrators and victims, while at the same time encouraging people to bring complaints forward. Universities also must determine how to change the culture and norms surrounding campus sexual misconduct. These goals are neither easily achieved nor fully compatible. This dissertation examines how two university offices responded to these challenges. One is the long-standing office of Ombuds, which by tradition and ethical norms has been committed to using informal processes for hearing complaints. The other is the office of Title IX Coordinator, which uses formalized processes modeled in some ways on procedures used by prosecutors and courts. Data collection comprised of a review of 1200 documents and interviews with 14 Ombuds and 13 Title IX Coordinators from 22 large institutions of higher education. This dissertation observes that Ombuds and Title IX Coordinators, despite being designed in sharply contrasting ways, both face some pressures favoring formality and others favoring informality. In responding to these cross-cutting pressures, the two offices have converged (but not fully) toward a hybrid that blends elements of formality and informality. Drawing on theories of non-law ordering, neo-institutional norms, and street-level bureaucracy, this dissertation proposes a theory of procedural convergence to understand the evolution of these two offices. The theory of procedural convergence posits that organizational processes are shaped by both law-like norms favoring legal formality and competing norms of managerial effectiveness and substantive justice favoring informality. Rather than being drawn uniformly away from fidelity to law-like norms, as some theories of organizational responses to law would suggest, both Title IX Coordinators and Ombuds have become a complex blend of informality and formality.
Financial Health of Nonprofit Organizations
(University of Kansas, 2016-08-31) Myser, Suzette; Goerdel, Holly T; Fowles, Jacob; Ho, Alfred; Getha-Taylor, Heather; Wintoki, M. Babajide
Nonprofit financial health is the least developed among the three sectors – public, private nonprofit --and often focuses on vulnerability, capacity, and stability (E. I. Altman, Haldeman, & Narayanan, 1977; Ashley & Faulk, 2010; Carroll & Stater, 2009; Chang & Tuckman, 1991, 1994, 2010; Chikoto & Neely, 2014; Foster & Fine, 2007; Greenlee & Trussel, 2000; Gronbjerg, 1992; Kingma, 1993; Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003; Trussel, 2002; Yan, Denison, & Butler, 2009). The definitions of each dimension, method of measurement, and their degree of importance in evaluating financial health have not been sufficiently clarified within existing research. At the level of nonprofit organization, these are important because financial position is closely tied to mission and quality programs. At the level of sector, the sustainability of nonprofits plays a significant role alongside public and private organizations, in better connecting people to themselves, their communities and opportunities for quality of life and well-being. This makes a study of nonprofit financial health one of practical assessment, economic and management theory, but also grounded in a normative connection to valuable role of nonprofits in the American system of organizational life. This research asks three questions. First, how can nonprofit organizations monitor financial measures to guard against financial distress? Second, how do successful organizations strategize to build stable and sustainable financial health? And third, how do membership associations build sustainable financial health? Three main limitations of previous research are addressed through empirical analysis. First, nonprofit research focuses on a very limited pool of financial ratios. Second, nonprofit studies fail to examine the factors that explain the difference between large organizations’ financial health and smaller organizations’ health (or lack thereof). Third, nonprofit research largely focuses on ordinary nonprofits, neglecting the other types of nonprofit organizations, including membership associations. These three limitations are the basis of the proposed empirical articles. A second gap in previous research concerns the consistent finding that larger organizations report better financial health (Carroll, 2005; Carroll & Stater, 2009; Chikoto & Neely, 2014). We do not yet understand which characteristics of larger organizations contribute to their better financial health. A more precise definition of financial health might provide insight into the differentiating factors that contribute to this finding, particularly inclusion of multiple time frames and management strategies such as nonprofit lobbying. Also, exploration of unique characteristics of nonprofits, including volunteer workforce may provide insights. The third gap addressed by this research is the lack of finance studies focused on a critical subset of nonprofits: membership associations. Scholarship broadly recognizes the role of nonprofit organizations in supplying goods and services, as well as acting at times as agents of the government in delivering on social needs. Berry (1999), however, has notably brought attention to the contributions of nonprofits to political life and discourse, and specifically that membership organizations are engaging more than ever within this space. Membership associations are categorized as expressive organizations that promote values, affiliative organizations that promote social intercourse, and instrumental organizations that provide useful services to members (Mason, 1996). These organizations are also likely to have more representational infrastructure, in terms of internal decision making, as well as produce more excludeable benefits. For these reasons, the determinants of financial health may be enabled and constrained in ways that cannot be presumed for all nonprofits.
The Effect of Collaboration on Performance in Public Management: Evidence from Community Policing
(University of Kansas, 2016-08-31) Lira, Leonard; O'Leary, Rosemary; Fowles, Jacob; Getha-Taylor, Heather; Goerdel, Holly T.; Haider-Markel, Donald P.
Practitioners and academics expect collaboration to matter in public management. Both treat it as an imperative to goal accomplishment and view collaboration as fundamental in community policing. However, existing research seems to study the elements of collaboration such as pre-conditions/antecedents, processes, and outcomes, either individually or with two of the three aspects in conjunction. This approach leaves one portion or the other in a “black box” because there is no comprehensive perspective evaluating all three together. Therefore, this dissertation uses mixed methods and a non-linear approach that tests the impact of collaboration capacity on performance outcomes as mediated by collaborative behavior in the context of community policing. This allows a study of all three elements simultaneously. Results from testing cross-sectional and longitudinal data via mediation analysis indicate a causal mechanism in which individual collaborative behaviors of police mediate the impact of organizational collaborative capacity on performance over shorter time spans, but only partially transmit that impact over longer time spans. Further, qualitative research based on this finding indicates that other potential reasons, such as institutional factors, may provide the additional mediation variables as the proximate cause for collaboration capacity to transmit its effect over longer time spans. This study contributes toward collaboration theory by opening its black box and explaining how the internal gears of the collaborative process are contingent and turn in either direction to positively or negatively affect performance outcomes depending on a multitude of factors. It offers an empirical approach that investigates at the phenomena of collaboration from a non-linear perspective, at multiple levels. Lastly, it offers normative contributions by presenting a compelling institutional perspective that practitioners should account for in their daily practice and academics should consider as they design future research on collaboration.
Accountability Remade: The Diffusion and Reinvention of Offices of Inspectors General
(University of Kansas, 2014-12-31) Kempf, Robin J.; Epp, Charles R.; Frederickson, H. George; Maynard-Moody, Steven W.; O'Leary, Rosemary; Goodyear, Marilu; Loomis, Burdett A.
Offices of Inspectors General (OIGs), like other government accountability mechanisms, promise increased control, improved performance, and appropriate behavior from governmental actors. OIGs pursue these goals by monitoring governmental programs and operations and providing their findings to legislative or executive decision makers and/or the public, who may act on the OIGs' findings and recommendations. OIGs have enjoyed popularity in the United States recently. In 1974, neither federal, state, nor local governments had adopted a single civilian OIG; however, at the end of 2013, there were 73 federal, 109 state, 47 local, and three multijurisdictional OIGs. Yet we know very little about why OIGs are spreading, how they are designed, and what happens upon implementation. Using the lenses of neo-institutional organizational theory, agenda-setting, and bureaucratic politics, this dissertation advances a three-part thesis. First, OIGs are spreading across jurisdictions because they are seen as an organizational answer to the perceived problem of governmental waste, fraud, and abuse. The OIG concept has institutionalized, embodying the ideal of accountability. Documentary data demonstrate widespread agreement on key elements of an ideal OIG's design and function. Second, although powerful political elites embrace the OIG concept, they push back against the potential implications of an OIG having too much independence or power by adopting design changes that sometimes leave an OIG in a weakened form. In other words, although the symbol of increased accountability is desirable, actual accountability often is suspect. Third, during implementation, those being overseen by an OIG often take steps to avoid or limit the OIG's oversight. In response, OIG personnel act in strategic ways to protect their offices and the accountability mission. As a result, OIGs become "politicized bureaucracies," agencies that must engage in political maneuvering to effectively perform the duties they are assigned. These observations are supported by a comparison of all state and local OIGs adopted from 1975 through 2013, using an organizational survey and supplementary documentary data, and in-depth case studies of 38 state and local OIGs, including interviews with OIG officials at these OIGs. Data analyses includes a multivariate event history analysis and systematic qualitative analyses of documents and interviews.
Does the Race of Police Officers Matter? Police Officers on Interactions with Citizens and Police Procedures
(University of Kansas, 2014-08-31) Woods, Solomon; Epp, Charles R; Maynard-Moody, Steven; O'Leary, Rosemary; Portillo, Shannon; Staples, William G
Racial tensions in policing are as salient today as ever. While police departments face different challenges in the 21st century compared to the tumultuous years of the civil rights movement, the minority community still sees the police as the enemy. However, this relationship has taken on a considerably different dynamic as police departments have responded, in their own ways, to civil rights laws and norms. Civil rights activists fought hard for police departments to be more diverse, thinking that diversity would reduce the level of police abuse and conflict with minority communities. Fifty years later, police departments are more diverse (either through their own efforts or by court order), but many scholars argue that this has had little impact on policing. Many studies find that black officers act little or no differently than white officers, perhaps because of the socialization process into the role of a police officer. Most of these studies are based on statistical analyses of data on arrests and uses of force, not on interviews with officers themselves. This project is based on interviews with officers and concludes that the race of the officer does matter, in key ways. This dissertation asks the following questions: 1) How does having black officers on the police force affect interactions with citizens? 2) How does having black officers on the police force affect interactions among officers? Specifically, how does it affect conversations about race among officers? 3) How does having black officers on the police force affect officers' advocacy for changes in departmental policies? To address these questions, interviews were conducted in 2014 among black and white officers in a large metropolitan police department in the Midwestern United States. With regard to the first question, the interviews revealed that black and white officers in my sample are very aware that the black community has a strong level of distrust, and even hatred towards the police, but black and white officers have responded differently to this realization. Black officers I interviewed indicated they have empathy for black citizens' distrust of the police, based in part on their own life experiences, particularly experiences of police stops. As a consequence, in many cases, black officers in my sample reported that they attempt to deescalate tensions with members of the minority community by the way they communicate and the level of respect that they attempt to show. White officers were less likely to accept that black citizens might have understandable reasons to distrust the police, and, as a consequence generally did not try to reduce tensions in encounters with minority citizens. They reported that if the citizen was disrespectful or uncooperative, they would respond forcefully as authorized. Equally importantly, some white officers described poor African Americans as having a sub-culture of distrust and criminality that they suggested could not be changed but only policed. White officers I interviewed were more apt to take black citizens' ill feelings as unjustified aggression. With regard to the second research question, the interviews reveal that having black officers on the police force has eroded solidarity among officers by opening disagreement among officers over how to conduct policing in poor minority neighborhoods. Following the writings of David Sklansky, this dissertation suggests that this is ultimately a positive development in policing in that black officers are changing these departments from white monolithic institutions to departments that are more accepting of the concerns of minority communities. Nonetheless, the interviews also reveal that black and white officers do not discuss racial tensions and how to address them as much as scholars once believed. Additionally, the interviews reveal that black officers overwhelmingly do not feel fully accepted into policing. These findings contribute to the answer with regard to the third question: whether black officers try to bring about change in police policies. The interviews reveal that black officers want to make recommendations to supervisors which would improve police departments' relationship with the black community but they do not actually make those recommendations because they lack a voice in the department. This lack of voice for black officers occurs regardless of the race of the chief, as it is the mid-level supervisors who most influence whether front-line officers are heard. Taken together, these findings may have significant implications for future research and police reform. The dissertation concludes by suggesting that having black officers may considerably improve the quality of interactions with black citizens, but that there is an unrealized potential for improvements in police policy on the basis of these officers' knowledge. Simply having black officers is not enough for departments to learn these lessons and improve their policies and training. To gain these benefits, departments would need to make their organizational climate more accepting of suggestions from black front-line officers. These findings also suggest that having diversity at the mid-grade supervisory level and at the top is as important as having diversity on the front-lines.
Pathways to Change: Explaining the Effectiveness in Community Based Development Organiztions
(University of Kansas, 2014-08-31) Wright, Nathaniel Sean; Nalbandian, John; Frederickson, George; Nalbandian, John; LeRoux, Kelly; Sharp, Elaine; Ho, Alfred; Getha-Taylor, Heather
In recent years, nonprofit organizations have come under increasing pressure from funders and other key stakeholders to prove they are "worthy" of significantly expanded support and cooperation. One area in which nonprofit activity has been increasing is in the delivery of community based services. Since the late 1960s, community based development organizations (CBDOs) have been recipients of public and private funding aimed at stabilizing and improving living conditions in inner city neighborhoods. To some extent, policy makers have recognized the value of supporting CBDOs, because of their ability to mobilize local initiatives to address local priorities. CBDOs engage in various economic development activities for a wide variety of community and economic objectives. Nonetheless, developing standards to capture their performance is more complex compared to private enterprises and other nonprofits such as human service organizations. This distinctiveness points to the need to develop a more inclusive model which captures organizational characteristics and environmental factors as correlates of organizational effectiveness. This study attempts to add to the theoretical framework of CBDO effectiveness by developing testable hypotheses. Moreover, this study offers a two-staged approach 1. Through a perceptual measure, based on self-reports gathered through a survey of CBDO leaders, and 2. Through an objective measure based on census data indicating the city-level change in vacant housing. The findings from ordinary least square regression models suggest that performance indicators, political capacity, board governance, and CBDO expenditures are important predictors of CBDO effectiveness. This study concludes with an in-depth discussion of findings and avenues for future research.
Specifying and Testing a Multi-Dimensional Model of Publicness: An Analysis of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities
(University of Kansas, 2014-05-31) Merritt, Cullen; O'Leary, Rosemary; Frederickson, George; Getha-Taylor, Heather; Portillo, Shannon; Deboeck, Pascal
This study specifies and tests a multi-dimensional model of publicness, building upon extant literature in this area. Publicness represents the degree to which an organization has "public" ties. An organization's degree of publicness is theoretically associated with four dimensions: political authority, social equity, external engagement, and transparency. In other words, an organization's publicness is collectively based on the extent to which it is subject to political authority (Bozeman, 1987), as well as its level of: social equity; engagement with external enterprises that compel "morally governed behavior" (e.g., accreditation agencies); and openness. Data on public and private (for-profit and non-profit) mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities collected from the 2011 National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS) provides the basis for conducting a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). In addition, interviews with 21 senior managers of mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities throughout all regions of the United States are conducted and analyzed using general deductive analysis to understand the dimensions associated with publicness. Considered together, quantitative and qualitative findings demonstrate support for a multi-dimensional conception of publicness. Specifically, quantitative findings support a three-factor structure--where the dimensions of political authority, social equity, and external engagement are distinct but related to aspects of publicness. Qualitative findings support the originally hypothesized four-factor structure. The multi-dimensional model of publicness expands understanding of what constitutes a "public" organization beyond its governmental features (e.g., public ownership and public funding). In addition, multi-dimensional publicness may provide a more nuanced understanding of the full range of institutional features that distinctly shape organizational behaviors and performance outcomes of public value. Therefore, this study concludes by highlighting the public management implications associated with an organization's publicness.
FOLLOWING THE LEADER OR LEADING THE FOLLOWER? THE EFFECTS OF MISSION-DRIVEN VS. LEADER-DRIVEN COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
(University of Kansas, 2013-12-31) Keim, Susan; Nalbandian, John; Goerdel, Holly T.; Goodyear, Marilu; Johnson, Bonnie; LeRoux, Kelly
Emerging in the discussion of leadership is the separate and distinct concept of followership. Previously, followers were discussed more in relation to the leader, as if leaders were entirely responsible for the actions of followers, and the follower role was considered secondary to the success of the leader and the project. This research explores the motivation of followers who are independent actors and actively support the leader and the project. The concepts of and distinctions between mission-driven and leader-driven followership are examined through the lens of citizen engagement. Three hypotheses are tested using data gathered through self-administered surveys from neighbors who attended neighborhood association meetings in Kansas City, Kansas. Survey data give support to the relationship between mission-driven followership and increased citizen engagement. Mission-driven followers are more likely to attend more neighborhood association meetings and give more time to neighborhood activities than leader-driven followers. This research offers both practical and theoretical insights. Practically, mission-driven followers should be sought out and encouraged to volunteer in neighborhood associations and other nonprofit organizations, because they support the mission and are more likely to stay with the organization through changes in leadership. Theoretically, the addition of a quantitative analysis of mission-driven and leader-driven follower motivation to the conceptual discussion of leadership and followership contributes to the emerging scholarship on followership, specifically through neighborhood associations and the engagement of neighbors in them.
Rule Bending and Red Tape: Organizational and Individual Influences and the Effect of Ethical Climate
(University of Kansas, 2013-05-31) Borry, Erin L.; O'Leary, Rosemary; DeHart-Davis, Leisha; Getha-Taylor, Heather; Goerdel, Holly T.; Little, Todd D.; Maynard-Moody, Steven
While it is established that rules are a critical part of organizations, less is known about the influences on the unintended consequences resulting from rules. Two of these consequences--rule bending and perception of red tape--are explored as a result of both organizational and individual influences; in particular, the context within which rules operate is considered as having a major impact. This dissertation investigates how components of bureaucratic structure (formalization and centralization), minority status, and ethical climate influence the prevalence of rule bending and perception of red tape. Twelve hypotheses are tested utilizing data from the employees of two local governments in a Midwestern state. Interview data lends support for the relationships between structure and rule consequences while quantitative results show that ethical climate has a mediating influence on those relationships. Structural equation models show that through three ethical climates, formalization and centralization indirectly affect rule bending; through one, they indirectly affect perception of red tape. Additionally, one's minority status influences willingness to bend rules and perceptions of red tape. In all, this study provides evidence that bureaucratic rules are influenced by the context within which they operate. It offers both practical and theoretical insight: practically, managers can consider the ethical climate that their organization encourages and whether or not that climate can or should be changed; theoretically, this dissertation contributes to existing knowledge by introducing ethical climate into the public management literature and showing that the context of the organization influences how bureaucratic structure leads to the unintended consequences of rules.
COST ACCOUNTING IN US CITIES: TRANSACTION COSTS AND GOVERNANCE FACTORS AFFECTING COST ACCOUNTING DEVELOPMENT AND USE
(University of Kansas, 2013-05-31) Mohr, Zachary; Ho, Alfred TK; Fowles, Jacob; Nalbandian, John; Silvia, Chris; Srivastava, Rajendra P
Cost accounting in government is a topic that has an oddly uncertain place in public financial management. Many people know what it is as an ideal construct but do not know what it is in practice. This uncertainty of practice and strong expectations about what it should be creates a tightrope that must be consciously attended to and exacts a toll on those who study its practice. For example, activity based costing, or ABC, was generally presumed to be the state of the art for cost accounting in government (Geiger, 2010). While there has been much research about cost accounting in the context of private organizations, the literature on cost accounting in public organizations has not kept pace with its development for the past two decades, especially when many public organizations are experiencing fiscal stress and there is a renewed interest in the subject of cost measurement and containment. This thesis reviews the development of cost accounting research and practices, including the practice of a hybrid of traditional cost accounting and ABC. The research then applies transaction cost theory and a variety of contextual factors that are supported in the literature to create a theoretical model of how cost accounting is used in public organizations. The model is tested on a case study of an ABC implementation in a small city. The insights from this analysis are corroborated through the analysis of the cost accounting practices in a sample of 30 large US cities. The hierarchical logistic regression of 1122 services in these cities finds that the transaction cost variables of asset specificity and uncertainty are significant factors that influence which services get measured in the cost accounting plans. The final empirical chapter looks at why cost accounting is used in US cities and shows that fiscal stress is related to US cities using cost accounting. The last chapter draws conclusions from the current research and discusses avenues for future research.
Sustainable Public Administration: the Search for Intergenerational Fairness
(University of Kansas, 2013-05-31) Moldavanova, Alisa; Frederickson, H. George; Epp, Charles R.; Goerdel, Holly T.; Maynard-Moody, Steven; Pierce, John C; Kennedy, John J; Greenberg, Marc L
This study presents a broad understanding of sustainability-sustainability as intergenerational equity, or fairness in relation to future generations. It seeks to fill the theoretical gap in the sustainability literature, in particular the preoccupation of that literature with short-term sustainability strategies, and its lack of both theoretical and empirical inquiries concerning intergenerational sustainability. The study looks at the experiences of particular art organizations (art museums, literature, and music and performing arts) with the purpose of exploring the determinants of institutional resilience and management strategies that enhance the long-term sustainability of organizations. I seek to challenge the widespread theoretical and empirical orientation in the culture-based development literature that looks at arts organizations as sites for sustainable development, and thus assigns them purely instrumental and temporal value. Interviews with art managers and experts from eighteen arts organizations across the United States, examinations of organizational practices and strategic documents, historic analysis, and other forms of field research all suggest that there is a special kind of institutional rationality that, over time, translates into what I call institutional capital for sustainability. I also find that institutional arrangements are important predictors of a choice of sustainability strategies, however, sustainable thinking and sustainable acting by managers of art organizations matter more for long-term sustainability than particular institutional structures. The study identifies particular managerial roles associated with sustainable decision-making. I find that through their day-to-day choices managers of art institutions almost inadvertently pursue an ethic of sustainability, vouching safe the interests of future generations.
Administrative morality in Colombia
(University of Kansas, 2013-05-31) Paez Murcia, Angela Maria; Epp, Charles R.; Frederickson, H. George; Flores, Ruben; Maynard-Moody, Steven; Obadare, Ebenezer
This dissertation analyzes a cause of action created by the Colombian constitutional reform of 1991: administrative morality. This cause of action was created with the purpose of facilitating citizen engagement in governmental administration by allowing ordinary people to file a lawsuit to challenge governmental corruption. This constitutional reform fostered high hopes of law-inspired social change. The Constitution of 1991 did not define administrative morality and there has been no study of its meaning or effect. This dissertation addresses two questions: what is administrative morality? And what has been the impact of this cause of action on governmental administration? Drawing on governmental and legislative documents, court cases, journalistic articles, and interviews with key actors, the dissertation demonstrates that administrative morality has only partially met its framers' aspirations. The Colombian legislature adopted enabling legislation that provided a financial incentive to file lawsuits on administrative morality but then revised the law to reduce this incentive. The Colombian Council of State (the supreme court for administrative matters) has generally ruled against plaintiffs and with governmental defendants. Key agencies of public administration have developed no common interpretation of administrative morality and do not provide policy guidance, training, or oversight in order to comply with the norm. Media coverage initially fostered hope that the new norm would bring significant reforms, but as time passed the media have become less hopeful. Still, the dissertation also suggests that administrative morality has encouraged people to develop higher expectations of governmental performance.
Welcoming the Outsider: Local Construction of the Law towards Immigrants
(University of Kansas, 2013-08-31) Williams, Linda M.; Epp, Charles R.; Frederickson, H. George; Maynard-Moody, Steven; Getha-Taylor, Heather; Soberon, Jorge
This dissertation examines the local construction of law on the street regarding immigrants. Local agencies play a key role in immigration enforcement and in providing services to immigrants. They are increasingly the face of the state to immigrants, a face that varies across localities and regions and ranges from friendly to hostile. In the context of climate change, immigration to the United States is likely to increase and place greater pressure on public services in many areas. While much attention has been focused on punitive responses to immigration, this dissertation's basic thesis is that many local government agencies have adopted surprisingly welcoming policies toward immigrants. The dissertation develops this thesis in three phases. First, it develops the concept of welcomeness of public agencies toward immigrants. Welcoming policies are policies and practices that are designed to improve interactions between local administrative agencies and immigrants, encourage immigrants to settle in the community and protect undocumented immigrants from being victimized or harassed. Second, the dissertation develops a framework for measuring the degree of welcomeness of particular agencies. Third, it examines how widely local agencies are welcoming (or unwelcoming) to immigrants and what are the conditions that shape the degree of welcomeness. Drawing on nationwide surveys of local police departments and public libraries and interviews with department leaders and frontline employees, the dissertation shows that many agencies have consciously and deliberately developed policies and practices that are intended to develop positive relationships between the agency and immigrants, encourage immigrants' use of the agency and help immigrants integrate into the community. While libraries, as a service agency, might be expected to emphasize equality of service, police departments' mission is regulatory and they might be expected to adopt a more punitive (and thus less welcoming) orientation. The evidence that welcoming policies are widespread in both settings suggests that welcomeness is not confined to the service context. The dissertation shows that in both settings professionals are pulled between political pressures that are often hostile to immigrants and professional norms favoring equal service to all in the community. How much a local agency is welcoming or unwelcoming depends on the balance between these opposing forces. Professional norms help organizations resist political pressures. The dissertation suggests that welcoming policies and practices are likely to gain increased significance as climate change contributes to increasing immigration.
Public Management as Citizen Compliance: A Case Study of Income Tax Compliance Behavior in Thailand
(University of Kansas, 2012-08-31) Chandarasorn, Maneekwan; Frederickson, H. George; Epp, Charles R.; Ho, Alfred Tat-Kei; Fowles, Jacob; Karney, Dennis F.
This dissertation proposes that in democratic government understanding citizens is a key to effective public management and understanding taxpayers is a key to successful tax administration. Tax compliance has long been a prevalent issue in many countries including Thailand, where a personal income tax gap is at least 200 billion Baht ($6.7 billion) or 10% of the total revenue. The two major purposes of this study are 1) to explore citizens' perceptions of the Thai personal income tax system and the matter of tax compliance and 2) to identify important determinants of tax compliance behavior in Thailand. This study used two research methods: a face-to-face survey of 1,148 citizens in Bangkok and interviews with 15 Thai tax experts. The survey findings suggest that significant determinants of tax compliance behavior in Thailand are: enforcement perceptions, fairness of the tax system perceptions, tax knowledge, and demographic characteristics, which confirm that both the traditional utility maximization and the alternative behavioral approaches are necessary for understanding tax compliance issues. Tax experts' opinions support the survey results. This study recommends a comprehensive package of strategies for increasing tax compliance in Thailand, which includes making tax system more fair via lowering tax rates, broadening tax base, eliminating unnecessary allowances and deductions, linking welfare benefits to tax filing, improving the penalty enforcement, educating citizens about tax duties and the sense of citizenship, and improving government administration and revenue spending in the long run. This study contributes to both academics and practitioners by serving as the first comprehensive tax compliance database in Thailand.
Collective Bargaining in Municipal Government: How Unionization Impacts Employee's Attitudes, Behaviors, and Values
(University of Kansas, 2011-04-18) Davis, Randall Scott; DeHart-Davis, Leisha; Frederickson, H. George; Nalbandian, John; Getha-Taylor, Heather; Little, Todd D.
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of public sector labor unions on member attitudes, beliefs, and values. I expect that as union members commit to the values of labor organizations they will perceive lower levels of bureaucratic red tape, exhibit higher public service motivation (PSM), and become more satisfied with the nature of public sector work. I devise and test nine hypotheses by analyzing qualitative data generated from interviews with 40 randomly selected union members in two large Kansas cities, and quantitative data collected from a survey instrument distributed to over 300 municipal union members in a single Kansas municipality. The qualitative findings indicate that the union context significantly influences perceptions of bureaucratic red tape and the motives that give rise to PSM. The findings from a series of structural equation models suggest that commitment to union values decreases perceptions of bureaucratic red tape, enhances all four component dimensions of public service motivation, and indirectly increases public sector job satisfaction via bureaucratic red tape and PSM. While this study supports the assertion that labor unions significantly influence the public sector workplace, I rebut the argument that unions primarily decrease organizational performance. Rather unions could increase the performance of public sector organizations by encouraging members to more favorably perceive the work context, promoting member actions designed to benefit others, and facilitating member job satisfaction.

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