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This dissertation studies two distinct but equally essential industries: higher education and water utilities. In the context of higher education, I investigate the impact of subsidies on equilibrium prices and quality levels. For water utilities, I explore the differences between public and private providers in terms of productivity and investment. A theme that emerges from these seemingly disparate analyses is how public provision or subsidies affect and contrast with private firms' behavior. Throughout this process, I use the lens and methods of Industrial Organization to conduct my analysis, a choice motivated by the inherent nature of imperfect competition that characterizes these sectors. By adopting this approach, the dissertation aims to uncover the complex interplay between public intervention and for-profit motives in shaping industry outcomes. The first chapter's central question is how to adequately measure the quality of undergraduate programs. We measure quality using value-added models, where a student's post-graduation outcome is determined by their pre-enrollment characteristics and a program fixed effect, which we interpret as the program's value added. To do so, we link multiple administrative datasets to track individual students before enrollment, during college, and after college. We consider two post-graduation outcomes: a standardized "exit" exam, which tests students' major-specific knowledge, and income from a matched employer-employee database. The estimates indicate that colleges' contributions to students' academic achievement and to their salaries are correlated. We show that a sizeable part of the variation in value added is explained by inputs to value-added production. In particular, the composition of instructors in terms of educational attainment and type of work contract are strong predictors of value added. Lastly, we find that value added increases in the share of students receiving subsidy support. In the second chapter, we develop a static equilibrium model of demand, pricing, and quality provision. We consider two counterfactuals: decreasing the supply of loans by 10% and decreasing the supply of scholarships by 10%. We find similar patterns under both scenarios but much stronger effects for scholarships. In particular, by lowering the supply of scholarships by 10% in each program across the country, there would be 13 thousand fewer students in college, corresponding to approximately 80% of the total reduction in scholarships. For-profit institutions would lose about 9% of their market share, while nonprofits would lose only about 0.9%. Most programs would have an incentive to decrease quality and price, with a median change of -5% in value-added and of -0.7% in price. Crucially, our approach uncovers significant heterogeneity across programs, particularly in terms of student composition and the effects of these policy changes, offering valuable insights into the nuanced impacts of educational subsidies. In the third chapter, I shift the focus to water utilities to investigate how their ownership type affects productivity, investment, and incentives for coverage expansion. First, we use a panel of municipalities to run an event-study analysis of municipalities who switched their operators from public to private. We find that switchers were substantially more diligent in charging customers as they sharply increased the number of meters and fraction of billed water. Moreover, municipalities that switched to private operators show an increase in service coverage but without a sizeable increase in average price. Next, we propose a production function model that incorporates the firm's ownership type. Our estimates suggest that the ownership type of the utility significantly affects its input elasticities and productivity. We find robust evidence that private operators are more productive in generating water volume and revenue. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The central challenge of social impact education within higher education is the lack of a shared framework to unify language and practice across an institution. One framework gaining popularity among Community Engagement Professionals (CEPs) is the Pathways of Public Service and Civic Engagement. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore how the Pathways framework supports CEPs in their ability to educate students for social impact and engaged citizenship. Twelve CEPs participated in this study and data were collected via semi-structured interviews and a participant questionnaire. Five themes and three sub-themes emerged from the data analysis: (1) Frames and organizes the work; Creating a shared language, (2) Expands access and perspectives on community engagement; Justifying paths that might not otherwise be acceptable and making community engagement accessible to a broader audience; (3) Prompts reflective learning; (4) Provides insights to student interests; and (5) Comes with a network of Resources & Support. Based on the findings of this study, the researcher concluded that the Pathways Framework is useful in unifying the language and practice of social impact across an institution. Implications, recommendations, and suggestions for future research are also presented. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation intends to inform self-assessment and data collection practices within Rutgers University and act upon the encouragement of university leadership to advance the potential of the public service mission. These goals are accomplished by exploring relevant questions to inform the practices of institutional research (IR) and institutional effectiveness (IE) professionals. These questions include: (1) What IR and IE pursuits would have the most significant impact on supporting the long-term growth and success of Rutgers' public service initiatives? (2) What data and measures can be utilized for tracking institutional performance and stakeholder activities vis-a-vis Rutgers' public service mission? Several additional supporting questions provide further areas of exploration (see Appendix B). Using a qualitative design, this research combines interview feedback from within and outside of Rutgers University, as well as evidence and data from publicly available research, publications, and secondary sources. Ultimately, this evidence informs the design of a dissertation writeup that conforms to a problem of practice dissertation standard and addresses challenges within a particular professional context with practical practice and policy proposals. This research asserts that if we evolve an IR culture, we can better understand ourselves as an ongoing supporter of public service and community engagement. IR offices can also explore what data, measures, and assessments can be employed for tracking institutional performance and stakeholder activities vis-a-vis a public service mission. This dissertation also offers several larger practice and policy recommendations, including connecting equity and social mobility ideals to its public service mission, evolving the university's bureaucratic structures to support public and community engagement, and developing a university-wide expectation that every school and unit identifies how they engage with the public. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Over the past decade the concept of taking a gap year has become mainstream in the US. This idea of delaying enrollment, or taking a break from college, before beginning a bachelor's degree, has gained popularity, especially as the cost of attendance in higher education has soared and the burden of paying for it has been placed on the student as the consumer. Similarly, the sought-after gap year experiences offered in the private sector are often costly. With the rising popularity of gap years, it is important to identify experiences that are accessible to a wide variety of backgrounds and that have demonstrated a positive impact on individuals and society. There are several federal funded programs within AmeriCorps that seek to provide these kinds of meaningful, individual, and socially beneficial experiences. The purpose of conducting the study was to explore the lived experience of individuals who completed a gap year through City Year AmeriCorps. A specific focus of this study was placed upon the Segal Education Award, which is given to AmeriCorps' alumni upon completion of one year of domestic civic service to supplement the cost of pursuing a postsecondary education. A qualitative approach was used to investigate the lived experiences of 8 City Year AmeriCorps alumni. All participants completed at least one year of domestic civic service in the city of Jacksonville, FL, within the last 4 years. Findings indicated participants sought to make meaningful change in their lives as well as others when deciding to serve in City Year AmeriCorps. The experience was marked by the development of lifelong relationships, an array of challenges, as well as personal, individual growth. Participants left the experience inspired to continue to serve others, and the Segal Education Award's influence was varied. In general, the findings support the notion that gap years within City Year AmeriCorps foster a variety a positive benefits from a public good perspective by increasing the civic engagement capabilities of service members, increasing accessing to postsecondary education opportunities moving forward, and making a demonstrable impact within communities in need. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation focuses on how the MAT program in Earth Science at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH MAT), a one-of-a-kind, museum-based urban teacher residency, conceptualized and enacted the project of learning to teach science for urban school contexts. The AMNH MAT is situated within the two nested contexts. The first context is its emergence as one of a number of new, state-approved graduate schools of education that offer teacher preparation, endorse teachers for certification, and grant master's degrees but are not part of or connected to universities. The larger study of which this case study is part termed this phenomenon "new graduate schools of education", or nGSEs. The second context is the program's mission of preparing teachers for urban schools, a goal that is shared by other teacher preparation programs within the domain of nGSEs. This descriptive, interpretive case study analysis poses two major questions: How and to what extent does the American Museum of Natural History infuse its long-standing beliefs about science learning and public service into a teacher preparation program? How and to what extent does the museum conceptualize and enact science teacher preparation for the specific context of "urban" high needs public secondary schools? Analysis of multiple data sources revealed that the AMNH's mission of disseminating science knowledge in service of a more science-literate public was instantiated in a teacher preparation program that "centralized and continually reinforced" a vision of preparing "science" teachers but had a "less central and more limited approach" to preparing "urban" teachers. This case study analysis of an innovative teacher preparation program in one of our nation's largest cities has important implications for urban science teacher education research and practice. First, the AMNH MAT's model of science teacher preparation offered two key features that are useful for the field. The first feature was its coherence around the development of a science teacher identity that included deep science content knowledge and a commitment to bringing informal science teaching and learning practices into schools. The second model feature was the MAT program's required four-residency structure, which essentially reinvented the "field" in teacher preparation fieldwork. At the same time, the project of learning to teach at the AMNH MAT, like that of many other urban teacher preparation programs, revealed the difficulties and dilemmas involved in preparing teachers for urban contexts, particularly the responsibility of developing a new generation of antiracist educators. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Structural changes in European universities have been the subject of a significant body of research analyzing how governance is affected by external stakeholders such as states, markets, and other academic institutions, and the influence of internal stakeholders such as faculty and students. As state-imposed reforms interact with national objectives and transnational goals across Europe, two spheres of research emerge: what factors affect institutional leadership structures, and how are institutional leaders responding to those factors? Few studies have looked at the effects of a national-level reform, such as that undertaken by France since 1968. This study takes a qualitative, multi-site approach using an analysis built on coding descriptions of semi-structured interviews; documents and observations; and a review of key external indicators. A proposed framework was developed to analyze the findings based on two theoretical models of governance tensions between state, academy, and market (Clark, 1983) and governance dimensions around educational arrangements, financial autonomy, and personal autonomy (Dobbins & Knill, 2017). The findings from interviews with university presidents, senior government officials and NGOs, as well as senior consultants and experts in the field of governance, revealed that the state/university relationship in France remains very strong, even though a stratified system is observed by participants. Compiled results based on external outputs in key indicators including scholarly publications (research), university rankings (pedagogy and training), and student enrollment (public service) demonstrated how little sway the market appeared to hold. Leaders, though they identified 75% of the factors influencing their institutions as external, also recognized that there is an internal component centered on individuals. These internal influences can be framed as organizational factors, but participants referred to them most often as a manifestation of people sharing a common conviction built through a collegial approach. The core of the concern expressed at the time of this study remains to identify the role of the university in meeting France's espoused societal values, as shared across all participants. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Engagement has evolved from concerns of "access," "diversity," and "public service" between the academy and communities. Land-grant institutions (LGI), considered the "public's universities," have represented a unique population in American higher education with their historic 150-year tradition of teaching, research, and service. Carnegie Community-Engagement Classification (CCE) has started recognizing institutions for community engagement, yet only a limited number of LGI have received such recognition. This study conducted a descriptive-exploratory census of 110 LGI (1862, 1890, and 1994) and their association to community engagement using chi-square test of association, modified semantic differential, document analysis, and "An Engaged-Learning Map (ELM) for Education, Learning, and Engagement." 50 LGI (45% census rate) were represented. Findings suggest "an engaged-association" mostly on "programs" in likely areas of community-based research (CBR), service learning, or engaged scholarship. Some recommendations propose LGI focus also on "policies" and "incentives"; adult learning and prior learning assessment (PLA); and applying for CCE in 2015.The following are appended: (1) U.S. Land-Grant Institutions-Geographic Map and Listing; (2) 2010 Campus Data for Institutions Selected for the Carnegie Community-Engagement Classification; (3) Census Survey Invitation and Announcements; (4) 2011 Land-Grant Institutions' Census Survey on Community Engagement; (5) Checklist for Content/Document Analysis for Land-Grant Institutions' Community Engagement; (6) An Engaged-Learning Map for Education, Learning, and Engagement; (7) Tabulated Results of 2011 Land-Grant Institutions' Census Survey; (8) Raw Scores for Modified Semantic Differential; (9) Carnegie Community-Engagement Documentation Reporting Form; and (10) Timeline for 2015 Carnegie Community-Engagement Classification. (Contains 8 tables and 10 figures.)

The Oman government developed a vision to transform the nation into a sustainable knowledge society by supporting information and communication technologies to improve government services (ITA, n.d.). According to a United Nations (2012) report, Oman ranks 64th worldwide in e-government readiness, the lowest compared to other countries in the region. The goal of this qualitative grounded theory study was to explore processes associated with selected unsuccessful e-government projects in Oman, as well as the driver of failure, and generate a model with recommendations for the role of executives in government organization for successful execution of e-government initiatives. The main findings developed into a theoretical concept for a recommended leadership model for executives in Oman to use for the successful implementation of e-government initiatives. The research was guided by three research questions: "How do leadership roles in government organizations in Oman support the success of e-government projects?", "What leadership skills do leaders need to possess to achieve successful implementation of e-government projects?", and "What model of e-government projects in Oman could explain or account for the value of successful leadership?". Study participants were 25 executives from five government organizations in Oman. Four themes emerged from analyzing research data (a) there is a need for e-government, (b) the e-government creates challenges, (c) challenges require a leader, and (d) a leader with particular skills mitigates challenges and influences the way to success. Four e-government essential leadership skills emerged from the study (a) determined, (b) knowledgeable, (c) communicator, and (d) social. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this explanatory mixed methods study was to examine faculty perceptions of effectiveness and impact of professional development for teaching, research, and service in a higher education institution in South Texas. This study provided quantitative and qualitative data from 165 faculty members from a Hispanic Serving Institution in South Texas. Participants in this research consisted of tenured 56.9% (n = 95) and tenure-track 41.1% (n = 69) faculty members who taught in different departments in the colleges of Health Affairs, Sciences, Liberal Arts, Engineering and Computer Sciences, Business and Entrepreneurship, and Education and P-16 Integration. The quantitative data provided evidence to suggest that there is a relationship between professional development and perceived levels of support and community; although, not for productivity in teaching and research. Themes for professional development for teaching, research, and service included motivation to learn, self-directed learning, and resources for service. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This report describes the implementation of a data-based program to reduce unacceptable student behaviors and decrease the number of administrative interventions with 21 students with severe emotional disturbances. A computerized database was developed to track classroom and transportation discipline infractions. Students met monthly to review their individualized, cumulative, computer printout of their discipline record, classroom target behaviors, and general conduct. In addition, students were videotaped monthly during individual and classroom counseling sessions. Parents met tri-monthly for an individualized conference to view their child's video tape and discipline report. A series of parenting workshops was offered to increase basic knowledge of parenting skills. Staff were provided with inservice training in techniques for effective aggression management. Referrals for behavior infractions to the administration were reduced by 75 percent during the practicum period. Parents and educators were enthusiastic about the training workshops. Extensive appendices include a behavior management plan, database entry forms, videotaping record form, parent permission form, staff questionnaires, and parent questionnaires. (Contains 36 references.) (DB)

In this study, I explore the challenges, tensions, and opportunities facing a major research-intensive public university related to public service and engaged scholarship as the university system and higher education in general increase emphasis on service and engagement. This project was designed in cooperation with the university's Center for Public Service to help the Center and the university community better understand the challenges, barriers, and opportunities relative to the experiences of undergraduate students and faculty. Of particular interest are: why university students and faculty do or do not participate in public service; how their perceptions and experiences of public service relate to the institution's rhetoric of public service; the implications for the everyday well-being of the people of the university, as well as the university as a community; and the implications for the university and for the Center as they pursue their missions of service and engagement. This project was designed as engaged scholarship to assist the Center in developing strategies that increase participation in and support of public service and engaged scholarship in ways that are more inclusive, democratic, and effective, yet that acknowledge the conflicts, tensions, and dissent inherent in collective action. Therefore, this research is based in post-structuralist theory, utilizing reflexive ethnography and rhetorical analysis methods. The university faces the same challenge as most of public higher education: responding to stakeholders' and the public's demands for increased contribution to the public good while dealing with decreased public funding. The university administration's historical rhetoric has characterized service as valued and valuable, yet there is a disconnect between that rhetoric and faculty and students' perceptions of and experiences with public service and engaged scholarship. Service and engagement have become contested ground, and the related tension and challenges have implications for individual, organizational, and community well-being, identity, and agency. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

When service-learning began to gain prominence as a legitimate academic pedagogy in the early 1990's, it was believed that through intensive service experiences, students developed a greater understanding of themselves, felt empowered to make a difference in their community, made a connection to course material, and made a commitment to continue serving their communities post-graduation. Research conducted in the mid to late 1990's confirmed that students completing service-learning courses were responding positively in all these stated areas (Eyler, Giles, & Braxton, 1997; Osborne, Hammerich, & Hensley, 1998). However, a new generation of students began entering higher education institutions in the fall of 2000. Labeled the Millennial generation and because these students were different from any other previous generation (Howe & Strauss, 2000), it was appropriate to ask whether these students would respond to service-learning experiences in the same way. The purpose of this study was to assess whether the assumptions made about the effects of service-learning were accurate for the contemporary Millennial student, as defined by Howe and Strauss (2000), and to more accurately know whether those service-learning experiences were meeting students' expectations. This research assessed the way Millennial students at Ball State University were affected by service-learning in three primary ways: Expanding Academic Learning, Personal Growth and Development, and Civic and Social Awareness. A sample of 256 undergraduates enrolled in service-learning courses at Ball State University at the beginning of the fall 2009 semester were given a service-learning pre-assessment test that consisted of 18 questions in three different subcategories: Expanding Academic Learning, Personal Growth and Development, and Civic and Social Awareness. The pre-assessment was designed to evaluate what students expected to gain from their service-learning experience. A post-assessment was given at the end of the fall 2009 semester and asked students to report on what they actually received from their service-learning experience. Overall, Ball State Millennial students reacted in very similar ways to their service-teaming experience as the generation before them. Ball State Millennial students had high expectations that, as a result of their service-learning experiences, their classroom studies would be more meaningful, their higher level thinking skills would be enhanced, and their service-learning experiences would be an important part of their education. There was not a statistically significant difference between the pre-assessment (expectations of service-learning) and the post-assessment (service-learning experiences). Students had high expectations for what they would achieve from their service-learning experience and overall their expectations were met. When looking at the individual subcategories, there were statistically significant differences between the pre-and post-assessment for Expanding Academic Learning and Civic and Social Awareness, but not for Personal Growth and Development. This research also demonstrated that service-learning affects students in similar ways regardless of the age of the students, class standing, grade point average and years of previous service. There was, however, a statistically significant difference based on service-learning course taken. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to examine use of decision-making tools and feedback in strategic planning in order to develop a rigorous process that would promote the efficiency of strategic planning for acquisitions in the United States Coast Guard (USCG). Strategic planning is critical to agencies such as the USCG in order to be effective stewards of the nation's resources. When strategic planning is inefficient, managers are unable to properly utilize resources for the betterment of public service. The theoretical foundation for this study was scenario-based planning, a cyclic planning process that utilizes feedback to improve planning outcomes. The key research questions addressed how USCG managers utilize decision-making tools in strategic planning and how feedback is integrated into strategic planning outcomes. The study utilized a qualitative, grounded theory approach to describe and analyze the current strategic planning documents and lessons-learned database from past years' acquisitions. Data were analyzed thematically according to the earned value metrics of cost, schedule, and performance using Atlas.ti qualitative software. The findings indicated that no consistent decision-making tools were used across strategic planning processes; cost, schedule, performance priorities varied across strategic planning processes; and feedback was not integrated into future planning cycles. The frequency of qualitative themes from strategic planning documents and "lessons-learned" databases were translated into a mathematically rigorous process that tracks the efficiency of the strategic planning process. The social impact of the study is increased efficacy in strategic planning by the USCG to the betterment of public trust and its responsibilities as a public agency. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The theory of student involvement (Astin, 1984) acknowledges that as students devote sufficient time and energy to educationally purposeful activities, they can expect to make desirable gains throughout the college years. Participation in campus clubs and organizations is one form of involvement found to be associated with a host of learning and developmental gains. Uninvolved students may be missing a readily available opportunity for added learning and development. Compared to other demographic groups, male college students may be more at risk of missing some of these learning and developmental gains due to lower participation rates in co-curricular activities (Pike, Kuh, & Gonyea, 2003). This study joins a larger body of emerging scholarly research focused on understanding gender gaps in higher education, thereby attempting to illuminate gender's role within the college experience of women and men (Sax, 2008). Hierarchical multiple regression and logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the predictors of men's and women's involvement in collegiate clubs and organizations. Samples consisted of senior-year men (N = 554) and women (N = 991) who attended faith-based liberal arts institutions and completed the 2002 Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) and 2006 College Senior Survey (CSS) instruments (Higher Education Research Institute). Blocks of variables related to students' entry characteristics, goals and aspirations, use of time, and campus experiences were examined. Four significant predictors of involvement in clubs and groups were shared by men and women: previous high school involvement, anticipated collegiate involvement, working on campus, and student-faculty interaction. Living on campus in the first year of college, ethnicity (being White), public service goals, career goals, and satisfaction with a sense of community uniquely predicted involvement for women, whereas participation in intercollegiate athletics was a unique predictor for men. Program design, recruitment, outreach to specific student groups, and maximizing campus experiences are avenues through which the findings of this study can be leveraged to promote the involvement of men and women in co-curricular clubs and organizations. A discussion of the findings, limitations of the study, and directions for future research on gender and involvement are offered. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

More faculty report each year that they are incorporating service-learning in their academic courses, which is often related to attempts by colleges and universities to link academics with service to the community as part of their mission, or by the academic disciplines that see service-learning as a way to link theory and practice. Critical to the expansion of service-learning is the recognition that it is the individual professor who ultimately decides whether or not to include a service-learning experience in the curriculum. The main purpose of this study is to determine the likelihood that faculty will use service-learning within their courses based on sociodemographic, academic and institutional characteristics, faculty workload issues, and the relationship between faculty and their institutions. By building upon the previous research studies, both on faculty in general and on faculty and service-learning, this study is a step toward a more comprehensive profile of faculty who have selected service-learning as a pedagogical option and faculty who have not. Determinants relating to workload, work preference, personal beliefs, and institutional cultural factors were found to be more significantly associated with faculty who did and did not use service-learning than the sociodemographic, academic and institutional characteristics. In fact, the three most significant and positive relationships were faculty who believed that many courses at their institutions involved community service, faculty who used other student-centered pedagogies, and faculty who participated in community or public service each week. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation examines the adoption and implementation mechanism of the national e-Governance plan in the regional state of West Bengal in India. The questions that this dissertation seek to illuminate are (i) the various potentials and challenges in integrating the ordinary citizens in the implementation of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal; (ii) the interactions between the nation-wide e-Governance project with the social and political systems prevalent in West Bengal. Contrary to techno-managerial belief that the national e-Governance plan will bring efficiency, transparency, and accountability in public service delivery mechanisms, this dissertation has observed that social and political systems also influence the adoption mechanism of this e-Governance plan in West Bengal. The dissertation has developed a new theoretical framework, the cyber capability framework, to broaden its discussions on e-Governance projects in developing countries from simple growth and access through information infrastructure to an understanding of the complexities involved in the social developments of the ordinary citizens in West Bengal. The six dimensions of the cyber capability framework are: technology, Information, Process, Management, Skills, and vision dimension. The dissertation has also situated the national e-Governance plan within the discourses of national and international information capitalism to contextualize the project deeper. Based on the six dimensional analysis of the cyber capability framework the dissertation has demonstrated that the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal has failed to deliver many of its promises due to limitations in scope for (i) improvisation of technologies in integrating local needs and concerns; (ii) reengineering of backend operations for public service delivery; (iii) making public information as a citizens. right; (iv) relevant e-literacy initiatives suitable for illiterate and semi-literate citizens; and (v) participation of the ordinary citizens in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. The dissertation has also argued that mobile governance offer better opportunities to integrate the ordinary citizens in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal as the former is more affordable, breaks the barrier of language and literacy divides, and is more suitable for offering local services to local people. Finally, this dissertation has offered three recommendations, namely, electronic rights to public information, citizens. engagements in e-Governance services, and mobile integration of public services to make the national e-Governance plan a more effective vehicle for public service delivery in West Bengal. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Public education is a cornerstone of democracy, intended to offer all citizens the knowledge and skills necessary to be informed and engaged members of society. For public education to be successful, our country must recruit, train, and retain high quality teachers, principals, school board members, and other educational leaders. And, their efforts must be supported by a citizenry of educated voters, elected officials, and advocates for public education. The US is currently facing a dearth of such educational leaders and involved citizens. The nonprofit organization and national service program Teach For America (TFA) has become one of the most prominent national groups working to improve public education. TFA recruits, trains, and supports high-achieving recent college graduates to be teachers in low-income communities. Since its inception, TFA has grown substantially and receives extensive attention and financial resources. Yet, relatively little is known about the influence of the organization on participants. Do alumni enter careers in education or public service? Are they civically engaged? Is TFA a promising model for recruiting and retaining highly qualified educators and developing involved citizens over the long term? This study uses data from a comprehensive survey of TFA Alumni and a similar survey of a comparison group of individuals who were accepted to TFA, but who opted not to participate, to evaluate the effectiveness of the organization. The major findings are that although members of both groups engaged in many forms of civic engagement, TFA alumni were less civically engaged than their non-participant peers. On the other hand, even though non-participants were slightly more likely to have undergraduate majors in education, TFA alumni were more likely to choose employment and graduate programs in the field of education and in the public and nonprofit sectors. Thus, TFA is a promising model for improving public education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This historic case study addressed the issue of the lack of citizen action toward environmentally responsible behavior. Although there have been studies regarding components of environmental responsible behavior [ERB], there has been little focus on historic models of exemplary figures of ERB. This study examined one of the first conservation courses in the United States, Wildlife Ecology 118, taught by Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) for 13 years at the University of Wisconsin. Today, Aldo Leopold is recognized as an exemplary conservationist whose land ethic is cited as providing the ecological approach needed for understanding the complex issues of modern society. The researcher conjectured that examination of one of the first environmental education courses could support and strengthen environmental education practices by providing a heuristic perspective. The researcher used two different strategies for analysis of the case. For Research Question One--"What were Leopold's teaching strategies in Wildlife Ecology 118?"--the researcher used methods of comparative historical analysis. The researcher examined the learning outcomes that Leopold used in Wildlife Ecology 118 and compared them against a rubric of the Four Strands for Environmental Education (North American Association for Environmental Education [NAAEE], 1999). The Four Strands for Environmental Education are the current teaching strategies used by educators. The results indicated that Wildlife Ecology 118 scored high in Knowledge of Processes and Systems and Environmental Problem Solving strands. Leopold relied on historic case examples and animal biographies to build stories that engaged students. Field trips gave students practical experience for environmental knowledge with special emphasis on phenology. For Research Question Two--"What was the context of the lessons in Wildlife Ecology 118?"--the researcher used environmental history methods for analysis. Context provided the knowledge and understanding of Leopold's choices for developing lessons that he thought would engage students to become environmentally responsible citizens. The contexts were grouped into four categories: (a) work and research related, (b) professional development, (c) leisure and, (d) public service. There were five themes that emerged from the course contexts: (a) case histories, (b) animal biographies, (c) phenology application, (d) food chains, and (e) ecosystems. The results of the study indicated that Wildlife Ecology 118 ranks high in areas of environmental problem solving and knowledge of processes and systems. Both of the areas are often difficult for educators to incorporate in their lessons. Through case histories, animal biographies, phenology, ecological diagrams, ecosystem comparisons and field trips, Leopold provides many examples that can be easily updated and used in current classroom practices, both in K-12 and college levels. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

A practicum to develop a policy for academic appointment and rank for Sheldon Jackson College (Alaska) faculty is described. The practicum conducted a case study of internal governance at other institutions. Letters were sent to 67 members of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities and three related colleges to obtain data relating to standards for appointment and criteria for retention and promotion. Usable responses were received from 38 colleges. The data were analyzed by an ad hoc committee appointed by the faculty. The committee recommended a policy for academic appointment and rank based on: expertise and knowledge in discipline, professional performance, service to the college and community, and service to the profession. Four ranks were recommended: instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor. The master's degree or equivalent is required for the instructor level and the terminal degree is needed for the other levels. A system of continual year or term contracts was also suggested. Forms for student ratings of courses and instructors and for rating faculty for promotion/tenure are appended, along with information on procedures for self and peer evaluation and division professional growth plans. (Author/SW)

The uses being made of the OCLC system in the area of public or reader's services was investigated in this study. Topics dealt with include the training of librarians and patrons in on-line searching, specific benefits of the data base to the public, disadvantages of the present OCLC system in public services, costs, and the motivation behind installation of public service terminals. Data were obtained from structured interviews with reference librarians at seven Ohio academic libraries and the State Library of Ohio. Findings indicate that many librarians felt that before the system can be used effectively for public services, all the holdings in their collections should be converted into the data base; and although the means for accomplishing the goal of public use of OCLC terminals varied in the libraries visited, one important similarity was found in that the majority of librarians displayed an enthusiastic attitude when discussing public use of the system. It was also felt that a greater stress on publicity and general instruction would likely involve more public use of the system. Questions presented to participants in the study, sample instruction sheets provided by libraries at public service terminals, and a bibliography are appended to the study. (JPF)

The transformation of the present manual system of data manipulation at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile into a computer-based information system capable of supporting decision making is proposed. The information system would be used to determine the number of faculty required by each academic department, based on the number of weekly hours devoted to academic activities and administrative duties. In order to define and implement the information system, a feasibility study is proposed to collect data about: (1) general characteristics of colleges and universities; (2) academic policies and criteria; and (3) the main activities performed by academic departments (instruction, research, creative work, community service, faculty development, and academic/administrative tasks. In addition to a glossary, definitions of terms and instructions for filling out forms are provided. Flowcharts describe the way that information is collected from the sources, processed by electronic devices, and delivered to users to support decision making. A review of the literature on governance, administration, planning models, and management information systems of higher education institutions is included, along with an extensive bibliography. (SW)

This thesis provides the first examination of Continental Army morale. It investigates the morale of enlisted, ordinary soldiers during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783. This thesis does not attempt to measure morale. Instead, it analyses the factors that sustained and inhibited morale and addresses why soldiers chose to continue fighting despite their extreme hardships. This thesis argues that morale is socially and culturally constructed and that common soldiers exhibited significant agency. Army leadership created a foundation for morale by educating soldiers on the conflict and their position in it. However, soldiers modified these explanations and turned them into more tangible concepts, which sustained their service. While previous scholarship focuses on perceptions of soldiers, ideologies of the Revolution, and combat demographics, this thesis focuses on the overlooked but deeply significant service of those entrenched in the conflict. Analysing the determinants of morale allows for a bottom-up approach to uncover what soldiers thought about their lived experiences. Narratives of Continental Army soldiers have shaped the direction and outline of this thesis. I utilised more than 250 soldiers' diaries to examine the factors that influenced morale. The almost daily entries left by these soldiers, reflected the monotony and hardships of war, and illuminated the diversity of troop experiences. These sources revealed two categories of factors that affected morale: foundational and sustaining. These two aspects of morale functioned in dialogue with one another. Foundational factors were institutional, reliant on the structures of the Continental Army and military leadership, whereas soldiers determined sustaining factors of morale. Foundational factors were physical - basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and supplies - and psychological - how officers defined the conflict, the principles behind it, and soldiers' position within the war. In contrast, soldiers exhibited their understanding of the conflict in their relationships with one another and civilian populations. These relationships acted as sustaining factors. Military leadership may have defined and reinforced foundational aspects of morale, but soldiers transformed them. Following an analysis of foundational and sustaining morale, this thesis examines soldiers' expressions of dissatisfaction. By examining patterns in mutiny and desertion, this thesis demonstrates that soldiers exhibited significant agency and created complex systems of protest. These protests underscore the importance of their relationships as well as their dedication to military service. This thesis situates the Continental Army within broader eighteenth-century developments. Enlightenment ideas about humanity, specifically about the individual, and education, significantly impacted military theory and paved the way for considerations of morale within a military context. As an army created for the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army was able to implement the newest military theories in its structures and training. This thesis argues that, as such, the Continental Army was the first army to consider morale instrumental to military success. Prioritising morale benefitted the revolutionary character of the war. To succeed, officers needed to convince soldiers that they were an important part of the new nation; soldiers would become citizens worthy of the utmost status and honour due to their participation in the conflict. This thesis demonstrates that from the outset of the Revolutionary War, officers acknowledged the humanity of ordinary soldiers and understood that the toils of war impacted individuals emotionally, not just physically.

Over the past thirty years, Ukraine has seen three public protests that have come to be known as 'revolutions'. Yet despite these repeated demonstrations of 'people power', Ukraine's civil society has been too often underestimated or dismissed as 'weak' in academic literature. This thesis confronts this paradox, tracing the development of civil society in Ukraine and uncovering the roots of its vitality in 'informal social capital', a byproduct of statelessness and internal colonialism. Analysing the dataset of the European Social Survey (ESS) conducted in Ukraine biannually between 2002-2012, which illustrated that Ukrainians consistently sustained the 'networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit' at the heart of the classic definition of social capital (Putnam 1995, 67), I argue that Ukraine's particular social capital resides not in strong democratic institutions, but in vibrant cultures of informal mutual self-help in local and professional communities. My discussion suggests that, in the case of Ukraine, neither democratic governance nor the rule of law represents the sine qua non for an impactful civil society. To understand these cultures of informal mutual self-help, I offer four close readings of sustainable grassroots public service initiatives in post-Maidan Ukraine - Hromadske, StopFake, Prometheus and ProZorro - informed by semi-structured interviews with the activists who launched them. These civic entrepreneurs cite an ideational dedication to the common good and a keen understanding of the reform inefficiencies of the state as principal drivers for their emergence as activists. Since 2014, their initiatives have served millions of Ukrainians and cultivated Ukrainian civil society in the face of urgent economic, political and military crises. I explore the central role of social networks in mobilising pro bono professionals to compensate for inadequacies of the state and overcome a dramatic lack of financial resources and in achieving organisational sustainability over the long term.   Ultimately, I show that a motivation for volunteering and extensive social mutual self-help networks of cooperation and trust, coupled with the availability of the unpoliced and highly accessible digital media, have led to the development of a robust 'digital civil society' in Ukraine. Digital media affordances allow grassroots civic initiatives to gain scale and institutionalise themselves, retaining the horizontal ethos of co-production. The case of Ukraine thus contributes to a growing body of evidence of the strength of informal digital civic activism in post-Soviet and post-colonial societies, inviting us to revisit the presuppositions of the liberal paradigm in civil society studies, which have dominated the scholarly debate in Western Europe and Northern America since the early 2000s.

Refugee and migration crises are among the most heartrending and vexatious humanitarian issues of this century. These crises are particularly evident in the case of Syria, where, since 2011, civil war and terrorism have led millions of people to seek refugee status in neighbouring countries, including Turkey. Since 2011, Turkey has pursued an open-door policy accompanied by a national temporary protection regime to protect over 3.6 million Syrians fleeing the civil war. Even though many of the Syrian refugees reside in refugee camps, a significant proportion (about 90%) are scattered in cities across Turkey, where they are confronted with challenging circumstances; notably, high poverty levels exacerbated by the high cost of living and limited livelihood opportunities. As a corollary, government institutions (the public service) in Turkey have the significant responsibility of providing essential services, including education and health; moreover, together with government agencies, NGOs are working hard to meet the needs of these people and for improving the quality of services provided. Against this backdrop, the aim of the study was to examine, analyse and understand the positive and negative ramifications of Syrian refugee presence on public services, specifically within the context of education and healthcare, and the role of NGOs while providing these kinds of services. Ensuring continuity of education and health service delivery to Syrian refugees is emerging as a significant challenge for the government in Turkey. Unfulfilled promises by the international community and the lack of commitment to burden-sharing from stakeholders have put the Turkish government under financial strain. The study adopted the qualitative research design. In-depth interviews, focus group discussion, and documentary reviews were the primary data collection methods. The findings revealed that the Government of Turkey is being overstretched by the refugee crisis, and this has affected the quality of public service provision. It is possible to evaluate the results of this study in three headings. 1) Policies implemented for the provision of Educational Services, problems in the provision of services, and capacity management. 2) Policies for the smooth delivery of health services and problems encountered while implementing these policies, and capacity management. 3) The role and deficiencies of NGOs in service delivery. The high and unexpected influx of people has caused disruption to social services. NGOs involved in the provision of services are equally over-stretched for lack of support from the Turkish government. Nonetheless, the situation has improved in recent times with the adoption of more systematic programmes and more extensive cooperation. In this context, this study is another modest contribution to current literature on the plight of refugees in Syria.

This thesis explores the lived experiences of public servants in the Canadian federal public service during organisational change to contribute to the organisational change literature by exploring and evaluating the factors to enhance readiness for change and by providing recommendations to further enhance readiness for change in the Canadian public service. The study is qualitative in design and uses a mixture of focus groups and interviews (n= 36 for main study and n = 5 for pilot study). It uses Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis (IPA) for data immersion and data engagement and thematic analysis with a critical realism philosophical approach to identify and analyse the findings and mechanisms within the change phenomenon. The study adopted an original bottom-up approach to gather the "voice" of employees who are recipients of organisational changes, at three levels (managers, directors and non-managerial employees), as opposed to collecting the data from the change leaders who drive change initiatives in a hierarchical way in the public service. The study provides a contribution to methodology through its process of identifying the probable critical realism mechanisms for readiness for change. The study also provides a new conceptualised framework using the employee lens based upon the research findings and the probable mechanisms for readiness for change in the public service. This new conceptualised framework reflects the probable causes, motives and choices affecting readiness for change in the public service from the perspectives of the change recipients. The advantage of this new conceptualised framework is that it illustrates the cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects of change from the employees' perspective. In addition, the study makes various contributions through its findings including the existence of ambivalence of emotions (hope and fear) simultaneously, readiness for change not being dichotomous, powerlessness and helplessness of public servants causing them to hate their jobs, failures of organisational changes being partly due to lack of leadership which should be better defined and assessed, curiosity to be encouraged in organisations going through continuous organisational changes and the importance of peer support for the younger generation. Thus, the study provides the definition of a new term, perceived peer support. Finally, the study provides a comprehensive framework to help senior management and practitioners to understand the lived experiences of change recipients and to inform them of the factors to avoid and the factors to enhance to help change recipients better support organisational changes in the public service.

Concerns over the unethical conduct of leaders and public officials have led to the renaissance of interest in public service ethics and values. Although national and organizational systems and structures have been instituted to either eradicate or ameliorate dysfunctional behaviours such as corruption, sexual harassment and misuse of confidential information in public service organizations, the practices still persist - especially in developing countries, where the impact of such behaviour is more pronounced. The harmful effects of these behaviours on individuals, organizations and nations have led to a loss of confidence in public institutions, undermining the rule of law and leading to underdevelopment. Drawing from the Ghanaian perspective, this thesis empirically examined the extent to which ethics, values and spirituality can reduce unethical behaviours in the Ghanaian public service. Spirituality, for example, has the potential to stimulate the moral thoughts of individuals in dealing with ethical issues, thereby reducing unethical behaviour and generating positive organizational behaviour. Conceptually, the study was placed in the interconnection of public service ethics, values, workplace spirituality and unethical behaviour. Social capital and the principal-agency theories of public management were adopted as the study's theoretical lens, social reality as its ontology and social constructivism as its epistemology. The thesis was therefore a qualitative multiple case study which employed semi-structured in-depth expert interviews, semi-focus group discussions and documentary reviews as the foremost data collection instruments. The findings revealed the perennial reoccurrence of unethical behaviours, which took various dimensions, including fraud and abuse of resources, moonlighting, destroying, altering or falsifying records, waste and misuse of official time, apathy, sexual harassment, payroll irregularities (especially the use of 'ghost names' on government payrolls), cash and procurement irregularities, and pilfering. The findings further revealed that low remuneration, poor leadership, the extended family system, the working environment and politicization of public service were the main causes of these behaviours. These causes were exacerbated by the weak and ineffective enforcement of rules and regulations, which was touted as main bane of indiscipline in the service. The findings on whether workplace spirituality could be deployed as a catalyst to reduce unethical behaviours were to some extent mixed, but support a call to employ spiritual reawakening in public service organizations as a panacea to overcoming these behaviours. From the theoretical lens, the findings reveal that the existence of these behaviours is characterized by institutional failures, inefficiency and nonadherence to traditional values. The study therefore recommends improvement in the conditions of service; inculcating professionalism in the conduct of public servants; and a 'living' code of conduct that is effectively implemented.

The existing literature on philanthropic effort during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has taken a number of different approaches to the subject. These include general works charting the development of the charitable sector, the exploration of voluntary organisations as a subsidiary topic to broader themes and regional studies adopting a range of perspectives. Most research in this latter category has been conducted on large towns and cities that generally have copious amounts of source material. In contrast, lesser provincial towns have received relatively little scholarly attention, despite the more manageable nature of their documentation. The aim of this thesis is to explore the growth of charitable organisations within Macclesfield, an East Cheshire industrial town that was dominated by the silk industry. This study concentrates on the period from 1750 to 1900, when the silk industry was dominant within the town and philanthropic activity was at its height. The town?s silk manufacturers were renowned for their charitable work and thus this research focuses on the extent to which this occupational group was critical in the development of Macclesfield?s voluntary institutions, the motives that lay behind their contributions, and their achievements. In order to see whether their involvement was typical of other businessmen, comparisons are drawn throughout with the charitable activities of contemporary entrepreneurs in a variety of urban settings.This study investigates the silk manufacturers? participation in Macclesfield?s voluntary institutions in the fields of religion, education, public services and public amenities, together with any additional charitable acts. The evidence from all these areas suggests that in most cases the silk manufacturers were heavily involved in funding and managing these institutions. Their obvious motives reflected altruistic, religious and educational beliefs, but there were also a variety of other concerns that could have been contributory in determining their support for particular institutions. The primary achievement of Macclesfield?s voluntary sector was to provide a network of services that, in conjunction with later state initiatives, improved living standards for inhabitants by the end of the nineteenth century.This thesis gives an insight into the development of charitable institutions in a medium sized industrial town and demonstrates how one group of businessmen were able to dominate this field. Many silk manufacturers were generous in their support of charitable causes in Macclesfield, but the scale of their support did not match that of some other notable philanthropic families, such as the Crossleys of Halifax. The charitable work of the silk manufacturers appeared to be broadly similar to that of entrepreneurs in other small and medium sized industrial towns where they could form a dominant occupational group in public life. In larger towns and cities, this strong manufacturer influence was less evident and a greater range of other people contributed significantly to philanthropic institutions. This type of approach supplements the existing material on philanthropic effort during the long nineteenth century and overlaps a number of related subject areas, such as urban ?lite activity and the growth of the welfare state.

This dissertation evaluates the current phenomenon of public distrust in local government. More specifically, the research focuses on significant determinants of public trust in local government: public service quality and the way these are delivered to local residents. Drawing upon Coulter and Coulter’s (2002) pioneering research, this study focuses on the relationship between customer trust antecedents and service providers and extends their research to local government. Evidence suggests that components of service quality (i.e., promptness, reliability, customization, and competence) and the manner of service delivery (i.e., civility and compassion) have direct bearing on customer trust in service providers. Scholars offer further indication that these factors are subject to a moderating effect when length of relationship (residency) between customer (resident) and service provider (local government) is considered. Provided that service delivery is at the core of local government’s mission, this research seeks to measure the impact of local government services on constituent trust with additional inquiry into the moderating effect of length of constituent residency. Testing of hypotheses included split results with the correlation hypotheses (H1 – H6) being supported and the moderating hypotheses (H7(a-f)) failing to be supported. Findings and implications of this research demonstrate how local government service and way of delivery can be managed such that public trust is engendered.

This study expands on previous work that focused on explaining motivations for joining the military in the United States. Using the prominent theory of public service motivation (PSM) found in public administration, I surveyed American military veterans currently pursuing post-secondary education to see if this theory helps explain why people join the military in much the same way that the theory helps explain why people join the civil service. My research includes multiple demographics, including those who served in the different military branches within the Department of Defense; those who served active duty, reserve, and national guard; officers vs. enlisted personnel; males vs. females; and combat vs. combat support military occupational specialties. This study contributes to the literature that explains why people are motivated to serve in the public sector in America.

There has been a long-standing perception by the American public that bureaucrats are incompetent. Public administration scholars have studied the negative perceptions of bureaucrats and the work of these scholars has brought about a dichotomous characterization of bureaucrats. On one end, scholars characterized bureaucrats as incompetent individuals with truncated personalities who add to the inefficiencies of the bureaucracy (Hummel, 2008). At the other end scholars find bureaucrats to be ordinary individuals with a remarkable sense of purpose, competence, and dedication (Goodsell, 2015).The characterization of bureaucrats serves as the backdrop to the study’s purpose which was to develop communicator profiles of government bureaucrats. Developing a taxonomy of profiles of their communicator styles and predispositions allowed us to gain an understanding of the competency levels, as it pertains to communication, that exist in current modern bureaucracies which supported and opposed the negative long-standing perception of the general American public toward bureaucrats. The taxonomy of communicator profiles may provide bureaucrats with self-awareness, and concrete understanding of their communication predispositions and styles when performing their jobs. This concrete knowledge may enable bureaucrats and their managers to seek ways in which to enhance communication styles and predispositions during service delivery as well as provide opportunities to mitigate their predispositions so that they may interact with the public in manner that is more in-line with that of responsible public service characterized by kindness, charity, and benevolence (French, 1983). A public sector workforce that interacts with the public with higher levels of communication competency creates an environment of perceived effectiveness, and citizens who come face-to-face with bureaucrats will experience a higher-level quality of service which in turn will ameliorate the perceptions held by the public of bureaucrats. Knowledge of communication trait levels may result in enhanced, positive experiences between citizens and bureaucrats which will bring about stability, function, and effectiveness in bureaucracies necessary for a free society and democratic polity (Goodsell, 2004).

The general decline in juris doctor (“J.D.”) law school applicants and enrollment over the last decade has coincided with the rise of a new breed of law degree. Whether known as a master of jurisprudence, juris master, master of legal studies, or other names, these graduate degrees all have a target audience in common: adult professionals who neither are nor seek to become practicing attorneys. Inside legal academia and among the practicing bar, these degrees have been accompanied by expressed concerns that they detract from the traditional core public mission of law schools—educating lawyers. This Article argues that non-lawyer master’s programs are not a distraction from the public mission of law schools, nor are they a necessary evil foisted upon legal education by economic trends. Rather, such degrees reflect a paradigm shift that law schools and attorneys should embrace rather than resist: a move away from law being largely accessed primarily through a licensed elite and toward a greater role for autonomy in public engagement with the legal system. The law school function of serving the public goes well beyond training future lawyers or even marshalling them in the advance of access to justice. The expanded legal education vision advocated here includes those functions, but as part of a more encompassing mission. Law schools should aim to ensure access to law rather than simply access to lawyers. This Article then sets forth foundational frameworks for such programs to succeed at their goals, both at the programmatic level and at the course-design level.

The living situations of the unsheltered America homeless vary across America. This paper highlights this difference by comparing two cities: New York City and San Francisco. The author considers the causes of homelessness, difficulty of being shelters, current living situation and the influence of the society. In both cities, the sleeping space has the biggest problems. It is critical and worth to improve. Different from bedding supplies for camping, disaster reliefs and military, bedding for unsheltered homeless people must meet their chronic needs and flexible requirements of changing sites. As in the New York City, the unsheltered homeless people prefer to stay in railway stations or bus stops to keep warm while in San Francisco most of the homeless live on the street, using tents. It is vital for designers to do some research about public transport sites, street management and street cleaning services to help them with sleeping space. When designing, designers need to take some references in terms of privacy design in public space, outdoor design products and temporary housing. Once the solutions meet the needs of a specific locate, designers must consider to make it more universal.

Дисертація на здобуття наукового ступеня кандидата юридичних наук за спеціальністю 12.00.08 – кримінальне право та кримінологія; кримінально- виконавче право. – Національний університет «Одеська юридична академія», Одеса, 2019. Дисертація є одним із перших в Україні спеціальних комплексних досліджень теоретичних і прикладних проблем кримінальної політики щодо протидії зловживанням повноваженнями особами, які надають публічні послуги. У дисертації визначено та охарактеризовано базові складові кримінальної політики протидії зловживанням повноваженнями особами, які надають публічні послуги. Розглянуто ґенезу становлення інституту кримінальної відповідальності за злочини, вчинені особами, які надають публічні послуги у кримінальному праві України та окремих зарубіжних країн. Охарактеризовано основний склад злочину за ст. 365-2 КК України. Надано соціально-рольову характеристику суб’єкта кримінального правопорушення, передбаченого ст. 365-2 КК України, як конститутивного елементу криміналізації цього діяння. З’ясовано кримінально-правові наслідки скоєння кримінального правопорушення, передбаченого ст. 365-2 КК України. Розглянуто теоретичні підстави та умови ефективності кримінальної відповідальності за зловживання повноваженнями особами, які надають публічні послуги. Сформульовано теоретично обґрунтовані пропозиції про вдосконалення чинного кримінального законодавства України щодо зловживання повноваженнями особами, які надають публічні послуги.

This research examines the causes and effects of job satisfaction among public sector workers in Saudi Arabia. A Job Satisfaction Model was developed based on theories supporting factors in job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and intention to leave and the research questions were tested within the scope of the model. A range of intrinsic and extrinsic factors was proposed to analyse causes affecting job satisfaction, while the effects were examined in terms of organisational commitment and intention to leave.

The purpose of this study is to examine professional hurt across the public services of the Commonwealth Caribbean with a view toward creating what could probably be the first body of knowledge that will offer insights into its nature and relationship with the practice of leadership. The study also sought to explore an understanding of professional hurt that could inform the design of leadership development programs to help develop leaders who can navigate or avoid hurt. I utilized the biographical research approach to access the lived experiences of 20 public sector leaders across 9 independent Commonwealth Caribbean islands. Narrative thematic analysis data from the experiences are summarized and presented using six emergent themes, illustrated with thick narrative descriptions. The findings suggest that professional hurt is a combination of the deep hurt a leader experiences as a professional, pooled with the undermining of his/her sense of professional pride, dignity, confidence, capability, credibility, and worth as a leader. While all facets of the leaders’ hurtful and humiliating experience are sometimes stretched over a period of time, there is actually an identifiable point at which professional hurt occurs. The findings suggest that professional hurt is not necessarily a planned attempt to destroy a leader, but the result of a poorly managed complex social system. This study may thus offer some useful insights for a holistic and transformative change in the practice of public service leadership in the Caribbean. A video author introduction in MP4 format accompanies this dissertation. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink ETDCenter, http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd

This exploratory study was a response to claims that non-faculty professionals at universities were the cause of administrative bloat. The purpose of the study was to build from the work of Rhoades (1998) and Kane (2007) to determine whether non-faculty professional employees at the University of Texas at Austin(UT Austin) performed core university work of research, teaching and/or public service. In the spring of 2012 a survey was sent out to 1036 UT Austin non-faculty professional employees. The survey results determined that a sizable number of non-faculty professional employees at UT Austin were performing or directly contributing to research, teaching and/or public service. In addition to the three areas of core work, it was determined that non-faculty professional employees at UT Austin had advanced degrees, published in peer-reviewed journals, had specialized skills and bodies of knowledge, applied for grants and engaged in entrepreneurial activities.

This research explores successful service delivery of Mass Sports programs by using an organisational effectiveness framework and Appreciative Inquiry approach. The main aim of this research was to determine the factors needed for successful service delivery of Mass Sports programs and to promote public participation in sports and physical activities. The context was the management and delivery of Mass Sports programs sponsored by the Malaysian government. Specifically, the objectives of this research were to: develop a set of descriptive performance indicators that measure successful service delivery of Mass Sports programs; determine the internal and external factors contributing to successful service delivery of Mass Sports programs; establish the organisational capabilities needed for successful service delivery of Mass Sports programs; and determine stakeholders‘ satisfaction level with the service delivery performance of Mass Sports programs by public sports organisations.

The purpose of this thesis has been to identify and analyse: the role of audit committees, the attributes of audit committee members, and the functions and activities that they perform in government-funded public sector organisations, focusing on Victorian government organisations. This research determined how audit committees interact with their major stakeholder partners, namely management, internal audit and external audit. The research also identified the characteristics of audit committees that contribute to their successful performance and their sustainability within a governance and assurance framework.

During disasters, residents from impacted areas need information to help them respond to and cope with the destruction. The local media play an important role in providing this disaster related information to their community. This is especially true during major disasters which knock out electrical power and information distribution channels and make it difficult for residents to receive mediated information. While the public’s informational needs vary from disaster to disaster, some disasters such as hurricanes provide the media opportunities to provide information that can help the public prepare for the disaster, respond to the disaster, and recover from the disaster. Hurricane Ivan, which made its first U.S. landfall on September 16, 2004, provided such opportunities to the Pensacola media organizations. For a case study of this event, the Escambia County Public Information Officer and 17 Pensacola media professionals representing 13 local media organizations that participated in Hurricane Ivan coverage were interviewed about their experiences during the disaster. These interviews included personnel from print, television, and radio organizations. While not every Pensacola media organization got involved in this hurricane coverage, these interviews show that those that did were committed to providing an important public service to Pensacola’s residents by giving them the information they needed during each of the three stages of preparation, response, and recovery. None of these organizations were able to single-handedly meet all of the public’s informational needs, but they each contributed in important ways. It was the combined efforts of the local media—sometimes through formal arrangements with each other—that provided the necessary information to Pensacola residents throughout the disaster.

Providing equal access to public service resources is a fundamental goal of democratic societies. Growing research interest in public services (e.g., healthcare, humanitarian relief, elections) has increased the importance of considering objective functions related to equity. This research studies discrete-resource allocation problems where the decision maker is concerned with maintaining equity between some dened subgroups of a customer population. In particular, we apply resource-allocation models to improve equity in two specic applications: voting systems and health care. We employ simulation-optimization techniques and Markov-decision-process models to develop rigorous algorithms to allocate resources equitably among these subgroups. The presented solutions are associated with bounds on solution quality, some of which are guaranteed to be optimal. Various numerical tests demonstrate that our algorithms outperform competing heuristics and are robust over various inequity metrics. We apply our algorithms to real case studies using empirical data for a voting-machine-allocation problem in Franklin County, Ohio, and to develop an admission-control policy for a cardiac intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

This research examines the experiences of disenfranchised workers in the Australian Public Service. The best methodology for my study is a hybrid. A hybrid that takes the wisdom of ethnographic case studies, phenomenology, feminist post-structuralism and narrative theories to make sense of the stories of people working within organisations that have failed, traumatised, belittled, ignored, bullied and destroyed them. The study looks at the experiences of twenty disenfranchised workers who labelled themselves as disenfranchised. This thesis is about the abused, the mistreated, and the disenfranchised. Of opportunities lost and perceived injustices. I believe the voices of the disenfranchised public servants are silenced by supervisors, colleagues and the system itself. This study aims to give legitimacy to their complaints, document their stories and chronicle their mistreatment at the hands of public supervisors who are often brutalised themselves. The Public Service workplace becomes like a violent family. We all learn what we see, not what we read or are told. And so the culture of dysfunction is passed from underling to boss and workers suffer. These actions ripple throughout public servants’ lives. Literature around the disenfranchised worker is growing. This study documents the experiences of disenfranchised workers and unmutes their voices. These experiences are important and contemporary issues to enable people to live a life of consequence.

Strategic planning is intended to help governments, communities and organisations deal with and adapt to their changing internal and external circumstances. It can help clarify and resolve the most important pressing issues they face. It enables them to build on strengths, take advantage of opportunities, and become much more effective in what seems to be a more hostile world. The aim of this study is to discover the nature and the extent of the strategic planning formation process within Middle Eastern public sector organisations, particularly in Dubai. This includes an assessment of the formality of the strategic planning formation process, determining the influence of the external contextual and internal organisational barriers on the formality of the planning process, and evaluating the quality of the strategic plan document produced. Furthermore, the research aims to evaluate the influence of organisational characteristics on the planning process, as well as the determinants of the planning horizon.

This thesis investigates the relevance of digital democracy in enhancing citizen participation in policy making within the Malaysian civil service. A qualitative research method is applied through an empirical, in-depth interview based, data collection exercise of a sample of civil servants and commentators on government and technology in Malaysia. It assesses, from a broad perspective, the possible contribution of Information Communications Technology (ICT) in strengthening citizen participation in the democratic processes of government. In these contexts it offers a perspective on how the legal, political and social interpenetrates. The literature reviewed covers: the concept of democracy and assumed influences of ICT on democratic processes; Malaysia’s history with a focus on nation building, the civil service and also its government’s ICT agendas; and, laws structuring citizen participation in government in Malaysia, framed within autopoietic theory. This, as a metaphor, offers a flexible perspective of law’s affect on its environment and vice versa, and, further illustrates and emphasises the importance of context. The findings suggest that civil servants agree that there are numerous opportunities for policy making to benefit from digital democracy practices based on ICT. However there is a gap between their appreciation of this potential as a concept and their confidence in its implementation in policy making within the civil service. Civil servants are not ready to hand over the role of defining the process and content of policy making to citizens. Civil servants are generally uncertain about the actual value or weight they are willing to afford to inputs from digital democracy practices and what its influence on policy making will be. The thesis is significant because it describes, from viewpoints within the civil service, the role of ICT in enhancing citizen participation in democratic processes within a context of issues, benefits, enablers and barriers to citizen participation in policy making. This description is placed against a background of the history, culture and law which situates Malaysian civil servants’ understanding of the concept of digital democracy and how they frame its relevance to policy making. The research informs the formulation of policy for the use of digital democracy practices in Malaysia. More generally, it contributes to the debate over the factors, including historic democratic practices, which affect the capacity for ICT to enhance participatory democracy. Through this focus on a South East Asian state and its civil service, the study explores new dimensions and offers a significant contribution to the emerging field of digital democracy.

Communities of Practice (CoPs) have become a widely used method to enhance knowledge management, knowledge transfer, innovation and learning in large, complex organizations. Since first introduced by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, the concept has been widely discussed in the private, public and educational sectors. Much of the literature has focused on either the abstract, theoretical underpinnings or the structural elements of CoPs with little attention paid to the actual experience of individual participants in CoPs - in effect reflecting the perspectives of the architects and builders of a home but not the occupants. This Grounded Theory study uses a combination of both Situational and Dimensional Analysis to explicate the experience of the participants in a number of CoPs functioning in the British Columbia Public Service. The intent is to offer a deeper understanding of the internal dynamics within CoPs for those interested in facilitating successful CoPs. The British Columbia Public Service (BCPS) is a large, knowledge-based organization delivering a wide variety of programs and services across a large, economically and culturally diverse, jurisdiction. The challenges faced by the BCPS are similar to those faced by other knowledge-based organizations. The use of CoPs is wide-spread in the BCPS displaying a range of structure from highly formalized to relatively informal. This research, based on 21 unstructured interviews and supported by other documentation, presents a model that helps to clarify both the relationship between CoPs and other organizational sub-groups as well as capturing the dynamic, member-driven nature of CoPs. It is anticipated that individuals interested in CoPs will find this modeling helpful in understanding how CoPs function from the perspective CoP participants. The dissertation also attempts to draw linkages to other pertinent theory related to group dynamics, human development, and learning that may support the understanding of how CoPs function. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink EDT Center, www.ohiolink.edu/edt

The research focuses on the development of e-government initiatives at public sector organisations in Oman. As e-government matures in importance and priority for governments worldwide, an understanding of the factors that influence their successful development is invaluable. Therefore, in order fore-government initiatives to be successful, the influencing factors should be identified and evaluated. This research examines the factors that could guide the successful development of egovernment initiatives in public-sector service organisations in Oman. Based on the research objectives, a case study approach was found to be appropriate and employed throughout this research. The data was gathered utilising a questionnaire and semistructured interviews.

Public services play an essential role in society, and every citizen uses them. They have traditionally been the principal means of implementing the political will, through policy development and implementation. Yet it is almost a national sport to criticise public servants. Their image is often poor, fed by television programmes such as Yes Minister. Common perceptions include that they have little real merit, do not work hard, are under little pressure to perform, are too powerful, are almost impossible to dismiss, and could benefit from some private sector experience. Such are the consequences of the career service model of employment that public servants enjoy. This thesis considers the much-maligned career service model of public sector employment relations, and asks how important it was, how it evolved, and why. First, it outlines the traditional understanding of public service employment, with its central tenets of merit, tenure, standardised conditions and political neutrality, all administered by an independent central personnel agency, and then explores the adoption, adaptation and reform of that model in three major western democracies - Britain, the United States and Australia. Then, it considers the implementation and evolution of that model in the Queensland public service from 1859 to 2000. The thesis argues that the traditional career service model was necessary to overcome problems of politicisation, corruption, insecurity and inefficiency that arose from the previous patronage model in the early 1800s. The model contained sound principles that were largely consistent with Westminster conventions, and were considered necessary for effective service in a political environment. Poor implementation of the model led to growing dissatisfaction by the late 20th century. However, rather than diagnose the problem as poor implementation and perhaps inadequate political leadership of the service, the career service model itself was found deficient, and was subjected to extensive reform through the weakening of its central tenets. The evolution of the career service demonstrates some circularity, as the problems of politicisation and insecurity that existed prior to the career service model begin to re-emerge.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the ideal of public service, what it is and what it should be and how it has evolved in American history. I am concerned that the ideal of public service, a guiding principle for public administrators and government, has been diminished by the emphasis in American public administration on economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. If public sector leaders, such as presidents, over time have changed their focus from discussions of the Constitution or republican principles to other ideas such as taxes and specific government programs, then has the ideal or vision of public service changed? The topic of service, aligned with duty and the responsibility of the citizen, while prevalent in the political theory literature, has been pushed to the back of the public administration literature shelves. Without the ideal of service as a vibrant element of the public administration discourse, the public administration community will have given way to those who see public administration as merely a modified business model. The primary research question posed in this study was: Has the emphasis on economy, efficiency, and effectiveness diminished the ideal of public service? The texts of presidential inaugural addresses were analyzed and reviewed for insights into the ideal of public service by the use of content analysis, using nine criteria that exemplify the ideals of public service. One of the secondary questions posed here was: Has the ideal or vision of public service changed? Discussion of the different criteria illustrated that there has been a change resulting in a different concept of the ideal of public service today. The final question of how and when the ideal of public service changed is answered in the dissertation also, as the results, criterion by criterion, are explained. This study shows that the inaugural addresses captured the ideal of public service dynamically and often eloquently over the course of American history. The changing nature of the role of government, issues of importance to government, and nature of the ideal of public service are on the historical record as set forth in these inaugural addresses.

This research addresses the nature of leadership. Reflecting a sound theoretical base, the researcher studied the people involved in a complex change process, and listened to their perceptions about change and leadership. The study goes beyond the idea of the individual leader into the notion of a leadership relationship. It is a study of the persons who were active in the relationship, a study of their behaviors and language as they changed how the county government served the public. One of the primary purposes of the study is to demonstrate how these insights regarding change and the nature of leadership are relevant to the study and practice of public administration in a regional government in the United States. This is an interactive, in-depth study of a specific change process in the County of San Diego, the fourth largest county government in the United States. In 1983 County Supervisor Leon Williams convened a task force to study and evaluate the formulation of public policy making and program implementation in the county's government. At the same time, the news media called for changes in county government in a 1984 series of articles in the San Diego Tribune titled "County in Chaos." The researcher provides an analytical narrative of seven years of this change process based on the data that were compiled through nonreactive research, participant observation, and extensive interviews with over 60 key decision makers and participants in the change process. The findings of the study indicate that intended changes have occurred in the county government and that these changes were perceived differently among the participants. The changes most difficult for the county to actualize without a leadership relationship were those which involved its culture and valued meanings. Although the county officials and other participants demonstrated great interest in the concept of leadership, they had no working definition of leadership. There were shared descriptors, but no commonly understood definition. The researcher concluded that there is a need for a working definition of leadership for the practitioner that can be understood, used and taught. It must allow for the purposes of a diverse society to be heard and reflected in the processes of the future. The working definition, the author suggests, is: Leadership is a dialectical, influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes which reflect their mutual and evolving purposes.

This thesis discusses the similarities and differences between position classifications in public service and a state institution of higher learning.