Search

United States (US) immigration policies have increasingly focused on national security resulting in universities experiencing declines in international student applications, constraints on international scholar employment, and complications facilitating international research collaborations. The COVID-19 pandemic brought additional travel restrictions, embassy closures, and health and safety concerns that exacerbated these challenges. Science mobility is critical for science education, training, competitiveness, and innovation. Using a representative sample of US and foreign-born scientists in three STEM fields, we explore how recent visa and immigration policies have shaped research collaborations, work with students and postdoctoral scholars, and intentions to leave. We use descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and logistic regression and find academic scientists report disruptions from visa and immigration policies; negative impacts of immigration policies on US higher education; negative effects on recruitment and retention of international trainees; and increased intentions to leave the US driven by negative perceptions of immigration policy.

Public agencies are increasingly required to respond to multiple and evolving threats. Perceptions of risk are important triggers of organizational responses and motivate adaptive strategies. Integrating administrative data with a survey of public managers employed across the 300 largest transit agencies in the US, we examine how outsourcing decisions and reliance on scientific and professional sources of information influence public agencies' perceptions of extreme weather events' risks. Results show that reliance on scientific and professional sources of information is positively associated with perceived risk of extreme weather events. The effect of contracting on risk perceptions depends on agencies' outsourcing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How public organizations respond strategically to natural hazards is relevant for maintaining functionality and protecting citizens. An essential component of strategic response is coordinating with multiple organizations in ways that provide resources and mutual support. Drawing from resource dependence and cognitive behavior theories, we investigate how different contextual factors predict coordination strategy. We focus on transit agencies in the US and develop hypotheses about how the experience of natural hazards, the transit infrastructure conditions, and public managers' risk perceptions determine their coordination as responses to immediate and future extreme weather events. This study aims to contribute to the strategic management of natural hazards literature. In particular, we expect that the findings will illuminate how transit agencies consider service area vulnerabilities as part of their strategic coordination efforts. Further, the study will provide insights to managers who are facing the need to balance organizational capacity, risk, and equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the conversion of one local government's fleet from gasoline to bi-fuel E-85, compressed natural gas, and liquid propane gas powered vehicles at the midpoint of a 10-year conversion plan. This study employs a behavioral model based on the theory of reasoned action to explore factors that influence an individual's perceived and actual use of alternative fuels. Analysis is based on survey data collected from primary drivers of bi-fuel fleet vehicles at the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, Illinois. Findings show that environmental attitudes do not have a significant effect on actual or perceived use; however, external variables such as fueling convenience, vehicle performance, and the extent of informal communication significantly affect the driver's likelihood of using alternative fuel. The results have implications for fleet managers that could promote regulatory and infrastructural developments to achieve higher rates of alternative fuel use. (Contains 1 figure, 3 tables and 5 notes.)

Climate change can bring about large-scale irreversible physical impacts and systemic changes in the operating environment of public organizations. Research on preconditions for organizational adaptation to climate change has produced two parallel lines of inquiry, one focusing on macro-level norms, rules, and expectations and the other on meso-level culture, design, and structure within the organization. Drawing on the meta-theory of institutional logics, this study proposes a configurational approach to link institutionally aware top managers with the combination and reconciliation of macro- and meso-level logics. We identify government authority, professionalism, and market as macro-level institutional logics, and risk-based logic and capacity-based logic as critical meso-level institutional logics. Our theory proposes that (1) the macro- and meso-level institutional logics co-exist in systematic ways as to produce identifiable configurations, (2) the configurations are differentially associated with climate adaptation, and (3) the effects of each logic differ across the configurations. Using a 2019 national survey on approximately 1000 top managers in the largest U.S. transit agencies, we apply latent profile analysis to identify three distinct clusters: forerunner, complacent, and market-oriented. Only the forerunner cluster is adaptive to climate change, whereas the two others are maladaptive. Findings from the multigroup structural equation model also demonstrate varied effects of each institutional logic on adaptation across the clusters, confirming institutional work at play to reconcile and integrate co-existing and potential contradictory logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]