During the 1970s, the Florida Legislature developed a statewide system of aquatic preserves with the goal that state-owned submerged lands in areas having exceptional biological, aesthetic and scientific value be set aside forever as aquatic preserves or sanctuaries for the benefit of future generations. Although aquatic preserves have drawn the attention of policy makers, no comprehensive evaluation has been made of the aquatic preserve program's impact on preserve quality or maintaining the preserves' accrued benefits. A systematic program evaluation is made of the aquatic preserve program, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, by: (1) Comparing preserve and non-preserve area resource conditions and management effectiveness; (2) qualitatively assessing preserve conditions; (3) identifying significant factors which most influence aquatic preserve management; and (4) applying these significant factors to aquatic preserve decision making. Variables analyzed in the systems evaluation model include program inputs (social, economic, and environmental demands and supports), program outputs (government decision variables on dredging and filling, expenditures for natural resources, submerged land conveyances, local planning, etc.), and program outcomes such as preserve water quality, wetlands concentration, and fisheries production. The data for these variables are described and a comparative description of the ecological conditions of each preserve is presented using a preserve condition index. The systems evaluation model is tested using regression analysis, while preserve versus non-preserve management is analyzed through the use of time series transfer functions. Generally, the results show that eighteen of thirty-five aquatic preserves are of an unacceptable quality, governmental decisions have more impact on preserve conditions than non-preserve conditions, and local government decisions result in more significant outcomes in aquatic preserve conditions of all program outputs. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: A, page: 4037. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the attitude of the Saudi people toward the Saudi bureaucracy. The study was performed by constructing a survey translated into Arabic language and conducted in Saudi Arabia. It was used to test the following major items: (1) the Saudi people's receptivity to change; (2) the Saudi people's trust in bureaucrats; (3) the Saudi people's civic responsibility toward bureaucracy; and (4) the Saudi people's satisfaction with public services: hospitals, postal, telephone, price control and utilities. / A random sample of 900 Saudi citizens was drawn from the city of Jeddah as an urban area (600) and from Wadi Fatima as a rural area (300) to reach an approximate representation for the Saudi population as a whole. However, the result obtained was only 448 respondents from Jeddah and 254 from Wadi Fatima (a total of 702). The respondents' attitudes as dependent variables were examined with several independent variables, such as age, education, income, location, media, job, and tribal status to ascertain how much the Saudi people's predisposition toward the bureaucracy fluctuates under these different variables. / The findings show, first that the majority of the Saudis are generally receptive to change since the Saudi women were strongly invited to participate in the development programs, but in an Islamic framework. Second, the majority of the Saudis lack confidence in the Saudi bureaucrats due to their insensitivity to the public. Third, most of the Saudis display low civic responsibility toward bureaucracy. Finally, most of the Saudis have minimal satisfaction with public services previously stated. The findings also show little or no relationship between the Saudi's attitude and age, education, income, location, media, job, and tribal status since they are generally dissatisfied with bureaucracy. / The Saudi bureaucracy's endeavors to achieve the development goals will be aborted unless the cooperation of the people can be assured. Accordingly, a list of recommendations are listed in Chapter V as solutions for the bureaucracy to regain a popular confidence. The most important one is to have the ministers of the public services under study elected rather than appointed so that greater concern for the people's needs may be engendered. The election technique described has the advantage of fitting the existing monarchical system and boosting the morale of both the servants and the served in a country like Saudi Arabia. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: A, page: 4032. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

Politics is often centered on making distributive decisions concerning the allocation of scarce resources. One most obvious example of this is the federal appropriation process. Because it is Congress which, subject to Presidential veto, determines the final budget, students of politics are interested in the manner in which Congress decides on federal appropriations. / Many theories attempt to explain the federal appropriations process. Three are examined here: incrementalism, program support/economy optimization, and bargaining. Each quite adequately explains some aspect of the process. Yet each suffers from shortcomings, preventing it from offering a comprehensive view. / At times each of the three theories correctly predicts Congressional appropriations behavior. What this study does is specify the conditions under which each of the three theories is likely to prevail thereby developing an integrative theory of the budgetary process. / Once the conditions are specified, the integrative theory is tested. The new theory is used to make predictions for 37 federal agency House Appropriations Committee recommendation trend lines, for the years 1957-1974. Theoretical predictions are compared to actual trends and the theory is evaluated. / The initial theory explains about 54 percent of the cases correctly. Once revised slightly, the theory predicts about 94 percent of the cases correctly. Thus the revised theory provides a substantially correct explanation of the federal appropriations process. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-07, Section: A, page: 3254. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

One of the most controversial issues of the past two decades involves the area of civil rights, specifically, the achievement of equality for minority individuals within American society. To that effect both scholars and practitioners of public administration have been faced with the challenging task of increasing the representativeness of the Federal public service, in order to make Federal bureaucracy more aware of the social, economic, and political needs of the minority individuals which it serves. Recent attempts to achieve a Federal bureaucracy broadly representative of all subgroups in American society at all levels of the organizational hierarchy include the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, and although the provisions of these acts, in conjunction with the program of Affirmative Action, have been successful in increasing minority representativeness at the lower levels of the Federal public service, the lack of a substantive number of minority individuals in higher level supervisory and/or managerial positions within the bureaucratic hierarchy poses a critical threat to the realization of a more representative Federal bureaucracy within the United States. / In examining reasons for the inability of minority individuals to make necessary inroads into the higher levels of the bureaucratic hierarchy that are essential for the attainment of bureaucratic representativeness, this study investigates the argument that minority employees of the Federal bureaucratic organization experience discrimination in promotion as a result of their culturally influenced perceptions of the Federal merit system and Federal merit principles. Given the observation that the cultural group responsible for developing organizations within society creates societal organizations predicated on the values of that particular group, coupled with data confirming that the Federal public service was established by individuals from the dominant white male culture, the dissertation proposes that the merit principles governing personnel policies in the current Federal public service are defined according to white male values and, as such, may act to discriminate against minority individuals not subscribing to the same culturally defined perceptions of merit. / The hypothesis that the cultural environment from which an individual originates effects that individual's perceptions of the Federal merit system and Federal merit principles, in short, the proposition that perceptions of merit are a function of culture, is tested on a sample of minority and non-minority Federal employees from selected Federal organizations in Atlanta, Georgia. Through the use of bivariate, partial, and conditional correlation techniques, the dissertation analyzes the data gathered by the survey of minority and non-minority Federal employees, provides insight into whether or not perceptions of the Federal merit system and Federal merit principles are related to cultural environment, and considers the implications of the research findings with respect to the achievement of a more representative American Federal bureaucracy. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: A, page: 1308. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

This study seeks to analyze the dynamics of decentralization in Iran and explore the nature of its connection to the socio-economic development structures of the provinces. The choice of this problem was made on the basis of the theoretical and policy significance. Its main theoretical concern is an explanation of the underlying aspects of decentralization which has been defined as the extent to which the province has the capacity to perform functions and services relevant to its needs. This study emphasizes the structural requirements of decentralization and hypothesizes that it is a function of the province's level of socio-economic development. / From the policy point of view, this research examines the problem of how much local autonomy the provinces should have based on their capacity to govern and how functions and services could be reasonably allocated between the national and local government. A selective scheme of decentralization which differentiates degrees of autonomy on the basis of the varying conditions in the provinces is proposed as an alternative to the present system which prescribes universal and uniform standards for local governments regardless of their institutional and resource capabilities. / Twenty-four variables from aggregate data for 1976 on the provinces based on per capita were utilized for two factor analysis programs to deliniate the major aspects of decentralization and development. The factors which emerged as underlying decentralization are: Local Government and Social Services. Likewise, three factors characterize provincial socio-economic development: Urbanization, Rural Employment, and Regionalization. The real factors which form the basis of both the decentralization and development phenomena are far more complex than revealed in this study and would include great number of variables some of which could be defined only through intuition, insight, or contextual analysis of social reality in Iran. / Through multiple regression analysis, the decentralization aspects were predicted by the development variables. Local Government was predicted highly by Rural Employment, and Social Services was not so highly correlated with the three development factors. The overall relationship between decentralization and development was somewhat moderate with 42% of the variance in the decentralization aspect explained by development aspects. Also, the findings of the study support the minor hypothesis on the positive connection between distance and decentralization and development. / The dissertation also focuses on the experiences of decentralization in provinces and various policies which were introduced in the developmental plans. But at the end we found that decentralization has had limited success. And in particular in the current circumstances in Iran, regarding the various conflicts between the hard-line clergymen and moderates, autonomy-seeking ethnic groups and the central government, and above all the war with Iraq which began in mid-September 1980 and still going on, the accomplishment of policies concerning decentralization is in doubt. / The study concludes that decentralization is not a panacea for the malfunctioning of political institutions but it is only one of a number of options that could contribute to popular participation, equity, social responsiveness, and similar goals. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: A, page: 1311. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

An important area of concern presently facing public officials and managers is how to improve productivity. Since human resources account for the major portion of an organization's budget, improving the performance of employees would improve the overall productivity of the organization. An encouraging management tool associated wth performance improvement is goal-setting. Goal-setting research thus far, however, has been primarily oriented toward experimental studies in the laboratory or within private organizations and has resulted in conflicting findings. This study involves a research design to examine the relationship between goal-setting and job performance in the public sector. / The focus of the research is on measurement. Three measurement scales are developed: (1) extent of goal-setting, (2) self-perception of performance, and (3) receptiveness to goal-setting. The measure of most interest is extent of goal-setting. This measure is developed to provide a tool to measure goal-setting practices within the superior-subordinate relationship to determine the extent to which goal-setting is currently practiced in the public sector. The extent of goal-setting measure is also compared to a measure of self-perceived level of performance to determine whether or not the two variables are related. / The receptiveness to goal-setting measure is used to further examine the potential usefulness of goal-setting as a technique for improving employee performance by determining the likelihood of goal-setting being accepted by employees. Receptiveness to goal-setting is analyzed by race, sex, occupational area, and the employee's present performance level. / Seven specific hypotheses were presented to be tested using these measures. To test the hypotheses, the measures were applied to a random sample of 270 employees in Florida's state government. Each of the measures were determined to be acceptably reliable. / From the sample survey of public employees in this study it was found that goal-setting is not presently practiced to a great extent. However, to the extent goal-setting is practiced in the superior-subordinate relationship there is a positive and statistically significant correlation between the extent of goal-setting and the subordinate's level of performance based on the employee's self-perception of his performance and supervisory ratings reported by the employee. Also, goal-setting appeared to be practiced to approximately the same extent in each of five major occupational areas tested in this study. Concerning employees' receptiveness to goal-setting, it was found that employees are generally receptive to goal-setting regardless of their present level of self-perceived performance, occupational area, race, or sex. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: A, page: 1210. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

The purpose of this study was to identify the organizational problems of two Saudi public organizations and suggest the appropriate OD techniques for solving their problems. In order to identify the organizational problems, the Survey of Organizations was translated into Arabic and used to collect the data for answering the following questions: (1)Can the Survey of Organizations be applied reliably in Saudi Arabia? (2)Based on the scales of the Survey of Organizations, what are the organizational problems the two ministries under study have? (3)Are the findings obtained from the survey similar or different from those obtained through the use of open-ended questions? (4)Based on the findings and the Likert's four management systems, what kind of management system do the two organizations have? (5)What are the personal characteristics of the respondents that have an impact on their perception of their organizations and their problems? (6)Are there any systematic relationships between the causal, intervening and end-result variables? / Statistical tests used in this research support the following conclusions: (1)The Survey of Organizations was reliably applied in two Saudi public organizations. (2)Organizational problems exist along the 16 areas measured, the general pattern of these problems is hierarchical in nature, and the existence of these problems is an indication of a low degree of effectiveness. (3)The management system of these organizations is authoritarian, system 2. (4)It was found that (a)the lower the grade the more positive the respondents' perceptions of their organizations, (b)the longer the years of service, the more positive the respondents perception of organizational problems, and (c)the higher the educational level, the less positive the respondents perception of the causal, intervening and end-result variables. These relationships led to the conclusion that in order to improve organizational effectiveness of the two ministries, the organizational climate, managerial leadership, peer leadership and group process must be improved. (6)The findings of this research demonstrate that the survey feedback approach is an appropriate OD technique for Saudia Arabia. / It was recommended that before replicating this study in other public organizations that some of the items of the Survey of Organizations be modified and adapted to Saudi organizations and culture. It was recommended that the IPA should take initiatives in replicating this study at the Kingdom level. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: A, page: 1310. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

The first purpose of the study was to examine the degree of the existence of ideal behaviors and attitudes among present Saudi Arabian bureaucrats as an essential ingredient for accomplishing the social-economic development of the country. In order to investigate the attitudes of the present bureaucrats toward work value as related to innovation and change, a survey was conducted of 500 government employees in eight production and services ministries. Frequency distribution was used to analyze the data. / The findings of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) Work related mobility was found to be generally unacceptable among present bureaucrats. (2) The present bureaucrats showed a high reluctance toward working in rural areas. (3) Monetary incentive was found not to be an influencing factor in choosing a government job. (4) Conservative attitudes toward development programs were found to be very prevalent among present bureaucrats. (5) The present bureaucrats showed unwillingness to take risks in decision making. (6) The present bureaucrats showed a low tendency toward innovative behavior. / The second purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of Saudi university students preparing for careers in the bureaucracy to determine whether they reflected greater tendencies toward innovation and change than did the present bureaucrats. These findings could then help determine whether the present educational system is providing successfully for improvement in the Saudi Arabian bureaucracy. The Saudi Arabian government has expanded education, especially higher education, into every part of the country, and this effort seems to be appreciated by its society. The question, however, is whether the education system is really providing the highly skilled and experienced manpower needed to participate in the nation's development programs. / In order to investigate the second purpose of the study a survey was conducted of 600 students preparing for government careers. Analysis of variance was employed to determine the degree of difference (if any) between the present and future bureaucrats in their attitude toward work value as related to innovation and change. / The findings of the second part of the study can be summarized as follows: (1) No significant differences were found between future bureaucrats and current employees in their attitude toward work-related mobility; (2) Significant differences were found between present and future bureaucrats toward working in rural areas. (3) No significant differences were found between present and future bureaucrats in their attitude toward monetary incentives. (4) No significant differences were found between present and future bureaucrats in their attitude toward social-economic development. (5) No significant differences were found between present and future bureaucrats in their attitude toward risk taking and decision making. (6) Significant differences were found between present and future bureaucrats in their attitude toward ascriptive values. (7) No significant differences were found between present and future bureaucrats in their attitude toward the general public. (8) Significant differences were found between present and future bureaucrats in their attitude toward social issues. (9) No significant differences were found between present and future bureaucrats in their attitude toward innovation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: A, page: 2850. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-11, Section: A, page: 5999. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

County governments have often been ignored in recent literature. Vincent Marando and Robert Thomas in their book, The Forgotten Governments, have argued that county government is a viable part of the American governmental system and deserves consideration. Counties do suffer the same problems as other levels of government. / This research is an inquiry into how collective bargaining has affected county government in the State of Florida. There are three major problems discussed in the research. First, consideration is given to how the Florida Public Employees Relations Act has affected county government. Second, attention is given to how the structure of the county organization affects the collective bargaining process. Finally, do the attitudes of county officials and labor negotiators alter the bargaining process. / The methodologies used include an attitude questionnaire, direct observation through the means of interviewing and content analysis of documents and records of the county. The attitude questionnaire examines general attitude indicators that would be associated with the concept of integrative bargaining. The general attitude indicators include tolerance of conflict, proclivity towards bargaining, and authoritarianism. Also included in the questionnaire is the measurement of attitudes toward labor relations issues. These include tolerance of strikes, propensity to delegate, critical services and bargaining procedures. / The results of the attitude questionnaire showed that role occupancy is a better determiniant of attitudes towards labor relations issues than general personality attitudes. County Commissioners and personnel managers attitudes on tolerance of conflict, proclivity for bargaining and authoritarianism were found to be more flexible than county constitutional officers. Labor negotiators could achieve better results at the bargaining table with commissioners and personnel managers than with constitutional officers. / Eighteen counties in Florida currently engage in collective bargaining activities. These counties can be classified into three distinct types: complete metropolitan, incomplete metropolitan and rural. Complete metropolitan counties' personnel functions were dominated by collective bargaining. The incomplete counties were at a transition point. Less than one half of the employees were unionized, the other county employees were still covered by traditional personnel systems including the merit system. For the incomplete metropolitan county a dual system for personnel management exists. The rural counties appear to just barely cope with collective bargaining. These counties must rely on outside consultants to conduct negotiations. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: A, page: 2854. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.