Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: James Raths, School of Education. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2006. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-102).

Corporate governance phenomena have traditionally been, and are still, studied foremost as relationships between principals and agents. Studies of how accounting plays out in corporate governance settings rather share the interest in hierarchical influence than challenge it. The present thesis argues that when studying accounting in corporate governance settings we must, in addition to studying hierarchical influence, take into account the ‘field of governance’ in which accounting is situated. The hierarchical influence with which the corporate governance literature is concerned does not occur in an isolated setting, but in a field with pre-existing, concurrent and entering governance initiatives, technologies and actors. Such aspects of the field of governance necessarily influence how accounting is able to serve corporate governance ends. Based on two empirical cases, institutional investors and trade unions, active in a field of governance concerned with social and environmental aspects of corporate performance, this thesis consists of four studies investigating the different aspects (who, what and where) of the field of governance and the influence these aspects have on accounting in a corporate governance setting. This thesis, as a result, proposes a new way to study accounting in corporate governance settings and identifies further conditions for accounting’s constitutive ability. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Submitted. Paper 2: Submitted. Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

No systematic research has been undertaken in Canada on the relationship between hospital performance, organizational monitoring capacity and board governance. This three-part dissertation aims to fill that gap. The conceptual framework elaborated in a theoretical paper and tested in two exploratory empirical studies proposes that boards reflect their institutions, with high performers exhibiting greater capacity to harmonize accountability needs and align governance decision-making and monitoring systems with external performance measurement and reporting requirements. Top team (board and management) characteristics, and governance practices, both proposed elements of “governance capacity,” are hypothesized to reflect and reinforce “organizational monitoring and alignment capacity” thereby contributing directly and indirectly to key aspects of hospital performance including quality of care, financial health and patient satisfaction. Using hierarchical regression analyses, six hypotheses were tested on a sample of 101 acute hospital corporations that participated in the 2005, 2006 and 2007 Ontario Hospital Report Research Collaborative. After controlling for hospital size, evidence of a statistically significant relationship was detected between organizational monitoring and alignment capacity and quality performance, and between one element of governance capacity, governance practices, and financial performance. A relationship was also detected between governance practices and top team characteristics, including diversity, education and turnover. These findings suggest that the relationship between hospital governance and performance is tenuous and that some aspects of performance may be more amenable to governance influence than others. In highly-regulated environments governance space is circumscribed and myriad stakeholders have a stronger pulse on singular aspects of organizational performance than the board. This study argues that the role of boards in environments of distributed governance is to mine the ‘accountability web’ for timely, multivariate intelligence on performance and use it to drive alignment, integration and performance improvement. The contribution of this research, its limitations, and implications for researchers, policymakers and hospital leaders are discussed.

No systematic research has been undertaken in Canada on the relationship between hospital performance, organizational monitoring capacity and board governance. This three-part dissertation aims to fill that gap. The conceptual framework elaborated in a theoretical paper and tested in two exploratory empirical studies proposes that boards reflect their institutions, with high performers exhibiting greater capacity to harmonize accountability needs and align governance decision-making and monitoring systems with external performance measurement and reporting requirements. Top team (board and management) characteristics, and governance practices, both proposed elements of “governance capacity,” are hypothesized to reflect and reinforce “organizational monitoring and alignment capacity” thereby contributing directly and indirectly to key aspects of hospital performance including quality of care, financial health and patient satisfaction. Using hierarchical regression analyses, six hypotheses were tested on a sample of 101 acute hospital corporations that participated in the 2005, 2006 and 2007 Ontario Hospital Report Research Collaborative. After controlling for hospital size, evidence of a statistically significant relationship was detected between organizational monitoring and alignment capacity and quality performance, and between one element of governance capacity, governance practices, and financial performance. A relationship was also detected between governance practices and top team characteristics, including diversity, education and turnover. These findings suggest that the relationship between hospital governance and performance is tenuous and that some aspects of performance may be more amenable to governance influence than others. In highly-regulated environments governance space is circumscribed and myriad stakeholders have a stronger pulse on singular aspects of organizational performance than the board. This study argues that the role of boards in environments of distributed governance is to mine the ‘accountability web’ for timely, multivariate intelligence on performance and use it to drive alignment, integration and performance improvement. The contribution of this research, its limitations, and implications for researchers, policymakers and hospital leaders are discussed.

Abstract In the era of globalization,trades and professions stress competitiveness; Government institution in Taiwan have also begun to emphasize on improving it. Self-efficacy results are often influenced by accountability and job satisfaction as well as the self-efficacy. This study conducted and survey on Government institution in Taiwan to investigate relationship among those variables. This study proposes a concept of self-efficiency of government institution staff. accountability and job satisfaction are thevariables in this study. Subjects were sampled from National Immigration Agency in Taiwan. There were 300 sample government institution staff in total.Additionally, there were 300 questionnaires received and 250 are effective. Conclusion: General accountability and job satisfaction have different effect on self-efficacy.

Water auditing is an emerging method of increasing accountability for water utility systems. A water loss audit according to the methodology of the International Water Association (IWA) is applied to a major North American water utility, San Antonio Water System (SAWS), which is already a leader in conservation policies. However, some modifications to the auditing process are needed for this model’s application to a North American utility. These improvements to the IWA methodology include: calculating system input volume from multiple methods of measurements as well as numerous input points, incorporating deferred storage consumption (in this case aquifer storage and recovery) principles into the auditing process, calculating a volume of unavoidable annual real losses (allowable leakage) for a system with varied pressure zones, and defining procedures for assessing customer meter accuracy for a system. Application of the improved IWA audit method to SAWS discovered that its system input volume is being significantly undermeasured by current practices, current water loss control programs are very effective, customer accounting procedures result in large volumes of apparent loss, and current customer meter accuracy is adequate but could be marginally improved. Application of the audit process to the utility is beneficial because it facilitates increased communication between utility departments, assesses shortcomings in current policies, pin-points areas needing increased resources, and validates programs that are performing well.

Given the conflicting research results on the effectiveness of whole-school reform models (Nunnery, 1998; Stringfield & Herman, 1997; American Institutes for Research, 1999; U.S. Department of Education, 2004), there is a need to focus on the evaluation procedures of whole-school reform organizations. Because the ultimate goal is to improve school performance, it should also be a goal of each whole-school reform organization to design a comprehensive data collection system to evaluate each school’s performance. A comprehensive reporting system was developed for a school reform organization, the Accelerated Schools Project (ASP). Using the steps of the research and development process recommended by Borg and Gall (1989), this study: (a) developed a theoretical framework for the reporting system, (b) identified data that should be collected in the reporting system, (c) performed a field test with an expert panel of educational professionals, (d) developed a preliminary form of the reporting system, (e) performed a main field test with principals and coaches in the ASP network, (f) reported field test results, (g) revised the preliminary reporting system, (h) developed a website for the reporting system, and (i) provided recommendations for the completion, dissemination and implementation of the system in accelerated schools across the nation. This study has important implications for both the ASP community and for the entire whole-school reform community. For the ASP community, the reporting system could be used: (a) to collect data in all accelerated schools across the nation (b) as a longitudinal database of information to monitor data on each ASP school, and (c) to generate school summary reports on ASP schools. These data will assist researchers in measuring the effectiveness of the ASP model on student achievement and other important variables. For the whole-school reform community, the method used in this study could be replicated in other school reform organizations to develop a comprehensive reporting system. By providing consistent data for school reform organizations to evaluate the impact of their models on students and schools, educational researchers will be better equipped to understand each model’s impact, and thus will better understand the diverse research results on school reform effectiveness.

This study is based on the fundamentals of Perceptions of Organizational Politics¡]POP¡^proposed by Ferris, Adams, Kolodinsky, Hochwarter & Ammeter¡]2002¡^. We use the Hierarchical Linear Modeling to verify the relationship between the personal and job/work environment factors and POP. The personal factors include positive and negative affectivities, and job/work environment factors include accountability and feedback. The results showed a significant relationship between the affectivities of employees and POP. The positive affectivity was in a negative correlation with the POP while the positive affectivity was in a positive correlation. The job/work environment had a good relationship with POP as well. The job feedback showed a negative correlation POP while job accountability showed a positive correlation. However, the current study showed that the relationship between employees' affectivity and POP was not influenced by the job feedback and job accountability.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 13, 2009). Advisor: Tom Hensley. Keywords: No Child Left Behind Act, NCLB, epistemic communities, Antoniades, education policy. Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-223).