abstract: Recognizing that CEOs are less capable of diversifying their employment risks than shareholders who could diversify their investment risks through portfolio investments, agency theory assumes that CEOs tend to be risk averse compared with shareholders. Based on this assumption, agency theory scholars suggest that to align the risk preference of CEOs with that of shareholders, CEOs need to be closely monitored and have less power. SEC regulators have been adopting the suggestion and accordingly CEO power has been reduced in the past decades. However, the empirical results are mixed and cannot provide solid support for the suggestion that reducing CEO power could lead the CEO to take more risks. Considering that managerial risk taking is an important issue in strategic management research and agency theory has been widely adopted in academia and business worlds, it is imperative to clarify the mechanism behind the relationship between CEO power and risk taking. My study aims to fill this research gap. In this study I follow agency theory to take an employment security perspective and fully consider how CEOs’ concern about employment security is affected by their power and ownership structure to enrich the understanding of the effects of CEO power and ownership structure on risk taking. I fine-tune the key concept CEO power into the CEO power over board and introduce a key aspect of ownership structure - nontransient investor ownership. I further suggest that CEO power over board and nontransient investor ownership affect CEOs’ employment security and the resulting CEO risk taking. In addition, I consider a set of industry and firm characteristics as the boundary conditions for the effects of CEO power and nontransient investor ownership on CEO risk-taking. This set of industry and firm characteristics include industry complexity, industry dynamism, industry munificence and firm slack. I test my theory using a large-scale, multi-year sample of U.S. publicly listed S&P 1500 firms between 2001 and 2017. My main hypotheses about the effects of CEO power over board and nontransient investor ownership on CEO risk taking receive strong support. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2019

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Research into indigent defense issues has shown that the growth in the use of public defenders has been accompanied by increased bureaucratization and has paralleled the expansion of the right to counsel and the "due process revolution." The goal of this research is the development and testing of a model of organization adaptation which explains for public defender offices in Virginia the evolution of multiple and contradictory organizational goals, the means by which they balance conflicting values and goals, and the effect of resulting decision making processes on organizational output. The basic research question addressed is the relationship between values, goals, and organizational processes. Due process goals protect the organizations' ideologically based "core technology." Production goals allow organizations to adapt to the environment through emphasis on caseloads and efficiency. The possibility that over time normative goals are eclipsed by production goals as the demands of rising caseload increase with an increase in the routinization of decision making processes is also explored. The results on organizational output of the contradiction between due process and production values and goals are examined. Data were collected through a survey of public defenders in Virginia in 1992 (N=118 with a response rate of 73%). Caseload data were also collected. Analysis of the data revealed that due process values and goals are particularly strong throughout the Virginia system. Production values and goals, while not as strong as due process ones, were also important. The oldest offices showed stronger production values and goals even while due process values and goals remained relatively constant. Higher workload pressures were also found in offices where production values were strongest. Stronger production values and goals were associated with more routinized decision making in the forms of increased pressure to plea bargain and more frequent accepting of routine offers of prosecutors; there were also higher caseloads and lower rates of increase in several measures of costs in offices with stronger production values and goals. Higher due process values and goals were associated with increased trial rates and longer case processing times.

This study identifies and validates variables which are significant predictors of work release success on 439 Virginia work release participants. The variables were selected on the basis of whether they would exert internal or external control over the inmate, with a view toward offering empirical support to control theory. A retrospective longitudinal research design was employed by randomly selecting inmates who had participated in either of three work release centers from 1987 to 1991. Two of the programs housed male inmates while the other housed female inmates. Data were collected from inmate files on thirty-one variables over a six month period. Analysis employed logistic regression using work release success or failure as a dichotomous dependent variable. A prediction model was developed using a construction sample of 416 cases. The resultant model was then used to predict and classify inmates using a randomly selected validation sample of 226 cases. Of the thirty-one variables under study, four individual factors (previous commitments, age of offense, time on the street, and prior misdemeanor convictions), two program factors (time in work release and year of work release), and one institutional adjustment factor (no institutional drug or alcohol violations), emerged as significant predictors. The study revealed that the work release staff has been successful in identifying low risk inmates, with a success rate of 86% and a failure rate of 14%. Of the failures, only six had new charges (1.4% of the total population), and three escaped or absconded (0.7% of the total population). The remaining forty-nine failures (11.1% of the total population) failed urine screens or failed due to poor work performance. The prediction model was able to classify 88% of the validation sample correctly which is a minimal improvement over the department of corrections selection procedures.

Because of increasing costs and demand for nursing home care, studies are needed that can better describe the population of users and improve prediction of clinical outcomes and program requirements. The major purpose of this study was to explore the incremental and seven month outcomes of nursing home patients using the Andersen model. The design was longitudinal. Patients from one Veterans Administration (VA) hospital-based nursing home and six freestanding. VA contract community nursing homes were studied. Functional and cognitive ability were analyzed along with socioeconomic and demographic data. and utilization patterns. A second purpose was to assess associations among variables and their interaction effects in predicting outcome. A third purpose was to assess the contribution of such independent variables as case-mix and rehospitalization rates to possible cost differences evidenced by the two nursing home types. The results of this study suggest avenues for planning and allocation of resources in the two program alternatives. The Barthel Index (BI) (Mahoney & Barthel. 1965) was used to measure functional status and the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) (Pfeiffer. 1975) for cognitive ability. In addition to standardized measures. sociodemographic and utilization data. perceptions of health and outcomes of care were collected on all subjects. Analytical techniques included descriptive and inferential statistics. The major hypothesis was that veterans in the hospital-based versus contract statistically significant differences in characteristics and on measures of service use and clinical outcome. Findings were evaluated for policy adequacy. adherence to program intent. federal and state cost complement and other qualitative implications. Statistically significant differences were found between patients in the two settings on predisposing, enabling and need characteristics. The hospital-based NHCU patients were more likely to be married and living with someone. They also had higher incomes, more Medicare A coverage, a greater percentage of service-connected veterans and demonstrated greater limitation in functional ability than did those in contract. The predominant outcome for both groups was continued nursing home care. Statistically significant differences were also found for outcome measures. Higher income and being 76 years or older were predictive of continued nursing home residence. The type of nursing home was not significant in explaining continued care. The total number of diagnoses. age group and type of nursing home were predictive of death as an outcome. There were significantly more deaths among those 75 years or younger. among those with lower incomes and among NHCU patients. Health service utilization did not differ significantly by nursing home type. Neither group of nursing home patients demonstrated any significant improvement in functional or mental status and self-perceived health. The only differences of note were among those 75 years or less who did improve in functional ability from the third to the sixth month. The findings suggest that the two nursing home types do have different patient population profiles. However. the continued use of nursing home care by both groups indicates some lack of fit between legislative intent and actual clinical utilization.