This study investigated whether or not the membership of the United States Supreme Court affects the way the institution rules in cases regarding federal administrative agencies by collecting and comparing votes from 2018-2019 and 2020-2022. It found in the first section that justices showed an anti-deferential attitude towards agencies and in the second section a deferential attitude towards agencies, despite the conservative majority being larger in the second section. The result is likely due to the types of agencies and content of cases involved.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit Leiden, 2003. / "Stellingen" ([1] p.) laid in. Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-278) and index.

The study set out to investigate factors influencing the effectiveness of strategic planning processes among local NGOs in Malawi. Employing qualitative methods, the study used the 'levels of complexity' and 'stages of organization development' models to analyze factors influencing the strategic planning process and the roles and responsibilities played by the board, management, donors, consultants and communities respectively in five selected local NGOs. The study revealed that the level of implementation of the strategic plans was low (46%). In comparison, the implementation was lower for organizational capacity building activities as compared to project activities. HIV and AIDS NGOs had higher levels of implementation as compared to their human rights counterparts. The major causes of the low implementation were the local NGOs' inadequate financial independence from donors to respond effectively and autonomously to the needs and priorities of their beneficiaries; and inadequate capacity for the boards, management, donors, consultants and communities to effectively go through the strategic planning process. In order to improve the strategic planning processes among the local NGOs, the study recommends that local NGOs must become less dependent on 'non developmental donor funding' through: • Making themselves and their services more relevant and therefore more needed by both the beneficiaries and the donors, • Developing skills to negotiate with donors for more 'developmental or good quality funding', • Identifying alternative sources of funding while taking care not to be distracted from their core mandate and; • Investing in the 'strategic capacity' of the board, management, donors, consultants and communities to effectively manage the strategic planning process. Finally, the study recommends that in order to ensure effectiveness of the strategic planning processes, literature or theories guiding the strategic planning processes in local NGOs need to provide guidance on the facts that most local NGOs are not financially sustainable, they do not have adequate capacity to effectively manage the strategic planning process and that they often are not accountable to the communities they serve. / Development Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree M-Tech: Information Technology, Durban University of Technology, 2014. / This dissertation reports on an empirical evaluation of citizen satisfaction with e-government information services provided by Southern African Development Community (SADC) governments, since citizens perceive service quality as an effective indicator of e-government shortfalls. Few studies have been conducted in SADC countries to empirically evaluate the satisfaction of regarding e-government services. An e-government satisfaction model was applied, which is a non-linear framework with interactive quality proxies. A total of 364 respondents was used for data collection. An analytic modelling technique of Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to predict the factors that most influence citizen satisfaction with e-government information services provided by SADC governments. The resulting model fits the data with a high goodness of fit (GoF) of 0.62 and a model predictive power (R2) of 0.60 for the global model. In addition, the results of this study show that perceived quality is the most influential factor affecting citizen satisfaction with e-government information services, followed by citizen complaint handling and then citizen expectation. Finally, this study used PLS to rank the SADC countries involved in this study in terms of which country is offering the best level of e-government information services and customer satisfaction. The results indicate that South Africa was ranked highest and Tanzania lowest.

Public administration addresses issues that competing and aligning groups determine to be meaningful enough to address. However, there seems to be no shared universally objective ways of remedying anything. Everything is up for argument. Additionally, attempting to solve one set of problems often creates other connected problems and/or unintended consequences. So, public work ever [sic] never ends. This dissertation's purpose was to contribute a new theoretical understanding of the experience and practice of public administration. Its research addressed if and how a grounded existential theoretical framework could emerge that would help practitioners and scholars understand and describe public administrative efforts and experiences. Currently, there is no existential theory of public administration. This dissertation sought to initiate work in that direction. This dissertation employed a grounded theory methodology to collect information from Senior Executive Service (SES) members, to analyze the information for emerging concepts and theoretical relevance through constant comparison, and to discover/construct a theoretical framework for understanding public administrative efforts and experiences. "The grounded theory approach is a general methodology of analysis linked with data collection that uses a systematically applied set of methods to generate an inductive theory about a substantive area" (Glaser, 1992, p. 16). / This dissertation identified the emergence of three categories/themes that organized what the SES members were saying, doing, and perceiving. These categories include "the environment," "the work," and "the individual." The core category/theme, "the Sisyphusian predicament," theoretically unifies these categories/themes through a metaphorical application of existential concepts. It describes the issues administrators experience (never-endingness, boundedness, and finitude in the face of infinitude (managing the scope and scale of one's intentions; generating and authoring relevance, significance, and meaning; and the choice for metaphysical revolt/ microemancipation). There are scholarly and practicable applications of this framework. This dissertation contributes exploratory work towards developing a new theoretical alternative within public administration. It provides an alternative approach for viewing and understanding organizational processes within public organizations. Additionally, an existential approach facilitates a plurality of competing schools of thought wherein administrators can select approaches to decision making and acting on the basis of context and utility. / by T. Lucas Hollar. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf i-vi).

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves i-vi). Also available in print.

The study set out to investigate factors influencing the effectiveness of strategic planning processes among local NGOs in Malawi. Employing qualitative methods, the study used the 'levels of complexity' and 'stages of organization development' models to analyze factors influencing the strategic planning process and the roles and responsibilities played by the board, management, donors, consultants and communities respectively in five selected local NGOs. The study revealed that the level of implementation of the strategic plans was low (46%). In comparison, the implementation was lower for organizational capacity building activities as compared to project activities. HIV and AIDS NGOs had higher levels of implementation as compared to their human rights counterparts. The major causes of the low implementation were the local NGOs' inadequate financial independence from donors to respond effectively and autonomously to the needs and priorities of their beneficiaries; and inadequate capacity for the boards, management, donors, consultants and communities to effectively go through the strategic planning process. In order to improve the strategic planning processes among the local NGOs, the study recommends that local NGOs must become less dependent on 'non developmental donor funding' through: • Making themselves and their services more relevant and therefore more needed by both the beneficiaries and the donors, • Developing skills to negotiate with donors for more 'developmental or good quality funding', • Identifying alternative sources of funding while taking care not to be distracted from their core mandate and; • Investing in the 'strategic capacity' of the board, management, donors, consultants and communities to effectively manage the strategic planning process. Finally, the study recommends that in order to ensure effectiveness of the strategic planning processes, literature or theories guiding the strategic planning processes in local NGOs need to provide guidance on the facts that most local NGOs are not financially sustainable, they do not have adequate capacity to effectively manage the strategic planning process and that they often are not accountable to the communities they serve. / Development Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy