The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of Texas Adult Protective Services (APS) case managers (CM) in regard to their relationships with the law enforcement community and area courts. The sample consisted of 138 Texas APS CMs. The survey measured respondents' perceived strengths and weaknesses of their relationships with both the law enforcement community and with area courts. Items also included respondents' interest in receiving additional training and their perceptions of level of job-readiness of newly hired APS CMs. Data were analyzed quantitatively using SAS. Findings of the survey revealed high ratings of perceived teamwork on the part of the CM are associated with high relationship ratings with both area courts and law enforcement. Findings also revealed that high ratings of perceived autonomy on the part of the CM are associated with lower relationship ratings with law enforcement personnel but not with area courts.

Thesis advisor: Juliet B. Schor / In this dissertation, I study dynamics of inequality in three post-bureaucratic organizations: a makerspace and two on-demand labor platforms for couriers. I focus on three aspects of post-bureaucracy: 1) Identity work and social clorure. 2) Dynamics of status and distinction making. 3) Technology as an alternative to rational-bureaucratic and value-rational organizations, and the experience of technologically organized work. Collectively, these cases explore how institutional orders are created, reproduced, and transformed in organizations that reject interpersonal authority relationships. As a social technology for coordinating activity, bureaucracies rely upon formalized rules, responsibilities, and impersonal authority relationships. In a completely rationalized bureaucracy, coordination is achieved through rigid adherence to codified roles and procedures, as well as deference to designated superiors within a bureaucratic hierarchy. Post-bureaucratic organizations, by contrast, eschew formalized interpersonal authority relationships - typically emphasizing normative and technical controls. For example, many high-tech organizations group workers into teams that negotiate and enforce norms. Material technology may also be used by organizations as a method to coordinate and manage workers, as in the case of on-demand labor platforms that direct workers via software technology. Like conventional bureaucracies, post-bureaucratic organizations are susceptible to a variety of pathologies. Two tendencies, however, are particularly salient: anomie and reification. Technical control involves reifying aspects of an institutional order that otherwise would be interactively negotiated and enforced. One risk in reifying an institutional order is that it will be incapable of responding to changes in the environment. In contrast to the problem of an institutional order that is too stable, anomie is a quality of normlessness and an ambiguous institutional order. Previous research suggests commitment forms of organizing are susceptible to anomic tendencies. In such weakly institutionalized environments where norms are open for negotiation, there can be considerable competition between individuals over how to define norms and practices. These individual status competitions may come at the expense of collective goals, in addition to being an avenue by which race, gender, and class inequalities are produced and reproduced. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

This dissertation is about how the state influences individuals’ behavior by giving certain citizens the legal and physical means to coerce other citizens. Using field experimentation, participatory observation, and time-series analysis of two large sets of micro-data on crime to study policing in West Africa and Melanesia, the findings challenge conventional wisdom about the relationship between coercion, corruption, and the state. Empowering women by sending police officers to assist them in disputes with men may not necessarily reduce gender-based coercion, because men can preserve their privileges by drawing on alternative authorities. Conferring police officers powers to coerce other people does not necessarily induce corrupt behavior, because conferral of power may cause them to care more about their reputation than the rents they can extract. Competitive elections may not reduce petty police corruption even if they make principals accountable; instead, elections may incentivize corruption by increasing agents’ uncertainty about how principals will act in the future. These findings contribute new insights to the theory of state-building, accountability, and bureaucratic politics.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Colorado at Denver, 1998. / Title from PDF title page (viewed Feb. 22, 2007). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.U.A.)--Viginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1983. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-103). Also available via the Internet.

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Abstract This paper examines Family and Independence Case Managers in the social services in Atlanta, GA, as they negotiate a highly bureaucratized benefit delivery system that undervalues the emotional costs inherent in its operation. I begin with an examination of Weber’s (1946) theories of bureaucracy, as typified by three components of authority and control in the office. I proceed to Ritzer’s (2004) theory of “McDonaldization,” which advances Weber’s explication of ideal types of bureaucracy by highlighting four institutionalized dimensions of the corporate business model. Then, by incorporating Hochschild’s (1983) discussion of emotional labor, I include an analysis of the impact of emotional labor on workers’ experiences. I use a snowball sampling strategy, interviewing ten former colleagues. By employing the use of in-depth interviews, I attempt to provide an accurate depiction of the work-lives of these case managers and of the struggles they face in relation to their work and to themselves.

This project examines the determinants of political responsiveness to bureaucratic performance. A large literature exists that has examined how bureaucratic agencies are responsive to political institutions. While policy theory contends that the reverse is also true – that is, political institutions engage in political assessment of policies – there is little empirical literature examining this important question. Indeed, research in public administration suggests that political responsiveness only occurs following massive bureaucratic failure or policy crises. Using data from Texas public school districts, this dissertation explores the role of policy salience in determining the likelihood of political responsiveness to bureaucratic outputs and outcomes. The findings suggest that issue salience is the key determinant of political involvement in administration. Furthermore, this project incorporates the concepts of descriptive and substantive representation in examining these questions. The results indicate that policy salience depends on the composition of the interests of political institutions. Furthermore, race and ethnicity work to shape those preferences and, in turn, condition what policy makers deem as salient. The findings suggest that descriptively unrepresentative political institutions are less likely to be responsive to the needs of those who are not represented (e.g. Latino students). Thus, representation is central to political responsiveness when the policy outputs or outcomes in question are not universally salient. Finally, this project examines whether political institutions can influence policy outcomes, and, more importantly, what factors – environmental, organizational, managerial – either facilitate or constrain the political influence of elected officials. The findings suggest that goal and preference alignment between political institutions and bureaucratic agencies is critical in enhancing political influence – a finding that is commonly argued in formal models of political control, but rarely tested empirically. This research also finds that bureaucratic power or independence can work to hinder political influence of policy outputs.

Presidential policy making in Congress is a lengthy, difficult process that involves developing a policy initiative, proposing it to Congress, and winning the legislature’s support. Recent empirical findings indicate that, although centralizing the policy making process eases a president’s managerial burdens, it may also decrease the likelihood of presidential policy success in Congress. Alternatively, decentralizing the process increases the likelihood of policy success, but constrains the president’s discretion over policy substance and incurs greater administrative burdens in the form of managing differing viewpoints, contradictory interests, and increased information flow. Such findings present an intriguing puzzle: how can presidents balance their managerial and information needs and costs to maximize their policy success in Congress? Solving this presidential dilemma can have substantial payoffs for the White House. I argue that agency input provides presidents with a degree of bureaucratic expertise and objectivity, process transparency, and agency support, which imbues presidential proposals with bureaucratic legitimacy and aids their passage into law. To test my hypotheses, I conduct a series of empirical analyses of pooled cross-sectional logistic regression models using a dataset on presidential legislative proposals over the period of 1949-2007. I find that agency input and presidential signaling are key components to increased presidential policy success in Congress. I also find that the employment of agency input for policy development decreases the number of changes made to the substance of a presidential initiative from its proposal stage to its passage into law. Because the substance of a proposal matters, sending a stronger signal for a proposal developed with agency input should have a stronger, positive influence on legislative success. To explore this possibility, I also incorporate the role that voluminous presidential signaling plays at high levels of agency input and find that it has a particularly potent, positive influence on legislative success and on lowering the extent of change to policy substance in the Senate. In light of these findings, I prescribe a new policy making strategy with agency input at its core. My conclusions should also provide an impetus for scholars to reconsider conventional wisdom regarding presidential-bureaucratic management and legislative policy making.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009. / Prepared for: School of Education. Title from title-page of electronic thesis. Bibliography: leaves 178-201.