Abstract It is often stated that plea-bargaining is an indispensable part of a fair and efficient criminal justice system. By observing sentencing hearings in the Provincial Court of Manitoba this thesis shows that some form of plea bargaining is involved in a substantial majority of cases. Almost half of these plea bargained matters resulted in joint recommendations on sentence. However, the vast majority of these joint recommendations did not involve a true plea bargain. In this limited study, it was observed that the presiding judge accepted all joint recommendations as presented by counsel. One of the goals of plea bargaining is to arrive at joint recommendations on sentence. Though lawyers on both sides of the courtroom may perceive an advantage to joint recommendations, for the accused these advantages may be illusory. Judges routinely accept joint recommendations despite not being the progeny of true plea bargains involving a quid pro quo. This research suggests that the vast majority of joint recommendations are born of cultural expedience rather than as a result of true plea bargains. These cultural joint recommendations encroach significantly on the judicial function and may erode public confidence in the administration of justice. The continued proliferation of cultural joint recommendations may further entrench a culture of expedience in our criminal justice system and could potentially lead to higher sentences for offenders.

The purpose of the study was to collect, consolidate and report the perceived advantages and disadvantages of unified bargaining concepts currently operational in the state of Michigan as ranked by uniserv field representatives, local education association presidents, school board presidents and school superintendents.Data were generated through a forced choice questionnaire of twenty-six items drawn from a review of related literature and validated by professional consultants in the field of unified bargaining. Questionnaires were mailed to randomly selected participants in unified bargaining structures in each of the existing thirty-three multiple association bargaining organizations in the state of Michigan.Responses from the selected respondents were tabulated and reported by respondent group type. Frequency distributions according to items identified as advantages, disadvantages or not applicable to unified bargaining were presented tabularly and discussed narratively as were the-rankings of the most important advantages and disadvantages as perceived by respondents.Findings in the study indicated:1. Employee groups perceived the reduced probability of local associations ratifying sub standard contracts, standardization of contractual agreements, ready availability of professional negotiators and greater employee power in the bargaining process as the most important advantages of unified bargaining.2. Employee groups regarded the subordination of local association goals and autonomy to regional and state associations as the most important disadvantages of unified bargaining.3. Employer groups noted the increased utilization of professionally trained negotiators and the concomitant objectivity introduced into the bargaining process when professionally trained personnel negotiate as the most important advantages of unified bargaining.4. Employer groups identified decreased individual and local association autonomy and influence and the perception professional negotiators are not responsible for managing nor are subject to contracts bargained as the most important disadvantages of unified bargaining.5. A degree of congruence existed within and between employee and employer groupings. The greater degree of congruence between employee and employer groupings was noted in the ranking of disadvantages of unified bargaining.The following were among the conclusions drawn based upon the findings and the review of related literature:1. Individual and local education association autonomy and influence over. the business of the local education association is decreased as a result of participation in unified bargaining.2. Employee association power is increased when unified bargaining formats are operational. 3. Unified bargaining results in increased utilization of professionally trained negotiators. 4. Decreased amounts of direct employee-employer communication occur when unified bargaining formats are operational.5. The probability local education associations will ratify sub standard contracts is reduced when local education associations participate in unified bargaining.

The study was designed to assess the perceptions of secondary public school teachers toward the relationship between collective bargaining and the level of teacher participation in decision making. Specifically, the problem was twofold: 1) to determine teachers' perceptions of the extent of participation in decision making before and after collective bargaining, and 2) to determine teachers' perceptions of the desired amount of teacher participation in decision making relative to ten decisional items. The study was predicated upon the need for empirical data of teachers' perceptions of the actual and desired amount of teacher participation in decision making and the effectiveness of collective bargaining as a vehicle for increasing teacher participation.The sample consisted of 97~ randomly selected Indiana secondary school teachers. Data analysis was based upon the responses from 870 teachers which represented an 89.2 percent response rate.Data were secured by means of a survey questionnaire designed and validated for the study. The instrument included ten decisional items: 1) teaching loads, 2) class size, 3) teacher assignment, 4) teacher evaluation, 5) student discipline, 6) budget policies, 7) non-classroom duties, 8) class preparation time, 9) instructional methods, and 10) course content. Teachers were requested to indicate the amount of teacher participation in decision making before and after collective bargaining as well as the desired amount of teacher participation in decision making.Data of teachers' perceptions of the differences in the amount of teacher participation before and after collective bargaining were treated descriptively. Differences in teachers' perceptions of the desired amount of teacher participation were tested by the chi-square test of independence and were accepted as statistically significant at the .05 alpha level.Data relating to teachers' perceptions of teacher participation in decision making before and after collective bargaining revealed that 1) teachers perceived increased teacher participation after collective bargaining relative to each of the ten decisional items, 2) instructional methods and course content were the only decisional items perceived by the majority of teachers as teacher dominated both before and after collective bargaining, and 3) teachers perceived the greatest gains in participation in teaching loads, teacher evaluation, non-classroom duties, and class preparation time.Chi-square values indicated that differences in teachers' perceptions of desired participation in decision making were statistically significant at the .05 alpha level for nine of the ten decisional items relative to the selected variables. The statistically significant variables and related decisional items included: 1) sex: course content, non-classroom duties, teacher evaluation and teacher assignment; 2) age: course content and teacher assignment; 3) teacher organization membership: teaching loads, class size, teacher assignment, teacher evaluation, budget policies, and course content; 4) professional negotiation involvement: class preparation time, teacher assignment, and teaching loads; 5) size of school district: student discipline, teacher evaluation, and teaching loads; and 6) the existence of negotiation trouble: teacher evaluation.Review of the data led to the following conclusions: 1) although teacher participation had increased after collective bargaining, the perceived increase was minimal; 2) there is a discrepancy between teachers' present and desired amount of participation in decision making; 3) teachers' endeavors to expand the amount of teacher influence in decision making prior to collective bargaining were unsuccessful; 4) teachers' perceptions of desired participation are conditional upon teacher and school district characteristics; and 5) failure to provide for teacher participation in decision making increases the probability of negotiation conflict.

The purpose of the study was to develop guidelines relative to the collection, organization, and presentation of data by Indiana school governing body negotiation personnel for use by a fact finder during impasse situations in the collective bargaining process.Study participants included fifty-six individuals identified by officials of the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board as qualified to serve as fact finder in impasse situations between a school governing body and a teacher organization. Participants provided value judgment responses to statement items identifying data which should be included in reports developed for use by fact finders. Statement items were organized to present data relative to General Background Information, Revenue, Salary and Fringe Benefits, Budgeting, Cash Flow and Cash Balance, Non-Financial Issues, and Miscellaneous General Comparisons. The combined responses were developed into a preliminary set of guidelines.Selected administrative heads of eight Indiana school systems involved in fact finding procedures during 1975, and fact finder specialists employed full time by the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board, reviewed and analyzed the preliminary guidelines and made suggestions, corrections, additions, deletions, and/or editing changes based on past experience. The findings of the study were developed into a set of guidelines for the development of reports prepared by school management negotiation team personnel for use by a fact finder in Indiana impasse situations. The Guidelines for the Development of Reports for Fact Finders was divided to include coverage of general background information, revenue information, salary and fringe benefit information, budgeting information, non-financial issues, data, and miscellaneous general comparisons. Miscellaneous suggestions not involved in the study format were also included.

The purpose of the study was to determine if a particular school board bargaining team composition resulted in shorter negotiating time for teacher-school board contract settlement and if a particular composition of the school board bargaining team resulted in lower cost increases for salaries and fringe benefits that result from a negotiated teacher-school board contract.The study was limited to all school districts in Indiana in which a teacher-school board contract was negotiated for the 1975-76 school year. The study was restricted to the 1975-76 contract negotiations.The study was limited further in that only the composition of the school board bargaining team as related to time/cost factors were examined.A review of literature and related research revealed that the recommendations regarding bargaining team composition were diverse and that many different bargaining team compositions had been used by school boards in Indiana.All superintendents of school systems in Indiana where a teacher-school board contract was negotiated for the 1975-76 school year comprised the population for the study.Seventeen null hypotheses were developed relative to school board bargaining team composition and time/cost factors.A questionnaire, with a cover letter and an endorsement from the Indiana School Boards Association, was mailed to 280 Indiana school superintendents. Responses were received from 228 superintendents after two mailings. Responses to the questionnaire were recorded on contin-gency tables to allow chi-square analysis to be utilized to statistically test the hypotheses. The .05 level was established as the level of confidence to reject a null hypothesis.The findings were based on data presented in Chapter IV. 1. School board bargaining teams with school board members, teams with superintendents without school board members, and other teams were significantly different in the amount of time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.2. School board bargaining teams with board members and teams without superintendents or board members were significantly different in the time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.3. School board bargaining teams with superintendents without board members and teams without superintendents or board members were significantly different in the time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.4. School board bargaining teams with superintendents and teams without board members or superintendents were significantly different in the amount of time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.5. School board bargaining teams with board members and/or superintendents and teams without board members or superintendents were significantly different in the time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.6. School board bargaining teams having chief spokesmen with different titles were significantly different in the time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.No other significant differences relative to team composition and time/cost factors were discovered.The following conclusions were based on the data presented in Chapter IV and the findings related to the hypotheses.1. School board bargaining teams with superintendents as members and school board bargaining teams with superintendents and board members as members tended to negotiate teacher-school board contracts in a shorter amount of time than teams composed of persons other than superintendents or board members.2. Superintendents and school board members as chief spokesmen for the school board bargaining team tended tonegotiate a teacher-school board contract in less time than teams with other persons as spokesmen.3. Administrators other than the superintendent as spokesmen tended to take a longer amount of time to negotiate a teacher-school board contract than all other spokesmen.4. School board bargaining team composition was not significantly related to the increased cost of salaries and fringe benefits that resulted from a negotiated teacher-school board contract.54

Recently there has been considerable discussion concerning the role of the elementary school principal in professional negotiation. A large body of evidence points to the fact that elementary principals do not have a specifically determined role in the process of professional negotiation.The purpose of the study was to assess the perceptions of two groups of public elementary school principals, from dissimilar professional environments, toward selected position, institution, and issue concepts relevant to professional negotiation, in order to derive information which would serve to explicate and facilitate the development of guidelines for the future role of the elementary principal in professional negotiation.The two groups chosen to participate in the study were the public elementary school principals in Muncie and Anderson, Indiana. The selection was made on the basis of the comparable size and geographic location of the cities, the close parallel in average daily attendance of the school systems, and the similarity in socio-economic composition of the communities involved.The elements of diversity between the groups were that the Anderson principals operated in a professional environment characterized by active formal negotiation; whereas, the Muncie principals functioned in a professional environment not yet actively involved in formal negotiation.Two instruments were utilized in the study: a semantic differential instrument composed of ten bi-polar adjective scales, five each for the evaluative and potency dimensions, designed to judge twenty-six position, institution, and issue concepts relevant to professional negotiation and a follow-up questionnaire composed of fifteen items designed to provide comparative and descriptive data.Data from the instruments were presented in the form of group factor means, concept scale means, group profiles, semantic distances, semantic space models, and tabulated response frequencies. The methods employed in presenting the data were designed to provide a complete comparison of the two groups of elementary school principals. A one-way analysis of variance was employed for statistical treatment of the data in order to determine differences of statistical significance between group factor comparisons.In summary, only eight of the fifty-two possible factor comparisons proved to be statistically significant using .05 as the acceptable level of significance. On the evaluative dimension, the Anderson elementary principals perceived the concepts of (1) exclusive recognition, and (2) unlimited scope of negotiation to be of a more negative value, and the concept of (3) the elementary principal on the board negotiating team as a more favorable action than did the Muncie elementary principals.On the potency dimension, the Anderson elementary principals perceived the concepts of (4) strike and (5) American Federation of Teachers to be more forceful, and the concepts of (6) the elementary principal on the elementary principal negotiating team, (7) mandatory state legislation on professional negotiation, and (8) the American Arbitration Association as being less forceful than did their counterparts in Muncie.Both groups favored the inclusion of the elementary school principal on an independent elementary principal negotiating team, the board of education negotiating team, or a middle management negotiating team over affiliation with the teachers' negotiating team or a non-participation position. An independent elementary principal team was the most popular and a non-participation alternative was viewed with the greatest disfavor.Significant findings from questionnaire data were that Anderson elementary principals (1) were more experienced with work stoppages and strikes, (2) had been involved more frequently in formal negotiation with teachers, (3) held a much lower opinion of the effectiveness of the elementary principal in professional negotiation, (4) felt more strongly that professional negotiation would lessen the authority of the elementary principal, (5) indicated more divergent views regarding the future role of the elementary principal in professional negotiation, and (6) exhibited considerably less membership support of professional organizations than did the elementary school principals in Muncie.

Bargaining theory seeks to answer the question of how to divide a jointly generated surplus between multiple agents. John Nash proposed the Nash Bargaining Solution to answer this question for the special case of two agents. Kleinberg and Tardos extended this idea to network games, and introduced a model they call the Bargaining Game. They search for surplus divisions with a notion of fairness, defined as balanced solutions, that follow the Nash Bargaining Solution for all contracting agents. Unfortunately, many networks exist where no balanced solution can be found, which we call unstable. In this thesis, we explore methods of changing unstable network structures to find fair bargaining solutions. We define the concept of Blocking Sets, introduced by Biro, Kern and Paulusma, and use them to create stability. We show that by removing a blocking set from an unstable network, we can find a balanced bargaining division in polynomial time. This motivates the search for minimal blocking sets. Unfortunately this problem is NP-hard, and hence no known efficient algorithm exists for solving it. To overcome this hardness, we consider the problem when restricted to special graph classes. We introduce a O(1)-factor approximation algorithm for the problem on planar graphs with unit edge weights. We then provide an algorithm to solve the problem optimally in graphs of bounded treewidth, which generalize trees.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2007. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: William Ruff. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-156).

Univ., Diss--Konstanz, 2006. / Literatur- und Quellenverz. S. [225] - 270.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 2007. / Title from title page screen, viewed on July 16, 2008. Dissertation Committee: Elizabeth Lugg (chair), Joseph M. Pacha, Zeng Lin, Neil Sappington. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-170) and abstract. Also available in print.