Finally, this thesis put forward specific recommendations in relation to social welfare policies, social work practice, organizational capacity building, organizational performance assessment and the future areas for research on philanthropic foundations. / The purpose of this research is to describe and discuss the magnitude of success, use of strategies and extent of public participation in philanthropic foundations under the socialist system of China. It also analyzes how the effectiveness of these philanthropic foundations is related to their selected strategies and their extent of public participation. / The research also found that public participation was an essential value in the philanthropic foundations. Public participation was a tactic to obtain resources, and to realize success in the organization. However, empowerment of the service users had not been given enough attention. Meanwhile, the participants in the philanthropic foundations could be classified as individuals and legal entities, administrative units, public organizations and quasi-governmental organizations. The mode of participation varied from the "one-way model", the "participatory model" and the "decision-making model". Accordingly, four models of participation were identified. / The research found that the successful philanthropic foundations had differing manifestations and weights in variables pertaining to "objectives", "degree of satisfaction", "legitimacy" and "resource input". Whilst the variables were related to each others, the weight for each variable differed in the studied cases. Classified in terms of the weight of the variables, there were four models among the successful philanthropic foundations, namely, the "equilibrium model", the "satisfying model", the "legitimate model" and the "sustainable model". / The research further found that there was correlations among the manifestation of success, strategic orientation, and mode of participation. The case background is related to certain manifestation of success, strategy and mode of public participation, constructing four reaction patterns. These reaction patterns are premised on "organization", "resources", "need", and "government", producing different relationships among "success", "strategy" and "public participation". / The study identified the functional dimension (philanthropic versus charity) and the instrumental dimension (market versus government action), from which five different strategies were derived from the philanthropic foundations studied. They were the "strong market orientation", the "compromising orientation", the "weak market orientation", the "mutuality orientation" and the "governmental orientation". / This research is a case study of 7 legally registered philanthropic foundations supported by non-governmental funds. Twenty senior management staffs working in the 7 philanthropic foundations participated in the in-depth interviews. The samples were selected from various departments under different administrative levels in Mainland China, including the central government level, the provincial level and the municipal level, and taking into account the economic strength of the regions. All the selected cases included philanthropic services for children, and have been operating for more than 5 years. These homogeneous cases are to a certain extent typical cases. / 陳津利. / 呈交日期: 2005年6月. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2005. / 參考文獻(p. 406-426). / Cheng jiao ri qi: 2005 nian 6 yue. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: A, page: 0336. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2005. / Can kao wen xian (p. 406-426). / Chen Jinli.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Köln, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-333).

No description available.

The problem of this study was the relative value and importance of perceived benefits of active foundations of public community colleges. The purposes were to identify a list of benefits; determine the importance of these benefits as perceived by presidents and foundation executive directors; assess the degree to which the level of importance of the benefits was affected by college or foundation demographics or foundation executive director characteristics; and to determine if presidents and foundation executive directors differ in their perceptions of the importance of the benefits. Survey instruments were mailed to presidents and foundation executive directors of colleges determined to have active foundations. Both instruments contained seven categories listing potential benefits to the community colleges of an active foundation. The foundation executive directors' instruments also requested college and foundation demographic data. Respondents were asked to rate the benefits according to their level of importance. Analysis of variance tests were performed to determine whether the categories of benefits were affected by any of the demographic data, when a level of significance emerged, a Scheffe' test was performed to determine the source of significance. Major findings were that the most important single benefit to the community colleges of active foundations is the provision of student scholarships. The "Public Relations/Political Influence" role of the active foundation is the most important category of benefits. The more fund-raising activities held and the greater the amount of contributions, the more positively community college administrators felt about the role of their active foundations in terms of external relations. Highly experienced foundation executive directors were more positive about the importance of the public relations role of their active foundations than were their inexperienced counterparts. The major conclusion of this study was that community colleges benefit from having active foundations, both monetarily and through the role of the foundation in enhancing the college's image.

Orientador: Vera Lúcia Messias Fialho Capellini / Banca: Carina Alexandra Rondini / Banca: Olga Maria P. Rolim Rodrigues / Resumo: Dotação e talento correspondem a uma especificidade da Educação Especial que vem despertando interesse crescente entre estudiosos e a Universidade tem o papel de produzir novos conhecimentos, bem como, de colocá-los a serviço da comunidade. Como raramente este tema é trabalhado na formação inicial e continuada de professores, delineou-se enquanto objetivo desta pesquisa: elaborar, aplicar e avaliar um programa de formação continuada para professores, realizando-o em duas modalidades de ensino (presencial e a distância) e, posteriormente, analisar e comparar os resultados obtidos nas duas modalidades, bem como a percepção dos professores antes e depois do curso. O Programa teve carga horária de 52 horas com atividades de cunho teórico-prático e foi aplicado, em ambiente virtual, por meio de uma plataforma de Educação à Distância (EaD) elaborada pela Secretaria Municipal de Educação, e os encontros da turma presencial aconteceram, semanalmente, no campus da Unesp/Bauru. Delimitou-se como conteúdo programático do curso: a) Marcos: legal, histórico e conceitual sobre Dotação e Talento; b) Caracterização dos alunos com Dotação e Talento; c) Identificação e Atendimento Educacional Especializado; d) Escolarização de alunos com Dotação e Talento e prática pedagógica; e) Criatividade e produção do Plano de Ensino Individualizado. Participaram do estudo 33 professores (divididos em duas turmas) cuja inscrição foi realizada na Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Antes do início do curso os participantes responderam a dois questionários, um, visando a caracterização da amostra, e outro para identificar as concepções deles sobre pessoas com Dotação e Talento, bem como, sobre o conteúdo do curso. Ao longo do curso ao final de cada módulo, os professores responderam uma avaliação com questões fechadas sobre o conteúdo do próprio módulo. Após o término do curso, os participantes responderam novamente... / Abstract: Giftedness and talent correspond to a specifity of the Special Education that has aroused growing interest among academics, and the University plays the role of generating foreground information, as well as putting it at society's services. As this subject is rarely treated in the initial and continued teacher's education, it's established as objective of this research: to elaborate, apply and evaluate a continued educational program for teachers, performing it in dual mode (classroom and distance) and subsequently analyze and compared the results for each model, as well as to compare the perception of the teachers before and after the course. The program consisted of 52 hours with practical and theoretical activities, and has been applied in the virtual environment by a Distance Education Platform elaborated by the County Department of Education and the classroom group occurred weekly, at UNESP/Bauru campus. As programmatic content for this course it had been defined the following: a) Landmarks: Legal, historical and concept about Giftedness and Talent; b) Features of gifted and talent students; c) Identification and Specialized Educational Care; d) Schooling of gifted and talented students, and pedagogical practice; e) Creativity and the production of the Individualized Plan Teaching. Thirty-three teachers (divided in two groups) participated on this study, and the Conty Department of Education made their enrollment. Before the course's start, the participants answered two surveys, one to characterize the sample, and another to identify their conception about gifted and talented people, as well as about their concept about the course's content. Throughout the course at the end of each module, the teachers answered a review with closed questions on the content of the module. After the course, participants answered again the same instrument applied early in the course about their conceptionsof the gifted and talent population, as well... / Mestre

As the primary transmitter of advanced skills and incubators of new knowledge, colleges and universities play a crucial role in modern economies. In the U.S., the higher education sector consists of a diverse set of institutions. Public, private non-profit, and private for-profit organizations coexist in this market. Although large research universities constitute what we usually think of as higher education institutions, the vast majority of colleges and universities do not follow the model of the research university. Some are two-year institutions with Associate’s degrees as their highest degree offering. Some are Baccalaureate institutions offering undergraduate education only. Some are Master’s universities who offer some graduate instruction but do not engage in research as much as research universities do. Unlike traditional firms that rely on sales revenue to cover their costs, many colleges and universities rely on external funding from the government and private donors. Like other non-profit institutions, many of them have large amounts of endowment funds that general investment income to support the institution. Given the diversity of organizations in this sector, how well do conventional economic theory describe their behavior? Do non-profit and for-profit institutions face the same incentives? How does the profit status affect the behavior of the university? What is the role of endowments in higher education finance? How does the performance of the endowment affect the real operations of the university? Are instructions at two-year and four-year colleges of similar quality? Is it wise for some students to start in two-year colleges and transfer to a four-year college rather than starting in a four-year college directly? These are the questions I attempt to answer in this dissertation. Chapter 1 investigates whether for-profit and public community colleges respond differently to increases in demand for occupational education. I exploit a regulatory change, which broadened the scope of practice for dental assistants (DAs) and led to significant increases in DAs’ wages and employment. In response to this change, for-profit universities substantially expanded their DA programs, whereas most community college DA programs maintained their existing size. Moreover, community colleges that charged a high premium for the DA program expanded their DA programs, whereas those that did not charge a premium downsized their DA programs. These results are consistent with a for-profit sector that maximizes profits and a public sector that sets capacity to balance its budget. Chapter 2 studies how universities responded to the large and negative financial shocks to their endowments induced by the Great Recession. Exploiting variations across universities in the relative size of their investment losses during the Great Recession, I found sharp contrasts among Doctoral, Master’s, and Baccalaureate Universities both in how they responded to the endowment shocks and in how their students fared after the Great Recession. In response to large, negative endowment shocks, Doctoral Universities cut down on instructional expenses and reduced faculty and staff of all types; Baccalaureate Colleges cut down on administrative and supportive expenses and reduced non-tenure-track instructors and staff; Master’s Universities reduced research expenses and size of the tenure-track faculty. Meanwhile, Doctoral Universities cut student financial aid and admitted fewer low-income and Hispanic students. Master’s and Baccalaureate institutions also admitted fewer low- income students. Most notably, the negative endowment shocks led to significant reductions in student persistence and graduation rates at Doctoral and Master’s Universities, while having no such effects on Baccalaureate Colleges. As the tuition and living expenses of four-year colleges continue to rise, spending the first two years of college at a community college and transferring to a four-year college has become a more cost-effective way to obtain a university degree. In Chapter 3, a joint paper with Zach Brown, we examine the labor market outcomes of transfer students relative to students who attend a four-year institution directly in the United States. We find a large negative effect on wages driven by selection on unobservables. Instrumental variable estimates using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study imply a 27% reduction in wages from attending a two-year college conditional on eventually attending a four-year institution. This is true regardless of whether we control for four-year college quality. Since students who obtain a bachelor’s degree have no reason to reveal their transfer status to employers, this is evidence that college quality has important implications for labor market returns independent of signaling effects. We also find some evidence that the negative effect of transferring is largest for women as well as students at the lowest and highest ends of the ability distribution.

This research examines how two prominent foundations (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation) identify problems, develop potential solutions, and attempt to foster their adoption across states and higher education institutions. As foundations play an increasingly central role in shaping how education institutions are funded, how they deliver course content, structure academic programs, and deliver student support services, the importance of these questions increases as well. This study draws on interviews with current and former foundation employees, as well as interviews with actors in consulting, advocacy, policy and research organizations, and extensive document analysis, to look beyond the foundations’ financial investments to examine how foundations and their grantees develop policy goals, strategies, and seek to affect education policy through ideas, research, and advocacy. This study finds that foundations are undergoing a policy learning process, whereby they modify strategies based on new information, input from partner organizations, and past investments. Limits and challenges to this process are also observed. How foundations grapple with new information is important, because this study also finds that foundations are influential political actors within the higher education completion agenda. In partnership with intermediary organizations, foundations raise awareness of their goals, problem definitions, and solutions, and take an active role in seeking out support for their higher education agendas, affecting both state policy and higher education institutions.

Alma mater matters: The value of school ties in the venture capital industry. This paper examines the role and estimates the economic value of social networks tied to academic institutions in the venture capital industry. I show that having a shared academic background increases the likelihood of matching between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists by 57%. Similarly, a shared academic background increases the likelihood of matching between different venture capitalists by 42% when they syndicate portfolio company investments. Finally, a shared academic background improves portfolio company performance. For example, when an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist attended the same Top 3 academic institution, the likelihood that the investment will result in an initial public offering or acquisition increases by 42%. This is the incremental effect of having attended the same Top 3 academic institution. Taken together, these results provide strong evidence that shared academic backgrounds help reduce information gaps in the venture capital industry. Unveiling the secrets of the academy: Alumni networks and university endowment success. This paper shows that when university endowments become limited partners with venture capital firms, the performance of their connected portfolio companies improve relative to non-connected ones. Portfolio companies are connected when any of their entrepreneurs attended the corresponding universities for undergraduateor graduate studies. In a differences-in-differences design I compare initial public offering rates between connected- and non-connected venture capital investments in a treated- and an untreated cohort and estimate this effect to be 6%. Since the unconditional sample mean of initial public offerings is 10%, this is commensurate to a 60% increase in the unconditional initial public offering probability. This effect consists of two separate and potentially different effects, however. First, the effect of obtain a new university endowment as a limited partner, second, the effect of losing an already existing university endowment as a limited partner. Further analysis shows that the main effect is mostly driven by the latter. These results continue to hold in a rich set of robustness checks. Goldrush Dynamics of Private Equity. We present a simple dynamic model of entry and exit in a private equity market with heterogeneous fund managers, a depletable stock of target companies, and learning about investment profitability. Its predictions match a number of stylized facts: Aggregate fund activity follows waves with endogenous transitions from booms to busts. Supply and demand in the private equity market are inelastic, and the supply comoves with investment valuations. High industry performance precedes high entry, which in turn precedes low industry performance. Differences in fund performance are persistent, firsttime funds underperform the industry, and the first-time funds that are raised in boom periods are unlikely to be succeeded by follow-on funds. Fund performance and fund size are positively correlated across private equity firms, but negatively correlated across consecutive funds by the same firm. Finally, boom periods can make ”too much capital chase too few deals”. Ownership Matters: A Clinical Study of Investor Activism. This paper studies the involvement and engagement objectives of an activist investor in an institutional environment characterized by concentrated ownership. It highlights the heterogeneity of the investor’s activism and its focus on operational improvements. It emphasizes the ownership structure of the portfolio companies as important determinants of investor activism. Using a carefully selected set of peer companies, it is possible to show that the investor targets undervalued companies with operational slack that maintain open ownership structures. In particular, by avoiding to invest in companies with other active owners, e.g. families and industrial owners, and seeking to invest in companies with more institutional holdings, the investor ensures that there is not only scope for improvements. There is also a reasonable chance of exercising control. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2010. Sammanfattning jämte 4 uppsatser.</p>

An adoption model was proposed to examine the influence of four types of organizational factors- organizational capacity, organizational structure, operating environment and grantmaking orientation- on the adoption of four effectiveness best practices, formal evaluation, knowledge management, leadership development and operating grants in philanthropic foundations. Data were collected from a national survey of foundations and the Foundation Center database. The results indicate that the grantmaking orientation of a foundation is the greatest indicator of adoptive behavior. Furthermore, capacity constraints are most relevant to the adoption decision when the adopting practice requires significant investments of time, money and expertise. Given the social and political context in which the effectiveness best practices are associated, this dissertation research has broad relevance for the ways in which foundation behavior is perceived and the means by which that behavior is shaped through policy and practice.

Institutional philanthropy (which includes the spectrum of all formalized grantmaking organizations) remains one of the least understood and researched aspects of giving. There is also limited scholarly attention to the relationship between foundation governance and grantmaking, despite normative claims about 'elite' foundation boards selecting 'elite' nonprofit's. Yet, foundations are increasingly using committees of community volunteers to allocate grants, rather than leaving grant decisions to a traditional board of directors. The goal of community involvement in grantmaking is better grant decisions, due to community members' information advantage and consequently greater knowledge of community needs. However, no one has tested whether community boards are making different decisions than traditional boards, much less whether their decisions are better. Drawing on a sample of 6 funders who use both community and traditional boards, their 616 grantees, and 955 comparable non-grantees I build on the economic model of giving to identify differences and similarities in the characteristics of nonprofit's that receive grants. Although I find much more congruence between grant decisions of community and traditional boards than literature expects I explore this finding through an in depth case study of two foundations who do this type of work. I find, similar to previous work in the public sector that simply involving community members in a grants process does not automatically generate different organizational decisions. Instead, it is only when a public participation program is effectively designed that grant decisions truly reflective community input.