The recent emergencies on college campuses including the Virginia Tech massacre of April, 2007, the Northern Illinois University shootings and the Union University tornado highlight the importance of disaster preparedness within the university community. This study is a survey exploring the daily rhythms of student life, the communication channels open to students and students composition and characteristics. This survey finds that students have frequent access to communication technologies which can be utilized as warning channels. The study also concludes that many students do not actively seek out information relative to emergency preparedness and the gaps in the populations knowledge require increased disaster education by the university.

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This research was designed to determine to what extent employees relocated domestically are protected financially by company practices and policies. Since international relocation has as its objective protecting employees from financial loss, these policies were used as a point of comparison in evaluating domestic relocation. The study was conducted through the use of a mail questionnaire survey of 326 randomly selected companies within the Fortune 500 top industrial organizations. A total of 153, 47 per cent, questionnaires were returned. This survey attempted to establish the basic policies that are applied by these organizations in domestic employee relocation.

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Franchising has become a proven and acceptable method of distributing products and services for both domestic and foreign markets. The pressures on franchisors to search for foreign markets have led to heightened interest in international franchising. According to Franchising in the Economy (1990), restaurants of all types rank number one, followed by business aids and services. Therefore, the restaurant industry leads the domain of business in international franchising. The primary objective of this study was to develop a model based on experts' opinion for the selection of different franchising methods to be used as a guideline for restaurant companies that plan to franchise internationally. Environmental factors that affect international franchising in the Pan Pacific region are identified. The major methods used in franchising are: 1. direct franchising, 2. master franchise agreements, and 3. joint venture agreements. The recommendation of the most popular franchising methods for Singapore, Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia are studied. / Ph. D.

With the increase of severity and scope of disasters, collaborative networks have become the main tool to tackle with complex emergencies. Networks, however, are mostly effective to the extent they are maintained over time. This study analyzes whether organizational goal convergence, information-communication technology utilization, and inter-organizational trust impacts network sustainability. The main research questions of the study are: (1) How are organizational goals, technical/technological capacity of organizations, and trust among organizations of a network are related to the sustainability of collaborative network relationships? (2) Which of the above-mentioned factors plays the most significant role in affecting network sustainability? Covering the context of emergency management system in the United States, this study utilized a self-administered survey that was electronically distributed to county emergency managers across the country. The data consisting of 534 complete responses was analyzed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Inc. software‟s PASW (Predictive Analytics SoftWare) Statistics version 18.0 and transferred to Amos 18.0 software for structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The findings suggest that organizational goal convergence, information-communication technology utilization, and inter-organizational trust have positive and statistically significant relationships with network sustainability; and, interorganizational trust is the strongest factor followed by information-communication technology utilization and organizational goal convergence. The study contributes to the literature on network sustainability with specific suggestions for emergency management practitioners.

Relative to whites, blacks occupy a very small percentage of upper-level management positions in the lodging industry. This is evident when the numbers of black upper-level managers are compared to their representation in the hospitality labor pool and the United States population. This study uses the perceptions of black general managers and corporate executives as a means of identifying factors affecting the recruitment, retention, and promotion of blacks into these positions. While most of the literature attributed the underrepresentation to race discrimination, this study explores other factors that may also be responsible. One area of exploration was the use of internal marketing principles as a means of addressing and possibly resolving the problem of under-representation. The study consisted of telephone interviews with seven black general managers and executives from four major hotel chains. The purpose of the study was to determine if and to what extent did race discrimination affect the advancement of blacks into upper-level lodging management. It was also designed to explore the extent to which other factors affected such advancement by blacks, and further, identify ways in which hotel companies could enhance advancement opportunities for their qualified black employees. The respondents of the study provided enough information to develop conclusions about the impact such factors like education, mentorship, societal perceptions, and internal marketing have on the advancement of blacks in the lodging industry. There was unanimous agreement that race discrimination did adversely affect the advancement of blacks into upper-level lodging management. However, there it was also noted that there is a tremendous amount of opportunity in the industry that is either being overlooked or simply not being pursued by blacks. These respondents also provided several recommendations for young blacks considering careers in lodging management. / Master of Science

The existing literature regarding the national forest planning process was reviewed and critiqued. This critique was aimed at identifying the planning process that was most likely to produce workable multiple-use national forest management plans without relying on procedures outside the process itself to make additional planning decisions. Using this criterion, it was determined that a planning process based on negotiations between the forest service and interested groups and/or individuals was the most promising planning process proposed to date. The nature of negotiated planning processes, national forest management plans, and computerized planning tools were investigated. Based on these investigations, performance criteria for computerized planning tools designed to operate within a negotiated national forest planning process were developed. These criteria called for such a planning tool to (1) be available and usable to all individuals and/or groups involved in the planning process, (2) be able to manage the planning process’s data management and modeling tasks, (3) be able to present data in a manner that facilitates understanding and communication, and (4) be able to develop an initial management plan that can serve as a starting point for the negotiation process. Finally, a prototype planning tool designed to meet the performance criteria just presented was developed and tested. In order to meet the third performance criterion, this prototype used maps as its primary data representation and presentation medium. Since the prototype was based on mapped data manipulation, it relied heavily on geographic information system (GIS) technology. The prototype also utilized simulation, optimization and economic modeling techniques. In addition to its ability to function within a negotiated planning framework, the prototype planning tool developed in this study also demonstrated the ability of such tools to build spatially defined forest management plans. No existing planning tool has this ability (including FORPLAN, the Forest Service’s current planning tool), and some authors have expressed doubt that any computerized system could develop spatially defined management plans. However, since this study’s prototype tool developed management plans that could be represented using maps, it by definition developed management plans that were spatially defined. When the prototype was tested, it was found to behave in a logical, intuitively appealing manner. For example, the system responded to increased timber values by increasing cutting operations, and to increased recreational values by decreasing management actions that adversely impact recreation (i.e., timber production). It was concluded that building an operational version of such a planning tool was feasible, and specific recommendations regarding how such a tool could be built were provided. / Ph. D.

The morale of the federal workforce is probably at an all time low. The malaise that shrouds the federal workforce is primarily caused by a sense of alienation that many federal workers feel. They feel alienated from themselves and from a community. In this book I approach the problem of alienation from theoretical, personal and empirical perspectives. To gain a deeper understanding of the alienation of the organizational employee, one must look at the individual holistically. Using Carl Jung as my guide and employing his theories of the unconscious, spirituality, individuation and psychological type, I develop what I call an organizational personality typology. This organizational personality typology is contrasted with the more conventional and more one-dimensional organizational role typologies developed by organizational theorists such as Anthony Downs in Inside Bureaucracy and Robert Presthus in The Organizational of contact with their environment and themselves, a sense of meaninglessness and alienation, and an obliviousness to messages from their unconscious. Other people choose the journey of heroism. The heroic journey as portrayed in the heroic myth serves as a model for those people in search of psychological health and spiritual sustenance. It is a journey that has three primary stages: the calling, the encounter with death, and the return to the community. Each of these stages has applicability to the American public administration tradition. The heroic journey is not merely confined to the world of myth. The heroic journey, as practiced in the public service, has current exemplars in both novels and in real life. Furthermore, it is a journey that is open to both the GS-3 clerk and the agency administrator. It is an attitude reflective of a life-affirming stance towards oneself and others. / Ph. D.

The trauma and devastation that resulted from Hurricane Katrina's landfall on August 29, 2005, produced a wide spread public perception of government neglect and ineptitude. Subsequently, a period of nationwide shame and concern for those most affected by the disaster elicited a wave of financial generosity from all social sectors. Yet, by late 2005 the media declared that the majority of Americans had become desensitized to the tragedy and its consequences, coining this shift in public perception as "Katrina fatigue." Thousands of volunteers contradicted this phenomenon, however, by performing service in the devastated city of New Orleans. Long-term volunteers defied "Katrina fatigue" by redirecting the trajectory of their lives so they could provide service. Conventionally accepted volunteer theory predicts that volunteers provide service and that their labor operates in conjunction with institutionally supported mechanisms of security and services. / However, for the volunteer subjects in this study, Katrina and its immediate aftermath shattered the trust in such institutions. These volunteers did not assume that their service operated in conjunction with state sponsored agencies or corporations. Rather, they viewed their own acts of service as the means of promoting the recovery. This qualitative case study examines the deliberated choices and actions performed by long-term volunteers between the years 2005 and 2009. The primary subjects in this investigation include 15 volunteers who performed long-term and/or repeat delegations of service within organized networks. Volunteer subjects believed that if they did not perform the services they did, these services might not get done. Volunteers internalized contours of the larger political economy and their own perceived role within them. Performing service functioned partially to counteract this internalization and simultaneously redirect their lives. / Second Line, a New Orleans street tradition of neighborhood processions, reveals more of what drives the long-term volunteer's desire. The root practice of Second Line processions embodies a form of cognitive liberation for the disenfranchised as the processions interrupt normal arrangements of order and power in the city, albeit temporarily. Volunteers desire to connect with poor and working class Black people in this capacity, and their attempts to do so played out in contexts that sometimes disrupted institutional or corporate power, constituting a demand for change on behalf of Katrina victims. / by Susan D'Aloia. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web. FboU