Community coalitions are prime vehicles for fostering social support within communities and prominent mechanisms for building local capacities to address health and social concerns. However, sustaining these entities beyond initial efforts and funding is difficult. What has kept members participating in and committed to the work of the Clarkston (Georgia) Health Collaborative, a community coalition, nearly 15 years after its inception? Prior research has examined several variables that predict overall participation and commitment in community-based coalitions, however, the literature has largely focused on coalitions that are topic driven (e.g., diabetes, gang violence, drugs, or obesity). These studies fail to identify those factors that are important in sustaining efforts in non-topic-based (i.e., there is no singular focus, but topics are community generated and vary), non-grant-funded community coalitions. This cross-sectional study examines member engagement as a sustaining factor of coalitions. Members of the Clarkston Health Collaborative (N = 93), ages 21 to 70 years and representing various sectors of the community, as well as racial and ethnic backgrounds, were surveyed as part of a coalition assessment in 2007 and 2008 in Clarkston, Georgia. Predictors that influence their participation and commitment, key components of engagement, are analyzed. These components were: leadership, social resources, sense of community, empowerment, member satisfaction, communication, decision making, and participation benefits. Based on the review of the literature, specific mediating relationships are hypothesized. A mixed-methods approach is employed, including path analysis that tests how well process models fit the coalition data, as well as key informant interviews by coalition members. Toward a conceptual model of engagement, findings supported the hypothesis that effective leadership increases member participation through increased social resources. Findings also supported the hypotheses that shared decision making and effective leadership increases member commitment through increased member satisfaction. Clear communication and sense of community were also factors that contributed to increased participation and commitment. These findings have implications for intervention, policy, and research, including a need for interventions that recognize the contexts of influence that foster member engagement in community-based coalitions. In addition, insight is gained for the planning and implementation of other coalitions to help ensure coalition sustainability.

This dissertation increases our understanding of information system project success by investigating how software development team members define the success of an information system development effort. The theoretical model of ISD success is developed and tested. ISD success is measured through the eyes of the software development team members—since they are the most influential stakeholders during the development of the system. This dissertation was conducted in two phases: 1) theory building and 2) theory testing. The theory building phase began with a thorough literature review. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and the data analyzed to add emergent concepts to the model. The result of the theory building phase is the theoretical model of ISD success. The theory testing stage began with the development and validation of a survey instrument to measure the constructs and subconstructs found within the theoretical model of ISD success. Data was collected and the model tested using partial least squares regression. The findings indicate that software development team members view ISD success as being composed of process quality, functional product quality, non-functional product quality, team member benefits, and team member satisfaction. Team member satisfaction is highly influenced by team member benefits, moderately influenced by functional product quality and slightly influence by non-functional product quality and process quality. Software development team members view process quality as being composed of within budget and process maturity; non-functional product as being composed of reliability, usability, testability, and efficiency; team member benefits as being composed of learning and teamwork; and team member satisfaction as being composed of product satisfaction, process satisfaction, and personal satisfaction. Software development team members do not view on time as a significant contributor to their definition of process quality; they do not view modifiability, portability, or reusability as significant contributors to their definition of non-functional product quality; and they do not view recognition as a significant contributor to team member benefits. / Ph. D.