Governmental accountability is the requirement of government entities to be accountable to the citizenry in order to justify the raising and expenditure of public resources. The concept of service efforts and accomplishments measurement for government programs was introduced by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) in Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting: Its Time Has Come (1990). This research tested the feasibility of implementing the concept for the Federal-aid highway construction program and identified factors affecting implementation with a case study of the District of Columbia. Changes in condition and performance ratings for specific highway segments in 15 projects, before and after construction expenditures, were evaluated using data provided by the Federal Highway Administration. The results of the evaluation indicated difficulty in drawing conclusions on the state program performance, as a whole. The state program reflects problems within the Federally administered program that severely limit implementation of outcome-oriented performance measurement. Major problems identified with data acquisition are: data reliability, availability, compatibility and consistency among states. Other significant factors affecting implementation are institutional barriers and political barriers. Institutional issues in the Federal Highway Administration include the lack of integration of the fiscal project specific database with the Highway Performance Monitoring System database. The Federal Highway Administration has the ability to resolve both of the data problems, however interviews with key Federal informants indicate this will not occur without external directives and changes to the Federal "stewardship" approach to program administration. The findings indicate many issues must be resolved for successful implementation of outcome-oriented performance measures in the Federal-aid construction program. The issues are organizational and political in nature, however in the current environment resolution is possible. Additional research is desirable and would be useful in overcoming the obstacles to successful implementation.

<p> Democratic participation has been integrated in public administration theory and practice since the mid 20th century. It is a strategy used by public entities to enhance social equity by engaging citizens, including those who are marginalized and lack political efficacy. Most efforts to engage the public focus on program or policy planning rather than developing and interpreting performance measures. Even more limited are efforts to engage marginalized citizens in this work. This dissertation explores how preferences for performance measures differ between public sector representatives at the federal, state, and local levels and the marginalized citizens served by the public program of focus. Permanent supportive housing, or housing designed specifically for individuals moving out of homelessness, serves as a case in point to explore this research question. Research findings indicate that marginalized citizens differ frequently from public sector representatives in regards to both the importance assigned to selected performance measures and to their perceptions of what specific performance measures may indicate. Findings contribute to the literature on performance measurement, democratic participation, and social equity, and have practical applications for public administrators seeking to engage citizens in public processes.</p><p>

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the problems facing the Audit Office of the Royal Thai Army. This study is significant because it attempted to examine selected major problems that plague the army as a .whole and the Audit Office in particular. The problems, namely, (a) lack of adequate staffing, (b) inefficient inter-unit communication, and (c) poor record keeping systems go into the very heart of the smooth operations of any organization. The major findings are that the lack of a large pool of qualified university graduates and poor salaries have prevented the army as a whole, and the Audit Office in particular from attracting such personnel into its ranks. In addition, the communication delays caused by seeking approval for clearances as well as the dependence on obsolete technology have impacted negatively on the audit process. The main sources of information for this study were obtained from participant observation and reliance on a variety of secondary data that included books, journals, and documents from the Royal Thai Army.

No description available.

The primary intent of this study was to establish an alternative approach for developing objectives within the office of Community Development (OCD) at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The office was suffering from program duplication and a lack of communication, participation, and motivation, all of which related to weak organizational objectives. The writer focused on the Program Planning Team that was set up by OCD to plan activities for the organizational units. Special attention was given to the team's actions in its attempt to reconstruct objectives through the identification of unit activities. The team's approach was not a total failure since it was able to establish lines of communication and participation. However, the team was unable to complete all its tasks. The writer has used the MBO process as a frame of reference for this study. The problems prevalent in OCD and the approach it took to develop objectives were analyzed in the context of the steps of the MBO process. MBO aids in solving many objective-related problems that exists in agencies. This process has been utilized extensively in the private sector and has been receiving increased recognition in the public sector. The materials used in this study were derived from two data gathering methods. The first was participant observation in which the writer was a part of the Program Planning Team at OCD, and thereby gathered on-site information. The second was an exploratory inquiry which provided the theoretical framework necessary to address the topics of objective-setting and MBO.

The study is an analysis of the usefulness of Guidelines for the Development of Fair Housing Ordinances and Local Housing Code Programs in the Atlanta Region, Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) staff working papers. The staff papers are evaluated to determine if they are contributing to the implementation of goals of ARC's Regional Housing Plan and to determine if they are influencing housing policy development in the Atlanta Region. In order to ascertain and evaluate the usefulness of the staff papers, interviews were held with selected public officials on the local, state and regional levels. In addition, individuals who requested the documents from ARC's Housing Division were surveyed. The interviews and the survey findings along with other research on public policy development and implementation were the major sources of information for this study. Also presented is an analysis of the policy implications associated with the policy directions suggested in both staff papers.

The dissertation investigates what forms the relationship between collaboration risks and collaborative action takes and what patterns of collaborative action emerge, to what extent of political homophily affects the pattern of networked arrangement, and of what type embeddedness relieves the risk from collective action and what types of embeddedness is effective. The first essay elaborates the concept of collaboration risk and measures collaboration risk in an emergency management context to investigate the relations between perceived collaboration risks and network structure and to test a hypothesized non-linear form for this relation. Using an Institutional Collective Action (ICA) framework, the study discusses three dimensions of collaborative risk derived from coordination, division, and defection risk and measures these by means of a structured-survey of 69 organizations in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, South Korea. The results of a fractional polynomial regression model show that the perceived level of collaboration risk has an inverse U-curve relation with the number of collaborative ties forged by organizations. These findings imply that organizations’ perceived collaboration risk beyond a threshold point motivates the termination of former ineffective arrangements. At the same time, the collaboration with other participants increases to a specific level of collaboration risk. The second essay examines the extent to which homophily between political actors, such as elected officials and council members, occurring at the local level, affects patterns of interorganizational collaborations in an emergency response situation. While the current field of emergency management has focused on implementation-oriented arrangements among the key stakeholders, few have systemically investigated the creation and development of interorganizational collaborations led by political actors, especially following catastrophic events. By utilizing Quadric Assignment Procedure logistic regression models with the 2015 Seoul Emergency Management datasets, evidence that political homophily has a positive effect on facilitating interorganizational collaboration regarding emergency management has been found. The analysis reveals that a dyadic tie with political homophily boosts local responders’ forging of ties with other agencies during emergencies. The findings imply that political solidarity, formulated by mayors and council members, can broaden the scope of interorganizational collaboration with other critical actors, such as local agencies and nonprofit organizations, by mitigating institutional collective action problems at the local level. The third essay investigates the effects of embeddedness, defined as a property of interdependent relations in which organizations are integrated into a network, on the level of collaboration risk emerging from relational uncertainty. A case of emergency management including interorganizational collaboration is used as a lens through which to understand to the role of embeddedness in disaster networks to extend the knowledge of collaboration risk within an institutional collective action framework. Despite efforts to understand the structural effects on network governance, the risk embedded in collaborative arrangements has yet to be systematically explored. By modeling OLS analyses of 69 organizations engaged in emergency management operations in the Seoul metropolitan area, South Korea, I hypothesized and tested the effects of relational and structural embeddedness on the level of collaboration risk that an organization perceives. The results show that both structural and relational embeddedness facilitate organizations to mitigate perceived collaboration risk, implying that reachability secures relief from relational risk and that a commitment relationship binds the participants more tightly. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2016. / October 12, 2016. / Collaborative management, Emergency management, Network governance / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Christopher Coutts, University Representative; Audrey Heffron-Casserleigh, Committee Member; Ralph Brower, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

Considered as a popular and effective practice in public agencies, teleworking is an alternative work arrangement that is believed to benefit both individuals and organizations. However, the research on teleworking remains centered on the individual-level analysis and on the outcomes associated with the practice, without deeply investigating how organizational and institutional factors affect organizations' implementation of the teleworking practice. The interest of this study is to filling this gap by using and extending the organizational configuration theory to understand the variation in the teleworking rate among US federal agencies. Data from the 2010 and 2013 FedView Survey of the U.S federal government employees will be used in this study. The teleworking rate at the sub-agency level represents the dependent variable, and is modeled with the explanatory factors affecting it, in a Hierarchical Linear Model and a Cluster Adjusted Multiple Regression Model. Factors such as organizational centralization, professionalization and organizational demographics are modeled as the predictors of the teleworking rate at the sub-agency level. Organizational size, age, level of politicization, policy mission, and previous levels of teleworking will be modeled as predictors at the agency level. The results suggest that organizational structure, employees' characteristics, leadership support and factors specific to federal agencies such as politicization and policy mission influence the teleworking rate in federal sub-agencies. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / March 17, 2015. / Configuration theory, Federal agencies, Flexible policies, Teleworking, Work-life Balance / Includes bibliographical references. / Kaifeng Yang, Professor Directing Dissertation; Gerald R. Ferris, University Representative; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; Ralph S. Brower, Committee Member.

This study explores the nutritional and economic needs of the Philippines suggesting as a solution the return to indigenous staple foods. It culminates in a Teacher Training Workshop created to bring together Philippine public elementary school health education teachers to dialogue why a state of nutritional well-being is elusive in the communities they are serving. Teachers will be trained to remedy this deprivation, a direct effect of colonizer/colonized relationship resulting in economic disorder. Chapter I presents background information, problems to be resolved, definition of terms, and gives evidence of a technologically and culturally advanced pre-colonial Philippines. Chapter II details the political and economic disorder which resulted from colonizations. A review of literature on global food production is included in this chapter. Chapter III is a review of literature on liberating curriculum by educators who reflect in their writings their concern for this disorder. The literature demonstrates that in the course of current events, and in the need to get ahead, people unknowingly or otherwise cause the exploitation of others. Nowhere is this more evident than on the issues of global small-farm conditions. Powerful Country small farmers who are today living in economic destitution are the same farmers who for decades have caused not only despair but starvation among Oppressed Country small farmers. This study identifies tools to measure the economic and nutritional value of indigenous foods. Two such instruments are introduced in Chapter IV, the Food Intake Diary, and in Appendix A, the Comparison of Nutrients in Interchangeable Foods. The Workshop, Chapter V, takes for its theme the recognition of the most crucial of needs in Oppressed Countries, locally grown foods. The materials and hand-outs included in this educational program are puzzle pieces to understand the relationship between Oppressed Countries and Powerful Countries where the two sides are not partners and not sharing equitably. The curriculum questions those in power in their traditional handling of development issues in Oppressed Countires. The teachers and later their pupils, who will be the future farmers, will decide who are the victims and who are the beneficiaries of this economic disorder.

Includes bibliographical references. / The value judgements of senior officials in the five largest local authorities in South Africa were considered to influence personnel policy. Employment in a municipality was viewed as a special class of employment with specific public personnel management and professional considerations. First round delphi ranking and weighting scenarios were conducted with forty-five senior officials using focussed interviews. Results of the questionnaire were descriptively analysed on a privilege-communication base. There was significant agreement, certainty and consistency among senior officials of different professions for attracting and maintaining professional staff in local government. Job satisfaction was ranked the highest factor. Management terminology was preferred to administration. A co-ordinated interdependent personnel function was needed. Greater use should be made of emerging semi-professionals or technicians. More delegation to officials resulted in an increased public scrutiny.