<p> <b>Purpose</b>: The purpose of this mixed method phenomenological study was to explore and understand the leadership preferences of millennial employees in the public sector. Leadership preferences were generally defined as the traits and behaviors supervisors possess that millennials favor in the workplace. The study was designed to explore the beliefs, attitudes, and needs current public sector millennial employees have about their supervisor or leader. </p><p> <b>Methodology</b>: The subjects in this study were 50 millennial employees in the human resources department of a public-sector agency in Los Angeles County, California. Subjects responded to two research instruments: (1) a 7-item survey, the LMX7 Questionnaire, utilized to examine the quality of exchange between a leader and subordinate; and (2) a 20-item survey, Kelley&rsquo;s Followership Questionnaire, utilized to measure independent critical thinking and active engagement. Eight employees were selected and responded to an interview that utilized 11 semi-structured questions to assess subjects&rsquo; individual experiences of public sector millennial employees. </p><p> <b>Findings</b>: Examination of quantitative and qualitative data from the respondents indicated that, despite their apparent similarities, millennial employees in the public sector are unique. Second, an examination of the same data indicated that, while the benefits and stability of the public sector initially attracted millennials, the opportunity to work in an innovative department with a supervisor who acted as a change agent and listened to their ideas while providing feedback was important to them. </p><p> <b>Conclusions and Recommendations</b>: If the public sector is to attract, motivate, and retain millennials, leaders must adopt a positive and open attitude toward this generational group while ensuring an innovative and engaging environment. Millennials, accused of being disloyal to organizations, were more likely to remain in their public- sector positions if they felt valued. This study could be replicated longitudinally to explore the attitudes and beliefs of millennials as they age or enter another life or career stage to determine if changes could be attributed to age or life or career stage rather than tied to their specific generation.</p><p>

<p> The challenges facing leaders in the federal government are complex, significant, and diverse. These challenges have been exacerbated by a changing global landscape, financial economic meltdowns, budget deficits, terrorism, cybersecurity concerns, war, and an aging workforce (Koonce, 2010). Yet, from a leadership development perspective, until recently, very little had changed in the way leaders were prepared to handle those challenges. As part of a call to action, executive coaching is rapidly becoming a staple of senior leadership development. </p><p> Given the increased emphasis on executive coaching as a leadership development tool, the purpose of this study was to explore the linkage between executive coach education/training, a learning intervention with theoretical underpinnings in learning theory (experiential learning, transformative learning, reflective learning, and action learning) and participant leadership and executive coaching skills. A descriptive, single exploratory case study design was employed using both quantitative and quantitative techniques. The former included Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ), and International Coach Federation (ICF) Competency Survey. Qualitative techniques included observation, document analysis, and focus group to explore the impact of the Defense Acquisition University Executive Coach training program on participants, specifically the impact on participant leadership and executive coaching skills. </p><p> The key findings build on existing research and show that 1) participation in executive coach training created a shift in participant focus from self to other, a critical component of both transformational and servant leadership; 2) a learning environment, combined with emphasis on ICF competencies, improved executive coaching skills; 3) the ICF competency related to ethical orientation and guidelines with respect to professionalism did not demonstrate evidence of change; 4) executive coach training predicated on ICF competencies enhanced active listening and powerful questioning, two critical components of executive coaching and action learning, and 5) coach training enhanced participants&rsquo; self-awareness and reflective learning, critical attributes for executive coaches. The study concludes with recommendations for research and practice.</p><p>

For the past four decades, researchers have been discussing and arguing over the implementation of strategy within the public sector. There is an emerging literature on pluralism, and the interdependence of strategizing and organizing which is especially relevant to public service organizations. The research undertaken and reported in this thesis set out to identify how strategizing was implemented within one large local government authority, from the perspective of middle management. The study sought to ascertain which, if any, of the many implementation theories were applied in practice, and the implications of the tensions between strategizing and organizing. Methodologically, there is a recognised paucity of participatory action learning and research in the strategizing field. Equally, gaps were found in the extant literature on strategizing from the middle management perspective. This research addressed both of these research gaps. The case study herein reported used participatory action research methods. Participatory action research teams followed an action research framework of six questions to identify the gaps between espoused theory and theory in practice. The findings were that the local government authority was not designed for the external strategizing pluralism or the internal organizing pluralism. The organization was designed for regulation and control and so not best suited for the delivery of other types of service. The strategizing process lacked the specific policy input from the various marginalised communities who required the services most. It also specifically avoided any input from the front-line professional staff that held the relevant knowledge, experience and skills. The pluralistic nature of the society served and the lack of commitment on the frontline led to another phenomenon – street-level bureaucrats and the politicization of the community. These frontline service deliverers, ‘street-level bureaucrats’, not only interpreted the strategy to fit the specific, unique context of each neighbourhood but also educated the citizens to appreciate their own power through their politicization. The staff also restated their plans to fit the format of the current top-down strategy by rephrasing them using the current political language of the day.

The contemporary crisis in the world's fisheries has been both predictable and predicted for several decades, and has assumed a consistent pattern: as stocks are fished to commercial extinction, fishing effort is displaced to new, previously unvalued or undervalued stocks. Canada's Atlantic and, increasingly its Pacific, fisheries reflect this global trend. This study explores whether, and how, the development, implementation and enforcement of appropriate property regimes can slow or arrest the destruction of fisheries and the apparently relentless progression from one depleted fishery to another. To answer this question, empirical evidence is provided through the medium of three case studies of commercial fisheries in British Columbia: (1) the Area C Commercial Clam Fishery on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast; (2) the Heiltsuk Tribal Council Commercial Clam Fishery on B.C.'s Central Coast; and (3) the coast-wide fishery for geoduck clams (Panopea abrupta ). The former two projects represent management experiments in the general intertidal clam fishery, of which the main commercial species is the manila clam (Tapes philippinarum). The last is an example of a recently established, closely held fishery which has experienced dramatic increases in the value of landings. Institutional analysis of these three cases confirms many of the explanations and predictions that have been generated by the rapidly expanding body of empirical and theoretical literature concerning the successful application of collective property rights systems in the management of common pool resources. Research findings confirm the importance of rules defining resource boundaries and authorized users; the need to appropriately match resource benefits and costs, the significance of group size and heterogeneity for the magnitude and distribution of transaction costs incurred by and in the property regime; and, more generally, the critical need for property regimes to be context specific if they are to link human and natural systems in ways that achieve acceptable levels of ecological sustainability, economic efficiency, and social equity. Analysis of the case studies in the context of broader trends in fishery management reveals, as well, a pressing need for what might be termed “preventive” or “pre-emptive” institutional design. Rather than waiting (as is usual) for conservation concerns, financial crises, and acute distributional conflicts to compel institutional reform, it is recommended that governments and communities act to ensure that harvesting rights and corresponding responsibilities, including mechanisms for allocation and transfer, are established and understood in the early stages of fisheries development, thereby forestalling serious ecological, economic and social costs. / Graduate

abstract: Government revenue forecasting errors have become larger, especially in exceptional times such as the periods surrounding economic recessions. Inaccurate revenue estimates stem from unanticipated revenue increases or decreases from a previous trend. Unfortunately, current forecasting methods relying primarily on trend analysis do not incorporate these kinds of sudden changes easily. When revenue punctuations occur, the revenue forecasting errors increase. To reduce forecasting errors caused by revenue punctuations in government revenue collections, I argued that analysts must not dismiss outliers as extraneous or useless phenomena. My research revealed an approach to incorporate outliers or punctuations into revenue forecasting. First, this research studied the criterion for judging the appearance of revenue punctuations using state governments’ quarterly collections of the five largest taxes from 1977 to 2016. Second, the research explored the patterns of these revenue punctuations, specifically the relationship between the changes in dollar amount and the amount of time from one revenue punctuation to another. Inspired by the few statistical techniques for identifying outliers, this research applied the studentized residuals method to detect the revenue punctuations. The result revealed that all five tax categories for each state have revenue punctuations, except Motor Fuels Tax in the state of Tennessee. Furthermore, this research disclosed that while not all the states and all the tax categories have statistically significant relationships between the depth and length of revenue punctuations, some states still have valid relationships. For the states that have statistically significant relationships, a forecaster, knowing depth, could calculate length and vice versa. Thus, the forecasting errors caused by revenue punctuations could be reduced when the protocols my research identified are used. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Public Administration and Policy 2018

abstract: The amount of time and effort that university researchers spend writing grants and executing grant administration responsibilities is one of the biggest challenges for science policy. This study aims to explore the complexity of the phenomenon of burdens in the administrative procedure for principal investigators (PIs) in sponsored research. The findings make a theoretical contribution to the study of burdens and red tape by closely examining the processes in which the burdens emerge, increase, and decrease; in doing so, this research will lay the groundwork for future studies of burdens and sponsored research systems. This study assumes that burdens are embedded in the social process, not merely in the number of required documentation or time spent on the procedure. The two overarching research questions are as follows: (1) What do researchers perceive or experience as a burden in grant proposal preparation and submission in sponsored research? (2) What are the possible factors or hypotheses to explain the generation, increase, and decrease of burdens? This single case study of a large research university examines the burdens faced by university researchers as they prepare and submit grant proposals. Primary data comes from semi-structured interviews with thirty-one PIs in science and engineering schools, and four interviews with research administration staff. Based on the interview data and theoretical arguments, this study illustrates the burdens in two categories: Burdens related to the proposal system, rules, and requirements; and burdens PIs experience with pre-award staff and relations. In addition, this study assesses each PI’s burden level in terms of the number of tasks in the proposal process, and the quality of the pre-award staff and services the PI experiences. This study further examines possible contributing factors and tentative hypotheses of burdens. In the discussion, this study develops theoretical arguments about the nature and consequences of burdens and fundamental issues in the grant system, and discuss prescriptions for PIs, universities, and sponsored research systems. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Science and Technology Policy 2018

<p> The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to generate a theory about the implications of leadership development and organizational culture on employee engagement. The focus is on the experience and perceptions of participants of a leadership development program within a public-sector organization with a strategic imperative focused on cultural transformation. The researcher investigated the outcomes of the leadership development program, and examined cultural aspects of the organization, each from the view of employee participants. Much leadership development research to date is based on private sector organizations. There are studies that are an examination of quantitative organizational results such as productivity and personal results such as promotion and incentive pay rates. The researcher placed emphasis on the lived experience of employees and sought insight to the differentiators that result in higher levels of organizational buy-in and commitment exemplified by engaged employees. The research included interviews with individuals that participated in the subject organization&rsquo;s leadership development program. The research findings led to the generation of a new theory of employee engagement applicable to the field of human resource management. Understanding the differentiators within an organization such as leadership strategies and organizational cultural objectives that lead to increased levels of employee engagement is instructive for organizations. The results are applicable to organizations in the public-sector, or in the private-sector, when the organization adopts an intentional leadership development approach based on leadership strategies and makes organizational culture a strategic imperative.</p><p>

No description available.

<p> Savvy and opportunistic fraudsters increasingly target smaller governmental organizations. Insufficient transparency and disjointed accountability over controls nurture the hidden nature of occupational fraud and allow wrongdoing to escalate during decades of routine operations. Criminal sentencings confirm local government and education officials misusing their positions and placing their own interests above those of their communities. Both primary case studies&mdash;a municipal crime in the City of Dixon, Illinois and corruption inside Roslyn, New York&rsquo;s Union Free School District&mdash;illustrate how embezzling more than $65 million remained undetected over thirty years until tip disclosure. The extension of unmerited trust created insufficient segregation of duties among employees and low monitoring left public resources vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption. The project holds ternary importance for risk management since one-third of small entities experience fraud, traditional external auditing identifies fraud in less than five percent of instances, and receiving anonymous tips through reporting hotlines improves detection by up to 20% and reduces losses (ACFE, 2016). The project examined stakeholder speak-up strategies including whistleblower protections and tips hotline (WP&amp;TH) initiatives to understand how organizational context, willful blindness, information access, and citizen engagement affect local government&rsquo;s focus on fraud detection and remediation. Case studies show WP&amp;TH initiatives to be financially and operationally superior in identifying risk and promoting transparency in small local governments. Third-party, 24/7 call centers and anonymous, two-way dialog web/text are underutilized tools for recognizing fraud precursors and stopping them before they aggregate, escalate, or become institutional norm.</p><p>

<p> Government oversight exists to provide the government with the information it needs to evaluate the cost, schedule, and performance of contractors building systems on the government&rsquo;s behalf. The activities required for oversight, while necessary, add additional costs to a program. Stakeholders involved in space system acquisitions debate the extent of the added costs from complying with oversight&mdash;referred to as the burden of government oversight&mdash;with estimates ranging from 2&ndash;5% of a program&rsquo;s total costs to factors of 3-5 times the cost of commercially available alternative products. Higher-end estimates of burden have led some stakeholders to propose acquisition reforms to reduce the amount of oversight. However, recent history has shown that periods of reduced oversight on space system acquisitions can result in significant mission failures. </p><p> Before reasoned action can be taken to determine if parts of oversight should be reformed, there is a need for data about the extent of the burden of government oversight and how oversight manifests at the working-level. To that end, this research sought to answer the question: &ldquo;How much does government oversight burden engineering work and how does that burden manifest?&rdquo; </p><p> We contend that disagreement about the extent of the burden of government oversight stems from both how oversight has been measured in previous studies and ambiguity in the scope of what has been measured as oversight. To address these problems, this dissertation research focused on: 1) improving the measurement of the burden of government oversight on engineering work; 2) analyzing the sources of the burden of government oversight and measuring their impact; and 3) understanding the impact of government oversight on contractor work processes. </p><p> To measure the burden of oversight, we developed a measurement framework that builds on the work sampling method. We created a multi-question survey to instantaneously gather information about engineering work. Through the combination of answers to these questions, researchers can measure the time spent on oversight-related work. </p><p> We used the work sampling method to measure the burden of oversight at a major US aerospace company. The data collected using this method provided an empirically valid estimate of the time spent on government oversight-related work&mdash;which enabled us to test some of the widely-held beliefs about the nature of oversight-related work and to reconcile differences between previously reported estimates of the burden of oversight. </p><p> In addition, we performed qualitative work to understand how oversight impacts contractor engineering work processes more broadly. This research revealed that oversight requests can require cascades of additional activities and can extend the time spent on activities. In addition, frustrations about oversight can lead to objective inefficiencies in terms of added process time. Therefore, to adequately account for the burden of oversight, the scope of accounting needs to be extended. </p><p> Our results provide rich insights into the nature of the burden of oversight on engineering work at the contractor level. Combined, they provide a grounded estimate of the scope of current burden and a basis for more productive discussions about what aspects of oversight could lead to unnecessary burden.</p><p>