This dissertation builds upon a 25-year old study by Mizrahi and Rosenthal (1993) which examined how coalition leaders defined and perceived success and failure in their respective coalitions. This study replicates the Mizrahi and Rosenthal study by returning to participants from the original study and, adapting the original instrument, interviewing those participants to examine their perceptions after 25 years has passed. Utilizing the same instrument, new coalition leaders from the originally studied coalitions which are still intact are also interviewed and their responses are compared against responses from leaders of coalitions which have since dissolved. The current study uses basic descriptive analysis for the structured survey items and grounded theory methodology for the qualitative analysis of open-ended questions. The analysis examines participant responses in the following areas: participant information; coalition information; demographic information of working group, board and constituency; characterization of coalition; internal and environmental predictors of dissolution; political and social climate during dissolution; political forces influencing dissolution; events in the lifespan; benefits and drawback of permanency; target information; definition of success; internal and environmental predictors of success; goals; strategies and tactics; decision-making processes; modes of communication; coalition resources; membership and participation; leadership; and practice wisdom. Utilizing organizational, ecological, social capital and collaboration literature and theory, indicators of coalition success are reviewed. Specifically, findings from this study confirm that coalition success should be defined multi-dimensionally and that coalitions should be operationalized as networks more than as organizations. Findings demonstrate that coalition success is predicted by the following internal factors: impetus to form and coalition purpose; goal-setting, identification of target and strategy; internal resources; leadership; power and decision-making; coalition structure; member contributions; diversity; and relationships, including dynamics of respect, trust, commitment and communication. Additionally, findings demonstrate that coalition success is predicted by the following environmental factors: external resource and resource dependence; goal-setting, identification of target and strategy; relationship with community and degree of coupling; and political, fiscal and social climate. Theoretical and practical implications for these findings are discussed along with limitations to current research and areas for potential future research.

Qualitative observational research, interviews, and student samples explain the complex social structure in my math classroom and my effectiveness as a teacher. The ethnographic narrative will be divided into four major sections. The major sections are Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D. Part A discusses how my personal and professional identity affect my performance in the classroom. Part B highlights action plans that support an English learner, a student with an IEP, and a student with a significant life experience. Part C explores how the demographics of the community and school site affect my classroom environment. Lastly, Part D presents my professional reflections and professional development plan. Together, these studies suggest skills needed to be an effective teacher involve more than expertise in mathematics. Effective teachers use critical self-analysis and their students’ funds of knowledge to create an inclusive and purposeful classroom. Keywords: identity, educator, social capital, purpose, effective

Increasing evidence suggests the personal traits of chief executive officers (CEOs) can influence corporate policies. We examine how one dimension, past professional experiences, can affect corporate payout policy. Exploiting exogenous CEO turnovers and future employment, we hypothesize that CEOs experiencing a distress event in their past career alter the corporate payout policy at their subsequent firm of employment. We discover that CEOs having experienced prior professional career distress are less likely to pay dividends and use repurchases and pay out lower levels for each type of payout. Additionally, when CEOs with distress do have a payout policy greater than zero dollars, there exists a preference toward the use of repurchases in the payout policy, adding to the literature of substitution and differences between the two forms of payout. We find that dividend smoothing is reduced by CEOs that have past professional distress. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Despite over a century's worth of study, areal variations in suicide rate remain largely unexplained. In order to better understand these regional differences, this analysis aggregates county-level National Center for Health Statistics Multiple Cause of Death data with data from the US Census, the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, and the Penn State Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development to test the three leading conceptualizations of social integration (i.e. demographic, compositional, ecological) against US suicide rates. Results of negative binomial regression models indicate that an ecological measure, social capital, is substantially associated with suicide rate, while demographic and compositional measures do not appear to be significantly associated with suicide rate, robust of controls, speaking to the role of social ties in preventing suicide. These findings highlight both the changing nature of social integration and the role that this plays in suicide prevention.

During the transition to adulthood, youth often rely on the people in their life for support. However, for transition-aged foster youth, these supports may not be available or may look different than supports available to youth in the general population. Relationships with supportive adults have been found to help former foster youth transition to adulthood, but little is known about the adults youth have in their network. Foster youth who report increased levels of social capital have been shown to experience higher levels of success in young adulthood. However, as former foster youth transition to adulthood, a lack of in-depth understanding of supportive adults and social networks creates difficulties identifying—and addressing—potential gaps in their social network. This study aims to gain a better understanding of how social networks influence social support and access to and mobilization of social capital as youth leave the foster care system. A social network assessment based on two existing measures was created to attain a better understanding of the social networks of transition-aged foster youth. The new social network tool was piloted with a group of young adults prior to use in this study. This social network tool allowed for an in-depth understanding of social networks, social support, and social capital as three distinct constructs. The social network characteristics included: on whom the youth relies for support, how the relationship developed, and the closeness of the relationship. Social support included: questions on the type of support available to youth (resources, emotional, advice, or constructive criticism), as well as the social support domains (housing, education, employment, relationships, and transportation). Social capital was examined based on questions about network members’ occupation(s) and frequency of communication between the youth and each network member. Univariate, Bivariate, and Multivariate analyses were utilized to examine social network characteristics, foster care history, social support, and social capital. The mean network size of sample participants was 7.1 and the range was 0–36. A relationship between placement type and social network members was found; indicating that youth in congregate care were more likely to have formal (social service related) networks than youth not in congregate care. A relationship between having more informal network members and housing stability was found; indicating that different network members may help youth with different young adult outcomes. A relationship between both access to, and mobilization of, social capital was found based on the type of social network members (formal, informal, familial-biological, familial-foster). Based on the findings of the current study, research and practice implications are discussed. These include the utility of social network analysis with transition-aged foster youth, future lines of inquiry, and suggested practice/policy shifts.

Oral health disparities in children is an important public health issue in the United States. A growing body of evidence exists supporting the social determinants of oral health, moving beyond individual predictors of disease to family- and community-level influences. The goal of this study is to examine one such social determinant, social capital, at the family and neighborhood levels and their relationships with oral health in Iowa children. A statewide representative data source, the 2010 Iowa Child and Family Household Health Survey, was analyzed cross-sectionally for child oral health status as the outcome, a four-item index of neighborhood social capital and four separate indicators for family social capital as the main predictors, and seven covariates. Soda consumption was checked as a potential mediator between the social capital variables and oral health status. A significant association was found between oral health status and the neighborhood social capital index (p=0.005) and family frequency of eating meals together (p=0.02) after adjusting for covariates. Neighborhood social capital and family function, a component of family social capital, may independently influence child oral health outcomes.

This dissertation presents three empirical studies on the distribution and role of social capital among immigrants in the United States. Using data from two national datasets – the New Immigrant Survey (NIS 2003, 2007) and the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS 2000) – it examines the implications of social capital for immigrants’ social and economic integration. In doing so, it addresses several key limitations within migration research. The first limitation it addresses is the focus of prior research on migrants’ co-ethnic (bonding) social capital and the limited research on immigrants’ “bridging” social capital and distributional inequities across immigrant groups. Second, while most research has focused on role of social capital in economic integration, relatively little is known about the short-run and long-term implications of immigrants’ social capital for their health and well-being. Third, prior research has generally focused on specific immigrant groups, particularly Hispanic and Asian immigrants, and it is unclear if prior findings are generalizable to immigrants overall or if they are simply capturing group and/or context-specific effects of social capital. This dissertation includes three studies that provide pieces of evidence that address these limitations and contribute to the migration literature. In the first study, I explore the link between race, immigration status and social network diversity. Using data on personal network characteristics from the SCCBS (2000), I examine the role of race and immigration status in the distribution of ethnicity and status-bridging social capital. Findings confirm the double disadvantage of minority and outsider status for minority immigrants when it comes to access to network diversity, which is to say group (i.e. race) differences in native-immigrant gaps in access to ethnicity-bridging social capital. The findings also show that this double disadvantage is explained away by group differences in network ethnic diversity, and that race and immigrant status are a factor in determining the return from network ethnic diversity in terms of network quality, which is reflective of the extant socioeconomic stratification system in the United States. In the second study, I use a nationally representative data of immigrants from the NIS (2003), to examine the link between reliance of new immigrants on “bonding” social capital for job search and two indicators of labor market performance: earnings and occupational prestige. I find that while using a “relative” to find a job generally has a negative effect on both earnings and occupational prestige, this effect is not shared across all immigrants, which explains inconsistent findings in prior studies of the role of co-ethnic social capital in the labor market outcomes of Hispanic and Asian immigrants. In the third study, I turn my attention to the immigrant health literature, which has largely focused on the acculturation-health relationship and largely ignored the significance of network processes, particularly the interethnic integration of new immigrants, for the short-term and long-term health outcomes of immigrants. I use longitudinal data from the NIS (2003, 2007), which includes various measures of health status and behaviors, and examine the contemporaneous and longitudinal associations between interethnic social capital and health. I find positive cross-sectional associations with negative health behaviors (smoking, drinking and dietary change), on the one hand, and positive long-term (lagged) effects on health status (self-rated health and the incidence of chronic diseases), on the other. These results find evidence for the time-dependent health implications of interethnic network integration for the health status of immigrants in the United States.

In this thesis, I discuss the Tampa Heights Greenprinting Initiative, an initiative to build community in a gentrifying neighborhood. I was primarily hired to find out what changes residents of Tampa Heights desired in their chosen park, observe the Greenprinting process, and write a report that could be used in future initiatives. Due to my Anthropological training, I paid attention to the wider context associated with this project. I paid as much attention to who was not there as I did to who was there. The applied nature of my program enabled me to not only document the socio-economic factors that affected the project, but to say something at the time of the project, so that change could be implemented. Research questions involved trying to figure out how residents envision their neighborhood park, as well as the broader question of how the socioeconomic situation in Tampa Heights affects the Tampa Heights Greenprinting Initiative. I asked whether a park revitalization could lead to residents uniting across various boundaries, and if so, how. I discovered that the Tampa Heights Greenprinting process highlighted some of the socioeconomic tensions in Tampa Heights. These tensions are related to the current status of the neighborhood as a gentrifying area. Perhaps, as a result of the Greenprinting process, residents will recognize that to truly build a cohesive community, they must address the implications of gentrification, outside investment (instead of community-rooted investment), the possible demolition of Robles Park Housing Village, and the lack of youth programs in their community.

Ce travail s'inscrit dans une veine de recherche en intelligence économique. Un mot clé est souvent associé à l'activité d'intelligence économique au quotidien: c'est celui de réseau. Le réseau est présent à toutes les étapes du cycle du renseignement. Dans ce travail, le concept de réseau va nous intéresser dans une perspective interculturelle. Nous allons plus précisément nous attacher au concept chinois de Guanxi, orientation de l'esprit qui conduit à mobiliser les réseaux de relations dès lors qu'on se trouve face à un problème décisionnel et ce à tous les niveaux de la vie sociale.Pour comprendre les mécanismes du Guanxi, il est nécessaire d'en décrire les mécanismes en utilisant des concepts nécessaires à sa compréhension. La complexité du travail vient du fait que les concepts sous-jacents ne sont pas traduisibles en français autrement que par des périphrases et qu'ils se définissent de façon emboitée. Impossible de comprendre la notion de Guanxi sans s'immerger dans le système social chinois. Afin d'éclairer le lecteur, il nous a paru également utile de mettre en parallèle le concept de Guanxi de concepts voisins qui ont pu être utilisés dans d'autres sociétés. Le Guanxi joue sans doute un rôle de facilitateur dans le développement de l'entreprise chinoise. Il aide les entrepreneurs chinois à réussir. Quel rôle le Guanxi joue-t-il dans la réussite de l'entrepreneur français en Chine? Le Guanxi est-il aussi un élément favorable au développement des entreprises à capitaux étrangers (français) en Chine?Pour répondre à ces questions, nous sommes partis en Chine rencontrer des entrepreneurs français, écouter leur expérience personnelle ainsi que leur pratique professionnelle.La seconde partie rend compte de ce travail de terrain et montre toute la difficulté d'une compréhension fine du concept de Guanxi par ces chefs d'entreprise alors même qu'ils évoluent dans un environnement asiatique. / This work is part of a vein of research intelligence. A keyword is often associated with the activity of intelligence in everyday life: this is the réseau. The network is present at all stages of the intelligence cycle. In this work, the network concept will interest us in an intercultural perspective. We will specifically bind us to the Chinese concept of Guanxi orientation of the mind which leads to mobilize networks of relations as soon as we are faced with a decision problem and at all levels of social life.To understand the mechanisms of Guanxi, it is necessary to describe mechanisms using concepts needed to understand. Complexity of the work is that the underlying concepts are not translatable in French except by circumlocution and how they define nested. Impossible to understand the concept of Guanxi without immerse themselves in the Chinese social system. To inform the reader, we thought it useful to also parallel the concept of Guanxi of related concepts that could be used in other companies.Guanxi undoubtedly plays a facilitating role in the development of the Chinese company. It helps Chinese entrepreneurs to succeed. Guanxi plays what role he in the success of the French entrepreneur in China? Guanxi is it also a favorable factor for the development of foreign-invested enterprises (French) China? To answer these questions, we went to China to meet French entrepreneurs, listen to their personal experience and their professional practice.The second part gives an account of this fieldwork and demonstrates the difficulty of a thorough understanding of the concept of Guanxi by these business leaders even though they operate in an Asian environment

This thesis examines women’s participation in community groups, in order to investigate the concept of ‘social capital’ and its implications for women’s mental well-being. Its aim is to examine the concept of social capital, and the ways it is linked with health, in a way that is attentive to gender and class inequity. For the purposes of this thesis, social capital is broadly defined as social relationships between people and the individual or community level ‘resources’ that can arise from these social relationships. Two different conceptualisations of social capital were considered in this study: the ‘communitarian’ approach associated with Robert Putnam, and the more ‘critical’ conceptualisation associated with Pierre Bourdieu. This research adopted a critical stance towards social capital, and focused upon four research questions: Firstly, what was the nature of participation in community groups among women who live in metropolitan Adelaide? Secondly, what were the personal outcomes that were perceived to arise from women’s community group involvement? Thirdly, what were the differences in the nature and perceived outcomes of women’s community group participation, according to social and economic factors? Finally, how did the nature and perceived outcomes of women’s participation in community groups relate to the ways they experienced their mental health and well-being? This study used qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate these questions. The quantitative analysis provided a preliminary investigation to complement the qualitative study, and involved the analysis of questionnaire data from 968 women in two contrasting areas of Adelaide. This analysis considered sociodemographic differences in the type and frequency of women’s involvement. The qualitative research involved the analysis of in-depth interviews with 30 women. The interviews explored the participants’ experiences of community group involvement; the personal outcomes that they felt arose from their involvement, their ‘lay accounts’ of their mental health, and how they felt community group involvement was connected with their mental well-being. This study found that women’s participation was shaped by gender and aspects of economic, cultural and ‘informal’ social capital. The qualitative data illustrated that women’s involvement was influenced, motivated and constrained by the gendered nature of their roles and responsibilities. These findings also highlighted contrasts among the participants in the types of involvement they undertook, and the personal outcomes of their involvement, according to their levels of material, financial and social advantage. This was supported by the quantitative findings, which revealed that the respondents’ participation in community groups, the type of group involvement they undertook, and the frequency of their involvement varied according to sociodemographic measures. The qualitative findings also identified how community group participation could lead to both positive and negative outcomes for individual women. Many participants reported the ways in which they felt their involvement enhanced their mental well-being. The qualitative data also illustrated how involvement could detract from mental well-being. In some instances, the negative consequences of participation had a severe and detrimental impact upon mental health. The findings of this study offer support to feminist criticisms of communitarian approaches to social capital, and to Bourdieu’s critical approach to understanding the concept. The study concludes that Bourdieu’s conceptualisation offers greater potential for considering how community group participation and ‘social capital’ can be used as a strategy to promote women’s health and mental well-being.