Using Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) in Organizations as a theoretical framework, this dissertation analyzed the diffusion process of the federally mandated School Wellness Policy (SWP) in three separate studies. Beginning with a content analysis of the SWP mandate's legislative history using the constant comparative method, the first manuscript evaluated the policy Initiation process to provide context for the creation of the original mandate. Next, the researcher conducted a systematic literature review to organize and analyze the current literature on SWP implementation. The third manuscript presented a qualitative case study of one local school district's experience implementing the School Wellness Policy. Interviewing school personnel such as teachers, school nurses, PE teachers, and cafeteria mangers provided key insight to processes involved in policy implementation at the local level. Three key findings emerged from the study: 1) a lack of research on the clarifying stage of the policy diffusion process, 2) the limitation of policy alone in addressing child obesity, and 3) an opportunity for health promotion researchers to engage in policy research. This study is unique because it analyzed the complete diffusion process of the SWP policy, beginning with policy decision making by legislators on the federal level and ending with policy implementation efforts by school district personnel on the local level. Public attention to the child obesity epidemic has grown significantly in the last decade. However, increased awareness is not necessarily indicative of change or improvement of the problem. In the case of the School Wellness Policy (SWP), the federal government attempted to mandate change in the school environment as a way of combating the child obesity epidemic. Although public policy can be effectively used to facilitate change, policy alone is incapable of solving problems as vast and complex as the child obesity epidemic. The SWP has resulted in changes to the school environment; but, this study showed that a societal shift (change across all private and public sectors) is necessary for long term success in combating child obesity.

This thesis addresses a significant gap in Australian social policy literature about the relationship between the impact of economic rationalism on social policy and interest representation during policy implementation. Michael Pusey, for instance, argues that economic rationalism displaces social values in social policy. However, other theorists, such as Robert Alford and Rod Rhodes, caution that policy often changes when it is implemented. With a foundation in Weberian social theory about participant values, the analytical framework incorporates three institutional policy implementation concepts to capture the dynamic characteristics of the policy process. These are: policy stages to describe policy change over time; structural interests of policy organisations; and policy networks within which participants act. The thesis tests this framework to explain the impact of values of economic rationality in the Australian coordinated care policy. The policy attempted to coordinate the care of people with chronic care needs, using a funds pool, case managers and care plans. The research methods are interviews with policy participants; analysis of public documents; and participant observation as an evaluator in one trial. Data about the policy process from 1994 to 2001 are analysed with a critical interpretive approach. The study reveals that central agency officials acted primarily on values of economic rationality. In contrast, health agency officials acted primarily on organisational values. The transfer of responsibility for the policy process from a central agency to the health agency after the policy statements reinforced health provider organisational interests, rather than either the rationalist interests of central agencies or the social interests of consumer groups. The policy consequently changed away from economic rationality. The policy process in the planning, implementation and revision stages was in no sense an instrumental application of the values of economic rationality apparent in the policy statements stage. Neither, however, did social values predominate in any policy stage. The study argues that insights from policy implementation research can refine the literature on economic rationalism. This research further advances policy network theory. It recognises that understanding which organisation is responsible for the policy, at various policy stages, advances our understanding of whose values shape social policy.

Empirical studies have shown that white racial attitudes tend to predict racial policy support. It has also been established that the relationship between whites' espoused racial tolerance and their support for ameliorative racial policies is imperfect, due to the principal-policy gap which characterized misalignment between individuals' espoused values for racial equity and their limited support for policies aimed at achieving those ends. Less consideration however, has been given to how the principal-policy gap changes over time. Using data from over 14,000 respondents who participated in the General Social Survey from 1994 through 2018, I show that the principal-policy gap is persistent, and that distances between principal and policy decline and expand over time. Using OLS regression models to analyze a sample of white adults, I find that the link between individuals' expressed liberal racial attitudes and their support for racial policies changed over the 24-year span. A noticeable narrowing of the principal-policy gap is also evident in the latter years of the sample. The reduction in the gap from 2014 through 2018 suggests that the influence of social movements like BLM may have been driving this trend.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Economics, 2004. / "August, 2004" Bibliography: leaves 198-208.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed Aug. 13, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.U.R.P.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-81). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Frankfurt. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-258).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--George Mason University, 2008. / Vita: p. 103. Thesis director: Richard E. Wagner. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed June 30, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-102). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M. P. A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2009. / "Spring 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-78).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Frankfurt. / Title from e-book title screen (viewed Oct. 15, 2007). Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.