Combatting corruption in Cameroon has become a primary policy focus for the government and the civil society; yet, the success on that front has been modest. The literature on anticorruption efforts in the country is scant. Using Rothstein and Santiso's conceptualization of anticorruption strategies as the guide, the purpose of this case study of government's anticorruption policy and practice was to explore and contextualize the anticorruption strategies in Cameroon to fill the gap in the literature and potentially contribute to solving the problem. Data were collected through interviews with 20 government employees working with the government's main anticorruption agency -- the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), and through documents obtained from government published archives and expert publications. The data were inductively coded and organized in themes, then an integrated content analysis was conducted on the themes. The key finding of the study is that the government's anticorruption strategies faced major challenges due to their poor design, formulation, and implementation. Potential approaches to addressing these challenges were also identified by participants to include leadership/political solutions such as regime change, institutional reforms such as granting NACC institutional autonomy, and conceptual solutions such as reforming NACC into an organization with judicial status. This study will impact positive social change through the recommendations it makes for good governance, which if implemented by the Cameroon government, would improve systems, institutions, and services to the citizens of the country. Another benefit is the improvement in government revenue, better investment budgets, and greater economic activity to alleviate poverty.

Natural disasters expose the fact that poverty, race, gender, and other indicators of social disadvantage are linked to the population of citizens who struggle the most to recover after a disaster, yet these factors are not accounted for in public policy that guides decision making related to federal assistance to residents affected by a disaster. This study used neural networks as a research strategy to determine whether the current policies under the Stafford Act related to assistance comply with Congressional intent and law that uses a formula for assistance distribution, and whether human factors such as culture, measured as residing in a non-white zip code according to Census tract data, are considered in decision making regarding assistance. Data from FEMA related to the recovery from Hurricane Irene in 2011 were used as the basis for the model. The neural network analysis of this study indicated that federal assistance decisions after the Hurricane Irene event tended to focus on the adjusted property value and actual dollar value of losses as the determining factor in decisions. Focusing on the actual dollar value of losses is consistent with the formulaic approach codified in public law, but this approach overshadows important human factors such as living in a primarily non-white zip code and the availability of temporary housing. This study underscores the notion that the public policy works the way it is intended, but it fails to accommodate human and social factors. As a consequence, the existing policy is legally equitable, but it is not necessarily morally fair to those impacted by disasters. The positive social change implications of this study include recommendations to federal policy makers to more equitably structure recovery efforts in alignment with the human environment of communities rather than a primary focus on cost and value of real property.

Women comprise 50.8% of the United States population and 47% of the workforce, and over the past few decades, many women have been promoted to midmanagement positions in Fortune 500 and other major corporations, but few run companies at the executive levels. The research problem addressed the underrepresentation of women in top leadership positions in the executive suite. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of women in upper level management in large corporations on rising to the C-suite. A basic qualitative naturalistic inquiry was used employing interviews in collecting and analyzing the data. The targeted population was 15 women in senior positions between the ages of 25 and 60, who have worked for a company with a minimum of 5 years' experience. Introductions by friends and snowballing sampling were used to select 15 participants for the semistructured interviews. The results of the interviews were analyzed through the completion of a content analysis obtained through coding to allow for the identification of emergent themes. Key findings indicated the emergence of the following themes: loss of confidence, mentoring, sponsoring, and diversity. The study was socially significant in that it provided information for policy changes, access to sponsorship and mentorship programs, and promotion of social change in relation to gender equality in the workplace.

The President of the United States sets the tone for policy and has significant power in adopting and implementing policy. Despite this acknowledged power, prior studies, have not examined whether or not agency theory is predictive of voting in U.S. presidential elections. Agency theory is important in the scope of voting behavior as it identifies the relationships which support significance in practicing the activity. This correlational study examined the statistical impact of personal agency, social agency, and sociocultural agency on predictive voting behavior. This study used secondary data originally collected between 1956 and 2008 by the American National Election Study through a multistage probability design that yielded a survey of 28,000 individuals. A single, combined model was created from variables measuring personal, social, and sociocultural agency on the dependent variable of voting to test which type of agency had the highest predictive power on voting. The outcome of a logistic regression analysis demonstrated that sociocultural and personal agency, but not social agency, were statistically powerful predictors of voting (p < .05). These findings suggest that an individual's personal perceptions and cultural status influence their likelihood to vote, but that their social units do not. These findings suggest that efforts to increase turnout by members of sociocultural groups that are less likely to vote should focus on increasing personal agency. This study promotes positive social change by empowering the design of more effective get-out-the-vote campaigns to increase voter participation, especially among the underrepresented.

The government of Laos has carried out regressive organizational changes in its electric power sector including deregulation, decentralization, and devolution. As governmental agencies attempt to improve their organization, little is understood about the impact these changes have on the electric sector. Using Burke's organization change theory as the foundation, the purpose of this qualitative study was to explain the impact of organizational change on rural electrification in the Champassak Province, Laos. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 20 participants representing governmental agencies, private entities, and nongovernmental organizations. Data were also collected through observation of a public consultative meeting and reviewing of publicly available documents, both of which were related to electrification. Data were inductively coded and analyzed using a thematic procedure. According to the study findings, organizational change helped expand electrification at the early stage. However, shortcomings such as setting onerous tax rates and promulgating convoluted laws by the public sector have caused static growth in both the trend of project finance and electrification recently. The positive social change implications stemming from this study include recommendations to local policy makers and legislators to tailor the fiscal policy and statutes, which may support wider electrification efforts in the Champassak Province.

Humanitarian aid, while useful in the short run, sometimes has the effect of contributing to poverty and poor economic conditions in the long run. This occurs when recipients of relief aid lose their initiative to fend for themselves and become reliant on external aid. The purpose of this mixed method study was to evaluate the degree to which dependency on long term aid has contributed to chronic poverty in the Moroto district of Uganda. This study was grounded on Harvey & Lind's conceptualization of the dependency syndrome. The research questions addressed the relationship between household production and investment pattern with number of year as aid beneficiary, while exploring the beneficiaries' perceptions on the roles of relief aid in their livelihood. Survey data were acquired from 75 participants from five sampled villages in Moroto District; qualitative data were acquired from the same villages involving five focus group discussions with 15 key informants per village. Quantitative data were analyzed using multivariate regression analysis and resulted in a finding of a statistically significant negative relationship between household production and investment with number of years spent as aid beneficiary. Qualitative data were inductively coded, and then organized around key themes. These findings suggest that many rural Ugandans believe that if aid were to cease, they would either migrate to an area where aid was available, or die of starvation. Implications for positive social change are connected to a recommendation to organizations offering humanitarian aid to package relief aid with other programs that support the recipients' resilience building capacity in order to save lives and reduce chronic poverty that is common in disaster-prone areas around the world.

In the United States of America today, there are concerns regarding the appropriate functioning of the police service and a lack of effective police accountability. African Americans have often been victims of unprofessional police conduct; however, their views have rarely been found adequately represented in the literature on the subject. The purpose of this case study was to fill this identified gap in the academic literature. A conceptual framework composed of the afrocentric, environmental contingency, and conflict theories was used to guide and inform this inquiry. The main research question focused on discovering which form of police oversight is seen as the most trusted, respected, and fair method of ensuring police accountability from an African American perspective in a mid-western U.S. city. Data were collected through review of pertinent documents, and through interviews and observation of 8 purposefully selected members of the African American community in the city. All data were inductively coded and then subjected to thematic analysis.The key finding of this study revealed that the most trusted, respected, and fair method of ensuring police accountability within the local African American community is a process that is not controlled only by the police. Participants consistently noted that it was their belief that an outside person, board, committee, or agency should evaluate cases of unprofessional police conduct, when appropriate. The findings of this study resulted in recommendations to the police leadership that may provide increased understanding, give a voice to this community, assist in devising good public policy, and benefit all citizens of the region.

Public awareness is crucial in the fight against human trafficking, but little academic research looks at the public policy implications of different types of messaging the public may be using in recognizing human trafficking. Using policy feedback theory as the theoretical lens, the purpose of this quantitative study was to compare mean awareness scores for both film and social media to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between the scores and their degree of public awareness. Data were collected through an online survey, which included questions related to both film and social media, using a participant pool service. The survey measured awareness of human trafficking with a sample of 100 participants who included diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, races, genders, and ages. These data were analyzed using an independent-samples t test where the participants' awareness scores were compared for the 2 awareness strategies tested. The findings indicated that there is a statistically significant difference between film and social media at creating awareness of the phenomenon, with film being statistically higher. The implications for positive social change stemming from these results include recommendations for further research to be performed on human trafficking, specifically human trafficking awareness strategies. With improved anti-trafficking awareness strategies and a more informed public, the number of individuals affected by human trafficking will diminish and, eventually, the issue will cease to exist.

A problem in law enforcement academy training is that female recruits endure more stressors than male recruits endure. This can lead to fewer females opting for careers as law enforcement officers. The purpose of this study was to explore the unique stressors on female recruits when they are held to the same standards as males. The feminist theory was used as the theoretical framework for this study to depict how stress is perceived for the female. The first research question examined how outside stressors affected female trainees. The second research question examined how job-€related stressors affected female trainees. In-€depth, semistructured interviews with students that were enrolled in a basic law enforcement academy at a Southeastern United States training center were conducted using a phenomenological qualitative approach. Thirty-€two students were eligible for the study and 18 students participated. Data were analyzed using precoding of the transcription. Next, open coding, descriptive coding, and pattern coding were used to arrive at themes in the data. The results for the first research question showed that female trainees were affected regarding how they believe they are seen in society, how they are perceived in the family role, and how their peers view them as fellow future officers. The results for the second research question showed that female trainees are affected by being the sexual minority in their field, by negative male peer perception, by the treatment and acceptance by their superiors, by the potential career risks of this selection, and by the lack of time left for their personal well-€being. This research is useful to law enforcement to discern that female trainees have a higher level of stress over males and measures can be adopted through hiring and retention to result in positive social change.

Police officers endure various threats ranging from verbal abuse to physical attacks, which can escalate and lead to police officer stress. Despite the abundant research exploring the relationship between high-stress occupations and environmental health, adequate exploration of the relationship between officer stress and hot spot policing (HSP; area with an above-average level of crime) has yet to occur. The purpose of this correlational study was to use Cohen and McKay's conceptualization of the stress-buffering hypothesis to explore whether HSP mitigates the negative impact of job stress, leading to improved officer performance and ultimately improved relationships between the police and communities as well as lower crime rates. Posting of a SurveyMonkey link in law enforcement only, social-media communities (with administrator permission) facilitated data collection for the 151 respondents. Findings indicated that the overall regression model was significant; however, the simple correlation between HSP and officer stress (.118) indicated that HSP alone does not account for unique variance (there was a value of .014 or 1.4% of the variation in officer stress). The social change implications of this study include recommendations to police department administrations to continue to explore efforts to reduce officer stress, which could lead to improved officer performance and police and community relationships.