Numerous studies have examined the effect of natural disasters and social vulnerability indicators on broad factors using different theoretical frameworks; however, no study synthesizes a framework of theories to comprehensively examine the nexus among natural disasters, social vulnerability, subsidiarity principle, and government finance in the U.S. The dissertation utilizes a broad framework of theories to address two objectives of the dissertation namely the determinants of (1) infrastructure investment and (2) public assistance programs. Using panel data from 50 U.S states over a 17-time period (2000 – 2017), the first objective of the study investigates the determinants of infrastructure investment using a synthesis of theories. The study maintains that state infrastructure investment is not necessarily because of disaster punctuations but economic prosperity. The findings paint a picture of a proactive government that is perhaps prepared and does not act necessarily because of disaster events. The objective of the second study investigates the determinants of public assistance receipt assessed in 4 ways. The study maintains that subsidiarity assistance is influenced by both disasters and social vulnerabilities. However, disaggregating subsidiarity assistance into its sub-components (total public assistance, emergency work funds, permanent work funds, and intergovernmental transfers) provide a nuanced understanding of public assistance receipt. Federally declared disasters are strongly associated with disaster-relief forms of assistance, but not a significant determinant of intergovernmental transfers. Social vulnerability indicators, more especially – poverty, inequality (Gini), political influence, income, and infrastructure investment positively influence the receipt of federal intergovernmental transfers. The findings demonstrate that federal allocation of subsidiarity assistance follows a formula in terms of addressing wicked problems related to disasters and social vulnerabilities. In addition, the dissertation finds that disaster impact and social vulnerability theory additively explains the subsidiarity principle of U.S. federal government assistance programs to subnational governments. The dissertation contributes to theory, policy and management practices, and enlightens scholars and policymakers on the vital factors that stimulate state infrastructure investment and federal assistance receipt for best policy practice. Policymakers must constantly modify funding policies and effectively utilize tax-payer dollars following a formula to respond to jurisdictional vulnerabilities and public service needs

Research on risk perception, disaster preparedness, and hurricane risk communication among Hispanic/Latino individuals with disabilities is growing. However, there is limited understanding of how cultural factors influence risk perceptions, hurricane preparedness, and how emergency managers communicate hurricane risks to Hispanic/Latino individuals with developmental disabilities in Central Florida. This qualitative case study aims to fill this gap by exploring the cultural influence on risk perception and hurricane preparedness, as well as how local emergency managers communicate risks associated with hurricanes to Hispanic/Latino individuals with developmental disabilities. The study seeks to understand how culture can shape this population's risk perception and natural disaster preparedness for disasters like hurricanes. The researcher uses an integrative theoretical framework that combines the Cultural Theory of Risk, Protective Motivation Theory, and Familism to guide the study. In-depth individual and group interviews were conducted with a diverse sample of Hispanic/Latino families living with individuals with developmental disabilities. Interviewees were selected based on location, age, and cultural background. Additionally, the researcher conducted a desk review of hurricane communication from each Central Florida county, followed by individual interviews with the emergency managers from Central Florida counties. Data from Hispanic/Latino families living with individuals with developmental disabilities were analyzed using inductive and deductive methods to identify themes related to the effect of culture on risk perception and natural disaster preparedness, specifically for hurricanes. The study revealed that culture can influence risk perception and natural disaster preparedness among Hispanic/Latino individuals living with developmental disabilities in many ways. Moreover, data from the desk review and interviews with emergency managers indicated a preference for relying heavily on the social networks of Hispanic/Latino individuals with developmental disabilities to communicate hurricane risks. Keywords: Risk perception, cultural influence, developmental disabilities, hurricane preparedness, Hispanic/Latino, risk communication.

Turnover intentions among U.S. federal employees are concerns that warrant scholarly investigations. Determining what contributes to these intentions provides a better assessment of how to focus on future human resource strategies and the implementation of those plans. This dissertation proposes and develops testable hypotheses for employee turnover intentions within the U.S. federal agencies. This dissertation contends that the likelihood of employee turnover intention is influenced by the degree of organizational publicness. The dissertation further asserts that organizational publicness has a moderating effect on employee perception of various organizational outcomes that affect turnover intentions. The study used data from the 2023 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), administered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to test the study’s assertions. The study shows that federal bureaucracies that are more public (e.g., executive departments) report higher employee turnover intentions. Furthermore, it revealed that employee perceptions about leadership, supervision, the organization, and work unit are lower with those in Executive Departments. The dissertation’s contributions include the following. First, it validates the importance of organizational publicness’ influence on employee’s turnover intentions. Second, it supports existing findings that demographic factors, workplace satisfaction factors, and organizational/relational factors play a significant role in predicting employee turnover intentions. Third, it highlights the behavioral aspect of employee turnover intentions. Fourth, it extends knowledge regarding organizational publicness and its influence on job satisfaction to employee turnover intention. Finally, the dissertation calls attention to policy makers to pay attention to the possible effects that organizational publicness has on employee choices and structure bureaucracies accordingly.

This thesis explores the background of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, a 250 page water use agreement among irrigators, Indian tribes, fishermen, environmental groups, federal and state agencies in the Klamath Basin. The agreement is contextualized in terms of water rights law, Indian law and the Endangered Species Act. The specific details of the agreement are explored. Finally, this thesis evaluates the agreement's merits and suggests a path forward for the agreement to become law.

This study examined the perceptions that Board Members of human service organizations have of the leadership competencies of professionally trained social workers to lead such organizations. Participants of this study were comprised of 51 executive leaders of nonprofit human service organizations who were selected using non-probability convenience sampling among the target population. The findings of this study indicated that a majority (78.0%) believed that professional social workers are seen as welfare workers. Most respondents (65.3%) disagreed that the media's portrayal of social issues has influenced perceptions of the leadership abilities of social work professionals. The majority of the respondents (78.4%) agreed that nonprofit human service organizations are required to be more accountable today and as a result all leaders of these organizations should possess training and experience similar to those of professionals in business, legal, or public administration arenas.

Public K-12 education is a large enterprise in the United States. Through local, state and federal sources, the U.S. allocated over $610 billion to K-12 public education in 2009 (NCES). Not only is the commitment of public funds for education substantial, the provision of K-12 education is primarily administered by the government in non-market settings through local school districts. It is this institutional environment that generates the impetus for evaluating how those in education make choices in the absence of markets. Like traditional markets, non-market solutions often fail because the incentives facing individuals and agencies elicit choices which produce outcomes that are divergent from those which could be considered Pareto optimal. Examining these incentives and the resulting choices allows researchers to identify unintended consequences of policy and better inform policy design and reform. This dissertation endeavors to identify some of these incentives and to empirically examine their effects on the choices made by teachers and administrators. Chapter two recognizes that teaching effectiveness may motivate teacher choice into relatively more rigorous professional development. The empirical results suggest that teachers with a past history of relative ineffectiveness are selecting into the professional development program examined. The subsequent effectiveness of the in-service training is mixed. High stakes testing and school accountability are an increasing part of our K-12 education system. Chapter three acknowledges it is plausible that administrators may choose to place more students into class rooms of more effective teachers to maximize school performance. However, because of tenure and salary constraints they may choose to place fewer students into the class rooms of more effective teachers to reward their performance. Results overall indicate that more effective teachers have larger classes. Chapter four examines school district budget uncertainty and its relation to contingency funds. The institutional ambiguity of the definition of contingency funds allows a significant amount of choice for administrators to determine fund size and use. This chapter finds that administrators may be less sensitive to budget uncertainty and more responsive to the desire for budget fungibility. This dissertation concludes by addressing implications and future research.

With over two million inmates, the United States’ prison population is the largest in the world. Nearly one in one hundred Americans are behind bars, either in prisons or pre-trial detention facilities. The rapid growth in incarceration is well-documented. However, social science explanations often stop at the prison gates, with little work on treatment inside prisons. This black box approach ignores important bureaucratic decisions, including the provision of rehabilitative services and the application of punishment. This dissertation offers a systematic analysis of treatment decisions inside the American prisons. I use a mixed methods approach, combining multiple quantitative datasets with environmental observation at four prisons, and original interviews of twenty-three correctional staff members. I offer the only large-n comparative analysis of American state prisons. Characteristics of the inmates as well as characteristics of staff are explored. I am able to analyze data at the state, facility and individual level. All of this is to answer a crucial and somewhat overlooked question; how do prison staff decide who should be punished and who should receive rehabilitative treatment? I find that theories of social construction offer insight into the treatment of American prison inmates. Specifically, I find that socially constructed racial categories offer explanatory value for inmate treatment. Black and Hispanic inmates are less likely to receive important rehabilitative programs, including access to mental health and medical care. Black and Hispanic inmates are also more likely to receive punishment including the use of solitary confinement in administrative segregation units. I find, consistent with theories of representative bureaucracy that staffing characteristics also impact treatment decisions, with black and Hispanic staff members expressing lower preferences for punishment and prisons with higher percentages of black staff members utilize administrative segregation less. I provide a historical overview of the changing social constructions of crime and prisons inside the United States, from colonial to present day America. I argue that the treatment of prisoners changes as our conception of crime changes. I discuss recent bipartisan attempts at prison reform and offer my own suggestions for reform of the American prison system.

Cities generally need economic growth. Green policies and projects are environmentally beneficial, desirable, expected by the public, and pragmatic in the long term. However, there is insufficient research on what, if any, municipal green projects and policies generate economic growth. To address this question, the author created a database of green and economic indicators, and modeled the green indicators to predict the economic indicators. The database included carbon usage, transportation metrics, water usage, the number of green jobs, and the gross domestic product (GDP) for the 100 largest cities, defined by metropolitan statistical area (MSA), in the U.S. To gather data on green indicators, existing green rankings, indices, and reports were evaluated for methodology and usability for this paper. The results of the data-gathering step show the need for more and better data collection. That means an increased number of green indicators should be collected, and data should be collected at the MSA (or county) level for more of the largest cities. Specifically to name some green indicators, data collection on energy usage, buildings, waste, land use, air quality, and food could be improved. Those green indicators would likely be included in a model that uses green indicators to predict green jobs or GDP. However, those were not included for the regressions in this paper. The results of the regressions in this paper show two indicators with promise for predicting economic growth as defined by GDP and number of green jobs: (1) percent of people using public transportation, biking, or walking to work, and (2) public water consumption per person. The first explanatory variable indirectly measures the adoption of policies that promote public transportation, biking, and walking. The results suggest that these policies have a positive effect on GDP and number of green jobs. This means the results suggest that as the percent increases, so does GDP and number of green jobs. The second explanatory variable measures the water conservation policies. The results suggest this variable has a negative, albeit weaker relationship with GDP per person. This means the results suggest as water conservation increases (less water usage per person), the GDP per person increases. This paper offers a methodology and some of the groundwork for building a model to show which, if any, municipal green projects and policies predict economic growth. / text

The implementation of the Federal Food Stamp program affords an opportunity to do responsible research on this topic due to the manner in which the program is administered. The fact that coverage is authorized on a county basis rather than a state-wide basis, which requires that each individual county request and apply for the Stamp Program, provided the availability of a sample area in southern Kentucky where five contiguous counties existed, three of which were participating in the program and two of which were not. This permitted both a control and experimental group from which to draw a sample.

What is lobbying, properly understood, in the United States, and what strategies and tactics—including and especially those determined by contextual factors, as well as firm characteristics—are commonly employed by corporate lobbies as they operate in our American political environments? Considering this, what are the main strategies and tactics employed by the pharmaceutical lobby, with a particular focus on the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Researchers of America, or PhRMA? Finally, what roles did PhRMA play in the development and passage of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, and what can this tell us about the lobbying strategies and tactics utilized by one of the most effective lobbies in modern times, as well as about how their strategies and tactics align, or not, with conventional conceptions of lobbying? Through effective use of key lobbying tactics such as direct lobbying and use of public awareness, PhRMA completed one of the more successful lobbying campaigns in recent history. When the White House came calling, they were first to the table, for they knew that with that seat came a position of leverage. From there, they were able to build both political and public support to complete a deal with the Obama administration that they positioned as necessary to keep the Affordable Care Act alive. This deal would ensure that the pharmaceutical industry would pay a flat rate of support for the act, and was therefore guaranteed protection from future government attempts to set or regulate the prices of their products and medicines. PhRMA played the long game, and they played it well.