During the past quarter century, efforts have been made to control rising hospital costs, which are the largest component of U.S. health care expenditures. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship among five community characteristics and hospital ownership types; determine whether there are differences in operational performance (cost and efficiency) between private nonprofit and private for-profit hospitals; and propose an answer to the question - Why do local governments contract-manage their hospital operation? Using a mixed-method research design, the findings are: (1) there are mixed results in the relationship between community characteristics and hospital ownership types; (2) there are no significant differences in operational performance of private nonprofit and private for-profit hospitals; and (3) hospitals pursue contract management services to gain hospital management expertise, financial management, medical and information technology, and human resource management and recruitment. The implications of this study calls for a broader examination of operational performance among hospital ownership types and policy direction on the goals and mission of a public private venture such as contract management. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration & Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2008. / June 23, 2008. / Institutional Theory, Transaction Cost / Includes bibliographical references. / Mary E. Guy, Professor Directing Dissertation; Marie Cowart, Outside Committee Member; Robert Bradley, Committee Member; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member.

What factors account for management innovations such as utilization of strategic planning in local governments? Do management innovations depend on the same explanatory factors as policy innovations? What additional factors are relevant in developing a theory of management innovation as opposed to policy innovation? Political and socioeconomic factors have been linked to innovations in government, but most evidence is based on the study of policy innovation rather than management innovation. Policy innovations studies can provide insights into what factors may influence management innovations in municipal governments and agencies. However, we argue that the study of public management innovations should also consider factors related to institutions, bureaucracy, regional competition, and professional networks as well as political and socioeconomic characteristics. Some Florida city governments and departments have no strategic planning and performance measurement despite their complex and competitive environment. This dissertation investigates utilization of strategic planning and priority strategies in Florida city governments as a municipal management innovation with predictive as well as descriptive models. The descriptive and predictive models of municipal management innovation are explained and tested with data from Florida Public Management surveys conducted in 2005 using multivariate regression and logistic regression analyses. The empirical findings of descriptive models find that half of Florida city governments and departments have used strategic planning and performance measurement and many of them have used priority strategies for policy and program decision, budget decision, e-government, and contracting-out. They also find many Florida city governments and agencies using both strategic planning and performance measurement have not linked with performance measurement to evaluate strategic plans. The empirical findings of predictive models suggest management innovations are influenced by different factors than policy innovations. Institutions, business orientation, red tape, risk-taking leadership, regional density of local government providers, and professional management networks are important factors in explaining management innovations, such as utilization of strategic planning and priority strategies, and deserve greater attention in the literature. The empirical findings provide effective use of strategic management and determinants of management innovations in local governments. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Public Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2006. / March 17, 2006. / Network, Local Government, Management Innovation, Public Management, Performance Measurement, Strategic Planning, Strategic Management, Institution, Red Tape / Includes bibliographical references. / Frances S. Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Reynolds, Outside Committee Member; Richard R. Feiock, Committee Member; Ralph Brower, Committee Member.

Just as collective action problems are an unavoidable feature of individual decision-making in social settings, regional problems, such as common pool resources and scale and externality problems in service provision, are unavoidable for local governments in metropolitan areas characterized by fragmented jurisdictional authority. Despite tremendous interest in regionalism and regional governance and a growing number of studies of various approaches to regionalism, the role of regional organizations in regional governance has not been sufficiently examined. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how and to what extent regional organizations influence self-organizing efforts by local governments to address regional problems involving intergovernmental fiscal cooperation and land development coordination by focusing on the role of Florida's Regional Planning Councils (RPCs). The institutional collective action (ICA) framework is applied to help understand cooperative efforts among local governments and provide explanations not only for general factors shaping interlocal cooperation such as community characteristics and the arrangement of political institutions, but also for how regional organizations may influence cooperation among local governments. The empirical results explore whether regional organizations influence self-organizing interlocal cooperation efforts in two ways. First, no support is found for a positive or complimentary influence on self-organized solutions to regional issues arising from regional organizations' network broker role. Second, where regional organizations possess greater resources, the likelihood that a municipality cooperates with neighboring communities on fiscal exchanges or land development issues decreases. Thus, the proactive roles of regional organizations appear to crowd out or substitute for self-organizing cooperation efforts that otherwise may occur. Third, evidence is also found that regional organizations' revenue from federal and state governments may compliment intelocal cooperation. In the process of distributing federal and state grants with specific designated purposes, regional organizations tend to favor cooperative efforts by providing opportunities for local authorities to develop mutual trust in the policy areas where the grants are spent. Interlocal cooperation is also influenced by community characteristics that create demands for, or barriers to, cooperation. Municipal governments experiencing fiscal stress are more active in interlocal revenue transfers. Racial homogeneity is also a factor. Highly homogeneous municipalities, less restricted by divergent citizen preferences, are more likely to engage in interlocal fiscal cooperation. Finally, political institutions are important to explain self-organizing efforts to solve regional problems. Municipal governments with the council-manager form tend more to receive interlocal revenue transfers and to cooperate with other local governments on land development issues. These results suggest that the selective career incentives of city managers can be a source of interlocal cooperation efforts. In addition, cities with more neighboring communities are less likely to rely on interlocal coordination for land development issues. This research has both practical and theoretical implications. State policy makers need to balance calls for regional efforts with an acknowledgement that centralized regionalism may sometimes undermine self-organizing solutions. In designing regional organizations and programs, they need to identify and minimize tradeoffs between horizontal and vertical regional solutions. This study suggests that scholars of regionalism and intergovernmental relations need to examine configurations of regional coordination mechanisms by addressing the influence of institutional arrangements in a more comprehensive way rather than simply focusing on either vertical or horizontal regional governance mechanisms in isolation. This study also provides agendas for future research. First, the analysis can be extended to the national level to reflect variation among regional organizations in different states. Second, a typology of the relationships between regional organizations and self-organizing interlocal cooperation can be advanced to investigate the various types of regional organizations. Third, different interlocal cooperation network structures among different regional organizations can be analyzed by using social network analysis programs. Finally, the influence of regional organizations can be examined in specific policy areas to account for service specific characteristics. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2008. / June 2, 2008. / Land Use Coordination, Fiscal Cooperation, Institutional Collective Action, Interlocal Cooperation, Regional Organizations / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; John T. Scholz, Outside Committee Member; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

This study originated from the following two questions: to what extent do city governments engage in policy actions to restrict development and manage growth; and how do local political institutions shape the restrictiveness of local growth management? To answer the questions, first of all, this dissertation identifies variations in the exercise of growth management powers across cities based on financial data gathered from fiscal reports filed with the Florida Comptroller, and policy implementation/adoption data gathered in a mail survey conducted by the author in collaboration with Richard Feiock and Antonio Tavares. Information on city level political institutions and governing structures is gathered from the International City Management Association's (ICMA) 2001 Form of Government Survey. Based on information about growth management expenditure and policy adoption/implementation, this study examines a broad set of government institutions extended to include the size and organization of city councils and standing committees. This research focused on the implementation and exercise of discretionary powers as well as policy adoption in relation to growth management based on a political market approach. In the political market approach, focusing on the demander and supplier help us understand internal forces of growth management policy. Finally, acknowledging that the underlying theory of institutions in this work is applicable to cities, this study attempts to identify cities' spatial impact on expenditures for growth management. Referring to policy diffusion theory, we review the impact of neighboring cites' on comprehensive planning expenditure as identifying the internal and external forces by using of political market and spatial effect model. In this research, the followings are the core parts we focus on implementation of growth management policy: local comprehensive planning expenditures, zoning request approval, and policy enforcement of the innovative policies. We considered the role of local institutions as supplier, political economy demands, and municipal context. For the hypotheses tests, we employ three different kinds of statistical analysis: spatial regression, ordered probit, and probit analysis. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2005. / March 25, 2005. / Comprehensive Planning, Growth Management Politics, Land Use Management / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Donald A. Lloyd, Outside Committee Member; Frances Berry, Committee Member; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member.

Network structure is one explanatory variable to explain network performance, but its effect may be uncertain. Much research, however, has not attempted to combine network structures with other characteristics of networks – e.g., network social capital, network management, or network learning – that may explain network performance. The consideration of other network characteristics as well as the combination of network structure with other factors cannot be ignored. This study proposed four network characteristics and presented an integrated model of network performance. The model included unique aspects (structure, content, process, and management) of networks from four network perspectives. This study first examined simple relationships between each characteristic and network performance, and then extended intermediated effects of each characteristic on others. This study used 136 workforce development networks for this analysis with a social network analysis program (UCINET 6.0) and the LISREL 8.0 program. Fifteen of the twenty-five hypotheses proposed were supported. Key research findings are as follows: more diverse service networks or less centralized networks are more likely to lead to better network performance; there is a positive relationship between network social capital and network performance; service provider network learning had a positive effect on network performance; there is a positive relationship between network management and network performance; a more adaptive service provider network is more likely to have more effective network management network and to influence employer network learning processes.. This study also provided managerial implications for workforce development managers that relatively equal distributed networks (loose/decentralized network) and more cohesive networks may be one of strategic choices for maintaining workforce development program stability or increasing the network capacity. From the results of the comprehensive data analysis and procedures, this study concludes that in successful workforce development programs, a more thorough understanding of network characteristics of workforce development programs should be made. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2005. / July 1, 2005. / Public Management, Network Analysis, Workforce Development Program, Public Administration / Includes bibliographical references. / Ralph S. Brower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Robert E. Crew, Jr., Outside Committee Member; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; Mary E. Guy, Committee Member.

This research examines Florida school districts' adoption of Reading First legislation passed into law as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This research attempts to answer the fundamental question pertinent to the policy adoption process: Why do some school districts readily adopt the Reading First innovation while others do not adopt it? This research will test key factors based on the following explanations: 1) Political Institutions, 2) Need and District Characteristics, 3) Education Ideology, 4) Policy Entrepreneurs and Networks, and 5) Diffusion. A multivariate model representing the five competing explanations was created to determine what drives local governments (school districts) to adopt Reading First policy using Event History Analysis. The results show two significant variables, reading scores (need) and diffusion. School districts with fewer proficient readers are more likely to be early adopters of Reading First. The diffusion variable was also significant but unexpectedly had a negative relationship finding that districts with fewer contiguous districts that have adopted Reading First are more likely to be early adopters. While unexpected, it may be the result of the short timeline of the adoption process and the pressure by the media, political actors, and district personnel to be an early adopter. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2005. / October 6, 2005. / Reading First, Innovation, Event History Analysis, Diffusion, Florida / Includes bibliographical references. / Frances Stokes Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; Sande Milton, Outside Committee Member; Richard Feiock, Committee Member; Lance DeHaven-Smith, Committee Member.

The interaction of policy and management presents a close relationship in administrative practices. This dissertation estimates the impacts on use of local performance measures related to local service contracting. The previous research only tested individual state level or local level, rather than estimated how state factors influence local practices. For example, the hierarchical rules, mandates, and laws made by state levels might affect the adoption rates of local management innovation. As well, the previous efforts only used cross-sectional data to understand the adoption of local management innovation, which may overlook the changes over time that take place in local management performance measurement innovation. In this dissertation, the propensity to "implement" the adoption of a new management instrument has been studied under the rubric of management innovation, specifically as adopting a variety of performance measurement in local service delivery contracting. To analyze the "diffusion" characteristic of space and time, the model strategies employed in this dissertation include the local level and state level with a time growth curve estimated by Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) and Hierarchical Generalized Linear Model (HGLM). To enhance understanding of the adoption and the process of management innovation, the study employs panel data drawn from the survey of 1992, 1997, and 2002 International City and County Management Association (ICMA) city administrators' responses to local service delivery programs on municipal and county governments nested in state levels to test the adoption of local performance measures related to service contracting. This dissertation intends to estimate the relationship about how contract management capacity and state factors influence the rate of use of performance measurement, and to compare two group differences of private contracting, and nonprofit contracting employed by local governments nested in state levels. Beyond our expectations, the diffusion of local performance measurement nested in state level did not significantly change over time, but the findings with the growth curve models showed that the adoption of performance measurement indeed had grown over our observed time. In general, the local contract management capacity (e.g., feasibility assessment, evaluation, and implementation) significantly matters to the adoption of three types of performance measurements (e.g., citizen satisfaction, cost, contract compliance). In individual, the contract management capacity and state factors (e.g., state divided government, state reinventions) significantly impacts the use of performance measurement for private contracting. However, the state factors weakly influence the adoption of performance measurements when local governments employed nonprofit contracting. Several factors--structural and institutional heterogeneity-- can explain these differences in use of performance measures related to private contracting, and nonprofit contracting. The empirical findings also show that state factors have a large impact on the adoption of performance measurement related to service delivery contracting. The findings suggest that local practices are indeed embedded in multilevel diffusion that may be unobserved by the previous studies in public administration research. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2008. / June 2, 2008. / Service Delivery Contracting, State and Local Governments, Management Innovation, Performance Measurement / Includes bibliographical references. / Frances S. Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Reynolds, Outside Committee Member; Richard Feiock, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

This dissertation extends research in local governance constitutional change in a new direction and integrates several models of institutions to explain patterns of municipal charter change. This approach presents a new understanding of institutions, actors, and change in the municipal charter. One of the most important implications of this study is that multiple perspectives on the dynamics of local governance can be incorporated into a testable theory. This interconnection provides a comprehensive and dynamic perspective of the competition for governance rules. This study differs from other studies of local constitutional change in five ways. First, the study concentrates on change in the most embedded level of the local institution, the local constitution. Second, it builds on Maser's (1998) transaction resource theory of local constitutional change by incorporating selective incentives for maintenance or change and including rejected proposed rules. Third, the study views all forms of charter change as constitutional change which allows the theory to include both charter revision and the more radical city-county consolidation as a continuum of local constitutional change. Fourth, the study integrates entrepreneurs and demanders of the status quo into the theory of competition for governance rules and procedural safeguards, extending Ostrom's Institutional Analysis Framework (1990). Finally, it moves entrepreneur studies to the constitutional level and argued that actors try to induce change in order to lock their preferences into the system. Two methods are used to provide empirical evidence of maintenance or change in the system. The first method, case studies allow in-depth explorations of complex entities for evidence of dynamics, but can be difficult in comparing multiple complex systems. The second method, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, a Boolean method, integrates complex multiple characteristics of system complexity with in-depth characteristics of diverse entities to explore the phenomenon. The central findings of the study focus on the choice of rules and the actors. In proposed consolidation charters, the electoral system rules that provide a safeguard for representation will be supported by minorities. Property owners, farmers, and business groups support rules that reduce the costs of government and protect their access to the governance structure. / Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2005. / March 24, 2005. / Institutional Entrepreneurs, Municipal Charters, Local Governance Constitutions, Procedural Safeguards / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles Barrilleaux, Outside Committee Member; Ralph Brower, Committee Member; Fran Berry, Committee Member.

This dissertation empirically tests theoretical arguments that contracting out municipal services results in lower service expenditures. Two research questions are investigated; what accounts for local government service provision and production decisions? And, to what extent do contracting out and the choice of sectors from which contractors are drawn influence levels of service expenditures by local governments? These questions are investigated by applying a transaction cost framework to develop testable hypotheses and explain fiscal impact of municipality's service production arrangements. The empirical analysis focuses on the decision to contract out services and the resulting cost savings (if any) that result from contracting out. Six service areas for which expected transaction costs are significant were selected for analysis. These services also vary in terms of their service characteristics based on the tangibleness of service outputs and the complexity of service products. The services examined are: 1) electric utilities, 2) fire protection, 3) police, 4) parks, 5) libraries, and 6) public health services. The empirical results indicate that service specific characteristics are key determinants of contracting out decisions, the choice of sectors, and the cost savings realized from service production choices. Nonprofit production is concentrated in the softer social and human service areas. While some of the conventional thoughts on the inefficiency of government monopoly are consistently supported across all selected six services, the cost savings from private contracting to for-profit firms are only realized for electricity and fire protection service. Nonprofit organizations are an attractive option when municipalities face transaction cost incurred from difficulty in measurability of service outputs and high costs to monitor multiple dimensions of service quality. It has been found that independent nonprofit service market for lowering bidding price is important for local contracting out. This dissertation suggests that local governments may be able to partially overcome tradeoffs between cost and quality of publicly provided services by contracting out the delivery to nonprofit organizations. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Public Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2006. / December 6, 2005. / Nonprofit Organizations, Contracting Out, Local Government, Service Delivery, Privatization / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Carol S. Weissert, Outside Committee Member; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; Ralph S. Brower, Committee Member.

A number of scholars are increasingly turning their attention to the effects of emotional labor on organizational performance (Hochschild, 1983). The literature's focus on private industry reports a negative influence on its consequences for individual performance. Recent research in other fields, such as psychology, business, and public administration, however, has shown mixed results, with some reporting a positive impact on both individual and organizational performance. Previous research was limited to examining for-profit service industries where concern for customer satisfaction is a priority. In contrast, public service by its own nature is "regulatory" and workers' incentives are less likely to include pecuniary benefits either for themselves or their organizations. By integrating awareness of emotion work in theory building, this study seeks to present the unique influence of emotional labor in work that ranges from regulating business transactions to controlling personal behavior for both workers and citizens. Additionally, by integrating previous research, the dissertation presents a comprehensive model of the antecedents and consequences of performing emotional labor. This study examines how workers' recognition of the need for emotional labor affects the degree to which they perform it and how it affects their pride in work and burnout. Hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling will be used to test hypotheses. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2009. / October 22, 2009. / Emotional Labor, Emotion Work, Burnout, Performance, Job Satisfaction / Includes bibliographical references. / Mary E. Guy, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Ralph S. Brower, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Pamela Perrewé, University Representative; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.