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Private practice as a career option for nurses has been slowly increasing since the 1980's. However, the reasons for this development have not been fully investigated so that it can be understood and placed within the changing contexts of health care and health services. The expansion and extension of nurses' roles is a contemporary topic in health care reform and therefore one that deserves investigation. The aims of this study were to develop a theory on private practice nursing and to describe the characteristics and work of the self-employed nurse in Australia. Nurses working in a variety of settings have been able to provide information on being self-employed. In doing so, this study was able to describe the persona of the nurse entrepreneur, explore the reasons why nurses and midwives in Australia establish private fee-for-service practices, identify the factors which have influenced this action and describe the scope of practice of nurses and midwives in private practice. This combined Delphi technique and Grounded Theory study is the first in-depth study of Australian nurses and midwives in private practice. The study enables nurses to provide direct information on being self-employed and enhances the profession's ability to articulate about this area of nursing. The significance of the research is in increasing the understanding of this area of practice development and affords greater insight into its efforts to improve and maintain quality nursing services within the Australian health care system. One hundred and six nurses and midwives were invited to participate in the study, in which participants completed two rounds of semi-structured postal questionnaires. Delphi technique was applied to rate responses on Likert scales to ascertain respondents' consensus on certain topics. Participants were also provided the opportunity to make additional comments. Results indicated that nurses in private practice are well experienced with an average of 21 years nursing experience and hold several qualifications. Job satisfaction, being able to be more involved in achieving quality health outcomes and maximising skills and abilities are significant influences for private practice. These results suggest that private practice nursing can contribute effectively to broadening the range of primary health services available to the population and to addressing the issues of retention and recruitment of nurses. Self-employed nurse entrepreneurs push the boundaries of the profession and expand the realm of nursing practice. Entrepreneurship is a path for the future of nursing as it offers expanded career opportunities for nurses and opportunities for increased ambulatory health services. In addition, the broad, expert knowledge nurses hold on many aspects of health can be disseminated throughout the health sector to the advantage of corporate health partners. There is further development required in this innovative and expanding area of the nursing profession. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Clinical Nursing, 2003.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the differences in the criteria utilized and the criteria desired by various types of institutions for granting appointment, reappointment, merit salary increases, promotion in rank, and tenure, and to propose criteria based upon this analysis. This study reveals that institutions differ according to the criteria which they utilize and desire for appointment, reappointment, merit salary increases, promotion in rank, and tenure. For example, two-year and four-year private colleges and universities consider age, health, personal appearance, and religious activities while two-year and four-year public colleges and universities disregard religious activities and place little emphasis on age, health, and personal appearance. In addition, four-year public and private institutions stress more than two-year public and private colleges degrees from prestigious universities, research, publications, and the Ph.D. in English. Furthermore, four-year private schools give more attention than four-year public institutions to student evaluations, classroom visitations, curriculum development, academic advisement, and supervision of student activities The study also reveals that as four-year public institutions increase in size, their interest in research and publications increases proportionally.

The Internal Revenue Code invokes the concept of reasonableness as the major qualification for the stockholder executive compensation deduction for federal income tax purposes. However, neither the Code nor Regulations contain general guidelines for determining reasonable compensation. Consequently, disputes with the IRS are frequent, resulting in substantial litigation. The primary hypothesis of the study was that the IRS guideline variables were incapable of discriminating taxpayers who have won litigated reasonable compensation cases from those who have lost. The secondary hypothesis was that the IRS guideline variable group, the court case variable group, or the two groups combined were equally powerful in discriminating taxpayers who have won litigated reasonable compensation cases from taxpayers who have lost. The study included all unreasonable compensation cases litigated in the Tax Court from 195^ to September, 1980. Only cases related to the reasonableness of officer-shareholder compensation of closely-held corporations were included.

This study concerns the general question, "What has been the impact of collective bargaining representation elections on nonprofit hospitals in Texas?" The means of answering this question involved a study of wages and attitudes of nonprofessional employees in both hospitals where such elections occurred and hospitals where no such elections had occurred in the State of Texas. An overview of the development of hospitals and the union movement in hospitals are presented as background information for this study. Further, a brief discourse on attitude development and attitude measurement is provided as theoretical foundational material. A researcher-constructed questionnaire was devised, tested, and administered to employees of the subject hospitals. There were 176 useable returns from employees where no union representation election occurred and 176 useable returns from employees where union representation elections occurred.

The purpose of the study was to examine district, campus, and community determinants of principal’s salaries using a spatial econometric framework. Among the district variables business tax (p = 0.001), property tax (p < .01), and the Herfindahl Index (measure of competition) were statistically significant indicators of principal salaries. The results suggest that more affluent districts tend to pay principals higher salaries, which was expected. Regarding campus characteristics, the percent of economically disadvantaged was not a statistically sound indicator (p = 0.468), but campus enrollment was significant (p = <.01). Interestingly as the percentage of economically disadvantaged students increased, the principal salary decreased. In contrast, as student enrollment increases the salary of principals increases, suggesting that principals of larger campuses earn higher salaries. Interestingly, student achievement was not a statistically significant predictor of principals’ salary given that pay for performance in Texas is at the forefront of political debate. Among the variables examined at the community level, only the percentage of homes owner occupied (p = 0.002) was found to be a statistically significant indicator of principal salary (p = .002). The lack of evidence on reforms, such as determinants of principal salary, points to data and research deficiencies to be addressed in order to learn more about their effects and make sound public policies. The paper utilized a spatial regression approach to examine the determinants of principal salary using data from the local, state, and national data sources. Principal salaries are viewed from several lenses in this study by considering effective outcomes of pay defined by actual salaries and market considerations for pay as defined by community, organizational, and human capital variables. Literature from the private sector as well as from the public school setting was used as a theoretical underpinning for the hypotheses set forth in this study. Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further. The paper includes implications for educational policy development related to pay for contribution, rather than pay based on tenure, experience, or district wealth. The research also fulfils an identified policy need to study how principal salaries are determined.

Gendered organizational conditions create the context for persisting differences between men and women in the workplace. Within, higher education, this manifests as a salary gap between male and female faculty members. The academic capitalistic policy environment creates the conditions for increasing competition for external funding, especially in the areas of research and science and engineering. The change in the academic climate may sustain or intensify the gendering of universities as organizations. Universities with the highest level of research activity were chosen for this study and formed the 130 public institution sample. This study used fixed effects panel regression analysis to explore the relationship between the faculty gender salary gap and institutional emphasis on research as well as science and engineering. In addition, the relationship between institutional emphasis and the faculty gender salary gap was explored over time with the inclusion of a time trend and temporal interaction terms. Results showed that the higher the percentage of female faculty members, the greater the faculty gender salary gap for assistant professors. In addition, science and engineering emphasis over time had a significant impact on the professor salary gap with a decreasing effect both at the mean and one standard deviation above the mean, but with an increasing effect on the salary gap for institutions one standard deviation below the mean. When taking action to increase gender equity, it is important for universities to recognize that the faculty gender salary gap occurs in an organizational context impacted by institutional-level conditions.

In this work, we concern ourselves with particular topics in Polish space theory. We first consider the space A(U) of complex-analytic functions on an open set U endowed with the usual topology of uniform convergence on compact subsets. With the operations of point-wise addition and point-wise multiplication, A(U) is a Polish ring. Inspired by L. Bers' algebraic characterization of the relation of conformality, we show that the topology on A(U) is the only Polish topology for which A(U) is a Polish ring for a large class of U. This class of U includes simply connected regions, simply connected regions excluding a relatively discrete set of points, and other domains of usual interest. One thing that we deduce from this is that, even though C has many different Polish field topologies, as long as it sits inside another Polish ring with enough complex-analytic functions, it must have its usual topology. In a different direction, we show that the bounded complex-analytic functions on the unit disk admits no Polish topology for which it is a Polish ring. We also study the Lie ring structure on A(U) which turns out to be a Polish Lie ring with the usual topology. In this case, we restrict our attention to those domains U that are connected. We extend a result of I. Amemiya to see that the Lie ring structure is determined by the conformal structure of U. In a similar vein to our ring considerations, we see that, again for certain domains U of usual interest, the Lie ring A(U) has a unique Polish topology for which it is a Polish Lie ring. Again, the Lie ring A(U) imposes topological restrictions on C. That is, C must have its usual topology when sitting inside any Polish Lie ring isomorphic to A(U). In the last chapter, we introduce a new ideal of subsets of Polish spaces consisting of what we call residually null sets. From this ideal, we introduce an algebra consisting of what we call R-sets which is consistently a strict extension of the algebra of Baire property sets. We show that the algebra of R-sets is closed under the Alexandrov-Suslin operation and generalize Pettis' Theorem. From this, we provide new automatic continuity results and give a generalization of a result of D. Montgomery which shows that minimal assumptions on the continuity of group operations of an abstract group G with a Polish topology imply that G is actually a Polish group. We also see that many results pertaining to the algebra of Baire property sets generalize to the context of R-sets.

In this study, I explored the different perceptions of teachers in a large urban school district in Texas towards a pay-for-performance program used on their respective campuses between 2011-2016. In total, 97 teachers from four different middle school campuses participated in this study. A descriptive analyst was conducted on teacher responses to an online survey to answer the research questions examined in this study: 1) What are teachers' perceptions of the pay-for-performance program's impact on teacher motivation?, 2) What are teachers' perceptions of the pay-for-performance program's impact on teacher retention?, and 3) What are the differences among teachers' perceptions of the pay-for-performance programs on the participating campuses? The results indicate 48.3% and 53.4% of the participants perceive pay-for-performance programs as having a positive impact on teacher motivation and teacher retention, respectively. Additionally, the results demonstrate 47.5% of participating teachers responded positively towards the pay-for-performance program on their respective campuses. This study has implications for policymakers and school district leaders who may consider implementing teacher pay-for-performance programs. Future research studies might explore school districts of different sizes throughout Texas and across the United States to gain a broader prospective of pay-for-performance programs.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of size of performance pay increases on employee perceptions critical to the success of merit pay programs. Perceptions investigated in this study included: 1) instrumentality, 2) expectancy, 3) performance appraisal administration, 4) performance appraisal content, 5) trust in city management, 6) pay communication, and 7) importance of pay. It was hypothesized that individuals who received above average performance pay increases would exhibit significant positive changes toward perceptions of interest while individuals who received below average performance pay increases would exhibit significant negative changes toward perceptions of interest. / Master of Science