UNT Theses and Dissertations - 38 Matching Results

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Examining the Impact of Community Policing on Public Attitudes toward Fear of Terrorism, Resilience, and Satisfaction with Police in the Face of New Terrorism

Description: This dissertation examines the impact of citizen's perception of community policing on public attitudes toward fear of terrorism, resilience for a future terrorist attack, and satisfaction with the police in the face of new terrorism. In particular, considering the changing nature of terrorism in recent years as a response to the centralized homeland security efforts, this dissertation attempts to develop our understanding about the extent to which community policing could be a strategy in deal… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Ayazma, Tayfun
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Examining the Psychological Resiliency of Latino Immigrants in Five Texas Cities: Policy, Economics, and Politics – The Case of the Latino Community

Description: This dissertation examines the impact of city-level characteristics (immigration-friendliness index, unemployment rate, and the percentage of Democrat Party votes) on the psychological resiliency of Latino immigrants. In the light of increased attention on the immigrant issue throughout the world, this study aims to develop our understanding of the factors that have the effect on the resiliency of immigrant populations. This dissertation examines these different characteristics by examining fiv… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Icer, Mehmet Mustafa
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Flexibility in Emergency Management: Exploring the Roles of Spontaneous Planning and Improvisation in Disaster Response

Description: One of the long-standing debates in disaster science and practice is the tension between planning and structure on the one hand and flexibility and adaptation on the other in maximizing the effectiveness of response operations. This research aims to reconcile the divide that currently exists among scholars and practitioners and present a continuum that bridges the above models and ties planning, improvisation, and spontaneous planning together. The main questions that were examined with this r… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Gutierrez, Miguel
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Perceptions of Public Health Professionals and Emergency Managers: Using the Institutional Collective Action Framework to Better Understand Coordination during Health Crisis

Description: The objective of this dissertation is to test the Institutional Collective Action framework and examine the governance arrangements during health emergency. Basically, the dissertation argues that due to collaborative risks, transaction costs, barriers to collective action, governance arrangement provides avenues for action and a force for driving coordination across jurisdictional boundaries. The dissertation adopts two studies to investigate the governance arrangements represented by lead age… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Soujaa, Ismail
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Study of Homeless Emergency Discharge Coordination: Understanding Challenges and Success Factors to Collaboration Maturity

Description: Successful service coordination for the homeless depends on the ability of diverse organizations to effectively collaborate. This study utilizes a life-cycle framework to expand on the collaborative governance theory by highlighting the different stages of collaboration that homeless service networks encounter. Activation, collectivity, and institutionalization are three stages used to uncover the unique nature of emergency discharge planning processes. Since collaboration is not a static proce… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Washington, Federickia L
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Disasters, Smart Growth and Economic Resilience: An Empirical Analysis of Florida Cities

Description: This dissertation examines the relationship between economic resilience, disaster experience, and smart growth policies at the local government level. The study is based upon three research questions that examine spatial distribution of economic resilience in Florida cities, and examines the impact of disaster experience, and smart growth policies adopted by local governments on economic resilience. Based upon the bounce-forward approach (Cowell, 2013; Klein et al. 2003), economic resilience is… more
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Date: August 2019
Creator: Chatterjee, Vaswati
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The Impact of Property Tax Exemptions on the Fiscal Behavior of Cities: A Longitudinal Analysis of 41 Texas Cities

Description: As a form of tax and expenditure limitations, property tax exemptions result in an utility gap between two groups of population residing in the same community: free-riders who are paying less than they receive and contributors who are paying more than they receive. This utility gap is problematic to municipalities because contributors may exit the city as this gap becomes wider. How do municipalities respond to the increasing amount of property tax exemptions? Using 41 Texas cities data from 20… more
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Date: August 2019
Creator: Sun, Jingran
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Demand and Supply Explanation: Nonprofit Size in Homeless Service Area

Description: This study explores the demand and supply oriented factors that may contribute to the size of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. communities. This research tests demand theory, which indicated that nonprofit organizations grow more in communities where large service demand exists and when there is a service gap between community demand and government service supply. On the other hand, supply theories contend that nonprofit organizations are prevalent where a community carries the supply of hum… more
Date: December 2018
Creator: Kilic Gorunmek, Hediye
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Connected and Benevolent: The Positive Impact of Social Connections in Reducing Economic Concerns for Volunteering

Description: This dissertation attempts to answer how social and economic mechanisms operate in individual, community and state levels to impact volunteering. Both social processes and economic factors significantly impact the amount of volunteering. However, researchers have a tendency to explain volunteering only by one of these factors. As both theories are equally important in explaining volunteerism, the development of a coherent theory is necessary to combine economic and social theories. This dissert… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Baktir, Yusuf
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Economic Resilience, Disasters, and Green Jobs: An Institutional Collective Action Framework

Description: This dissertation is about economic resilience of local governments to natural disasters. Specifically, the dissertation investigates resilience on regional level. Moreover, the dissertation also investigates growth in the green job sector in local governments. The findings indicate that local governments working with each other helps green job creation. In addition, the dissertation finds that green jobs, following disasters, experience three percent growth. This dissertation is important beca… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Ismayilov, Orkhan M.
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Effects of Disasters on Local Climate Actions: Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Actions

Description: This dissertation investigates the effects of natural disasters and political institutions on municipalities' climate change policies. Although most theoretical frameworks on policy adoption highlight the roles of extreme events as exogenous factors influencing policy change, most studies tend to focus on the effects of extreme events on policy change at the national level. Additionally, the existing theoretical frameworks explaining local policy adoption and public service provision do not pay… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Kim, Kyungwoo
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An Investigation of the Impact of Social Vulnerability Research on the Practice of Emergency Management

Description: This dissertation examines the extent to which social vulnerability, as studied by researchers across multiple disciplines, has influenced the practice of emergency management at the local level. This study addresses two major research questions to accomplish this goal. First, how do local emergency managers perceive and define social vulnerability? Second, what strategies do local emergency managers employ to reach and meet the needs of socially vulnerable populations? Semi-structured intervie… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Williams, Brian Don
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Age Friendly Cities: The Bureaucratic Responsiveness Effects on Age Friendly Policy Adoption

Description: Challenging a long-held attachment to the medical model, this research develops a cultural model placing local governments at the center of policy making and refocusing policy attention on mobility, housing, the built environment and services. To examine the phenomenon of age friendly policy adoption by cities and the magnitude of adoption, a 21-question web-based survey was administered to a sample of 1,050 cities from the U.S. Census having a population over 10,000 and having at least 14% of … more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Keyes, Laura Marie
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The Civic Roles of Neighborhood Associations in Seoul, Korea: Implications for Urban Governance

Description: This dissertation answers three research questions: "What differences and similarities exist among neighborhood associations in the United States, Japan, and Seoul, South Korea?," "What are the civic roles of neighborhood associations in apartment complexes in Seoul, South Korea?," and "What factors promote neighborhood associations to play civic roles in urban governance?" To answer the first question, this research analyzes the purposes, governance structures, roles, and legal substance of ne… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Kim, Jung Wook
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An Analysis of the Economic and Institutional Factors Affecting Recovery by Local Governments from Huricanes

Description: This dissertation examines the impact of major hurricanes on changes in GDP for counties in four states – Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. The analysis examines the effectiveness of intergovernmental financing for major hurricanes between 2000 and 2014. It also examines whether institutional proximity of the disaster management function to the Governor's Office and the career status of the director affect the speed of recovery from the disaster. The analysis also assesses the impact that… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Short, Jesseca Elizabeth
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Effective Public Service Collaboration: The Role of Leadership and Nonprofit Organizations in Homeless Services

Description: This dissertation investigates factors that facilitate effective collaboration of networks functioning within the context of a federal homeless policy—the HEARTH Act of 2009. While the federal legislation encourages networked collaboration to address the incidence of homelessness, not all networks are effective in achieving their intended purpose. Using a nationwide sample of homeless networks, this research explores the role that nonprofit organizations play in the collaborative process and … more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Valero, Jesus N
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Exploring Volunteer Management in the Public Sector: What are the Challenges in Managing Volunteers in Local Government?

Description: To effectively provide services to citizens, local governments have had to be creative. One approach has been the creation of volunteer programs to meet demands and expanding needs. Volunteer programs hold promise for creating meaningful engagement opportunities for citizens. However, limited organizational capacity, inadequate volunteer management practices, and difficulties in maintaining volunteer retention are concerns plaguing local government volunteer programs. Volunteer programs are oft… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Sillah, Aminata A
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The Adoption, Management, and Performance of Local Government Investment Pools: A Comparative Analysis of State Practices

Description: This dissertation examines the factors influencing a state’s decision to adopt a local government investment pool (LGIP), the institutional arrangements used in managing them, and the effect of the institutional types on LGIP performance. The dissertation extends the policy adoption theory with insights from investment theory to demonstrate that management credibility influences the likelihood of a state’s LGIP adoption. The study finds that the quality of financial management, the quality of p… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Nukpezah, Julius Atsu
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Megachurches and Economic Development: A Theoretical Understanding of Church Involvement at the Local Level

Description: Why do megachurches participate in economic development, and who benefits from their participation? Frumkin's framework for understanding nonprofit and voluntary action and extra-role behavior are theories tested to answer these questions. My research employs a mixed-methods research design conducted in two phases. In phase one, I analyze 42 responses to an online survey to provide data about the prevalence and nature of economic development activities offered by megachurches in the Dallas-For… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: English, Ashley E.
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Return-Entry Risk Communication Following 2012 Hurricane Sandy

Description: Within risk communication, much is understood about pre-event warning related to evacuation and sheltering; however risk communication during the return-entry phase when ending evacuations has been largely under-studied in the disaster literature. Understanding of the return-entry risk communication process is important because returning early or prior to issuance of the all-clear message can make returnees susceptible to post-disaster risks, and also hamper post-disaster activities such as deb… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Manandhar, Rejina
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Organizational Learning Capacity As a Predictor of Individuals’ Tendency Towards Improvisation in Nonprofit Organizations in Saudi Arabia

Description: The study is undertaken for a more compressive understanding for organizational theory and its applicability to tendency towards improvisation during emergency times among individuals in Non Profit Organizations (NPOs) in Saudi Arabia. The analysis involved an examination of direct effect of learning on tendency towards improvisation and possible mediating effects between organizational learning and tendency towards improvisation among individuals in NPOs, while controlling for key demographic … more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Alhumaid, Saleh Mohammad
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Explaining Economic Development Strategies Using Product Differentiation Theory: a Reconceptualization of Competition Among City Governments

Description: Local governments do not operate in a vacuum. Instead, they are part of a complex “polycentric” system of governments where politically autonomous and self-ruled cities compete with one another over taxable wealth. Missing from the scholarship on metropolitan governance is an understanding of the factors driving competition among local governments. The purpose of this dissertation is to fill this gap by examining how interjurisdictional competition over economic development impacts a city’s cho… more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Overton, Michael R.
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Investigating Communication and Warning Channels to Enhance Crowd Management Strategies: a Study of Hajj Pilgrims in Saudi Arabia

Description: The global increase in the number of mass gatherings and crowded events has brought with it new emergencies and unintended consequences for public administrators and first responders. Crowd managers attempt to overcome these challenges by enhancing operations, alleviating financial losses, keeping event organizers safe from liability and, most importantly, keeping the attendees safe. Effective communication among and between officials and guests has been identified as a key element in this proc… more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Taibah, Hassan
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Sources of Organizational Resilience During the 2012 Korean Typhoons: an Institutional Collective Action Framework

Description: The objective of this proposed research is to test whether interorganizational collaboration contributes to the ability of an organization to bounce back swiftly from disasters. The research questions are examined from the Institutional Collective Action (ICA) perspective. The general argument of this dissertation is that organizational resilience can be explained by interorganizational collaboration. The ICA framework, specifically, identifies two general network structures to explain strategi… more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Jung, Kyujin
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Partner: UNT Libraries
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