UNT Theses and Dissertations - 38 Matching Results

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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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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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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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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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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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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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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Discretion, Delegation, and Professionalism: A Study of Outcome Measures in Upward Bound Programs

Description: In our society, American citizens expect public policies to result in programs that address social problems in ways that are both efficient and effective. In order to judge if these two values are being achieved, public programs are often scrutinized through program monitoring and evaluation. Evaluation of public programs often is a responsibility delegated to local-level managers. The resulting discretion has to be balanced with the need for accountability that is also inherent in public progr… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Holt, Amy C.
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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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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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The Interactive Effects of Tax and Expenditure Limitations Stringency with Revenue Diversity and the Council-manager Form of Government on Municipal Expenditures

Description: This dissertation examines the effects of tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) stringency and its interaction with revenue diversity and the council-manager form of government on municipal general fund expenditure. TELs are explicit rules that states impose to reduce local government spending. TELs stringency varies from state to state, leading to difficulties in assessing their impact across the nation. This dissertation proposes a new means for measuring the stringency of TELs imposed on lo… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Jaikampan, Kraiwuth
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User Acceptance of Technology: an Empirical Examination of Factors Leading to Adoption of Decision Support Technologies for Emergency Management

Description: This study examines factors that influence the intent to use and actual use of decision support software (DSS) technology by emergency management officials to facilitate disaster response management. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology popularized by scholars from the field of information sciences (IS) for the private sector is adapted and extended to examine technology use in the public sector, specifically by emergency managers. An e-survey was sent to 1, 452 city and count… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Jennings, Eliot A.
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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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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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Community Resilience in Thailand: a Case Study of Flood Response in Nakhonsawan City Municipality

Description: Natural disasters such as flooding often affect vast areas and create infinite demands that need to be addressed in the same time. The wide scopes and severe impacts of such catastrophes often exceed, if not overwhelm, capacity of the national government to handle. In such a situation, communities such as cities and neighborhoods need to rely on their own capacity (resources, strategies, and expertise) to respond to disaster impacts at least until external assistance can be reached. Thus, study… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Khunwishit, Somporn
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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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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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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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Utilizing Traditional Environmental Knowledge in Industrialized Nations to Assist in Disaster Evacuations

Description: Using traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), which is typically reserved for understanding how indigenous societies function successfully, and applying this to developed countries' ideas of disaster planning and response, emergency planners, public officials, and lay-persons can gain an understanding of their environment. Stories, history, education, and The waterborne evacuation of Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001 provides a backdrop with which to test the tenets of TEK in a developed na… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Lea, Brandi M.
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Partner: UNT Libraries
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Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Among Public Employees In Guadalajara Metropolitan Area, Mexico

Description: This study develops a theoretical framework to examine the major dimensions of transformational leadership style (TLS), public service motivation (PSM), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and public organization performance (POP). It is hypothesized that when employees perceived a public organization is practicing a transformational leadership style, they are likely to have a favorable view on the performance of their organization, but the effect is indirect and mediated by OCB. At th… more
Date: December 2011
Creator: León Cázares, Filadelfo
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Delaying Evacuation: Risk Communication in Mobilizing Evacuees

Description: Evacuation is oftentimes the best means to prevent the loss of lives when residents encounter certain hazards, such as hurricanes. Emergency managers and experts make great efforts to increase evacuation compliance but risk area residents may procrastinate even after making the decision to leave, thus complicating response activities. Purpose - This study explores the factors determining evacuees’ mobilization periods, defined here as, the delay time between the decision to evacuate and actual … more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Li, Xiangyu
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Drilling Down Natural Gas Well Permitting Policy: Examining the Effects of Institutional Arrangements on Citizen Participation and Policy Outcomes

Description: Over the past decade the movement of natural gas drilling operations toward more suburban and urban communities has created unique policy challenges for municipalities. Municipal response is manifest in a variety of institutional arrangements, some more enabling than others regarding citizen access to public hearings. This observation lead to the main research question, “How are variations in citizen participation affecting policy outcomes?” The argument is made that institutions affecting ci… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Long, Laurie C.
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Assessing Local Governments’ Debt Financing Strategies

Description: This dissertation assesses the importance of a specific debt instrument, the Certifi- cate of Obligation in the state of Texas. It conceptualizes the Certificate of Obligation as a type of contractual debt that enables local governments to finance their capital projects. This dissertation is guided by three research questions: (1) What are the various types of debt instruments employed by local governments and what are their relative advantages? (2) How prevalent is the use of a specific debt i… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Lung, Wei-Liang
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Strategic Path to Fiscal Sustainability: Revenue Diversification and the Use of Debt By U.S. Municipal Governments

Description: This work explores the relationship between municipal government debt and revenue diversification using a prism of institutional and fiscal interactions, concentrating on revenue fungibility effects over time and on the role of state-imposed constraints. A diversified revenue structure tends to stabilize revenue levels by balancing income-elastic and inelastic revenue sources. The impact of such diversity has been the subject of much research on expenditure and service levels among state and lo… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Maleckaite, Vaida
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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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