UNT Theses and Dissertations - 66 Matching Results
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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
- 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 agency, emergency plans, Emergency Operation Center and city council mandates and coordination when it comes to health emergencies such as Ebola. The qualitative approach investigates the causal relationship between governance arrangements and coordination. The second study investigates to what extent do formal mechanisms and informal mechanisms affects the outcome of collaboration during a health emergency. This study uses a quantitative research approach to examine the patterns of collaborative arrangement used during health emergency. The findings of the study demonstrate the pattern used in health emergencies is dependent on the application of formal mechanisms represented by higher authority, emergency plans. Both studies indicate that due to collaboration risks, self-governance arrangements or higher authority mandates provides a venue for collective action. The survey data was collected from local, state and federal governments during the summer 2015 on the Ebola virus disease in Dallas Forth Worth region. The findings for the study indicate that due to collaboration risks and inaction by local governments, governance arrangements clear the path to collective action.
- Procurement of Smart City Technologies: Smart City or Smart Governance?
- This dissertation argues that the core of building smart cities is through the procurement and implementation of smart city technologies (SCTs) by either individual (i.e., smart city) or collaborative endeavors (i.e., smart governance). Given that urbanization problems (e.g., air pollution) usually spill over city boundaries, building smart cities as silos may not solve these problems. Therefore, utilizing smart governance in SCT procurement and implementation should be a better approach. Considering the potential benefits of smart governance, this dissertation addresses three overarching questions: (1) What is a smart city? (2) What is smart governance? and (3) Why do some cities choose to participate in smart governance while others do not? By developing a typology of smart governance, this dissertation categorizes three levels of smart governance based on cities' participation in cooperative procurement and implementation of SCTs. Data collected from the 2019 Smart Governance Survey confirm that the level of smart governance does vary among Texas cities. Applying transaction costs and institutional collective action (ICA) frameworks, the dissertation finds that public managers' perceptions on transaction costs and joint gains as well as cities' extant ICA mechanisms affect cities' participation in smart governance.
- Prospects for Privatization of the Turkish Telecommunications System
- Turkey is considering privatizing its telecommunications system. Any developing country must analyze whether its economic, social, and institutional environment is appropriate for the privatization of a utility. The purposes of this study are (1) to establish a model to assist policy makers, (2) to analyze whether Turkey meets the prerequisites for telecommunications privatization, and (3) to provide Turkish leaders pragmatic policy alternatives pertaining to privatization of the Turkish Telecommunications system.High inflation rate, weakness of the private sector and the lack of regulatory regime are the major impediments facing Turkey's privatization efforts. Turkey might consider several options including (1) not privatizing at all, (2) retaining public ownership of the network operations while privatizing only the physical equipment market, or (3) following the British privatization model.
- Public School Choice : An Impact Assessment
- The goal of this thesis is to understand the consequences of educational choice in the public school system. The research takes place in San Antonio, Texas. The research encompasses meaningful comparisons between three sets of low income students and their families: 1) those who chose to remain in their attendance-zone school, 2) those who enrolled in the multilingual program, and 3) those who applied to the multilingual program but were not admitted because of space limitations.
- Return-Entry Risk Communication Following 2012 Hurricane Sandy
- 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 debris removal, traffic management, utility restoration and damage assessments. Guided by the Warning Components Framework and the Theory of Motivated Information Management, this dissertation focuses on risk communication as it pertains to organizational behavior during the return-entry process by examining how local emergency management organizations develop, disseminate and monitor return-entry messages. The data is collected through semi-structured telephone interviews with local emergency management organizations that managed return-entry following Hurricane Sandy. The findings of the study indicate that local emergency management organizations required information on post-disaster threats, damages, and utility and infrastructure condition in order to develop return-entry strategy for their community. Organizations improvised to their existing risk communication measures by adopting creative ways for information dissemination to the evacuees. They also utilized active and passive approach to monitor public response to the return-entry messages.
- Sources of Household Resilience during the 2018/2019 Saudi Floods
- This research studied the relationship between social capital and household resilience. In particular, how bonding and bridging relationships affect household resilience was the question selected to illustrate this relationship between social capital and household resilience. Moreover, how the vulnerability of household impacts household resilience was also empirically examined. Social capital theory and vulnerability paradigm studies were used to discover explanations for why and how social connectedness and social vulnerabilities impact household resilience. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data in the main two cities in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh and Jeddah. A cross-sectional design was used to collect data. Statistical descriptions and inferences were conducted. In fact, multiple linear regression, T-test, and one way ANOVA were the three principal technics used to make statistical inferences. This study empirically found evidence there are relationships between bonding relationships and household resilience, and also relationships between the economic level of the household and household resilience. However, no evidence was found for relationships between bridging relationships and household resilience, or between other vulnerability factors and household resilience. Other vulnerability factors included gender, minority group, and language.
- Sources of Organizational Resilience During the 2012 Korean Typhoons: an Institutional Collective Action Framework
- 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 strategies that can be adopted to minimize collaboration risks: bonding and bridging structures. This dissertation focuses on how governmental and nongovernmental organizations in South Korea collaborated. The data was collected from the southeastern tip of the Korean Peninsula in August of 2012, and January of 2013. The 2012 Typhoons devastated the area after the first data set was collected in August 2012, causing the loss of estimated US$ 730 million and 29 fatalities. Afterward, the second survey was administrated in January of 2013 to gauge respondents’ views on how organizations responded to the disasters. This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay presents a brief overview and assessment of the current research on resilience. The second essay empirically tests the sources of organization resilience. The third essay examines the dynamic nature of interorganizational ties by employing stochastic actor-based models. The findings show how organizations prefer to not coordinate with other organizations even though this could reduce their strains during a disaster. The findings also suggest that organizations that operate in higher risk areas or participate in joint full-scale exercises before a disaster form interorganizational ties afterward.
- Strategic Path to Fiscal Sustainability: Revenue Diversification and the Use of Debt By U.S. Municipal Governments
- 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 local governments. Considerably less research has been conducted on its potential relationship with debt, although capital financing is a necessary and often-utilized mechanism for funding capital and operational spending for local governments. Since it is well known that debt payments are fixed in the short run, they require sufficient revenue adequacy through economic highs and lows. It is thus argued that local governments with more diversified revenue structures are better able to utilize debt financing since revenue diversity mitigates the risk of borrowing by providing for greater fiscal predictability in the long run. This hypothesis is tested on two samples - a large sample of cities in Massachusetts from 2000 through 2009, as well as a cross-state sample, encompassing the cities from the majority of U.S. states. The findings of both studies provide preliminary evidence on the influence of revenue diversification on the levels of municipal indebtedness. While the Massachusetts study reveals that revenue diversification is, indeed, a statistically significant determinant of debt per capita, which also has an indirect effect on property tax burdens, the cross-state study suggests that revenue diversification has a mitigating impact on certain state-imposed fiscal rules, further adding to its weight as a strategic financial management tool. Both studies also reiterate the importance of such fiscal capacity factors as fund balances, intergovernmental revenue, and the size of government, while also revealing some new interaction patterns …
- A Study Examining the Financial Conditions and Collaborative Efforts in the Context of Smart Initiatives among Local Government
- Local government in the United States have been collaborating across institutional boundaries, collaborating with other local government to share their resources in the delivery of goods and services in their communities. Although local governments have collaborated for a long time, mixed analysis resulted on which form of government is most effective in the delivery of goods and services based on structure and stability of their financial conditions. This dissertation introduces technology as a key component in the collaborative process in implementing smart initiatives among communities. This dissertation uses surveys conducted from ICMA and Smart City Council, 2016, and a case study comparing two smart cities to test the hypotheses; which structure of government is more effective and whether an increase in financial condition encourages more collaborative efforts. The data reveals that the council-manager form of government is more efficient, however, in contrast, to the case study which indicated that both forms of government were efficient in implementing smart initiatives, however, differences in collaborative efforts were seen based on structure. The results of this analysis provide significant new information for both scholars and practitioners.
- Study of Homeless Emergency Discharge Coordination: Understanding Challenges and Success Factors to Collaboration Maturity
- 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 process and government regulation for emergency discharge plans were recently enacted in 2012, collaborative networks encounter challenges and success factors at different stages. A qualitative case-study approach of organizational leaders in homeless service networks in Texas (Dallas, Ft. Worth and Houston) examines stages of collaboration. Results show common success and challenge factors identified among the three networks, but the factors take on different forms in relation to where the networks are at in the coordination stages. Practitioners can use the findings from this study as a guide to set up benchmarks and measurable objectives to identify strengths and weaknesses in their coordination processes.
- The Study of Network Governance in Continuum of Care (CoC), Homeless Service Networks in the US: Institutional Collective Action Framework
- The dissertation investigates the form of network governance in the context of U.S. homeless service networks (namely continuum of care programs; CoCs). This research examines CoC homeless service networks by applying the institutional collective action (ICA) perspectives to understand the forms of network governance as a reflection of network context. The ICA perspective has been applied to understand the rational behavior of network members for the network governance form to mitigate the collective action problems. The ICA perspective helps understand why network members accept specific governance structures with their expectation to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs and uncertainty in their process of collaboration. This dissertation uses the data of CoC networks and point in time data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2019 and Census. The data developed for this study offers the homeless incidences, geographical characteristics, and governance structure based on the contact information. For an in-depth understanding, interview by CoC leaders was integrated. This dissertation consists of four essays about 1) Literature review on network governance and the theoretical argument in the ICA framework, 2) Background and network governance of the U.S. homeless service networks, 3) Factors affecting the choice of network administrative organization (NAO) form, and 4) Interviews by the representatives of CoC networks. The findings inform us of the governance structure for the effective service provisions and coordination of actions of network members and about why and how network organizations choose a form of network governance.
- A Study of Nonprofit Governance through the Lens of Stewardship Theory
- This dissertation examines the association between independent governance structure and various measures of good governance. The evaluation draws on observations of a dataset of 101 Texas public charities, in particular the organization's self-disclosed governance-related activities as reflected in the transparency, monitoring, and strategic tools available to the public. The study reveals that two measures of good governance are associated with an identified independent governance structure at the organizational level. In managing the governance of the organization, the study finds evidence that less emphasis is placed on the constituted strategic direction clauses listed in the articles of incorporation of the organization. The research suggests that each of the fiduciary stewardship concerns need to be addressed by the legal governing body in order to fulfill good governance as an outcome quality measure.
- Third-Party Perception: Implications for Governance and Communication of Health Risks during the Umrah in Saudi Arabia
- The current study projects the third-person perception phenomenon into the area of emergency management, specifically regarding risk communication in the context of religious gatherings. This study utilized the Umrah religious gathering in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, during summer 2019 as a case study (N = 257). This study aimed to investigate whether pilgrims perceive there was a greater effect of health information on others than on themselves. Survey results were translated and then coded and analyzed statistically using SPSS software. The findings indicated that third-person perception existed among pilgrims. Specifically, the perception of pilgrims that the influence of news about MERS-CoV, believed to be undesirable in its effect on themselves, was greater on others than on themselves was found statistically significant. Further, the findings indicated that the more pilgrims watched, listened to, or read news about MERS-CoV, the larger the effect of the news they perceived on themselves and others was. Thus, exposure to MERS-CoV news did not increase, but rather decreased the perception of difference between self and others. Also, the empirical findings indicated that pilgrims who were knowledgeable about MERS-CoV could relate to the coverage. Moreover, if pilgrims believed they were affected by MERS-CoV news, they believed that the MERS-CoV news had a similar or greater effect on other pilgrims. The findings indicated socio-demographics had a partial effect on third-person perception, Finally, the stronger the perceived effect of MERS-CoV news on oneself, the more likely these pilgrims were to take protective actions against the MERS-CoV epidemic. However, the third-person perception anticipated in the use of impersonal communication (pamphlets, television, radio, newspapers, Internet, social media, text message, health clinics, mosques messages, public events, and billboards) and of interpersonal communication (friends, family member, or others you know) was not found significant. Moreover, the perceived effects of MERS-CoV news on others did …
- Understanding and preventing police use of excessive force: An analysis of attitudes toward police job satisfaction and human rights laws.
- Although governments try to create strict policies and regulations to prevent abuses, use of excessive force is still a problem for almost every country including Turkey. This study is intended to help Turkish National Police administrators to understand and prevent police use of excessive force. Studies on police brutality categorize three factors that explain why police officers use excessive force; these are individual, situational and organizational. In addition to brutality theories, job satisfaction literature is examined in this study to understand the use of excessive force. Job satisfaction is found to be related with burnout, turnover, stress, commitment, and performance. The impact of officers' attitude toward the criminal justice system and/or laws has not been tested widely. Police officers attitudes toward human rights laws are examined in this study to measure its impact on attitude toward use of excessive force. A secondary data collected in Turkey are analyzed by structural equation modeling which provides confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, and causal relationships between variables. It is found that police officers' attitude toward human rights laws is a significant predictor of their attitudes toward use of excessive force. Job satisfaction and education level are the other significant variables affecting attitude toward use of excessive force. Based on the analyses of findings, educational and policy implications are posed for Turkish police administrators to better understand and prevent police use of excessive force.
- User Acceptance of Technology: an Empirical Examination of Factors Leading to Adoption of Decision Support Technologies for Emergency Management
- 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 county emergency management officials from FEMA region VI and complete responses obtained from 194 were analyzed. Findings suggest that social influence is the strongest predictor of intent to use DSS technology by emergency managers, unlike private sector studies where performance expectancy was the strongest predictor. Additionally, effort expectancy, collaboration, social vulnerability, professionalism, performance expectancy, and gender explained 40 percent of their intent to use DSS technology. Factors explaining actual use of technology were intent to use technology, having an in house GIS specialist, and age of the emergency manager. This research successfully closes the gap in IS and disaster literature by being the first to focus on factors influencing technology use by emergency managers for decision making in disaster response. It underscores the importance of collaboration not only for post-disaster activities but also as a precursor to better disaster preparedness planning that calls for information sharing and technology acceptance and adoption across partnering jurisdictions.
- Utilizing Traditional Environmental Knowledge in Industrialized Nations to Assist in Disaster Evacuations
- 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 nation setting. This dissertation has found that TEK was effective when used by a developed nation and should be integrated into the current disaster system in the US.