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open access

Public School Choice : An Impact Assessment

Description: 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.
Date: December 1995
Creator: Davis, Casi G. (Casi Gail)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Barriers Limiting Access to Hospice Care for Elderly African Americans in Amarillo, Texas

Description: This study examines barriers limiting access to hospice care for elderly African Americans. Ethnic background plays a critical role in the development of attitudes, beliefs and expectations related to death and issues surrounding hospice care. The purpose of this study was to identify barriers that may limit access to hospice care for African Americans. A questionnaire was administered to 56 elderly African Americans in three religious settings and an African American senior citizens center. Th… more
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Date: August 2001
Creator: Anthony, Tomagene
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Perceptions of Disaster Professionalism in Mexico: Adding a New Public Management Perspective to Emergency Management

Description: This study investigated the perceptions of emergency managers regarding the degree of emergency management professionalism in Mexico and how it can be improved. The disaster of the Mexico City earthquake of 1985 was used as the starting point for this case study, as the prospects for more-frequent and more-intense disasters lend credence to the need for improved professionalism and, thus, effectiveness among emergency managers in the future. An expansive framework of emergency management prof… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Urby, Heriberto, Jr.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Prospects for Privatization of the Turkish Telecommunications System

Description: 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 Teleco… more
Date: December 1992
Creator: Eroglu, Ismail
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Influence of Age on Public Sector Managerial Evaluations

Description: As the American population ages, the issues of aging and work have gradually come to the forefront. An older and increasingly diverse workforce has raised concerns over job performance, labor costs, and alternative work demands. At the same time, evidence indicates that older workers continue to experience extensive labor market problems due to false assumptions on the part of managers about the limiting effect of age on employee performance. The public sector's ability to respond to age-relate… more
Date: August 1993
Creator: McCaghren, Kathy L. (Kathy Lea)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Collaborative Roles of Nonprofits in Climate Change Adaptation Strategies: Institutional Collective Action Framework

Description: The dissertation examines factors influencing nonprofit organizations' contribution to collaborative governance for climate change adaptation and nonprofit roles in the collaboration. Why an organization collaborates with others has long been a concern of scholars. However, in a majority of empirical studies, collaboration has been considered as a dichotomous concept. To fill the gap, this study considers organizations' contribution to collaboration, i.e., collaboration level in terms of power,… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Ryu, Ji Sun
Partner: UNT Libraries

Sources of Household Resilience during the 2018/2019 Saudi Floods

Description: 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 co… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Alshammari, Abdullah Fahad
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Interlocal Competition and Local Fiscal Health

Description: A sizeable literature documents patterns of competition between local governments in metropolitan regions, while also exploring variation in such local government financial attributes as efficiency, budget size, fiscal disparity, and service equity, which are frequently bound together under the concept of fiscal health. However, the concept of fiscal health is broader and more sophisticated than any one fiscal measure, and empirical studies tend to focus only on multi-purpose governments. This … more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Park, Hyunggun
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Local Government Fiscal Stress and Financial Coping Strategies Following Disasters

Description: This dissertation analyzes how local governments adapt to the fiscal stress of major disasters. Unifying theories of fiscal stress with emergency management theories, the dissertation presents a model of what influences local governments coping strategy use following disasters. Using new survey data and secondary financial data on cities, counties, and school districts that experienced Hurricane Harvey, findings show that local governments adapt in a variety of ways; of 137 local governments th… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Winkler, Julie Georgina
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Housing and Jobs: Investigating the Geographic Variance of Housing Vouchers in Metropolitan Regions

Description: The Department of Housing and Urban Development is the primary public agency responsible for providing housing subsidies to low-income households. The Home Choice Voucher Program (HCVP) is currently the most significant housing subsidy. The voucher can be transferred to any location where the landlord is registered with the local housing agency to participate in the program. The mobility of the voucher is designed to decrease concentrations of low-income households in areas that lack economic, … more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Britton, Honore Emanuel
Partner: UNT Libraries

Investigation of Existing and New Human Resource Practices on Public Health Employee Retention during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia

Description: This research investigates existing and new HR practices that have impacted public health employee retention in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic. It builds on social support theory and social exchange theory to better understand the relationships between HR practices and retention, and uses quantitative methods to examine the hypotheses based on a conceptual framework. While OLS regression is employed to analyze the relationships between HR practices and retention, path analysis (boots… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2025.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Alattas, Mohsen Mohammad A
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
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