Browsing by Subject "public management"
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Representation, Structure, and Public Management in School Desegregation: An Examination of Student Outcomes(2013-08-06) Capers, Kaisheka Jur?eAs we near the 60th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, questions still remain about its salience and our ability to provide equal educational opportunities to students of all races and ethnicities. Additionally, scholars and observers alike note the continual shift toward resegregation in American schools, but few have probed exactly why this occurs and the empirical implications of this shift. As such, this dissertation project explores the ?new? political domain of school desegregation policy to understand why some school districts are resegregating while others maintain their racial balance, and the substantive implications of this divide for minority students. The goal of this research is two-fold. First, I investigate the determinants of desegregation policy, arguing that a set of institutional (representation), structural, and management factors best predict a district?s level of racial balance as an indicator of the active pursuit of desegregation. Second, I examine student outcomes and performance under both educational settings?racially balanced and imbalanced?to determine where students fare better and how much the racial context matters to student outcomes. I frame this question theoretically in the organizational theory research on external control, in which I argue that the policy environment, in this case, the racial context as denoted by the level of racial balance, influences the extent to which structure, representation, and management affect outcomes. I compare outcomes under the two policy environments, racially balanced and imbalanced districts, to see their effect on the noted factors and where students fare better. The general results show that the broad assumption and desegregation literature finding that racially balanced schools are better for minority students is not supported. Minority students can also gain the same if not better outcomes in racially imbalanced districts. I also find that while the tested predictors play an important role, the policy environment significantly contributes to their role and outcomes. For policy makers and practitioners this means that one way to gain the equality that the Brown decision sought is to shift the focus on improving board and teacher representation or management strategies and practices. The dissertation challenges assumptions of political decisions and outcomes that fail to consider the external policy environment.Item The Effects of Elite Decision Making(2010-07-14) Johansen, Morgen S.Decision making is a central concept in the study of both politics and organizations. Although much research has examined how individuals make decisions, there has been substantially less work on the consequences of these decisions. My dissertation focuses on two groups of decision makers, candidates running for office and public managers, and the effect of their decisions on the electorate and organization, respectively. The dissertation explores the impact of candidates' decisions regarding their campaigns on the electorate by examining campaign advertising during the 2000 Presidential Election. I focus on two candidate decisions. The first is to focus on certain issues as a way to prime the public to see the candidate as having certain traits, namely empathy, morality, and leadership ability. The second is to show voters that the candidate is like them by activating (i.e. priming) feelings of social identity among women, African-Americans, and Latinos. Using campaign advertising data and public opinion data, I analyze the effect of campaign advertising on voters' evaluations of the candidates to determine the effectiveness of these strategies. Results find that an effective strategy was for the candidates to air ads describing themselves as having certain traits. Talking about issues does not have much of an effect on voters' candidate evaluations. Appeals to women were not effective. Appeals to African-Americans were only effective for the Democratic candidate, and appeals to Latinos were only successful for the Republican candidate. I examine the decisions of public managers by focusing on middle level bureaucrats and the consequences of their decisions on their agencies. The agencies are public schools in Texas and the middle managers are principals. From a dataset of over 1,000 Texas school districts, I create a measure of principal quality which I then use to explore the impact of middle management on multiple school performance measures and to compare the influence of principals and superintendents on performance. I also examine the effect of principals within in the organization, namely how principals affect the turnover of the workers under them. Results find that principals have a direct and beneficial influence on organizational performance measures such as standardized test scores, college readiness, and turnover. To summarize the results more generally, the dissertation finds that the decisions actors make within the political process matter in important and significant ways.Item The Politics of Public Management: Exploring the Importance of Environmental Support(2012-07-16) Melton, Erin KellyThe machinations of the political environments of public organizations present interesting questions for scholars and practitioners alike. Moving beyond simply recognition of the inherent role of politics in the administrative process, I uncover specific causal mechanisms from the external environment to assess their influence on public administration. To investigate this phenomenon, I utilize data from the public education sector, one of the most common areas of public service delivery. This dissertation utilizes data from over 1000 Texas school districts. Given the heterogeneous nature of the state, these data are applicable to similarly structured organizations while the theories tested are tractable to other types of public policy. Unique to this project is the conceptualization of the role race plays for public organizations. Literature abounds with respect to how race affects clientele-agency relationships, but fails to address the effects of race and ethnicity at the upper echelons of public management. This research endeavor approximates reality in a meaningful way as our nation ? and therefore our public organizations ? becomes increasingly diverse in nature. The findings suggest that support, and more generally, the politics of the environment, matter for organizational performance. In some instances, such as turbulence in the environment, the role support plays in public service delivery varies. It is also the case that the presence of a racial or ethnic minority at the top levels of public organizations has a detrimental effect and mitigates an otherwise strong, positive association between supportive attitudes in the political environment and agency outcomes.