Establishing and sustaining no-kill communities: best practices for animal services directors

The relationship between humans and non-human animals in the United States has evolved from the capturing and impounding of stray livestock found in colonial times to the billion-dollar industry supporting companion animals that exists today (Irvine, 2002; Zawistowski & Morris, 2013). As people\u27s perceptions and attitudes about the treatment of non-human animals have evolved over time, so have the expectations of the organizations that are in place to care for them. A current movement exists to end the killing of healthy and treatable pets within the United States. Known as the no-kill movement, shelter directors and community stakeholders around the country are working to ensure that their communities are supporting the lifesaving of their shelter pets. Using a qualitative methodology, this study aims to uncover the best practices of animal shelter directors that have successfully achieved no-kill in their communities. Based on the findings, an animal services leadership competency model is introduced

Enhanced Model of Collaboration and Social Capital: Hampton Roads All Hazards Advisory Committee: A Replication Study

To address the call for improving the understanding of collaboration in public policy, this dissertation is designed to validate a study by Morris, Gibson, Leavitt, and Jones (2013), entitled, The Case for Grassroots Collaboration: Social Capital and Ecosystem Restoration at the Local Level. The Enhanced Model of Collaboration (EMC), which was developed to explore collaboration and social capital deriving from grassroots efforts, will be applied to examine agency-based regional collaboration in southeastern Virginia. The population for this study is the members of the Hampton Roads All Hazards Advisory Committee (AHAC). Members include representatives of local, state, and federal government agencies, military, private industry, nonprofit organizations, health institutions, and universities. The AHAC collaboration presents an opportunity to examine the extent to which the EMC can be used to explain collaboration in an agency-based collaboration. Using both collaboration and social capital theories, this concurrent mixed methods case study investigates the constructs in the EMC, which includes context, process, output, outcomes, and social capital in a regional emergency management committee (REMC). The data is collected through interviews, documentation analysis, and a web survey. The survey and interview questions are modified from the original study to accommodate the distinct context of the Hampton Roads AHAC setting. Findings from this study contribute to a general understanding of agency-based collaboration and social capital at the local government level. As a replication study, this research also serves to validate propositions of the original study as well as strengthen and clarify research findings in relation to collaboration and social capital. The results of this study provide evidence that the Enhanced Model of Collaboration framework is limited in its capacity to research collaboration and social capital constructs in an agency-based setting. Therefore, the Enhanced Model of Agency-Based Collaboration (EMAC) is proposed to accurately examine, research, and evaluate agency-based collaboration settings. The All Hazards Advisory Committee members are practicing collaborative governance, decision making, and utilizing collaboration as a means to achieve regional emergency management funding and planning goals. Social capital is found to be a central tenet of AHAC’s collaboration and is evident in the formation, process, outcome, and feedback loop. Increased knowledge in this area may lead to institutional and organizational processes that allow multisector agency-based collaborations to increase sustainability and capabilities over time

Coming of Age: How JAC is Reflecting a National Research Agenda for Communications in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life Human Sciences

This study analyzed communications research trends, topics, needs, and opportunities involving agriculture, natural resources, and life and human sciences since the development of a national research agenda (NRA) in 2007. A content analysis of 23 issues of the Journal of Applied Communications (JAC) published over 7.5 years (2008 to mid-2015) examined the degree to which the articles reflected the priority research areas (PRAs), key research questions (KRQs), and priority initiatives (PIs) identified in the NRA. Findings showed a watershed period from 2011-2014 in which the journal produced an average of 18 articles per year. The first RPA (RPA A), “Enhancing decision making within the agricultural sectors of society,” received the most attention, followed by RPA B, which focused on rural-urban interactions. Within RPA A, the largest number of articles addressed the key research question, “What are the most effective ways to identify and communicate information that has economic and social value?” Under this question, the priority initiative (PI), “Analyze and strengthen the effectiveness of communications content and methods in communicating information,” garnered the most research attention. Findings showed a dearth of studies in PIs across the four RPAs, including economic returns to, and social impacts of, agricultural information; how to engage key interest groups in decision making; models of collaboration, negotiation, and conflict management; use of critical theory in analyzing agriculture and related communications; the interplay between data, information and meaning within stakeholders; information asymmetries and barriers to public participation in decision making; the mechanisms by which information is made available; if and how knowledge gains value; and ethical issues and standards. Results prompted seven suggestions for further research progress and direction

Adapting to Climate Change: The Case of Multi-level Governance and Municipal Adaptation Planning in Nova Scotia, Canada

Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada to use the gas tax as a financial incentive to create a regulatory mandate for ‘Municipal Climate Change Action Plans’ (MCCAPs). The MCCAP adaptation policy mandate initiated and enabled climate change vulnerability assessment and the development of climate risk priorities and adaptation plans to uniformly occur at the local scale in 53 Nova Scotian municipalities. This dissertation seeks to answer the question: What are the social factors that impacted municipal climate change adaptation policy and planning processes in the multi-level governance context of Nova Scotia’s MCCAP? The study develops and operationalizes a thematic, functional conceptual framework and exploratory, descriptive case study research approach for conducting adaptation case studies and comparative analysis of municipal adaptation planning processes in multi-level governance contexts. The framework enables thematic investigation and discussion about the social factors impacting municipal adaptation policy and planning processes in multi-level governance and municipal case settings. The study utilizes content analysis of adaptation plans in combination with focus groups, an iterative online survey and targeted interviews conducted with adaptation stakeholders to explore, describe and illustrate what and how social factors impacted the MCCAP process in Nova Scotia municipalities. The mixed methodology provides a pragmatic approach to generate data from which to compare evidence of the social impact factors that affect municipalities’ adaptation planning and policy development processes in multi-level governance contexts. The study offers new empirical and conceptual insights into the ‘how and what’ of municipal climate change adaptation policy making processes in multi-level adaptation governance contexts. The study conceptually affirms that significant resource and capacity-building gaps, a lack of governmental coordination, low levels of public demand and aspects of cross-scalar political leadership hinder and constrain adaptation capacity building and policy integration in municipal processes. Institutional fragmentation and lack of multi-level policy coordination may be key social factors impacting Nova Scotia municipalities’ adaptive capacities and the prospects for long-term resiliency and adaptation to climate change risks impacting communities at the local scale

Designed agency in collaborations: Exploring cross-sector collaboration in Finland’s artificial intelligence programme AuroraAI.

Prospects of advanced digitalisation, namely applications of algorithmic computation and artificial intelligence, are expected to improve data-driven decision-making in business and government alike. Overshadowed by this vast momentum in technology and predicted progress, societal questions of human dignity and democratic participation in anticipation of futures are fading out of attention. Cross-sector collaborations in the public sector are perceived as a viable means to address complex socio-technical problems, such as the above, as part of an emerging shift from market- and performance-focused governance and towards public good. Simultaneously, the discipline of design, increasingly permeating other fields, sees progressive application in the public realm where it provides encouraging means of participatory engagement to support the reorientation of governance towards the human being. My research takes a critical perspective on the preliminary, pre-2020, preparations of AuroraAI, the Finnish national programme for artificial intelligence, and interconnected cross-sectoral service provision. By developing a human-centric lens of design, the mixed-methods study constructively investigates barriers in the collaborative development and how these closely relate to the currently present and omitted actors and their respective agency. Normative aspects inherent to questions of fair participation in the creation of public good and joint futures are substantiated with the reviewed literature ranging from design to political theory. The thesis highlights the importance of actively nurturing intangible structures of trust and mutual understanding to establish ownership and equity in decision-making. Different levels of agency among actors in the programme appear to be profoundly determined by consciously and unconsciously taken design choices regarding the structures that create the foundations for the processes of collaborative engagement. If agency is the capacity of an actor to exert power in a given context, this capacity can be deliberately or unintentionally limited and expanded; hence agency is open to be designed towards a preferred level of capacity. In the context of collaborations, designed structures, rules and norms then become the main lever to manipulate agency and thereby power dynamics, according to prefigured values and principles. Thus far, the collective agency in AuroraAI seems to be affected by the ramifications of structural limitations regarding actor involvement, open communication and the collaborative engagement regarding a partly prefigured techno-centric agenda. I propose a strategic reframing towards jointly deliberated values of public good within a wider network of actors in their self-determination of digital futures. Structures that guarantee continuous public engagement are not only considered a matter of principle but as a direct means for sustaining relational trust between the government and civil society, as well as to augment internal goal consistency and enhanced legitimacy. Hence, the study acknowledges the design of agency via formal and informal structures to be the reflection and reproduction of value-decisions regarding power dynamics in a collaboration and its political environment

The Rockefeller Foundation Program NYC Cultural Innovation Fund: Evaluation

The Rockefeller Foundation launched the NYC Cultural Innovation Fund (CIF) in2007. Since then, it has supported six rounds of annual grantmaking, resulting in99 grants to 86 nonprofit cultural and community organizations in New York City.Grants across the six years 2007–2012 totaled $16.3 million.An Evaluation Team headed by Helicon Collaborative assessed CIF for the periodDecember 2012 to May 2013 based on Terms of Reference issued by the RockefellerFoundation in September 2012

Policy Partners: Making the Case for State Investments in Culture

Points to increasing evidence that governors and other state policymakers consider the development of cultural resources integral to comprehensive plans aimed at stimulating regional economic growth