Challenges of (Dis) Connectedness in the ‘Big Question Methodologies’ in Public Administration

The “big questions” articles previously published in Public Administration Review found a widely divergent set of questions rather than a shared research agenda. This article applies the concept of layers of society to analyzing the author\u27s starting points and developing questions that link the organizational and institutional levels. Connecting these levels offers the potential to overcome the limitations of problem solving on only one level. In addition, this framework explains the diversity of research in public administration as potentially productive and connected, rather than fragmented and in intellectual disarray. This article offers four researchable questions that connect the organizational and institutional levels. The proposed questions build on existing research and address practical problems in public administration. This framework provides a typology that expects diverse research questions and can productively connect researchers with each other and with the complex challenges of democracy

Governance: The Collision of Politics and Cooperation

Three newly created public agencies built regional rail projects in Los Angeles County from 1978 through 2002. The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, as newly created public agencies, were nothing less than experiments in regional governance. Conventional understanding of these agencies only partially explains their successes and failures. A path to improved understanding is to combine research on the politics of designing new public agencies with research on cooperation in dealing with collective action problems. What emerges is an untold story of American politics: the evolution of mechanisms that promote cooperation in regional governance structures. Four major findings emerge: (1) conflict is inevitable; (2) public agencies can succeed despite the problems of politics; (3) successful regional solutions are intensely local; and (4) cooperation emerges from supply-side mechanisms that create new resources rather than from allocation of existing resources. Overall, institutional analysis uncovered in each case a shared search for institutional responses to overcome political design problems. The limits of politics were found to be neither random nor predestined. Likewise, the emergence of governance solutions was neither random nor foreordained

The inhibition of ovulation and accompanying abnormal estrogen excretion and fasting by white leghorn pullets fed ronnel (O, O-dimethly O- (2, 4, 5 trichlorophenyl) phosphorothioate).

EntomologyDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.

Marginalized: The Missing Public Management Research on Homelessness

Abstract Homelessness is long-standing issue in American cities, with significant human consequences. However, current public management research does not typically include research on public agencies responding to the needs of the homeless. This paper uses a case study to explore the disconnect between public management research and those living on the margins of society as homeless. The case study illustrates the potential for multiple streams of research in public management to effectively research the complexities of homelessness. This paper makes the case for that public agency responses to the varied dimensions of homelessness align with public management research, with the potential to expand the scope of public management research to benefit the homeless as a marginalized community. A case study of homelessness in Los Angeles County is explored to show the potential for well-developed lines of public management research to be applied to the public agency response to homelessness. This paper contributes three components to public management research: one, noting that homelessness is understudied in public management; two, applying current research streams in public management to develop analytic leverage for understanding the public management dimensions of homelessness; and three, exploring the potential for varied streams of public management research to address a marginalized community of vulnerable individuals

Comparative analytical methods for the detection of ronnel or related toxic residues in chicken eggs.

Thesis (M.S.

Managing Large Task Public-Private Partnerships

Memo Overview Panel Recommendations on improving public and private relationships: There have been numerous reports from GAO and other organizations that all levels of Governments, even assuming normal economic growth, will experience fiscal shortfalls stretching far into the future. There are also numerous reports concluding that unless we undertake major investment programs in our collective goods issues of education, infrastructure, energy and health that we will not be able to accelerate growth and alter this future. Our panel is developing strategies and recommendations, both short and long term, on putting the organizations-public, private and non-profit together differently, with new “rules of the game,” so that synergy, efficiencies, partnerships and innovation will enable us to forge approaches that can help address these dilemmas. In our panel’s deliberations we have observed that this approach is not new and that there have been abundant examples of such initiatives in our history. The panel noted that we should learn the good and bad lessons from this rich history. Short term: The recent IBM Center for the Business of Government report on the lessons from the Recovery had a number of recommendations that could alter the way that Government operates that could substantially improve the way governments at all levels interact with other sectors. By setting outcome goals, focusing on team implementation approaches, assigning and assessing risks, improving contracting and procurement, and horizontal team building all highlighted what could be done to significantly improve the effectiveness of how we work across sectors. The lessons of hurricane Katrina, and the NAPA panel on the improvements in the budgeting and implementation process of the Corp’s of Engineers, along with the lessons of the recent Gulf oil spill all show the power of partnerships in problem solving. Recommendations are being developed from these lessons that could be implemented by the next administration. Long term: The panel is looking at experiments in new governance structures in the country, which if expanded could alter the nature of the relationship among the sectors. The panel defined the operating principles upon which a new relationship among the sectors could be built: starting point is outcomes and results; align funding with planning up front; look at all costs over time; use business plans with identified funding streams that relies on beneficial use funding streams linked to mission and results; look at alternative systems; move from risk avoidance to risk identification, risk mitigation, and risk management. The panel also concluded that many of the recent experiments had generated important learning lessons particularly relating to transparency and accountability. The Presidio Trust Act established by Congress to reduce the largest item in the Park Service Budget, and the subsequent NAPA panel on the Trust, provides a good example of a “public benefit corporation” – a non-profit organization that embodies the panel’s operating principles and addresses the concerns identified. Given these principles and examples, the panel is developing recommendations that would be helpful to the next administration in the development and operations of: infrastructure, security and safety for our ports of entry, park services, etc. Conclusion: These short and long term recommendations would enable experimentation in doing things differently and putting ourselves and our organizations together differently so that the major asset in America, innovation in the way we organize ourselves to solve problems, can be used to deal with our difficult fiscal future and our need in the same time to make significant investments

Developing Effective Mechanisms that Promote Fiscal Sustainability

State and local governments will likely continue to face the stress and shortfalls caused by the Great Recession for an extended period. Three years of research on fiscal sustainability in local government in Southern California identifies strategies that can be used to address this stress, including options for the executive, budget, and finance functions of these jurisdictions

Aligning Fiscal and Environmental Sustainability

The future of environmental sustainability will be driven by the capacity of local, state and federal levels of government to develop fiscal sustainability. For example, in the case of the Alameda Corridor in Los Angeles County environmental sustainability advanced only because of the fiscal sustainability of the project. The environmental improvements of reducing particulate car and truck pollutants, as well as remediation of underground water pollution, were financed by the innovative public–private partnership that generated revenues to pay for long-neglected environmental degradations (Callahan 2007). The Alameda Corridor rail construction case illustrates a small but emerging set of cases showing local government leaders linking fiscal de cisions to environmental issues (Wang et al. 2013), as well as the connection of public administration and environmental sustainability (Fiorino 2010). In research on leadership adaptation to fiscal stress, a recent set of case studies offered practical lessons for connecting fiscal and environmental sustainability (Pisano and Callahan 2012; 2013). These practices include: framing fiscal stress as a catalyst for addressing long-term natural resource needs, done recently in San Bernardino County; developing fiscal expertise before a crisis, in Los Angeles County; and more inclusive budget processes to develop trust, as found in the Whittier School District (Rubio-Cortes 2012). The findings from these and other cases offer actionable lessons for leaders in the public sector and communities to link environmental and fiscal sustainability. This chapter describes examples of fiscal sustainability that can fund environmental sustainability