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This dissertation develops a framework for the analysis of fiscal sustainability among U.S. local governments. Fiscal sustainability is defined as a type of fiscal condition that allows a government to continue service provision now and in the future without introducing disruptive revenue or expenditure patterns. An assessment of local fiscal

This dissertation develops a framework for the analysis of fiscal sustainability among U.S. local governments. Fiscal sustainability is defined as a type of fiscal condition that allows a government to continue service provision now and in the future without introducing disruptive revenue or expenditure patterns. An assessment of local fiscal sustainability is based on three types of indicators: pension liability funding, debt burden, and budgetary balance. Three main factors affect a government's long-term financial condition: government structure, financial structure and performance, and local economic base. This dissertation uses a combination of the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of Government Finances and Employment, the U.S. Census Bureau Decennial Census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and the Government Finance Officers Association financial indicators database to study the effects of the three factors on local fiscal sustainability. It is a pioneer effort to use government-wide accounting information from Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports to predict local fiscal sustainability status. The results of econometric models suggest that pension liability funding is most affected by the size of government, debt burden is most strongly associated with the size of local economic base; and budgetary balance is influenced by the degree of local own-source revenue diversification.
ContributorsGorina, Evgenia (Author) / Chapman, Jeffrey I. (Thesis advisor) / Herbst, Chris M. (Committee member) / Miller, Gerald J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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This research investigates the relationship between municipal annexation and local government's financial condition. It addresses a significant gap in the literature by focusing on the roles of local government revenue structure and land use situations in affecting annexation's fiscal implications. The major research question is how these two categories of

This research investigates the relationship between municipal annexation and local government's financial condition. It addresses a significant gap in the literature by focusing on the roles of local government revenue structure and land use situations in affecting annexation's fiscal implications. The major research question is how these two categories of local circumstances affect annexation's fiscal implications, and what patterns may emerge based on the empirical evidence. With two parts of empirical analyses, I explore the features of the moderating effects of these two local circumstances: how the interactions between annexation and local circumstances influence local government's financial condition. The first part of the analyses examines the role of local government's revenue structure in affecting annexation's fiscal implications. Using a sample of more than six thousand municipalities, empirical analyses of OLS and interactive regression models show the effects of local taxing authority and revenue reliance. The second part underscores the effects of land use along with annexations in municipalities in the Phoenix metropolitan area across two decades. Utilizing GIS data for annexation and land use, it presents spatial patterns of annexation activities and land use changes. A fixed effects model with panel data is used to investigate the joint effects of annexation and land use on local government's financial condition. The complicated effects of different land use situations are identified. The findings suggest that annexation has the potential for fiscal gains to local government, but its positive fiscal effects may diminish if the municipality has less capability to make suitable revenue arrangement, and if a high proportion of land in the municipality that remains undeveloped. Above all, this research offers a comprehensive perspective regarding municipal annexation, land use and local government finance, to inform a larger debate of urban growth and local financial management.
ContributorsWang, Jing (Author) / Chapman, Jeffrey I. (Thesis advisor) / Lewis, Paul G (Committee member) / Herbst, Christopher M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Government performance and accountability have grown to be predominant areas within public administration literature over the last forty years. The research presented in this dissertation examines the relationship between citizen satisfaction and local government performance. Citizen review of service delivery provides vital feedback that facilitates better resource management within local

Government performance and accountability have grown to be predominant areas within public administration literature over the last forty years. The research presented in this dissertation examines the relationship between citizen satisfaction and local government performance. Citizen review of service delivery provides vital feedback that facilitates better resource management within local government. Using data from a single jurisdiction, two aspects of citizen satisfaction are reviewed. This includes citizen review of overall city performance, and citizen satisfaction with individual service delivery. Logit regression analysis is used to test several factors that affect citizen evaluation of service delivery in local government, while ordinary least squares regression is used to test the relationship between personal factors and citizen evaluation of specific local services. The results generated four major findings that contribute to the scholarly body of knowledge and local government knowledge application. First, citizens who are predisposed to supporting the local jurisdiction are more likely to rate service delivery high. Second, customer service is important. Third, those who experience government services similarly will collectively react similarly to the service experience. Finally, the length of residency has an impact on satisfaction levels with specific services. Implications for the literature as well as for practice are discussed.
ContributorsMcNamara, Catherine (Author) / Alozie, Nicholas O (Thesis advisor) / Cayer, Joseph (Thesis advisor) / Lucio, Joanna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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A sustainability strategy is a distinctive pattern in an organization’s sustainability programs that are designed to encourage individuals and organizations to behave in more sustainable ways. Local governments worldwide have increasingly pursued sustainability strategies to improve their community health and environment by adopting sustainability programs that span a variety of

A sustainability strategy is a distinctive pattern in an organization’s sustainability programs that are designed to encourage individuals and organizations to behave in more sustainable ways. Local governments worldwide have increasingly pursued sustainability strategies to improve their community health and environment by adopting sustainability programs that span a variety of environmental issues and use a diverse set of policy instruments. Despite increasing prevalence of sustainability efforts at the local level, as yet, there has been little understanding of variation in their sustainability strategies and its relationship with environmental performance outcomes. Prior research has mainly focused on the number of programs that local governments adopt and assumed that local governments with more sustainability programs are more likely to improve the environment than local governments with fewer programs. However, local governments’ sustainability strategies require more nuanced understanding about variations in their sustainability programs, in particular across their program design in that a sustainability strategy relates to both quantity and design aspects of programs.

I address these research gaps in three essays that explore the research question of (1) how design features of sustainability programs vary across US local governments, (2) which factors influence variations in program design, (3) how these factors are related to environmental quality outcomes in communities. By assessing US local governments’ sustainability programs, I found that even for local governments that adopt a same number of sustainability programs, they design their programs differently, especially across the breadth of environmental issues that local governments address in their sustainability programs and the breadth of policy instrument that are used in their programs. Findings suggest that pressures from external stakeholders and variations in local governments’ organizational capacities are related to local governments’ decisions to purse different types of sustainability strategies. Finally, I find that local governments that design their programs more comprehensively are likely to have greater environmental performance outcomes in their community. My dissertation expands existing research in a significant way by focusing on the importance of program design and its link with improved environmental performance, thereby providing important implications for distinguishing among local governments’ sustainability strategies.
ContributorsJi, Hyunjung (Author) / Darnall, Nicole (Thesis advisor) / Corley, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Feiock, Richard C. (Committee member) / Maroulis, Spiro (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
This dissertation examines the use of social media technologies by US local governments for internal and external collaboration. Collaboration is defined as the process of working together, pooling resources, sharing information and jointly making decisions to address common issues. The need for greater collaboration is evident from numerous examples in

This dissertation examines the use of social media technologies by US local governments for internal and external collaboration. Collaboration is defined as the process of working together, pooling resources, sharing information and jointly making decisions to address common issues. The need for greater collaboration is evident from numerous examples in which public agencies have failed to effectively collaborate and address complex challenges. Meanwhile, the rise of social computing promises the development of ‘cultures of participation’ that enhance collaborative learning and knowledge production as part of everyday work. But beyond these gaps and expectations, there has been little systematic empirical research investigating the use of these powerful and flexible technologies for collaboration purposes. In line with prior research, my dissertation draws on sociotechnical and resource dependence theoretical approaches to examine how the interaction between technological and social context of an organization determine the adoption and use of a technology for a task. However, in a break with prior work that often aggregates social media technologies as one class of technology, this dissertation theorizes different classes of social media based on their functionality and purpose. As a result, it develops more explicit means by which organization, technical, and environmental context matter for effective collaboration. Based on the aforementioned theoretical approaches, the dissertation develops a theoretical model and several hypotheses, which it tests using a unique 2012 national survey of local governments in the US conducted by the Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies at ASU. Overall, the findings of this dissertation highlight that the adoption and use of social media technologies for collaboration purposes can be understood as an outcome of stakeholder participation, innovativeness, and social media type. Insights from this dissertation contribute both to our theoretical understanding about social media technology adoption and use in government and provide useful information for agencies.
ContributorsKrishnamurthy, Rashmi (Author) / Welch, Eric W (Thesis advisor) / Desouza, Kevin C (Committee member) / Feeney, Mary (Committee member) / Moon, M Jae (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
In recent years, public service has confronted the challenge of decreasing employee well-being, evidenced by increased burnout and turnover. One of the threats to employee well-being is the challenge of balancing increasing job demands and decreasing job resources. The imbalance between public servants’ job demands and resources has been exacerbated

In recent years, public service has confronted the challenge of decreasing employee well-being, evidenced by increased burnout and turnover. One of the threats to employee well-being is the challenge of balancing increasing job demands and decreasing job resources. The imbalance between public servants’ job demands and resources has been exacerbated during a time of heightened stress due to a global pandemic. This perfect storm of imbalance along with the stressors from a global pandemic offers an opportunity to examine how public organizations and leaders can help employees maintain or improve workplace well-being. One way public employees can handle this imbalance between job demands and job resources is by relying on coping resources. Coping resources are personally and environmentally produced assets that work in conjunction with coping mechanisms to increase employee well-being. All job resources can be considered coping resources, but not all coping resources are job resources. Public organizations can leverage certain types of coping resources to reduce the impact of job demands and job resource imbalances, including resources that emanate from the organization itself, like leadership. Instrumental leadership helps employees address stressors by monitoring the environment, facilitating goal achievement, offering constructive feedback, and providing visionary leadership. To investigate the relationship between coping resources and employee well-being, I examine the relationship between coping resources and employee well-being, focusing on the relationship between instrumental leadership and burnout. In Chapters 1 and 2, I discuss my dissertation and review the theory behind this relationship. Chapter 3 examines the different types of coping resources (instrumental leadership, affective organizational commitment, self-efficacy, and social belonging) and the connection between each of the coping resources and markers of employee well-being (i.e., burnout and stress) as well as the mediating role of two coping mechanisms (self-distraction and planning). In Chapter 4, I review the dataset, which is a repeated measures design with two data points from city employees working in a large city in the southwest United States. Chapter 5 presents the analysis of these relationships. Chapter 6 summarizes my findings, shares the limitations of this research, and presents future ideas for research.
ContributorsAllgood, Michelle (Author) / Jensen, Ulrich (Thesis advisor) / Stritch, Justin (Committee member) / Miller, Susan (Committee member) / Smith, Amy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
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The City of Portland has 21 distinct agencies/bureaus with Facebook pages. Of these 21 Facebook pages, three were selected for in-depth case study analysis. Qualitative methods including descriptive coding (Saldana, 2009; Saldaña, 2003; Wolcott, 1994) and content analysis were the primary methodological tools used while the individual SMS post was

The City of Portland has 21 distinct agencies/bureaus with Facebook pages. Of these 21 Facebook pages, three were selected for in-depth case study analysis. Qualitative methods including descriptive coding (Saldana, 2009; Saldaña, 2003; Wolcott, 1994) and content analysis were the primary methodological tools used while the individual SMS post was the unit of analysis. Basic quantitative methods were used to generate tabular values for general post/agency comparison.

This research identifies SMS usage patterns, differences, and policy implications within a large city government where multiple agencies have independent control over their own SMS sites/pages. It examines how each agency/bureau uses SMS and to determine if such use fits within Iris Marion Young's deliberative democracy model. This research contributes to voids in the academic literature in the topics of governmental SMS usage, intra-city SMS usage, and SMS as a mechanism for promoting deliberative democracy.
ContributorsChing, Brandon (Author) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Thesis advisor) / Lucio, Joanna (Committee member) / Jones, Matthew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015