Matching Items (18)
Description
This dissertation consists of three essays, each examining distinct aspects about public organization adaptation to extreme events using evidence from public transit agencies under the influence of extreme weather in the United States (U.S.). The first essay focuses on predicting organizational adaptive behavior. Building on extant theories on adaptation and organizational learning, it develops a theoretical framework to uncover the pathways through which extreme events impact public organizations and identify the key learning mechanisms involved in adaptation. Using a structural equation model on data from a 2016 national survey, the study highlights the critical role of risk perception to translate signals from the external environment to organizational adaptive behavior.
The second essay expands on the first one to incorporate the organizational environment and model the adaptive system. Combining an agent-based model and qualitative interviews with key decision makers, the study investigates how adaptation occurs over time in multiplex contexts consisting of the natural hazards, organizations, institutions and social networks. The study ends with a series of refined propositions about the mechanisms involved in public organization adaptation. Specifically, the analysis suggests that risk perception needs to be examined relative to risk tolerance to determine organizational motivation to adapt, and underscore the criticality of coupling between the motivation and opportunities to enable adaptation. The results further show that the coupling can be enhanced through lowering organizational risk perception decay or synchronizing opportunities with extreme event occurrences to promote adaptation.
The third essay shifts the gaze from adaptation mechanisms to organizational outcomes. It uses a stochastic frontier analysis to quantify the impacts of extreme events on public organization performance and, importantly, the role of organizational adaptive capacity in moderating the impacts. The findings confirm that extreme events negatively affect organizational performance and that organizations with higher adaptive capacity are more able to mitigate those effects, thereby lending support to research efforts in the first two essays dedicated to identifying preconditions and mechanisms involved in the adaptation process. Taken together, this dissertation comprehensively advances understanding about public organization adaptation to extreme events.
The second essay expands on the first one to incorporate the organizational environment and model the adaptive system. Combining an agent-based model and qualitative interviews with key decision makers, the study investigates how adaptation occurs over time in multiplex contexts consisting of the natural hazards, organizations, institutions and social networks. The study ends with a series of refined propositions about the mechanisms involved in public organization adaptation. Specifically, the analysis suggests that risk perception needs to be examined relative to risk tolerance to determine organizational motivation to adapt, and underscore the criticality of coupling between the motivation and opportunities to enable adaptation. The results further show that the coupling can be enhanced through lowering organizational risk perception decay or synchronizing opportunities with extreme event occurrences to promote adaptation.
The third essay shifts the gaze from adaptation mechanisms to organizational outcomes. It uses a stochastic frontier analysis to quantify the impacts of extreme events on public organization performance and, importantly, the role of organizational adaptive capacity in moderating the impacts. The findings confirm that extreme events negatively affect organizational performance and that organizations with higher adaptive capacity are more able to mitigate those effects, thereby lending support to research efforts in the first two essays dedicated to identifying preconditions and mechanisms involved in the adaptation process. Taken together, this dissertation comprehensively advances understanding about public organization adaptation to extreme events.
ContributorsZhang, Fengxiu (Author) / Welch, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Barton, Michael (Committee member) / Bretschneider, Stuart (Committee member) / Feeney, Mary K. (Committee member) / Maroulis, Spiro (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
According to hedonism about happiness, all and only enjoyable experiences are the basic constituents of one’s happiness, and these experiences contribute to one’s happiness just to the extent that they have a greater intensity or duration. After defending this view, I show that it must be amended to count as an equally plausible theory of what constitutes one’s well-being. I then present two such amended versions of hedonism about well-being. The first, which I call objective hedonism, adds the claim that the objective worth of the things one enjoys also makes a difference to the extent to which an enjoyable experience contributes to one’s well-being. The second, which I call reliabilist hedonism, adds the claim that one’s evaluative intuitions about which things are good for one track which things have proven themselves to one to reliably lead to enjoyable experience. I conclude that reliabilist hedonism constitutes a revival of hedonism about well-being.
ContributorsFanciullo, James (Author) / Portmore, Douglas W. (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / DesRoches, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The paper reviews some of the models of consequentialist justice, the nature of social contracts, and the social coordination of behaviors through social norms.
The challenge with actualizing justice in many contemporary societies is the broad and often conflicting individual beliefs on rights and responsibilities that each member of a society maintains to describe the opportunities and compensations they attribute to themselves and others. This obscurity is compounded through a lack of academic or political alignment on the definition and tenets of justice.
The result of the deficiency of commonality of the definition and tenants of justice often result in myopic decisions by individuals and discontinuity within a society that reduce the available rights, obligations, opportunities, and/or compensations that could be available through alternative modalities.
The paper begins by assessing the challenge of establishing mutual trust in order to achieve cooperation. I then examine utility enhancement strategies available through cooperation. Next, I turn to models that describe natural and artificial sources of social contacts, game theory, and evolutionary fitness to produce beneficial results. I then examine social norms, including the dual inheritance theory, as models which can selectively reinforce certain cooperative behaviors and reduce others. In conclusion, a possible connection among these models to improve the overall fitness of society as defined by the net average increase in available utility, rights, opportunities, and compensations is offered.
Through an examination of concepts that inform individual choice and coordination with others, concepts within social coordination, the nature of social contracts, and consequentialist justice to coordinate behaviors through social norms may illustrate an integrated perspective and, through additional examination, produce a comprehensive model to describe how societies could identify and foster just human coordination.
The challenge with actualizing justice in many contemporary societies is the broad and often conflicting individual beliefs on rights and responsibilities that each member of a society maintains to describe the opportunities and compensations they attribute to themselves and others. This obscurity is compounded through a lack of academic or political alignment on the definition and tenets of justice.
The result of the deficiency of commonality of the definition and tenants of justice often result in myopic decisions by individuals and discontinuity within a society that reduce the available rights, obligations, opportunities, and/or compensations that could be available through alternative modalities.
The paper begins by assessing the challenge of establishing mutual trust in order to achieve cooperation. I then examine utility enhancement strategies available through cooperation. Next, I turn to models that describe natural and artificial sources of social contacts, game theory, and evolutionary fitness to produce beneficial results. I then examine social norms, including the dual inheritance theory, as models which can selectively reinforce certain cooperative behaviors and reduce others. In conclusion, a possible connection among these models to improve the overall fitness of society as defined by the net average increase in available utility, rights, opportunities, and compensations is offered.
Through an examination of concepts that inform individual choice and coordination with others, concepts within social coordination, the nature of social contracts, and consequentialist justice to coordinate behaviors through social norms may illustrate an integrated perspective and, through additional examination, produce a comprehensive model to describe how societies could identify and foster just human coordination.
ContributorsHerro, C. R (Author) / Armendt, Brad (Thesis advisor) / McGregor, Joan (Committee member) / DesRoches, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Previous studies of turnover have focused mainly on factors influencing turnover intention or turnover behavior. Fewer studies delve into career outcomes after individuals’ turnover. However, turnover is not the end of the decision-making process. Due to the boundaryless career (Arthur, 1994) and extensive job mobility in the modern workforce (Stewart, 2002), it is timely to know the effect of turnover on individual career evolvement. The three essays in this dissertation will delve into turnover and career outcomes using data of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) personnel in the United States. The first essay explores the effect of past voluntary and involuntary turnover on individuals’ job satisfaction, salary, and number of people supervised. The second essay compares gender differences in voluntary turnover patterns and the effects of voluntary turnover on career outcomes. The third essay delves into STEM personnel job mobility across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, with a focus on sector switch and job satisfaction change.
ContributorsWang, Qingqing (Author) / Bozeman, Barry (Thesis advisor) / Bretschneider, Stuart (Committee member) / Stritch, Justin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Local governments are creatures of their ecosystems. In this dissertation, institutional influences on local government finances are assessed both theoretically and empirically in this three-essay dissertation. Employing two tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) and local government form, this dissertation evaluates how these three components along with the local government ecology, influence financial outcomes around local fiscal condition, revenue capacity, and forecasting bias. First, this dissertation examines the effect of removing assessment restrictions on the solvency of local governments. As all TELs are not equivalent, expected impacts from assessment restrictions should be comparatively minimal. Using a multiple synthetic matching design, I match Minnesota municipalities against weighted counterfactuals before the lifting of assessment restrictions in 2011 and evaluate outcomes. Results indicate that municipal solvency was unaffected by a release from assessment restrictions.
The second essay evaluates the moderating effect of voter support of TELs on property taxes. I propose that municipalities in favor of restrictions would have limited tax growth, even without restrictions; and oppositional constituencies face the greatest shift. Using voter support for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights Amendment in Colorado as a moderator, constituent preferences differentiate the change in property tax trends from implementation of the amendment. Employing both a Hausman-Taylor model and a comparative matching design, a significant relationship is found between the impact of property tax restrictions and the preferences of local government voters.
In the last essay, I investigate an association between form of government and municipal revenue forecasting bias. Granting that a municipal governments form alters the nature of the governance that it provides; the essay presents that a reformed council-manager form of government would have lower revenue forecast bias via political pressure than a mayor-council form. Results from pooled ordinary least squares design indicate no statistically significant relationship between forecast bias and municipal form of government.
The dissertation serves to illuminate, and eliminate, some institutional predictors of local government finances, and intones an ecological dominance over local government finance. Further, the dissertation provide significant nuance in how additional research can provide definitive answers on the effects of structural changes on the finances of local governments.
ContributorsShumberger, Jason D (Author) / Singla, Akheil (Thesis advisor) / Bretschneider, Stuart (Thesis advisor) / Swindell, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
In universities, such as Arizona State, students are becoming homeless at an alarming rate. These homeless ASU students are often invisible, as seen through the lack of information on who they are and what resources the university has developed to help them. Typically, students arrive at university campuses with most of the resources required for them to pursue a degree. However, several economic factors such as unemployment or financial instability can impact these resources which influence students ability to stay enrolled in classes. This feature is reflected in the well understood concept of the starving student. Despite this paradigm, the fact remains that students under this stress are attending classes and are under financial stress to do so while being unable to meet their basic needs. These intertwined elements result in ASU students becoming exposed to cyclical needs-insecurities including homelessness.
Therefore, the team decided to develop a project called Sun Devils Together which addresses the needs of ASUs students facing homelessness and overall aims to help increase the accessibility of available resources through reducing the silo effect that occurs due to lack of communication between different departments and increases faculty, staff, and student awareness regarding the issue. In order to achieve this, the team has collaborated with the Assistant Dean of Students to produce a training module for ASU faculty, professional staff, and students. The team is contributing information to the creation of a new website that will have all the resources available to students in one place. In addition, the team will create a coded pamphlet with a map of resources that will be given out to different departments around campus that students may potentially reach out to for help while informing those departments regarding the existence of other departments that work towards the same cause.
Therefore, the team decided to develop a project called Sun Devils Together which addresses the needs of ASUs students facing homelessness and overall aims to help increase the accessibility of available resources through reducing the silo effect that occurs due to lack of communication between different departments and increases faculty, staff, and student awareness regarding the issue. In order to achieve this, the team has collaborated with the Assistant Dean of Students to produce a training module for ASU faculty, professional staff, and students. The team is contributing information to the creation of a new website that will have all the resources available to students in one place. In addition, the team will create a coded pamphlet with a map of resources that will be given out to different departments around campus that students may potentially reach out to for help while informing those departments regarding the existence of other departments that work towards the same cause.
ContributorsAbdul Rashid, Maryam (Writer of accompanying material) / Dosier, Skyliana (Writer of accompanying material) / Sanchez Marquez, Omar (Writer of accompanying material)
Created2020-05-13
Description
Globally we are struggling to match the need for development with the available resources. Kate Raworth’s (2012) developed the idea of a “safe and just space” as a balance between the planetary boundary approach and ensuring a level of basic needs satisfaction for everyone. O’Neill et al. (2018) argue that countries are currently not able to provide their populations with basic needs without concurrently exceeding planetary boundary measures. While attempts have been made to get people to change their habits through moral self-sacrifice, this has not been successful. Kate Soper (2008) argues that a change towards sustainability will only be possible if an alternative to high consumption is offered, without trade-offs in well-being. Technological improvements are often thought to end up providing solutions to the problem of overconsumption, but as Jackson (2005) shows convincingly, this is highly unlikely due to the overwhelming scale of changes required.
‘Alternative hedonism’ (Soper 2008) is a philosophical approach that has been proposed to solve this dilemma. By changing what humanity pursues to be less focused on consumption and more linked to community interaction and living healthy, fulfilling lives, we would simultaneously reduce stress on the globally limited resources and sinks. By developing and understanding satiation points – the point beyond which well-being no longer increases because of increased consumption - affluence that wastes resources without improving well-being could be reduced. This paper explores how ‘alternative hedonism’ and the development of ‘satiation points’ could be helpful in getting humanity closer to the ‘safe and just space’. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the challenges that taking up of ‘alternative hedonism’ would entail.
ContributorsLilje, Markus (Author) / Abson, David (Contributor) / DesRoches, Tyler (Contributor) / Aggarwal, Rimjhim (Contributor)
Created2018-07-04
Description
Eating meat leads to several environmental threats, hence reducing one’s consumption can be a direct way to avoid environmental degradation. While sustainability scientists know about the environmental degradation due to meat consumption, many of them still choose to eat meat. It is questionable whether a broader societal transformation towards sustainable consumption is likely if people with the necessary knowledge and values already struggle and fail to implement a sustainable behavior. How can they expect others to change if they do not change themselves? This paper addresses the knowledge-action gap that is prevalent among sustainability scientists regarding their meat consumption and how they deal with it. Qualitative semi-structured interviews and thematic content analysis are applied to analyze the main internal barriers to pro environmental behavior sustainability scientists face as well as what narratives and rationalizations they use to overcome the dissonance between their knowledge and actions. The internal barriers they demonstrated were emotional non-involvement and a perceived lack of power of the individual. The strategies used to overcome the dissonance were conscious consumption narratives and rationalizing the value of meat consumption, specifically its perceived sustainable dimensions. This paper also highlights that sustainability scientists do feel responsible to lead by example in the context of societal transformation, but do not always follow through with behavior change. This study concludes it is necessary that sustainability scientists do so more consequently to embrace their role as trendsetters and change agents for a sustainable transformation.
ContributorsFalkenstein, Anna (Author) / Upham, Paul (Contributor) / DesRoches, Tyler (Contributor) / von Wehrden, Henrik (Contributor)
Created2018-07-02