Matching Items (264)
Description
The jobless recovery of the Great Recession has led policymakers and citizens alike to ask what can be done to better protect regions from the cascading effects of an economic downturn. Economic growth strategies that aim to redevelop a waterfront for tourism or attract high growth companies to the area, for example, have left regions vulnerable by consolidating resources in just a few industry sectors or parts of town. A promising answer that coincided with growing interest in regional innovation policy has been to promote entrepreneurship for bottom-up, individual-led regional development. However, these policies have also failed to maximize the potential for bottom-up development by focusing on high skill entrepreneurs and high tech industry sectors, such as green energy and nanotechnology. This dissertation uses the extended case method to determine whether industry cluster theory can be usefully extended from networks of high skill innovators to entrepreneurs in traditional trades. It uses U.S. Census data and in-person interviews in cluster and non-cluster neighborhoods in Dayton, Ohio to assess whether traditional entrepreneurs cluster and whether social networks explain high rates of neighborhood self-employment. Entrepreneur interviews are also conducted in Raleigh, North Carolina to explore regional resilience by comparing the behavior of traditional entrepreneurs in the ascendant tech-hub region of Raleigh and stagnant Rustbelt region of Dayton. The quantitative analysis documents, for the first time, a minor degree of neighborhood-level entrepreneur clustering. In interviews, entrepreneurs offered clear examples of social networks that resemble those shown to make regional clusters successful, and they helped clarify that a slightly larger geography may reveal more clustering. Comparing Raleigh and Dayton entrepreneurs, the study found few differences in their behavior to explain the regions' differing long-term economic trends. However, charitable profit-seeking and trial and error learning are consistent behaviors that may distinguish traditional, small scale entrepreneurs from larger export-oriented business owners and contribute to a region's ability to withstand recessions and other shocks. The research informs growing policy interest in bottom-up urban development by offering qualitative evidence for how local mechanics, seamstresses, lawn care businesses and many others can be regional assets. Future research should use larger entrepreneur samples to systematically test the relationship between entrepreneur resilience behaviors to regional economic outcomes.
ContributorsAuer, Jennifer Claire (Author) / Chapman, Jeffrey (Thesis advisor) / Johnston, Erik W., 1977- (Committee member) / Jurik, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Newer communication technologies (CTs) will always vie with more mature technologies for the attention of time-constrained legislators. As continual advances in CT make new methods of communication available to legislators, it is important to understand how newly introduced CTs influence novel and changing legislator behaviors. The mixed-method research presented in this study provides deep insights into the relationships between legislators and the CTs they use. This study offers many contributions, among them: it effectively bridges a gap between existing Internet Enabled CT (IECT) behavioral studies on non-legislators by expanding them to include legislator behavior; it expands existing narrowly focused research into the use of CT by legislators by including both IECT and mature CTs such as face-to-face meetings and telephone; it provides a fresh perspective on the factors that make CTs important to legislators, and it uncovers legislator behaviors that are both useful, and potentially harmful, to the process of democracy in the United States. In addition, this study confirms and extends existing research in areas such as minority party constituent communication frequency, and extends the topic of legislator CT behavior into some unanticipated areas such as constituent selective behaviors and the use of text messaging during floor debates which effectively enable lobbyists and paid consultants to participate real-time in floor debates in the Arizona House and Senate.
ContributorsWest, Joe, 1959- (Author) / Corley, Elizabeth A (Thesis advisor) / Johnston, Erik W., 1977- (Committee member) / Svara, James H. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Most of challenges facing today's government cannot be resolved without collaborative efforts from multiple non-state stakeholders, organizations, and active participation from citizens. Collaborative governance has become an important form of management practice. Yet the success of this inclusive management approach depends on whether government agencies and all other involved parties can collectively deliberate and work toward the shared goals. This dissertation examines whether information technology (IT) tools and prior cooperative interactions can be used to facilitate the collaboration process, and how IT tools and prior cooperative interactions can, if at all, get citizens and communities more engaged in collaborative governance. It focuses on the individual and small groups engaged in deliberating on a local community problem, which is water sustainability in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Experiments were conducted to compare how people deliberate and interact with each other under different IT-facilitated deliberation environments and with different prehistory of interactions. The unique experimental site for this research is a designed deliberation space that can seat up to 25 participants surrounded by the immersive 260-degree seven-screen communal display. In total, 126 students from Arizona State University participated in the experiment. The experiment results show that the deliberation spaces can influence participants' engagement in the collaborative efforts toward collective goals. This dissertation demonstrates the great potential of well-designed IT-facilitated deliberation spaces for supporting policy deliberation and advancing collaborative governance. This dissertation provides practical suggestions for public managers and community leaders on how to design and develop the desired features of IT-facilitated interaction environments for face-to-face and computer-mediated online public deliberation activities. This dissertation also discusses lessons and strategies on how to build a stronger sense of community for promoting community-based efforts to achieve collective goals.
ContributorsHu, Qian (Author) / Cayer, N. Joseph (Thesis advisor) / Lan, Zhiyong (Thesis advisor) / Johnston, Erik W., 1977- (Committee member) / Shangraw, Ralph (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Urban areas face a host of sustainability problems ranging from air and water quality, to housing affordability, and sprawl reducing returns on infrastructure investments, among many others. To address such challenges, cities have begun to envision generational sustainability transitions, and coalesce transition arenas in context to manage those transitions. Transition arenas coordinate the efforts of diverse stakeholders in a setting conducive to making evidence-based decisions that guide a transition forward. Though espoused and studied in the literature, transition arenas still require further research on the specifics of agent selection, arena setting, and decision-making facilitation. This dissertation has three related contributions related to transition arenas. First, it describes a process that took place within Phoenix that focused on identifying, recruiting, and building the capacity of potential transition agents for a transition arena. As part of this, a first draft suggestion of plausible steps to take for identifying, recruiting, and building a team of transition agents is proposed followed by a brief discussion on how this step-by-step process could be evaluated in subsequent work. Second, building on such engagement, this dissertation then offers criteria for transition agent selection based on a review of the literature that includes the setting in which a transition arena occurs, and strategies to support successful facilitation of decision-making in that setting. Third, those criteria are operationalized to evaluate the facilitation of a specific decision (draft of a new transportation plan) in a specific transition arena: the Citizens Committee for the future of Phoenix Transportation. The goal of this dissertation is to articulate a first-draft framework for guiding the development and scientific evaluation of transition arenas. Future work is required to empirically validate the framework in other real-world transition arenas. A feasible research agenda is provides to support this work.
ContributorsHarlow, John (Author) / Hekler, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Golub, Aaron (Thesis advisor) / Johnston, Erik W., 1977- (Committee member) / Wiek, Arnim (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Many individual-level behavioral interventions improve health and well-being. However, most interventions exhibit considerable heterogeneity in response. Put differently, what might be effective on average might not be effective for specific individuals. From an individual’s perspective, many healthy behaviors exist that seem to have a positive impact. However, few existing tools support people in identifying interventions that work for them, personally.
One approach to support such personalization is via self-experimentation using single-case designs. ‘Hack Your Health’ is a tool that guides individuals through an 18-day self-experiment to test if an intervention they choose (e.g., meditation, gratitude journaling) improves their own psychological well-being (e.g., stress, happiness), whether it fits in their routine, and whether they enjoy it.
The purpose of this work was to conduct a formative evaluation of Hack Your Health to examine user burden, adherence, and to evaluate its usefulness in supporting decision-making about a health intervention. A mixed-methods approach was used, and two versions of the tool were tested via two waves of participants (Wave 1, N=20; Wave 2, N=8). Participants completed their self-experiments and provided feedback via follow-up surveys (n=26) and interviews (n=20).
Findings indicated that the tool had high usability and low burden overall. Average survey completion rate was 91%, and compliance to protocol was 72%. Overall, participants found the experience useful to test if their chosen intervention helped them. However, there were discrepancies between participants’ intuition about intervention effect and results from analyses. Participants often relied on intuition/lived experience over results for decision-making. This suggested that the usefulness of Hack Your Health in its current form might be through the structure, accountability, and means for self-reflection it provided rather than the specific experimental design/results. Additionally, situations where performing interventions within a rigorous/restrictive experimental set-up may not be appropriate (e.g., when goal is to assess intervention enjoyment) were uncovered. Plausible design implications include: longer experimental and phase durations, accounting for non-compliance, missingness, and proximal/acute effects, and exploring strategies to complement quantitative data with participants’ lived experiences with interventions to effectively support decision-making. Future work should explore ways to balance scientific rigor with participants’ needs for such decision-making.
One approach to support such personalization is via self-experimentation using single-case designs. ‘Hack Your Health’ is a tool that guides individuals through an 18-day self-experiment to test if an intervention they choose (e.g., meditation, gratitude journaling) improves their own psychological well-being (e.g., stress, happiness), whether it fits in their routine, and whether they enjoy it.
The purpose of this work was to conduct a formative evaluation of Hack Your Health to examine user burden, adherence, and to evaluate its usefulness in supporting decision-making about a health intervention. A mixed-methods approach was used, and two versions of the tool were tested via two waves of participants (Wave 1, N=20; Wave 2, N=8). Participants completed their self-experiments and provided feedback via follow-up surveys (n=26) and interviews (n=20).
Findings indicated that the tool had high usability and low burden overall. Average survey completion rate was 91%, and compliance to protocol was 72%. Overall, participants found the experience useful to test if their chosen intervention helped them. However, there were discrepancies between participants’ intuition about intervention effect and results from analyses. Participants often relied on intuition/lived experience over results for decision-making. This suggested that the usefulness of Hack Your Health in its current form might be through the structure, accountability, and means for self-reflection it provided rather than the specific experimental design/results. Additionally, situations where performing interventions within a rigorous/restrictive experimental set-up may not be appropriate (e.g., when goal is to assess intervention enjoyment) were uncovered. Plausible design implications include: longer experimental and phase durations, accounting for non-compliance, missingness, and proximal/acute effects, and exploring strategies to complement quantitative data with participants’ lived experiences with interventions to effectively support decision-making. Future work should explore ways to balance scientific rigor with participants’ needs for such decision-making.
ContributorsPhatak, Sayali Shekhar (Author) / Buman, Matthew P (Thesis advisor) / Hekler, Eric B. (Committee member) / Huberty, Jennifer L (Committee member) / Johnston, Erik W., 1977- (Committee member) / Swan, Pamela D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This thesis consists of three projects employing complexity economics methods to explore firm dynamics. The first is the Firm Ecosystem Model, which addresses the institutional conditions of capital access and entrenched competitive advantage. Larger firms will be more competitive than smaller firms due to efficiencies of scale, but the persistence of larger firms is also supported institutionally through mechanisms such as tax policy, capital access mechanisms and industry-favorable legislation. At the same time, evidence suggests that small firms innovate more than larger firms, and an aggressive firm-as-value perspective incentivizes early investment in new firms in an attempt to capture that value. The Ecological Firm Model explores the effects of the differences in innovation and investment patterns and persistence rates between large and small firms.
The second project is the Structural Inertia Model, which is intended to build theory around why larger firms may be less successful in capturing new marketshare than smaller firms, as well as to advance fitness landscape methods. The model explores the possibility that firms with larger scopes may be less effective in mitigating the costs of cooperation because conditions may arise that cause intrafirm conflicts. The model is implemented on structured fitness landscapes derived using the maximal order of interaction (NM) formulation and described using local optima networks (LONs), thus integrating these novel techniques.
Finally, firm dynamics can serve as a proxy for the ease at which people can voluntarily enter into the legal cooperative agreements that constitute firms. The third project, the Emergent Firm model, is an exploration of how this dynamic of voluntary association may be affected by differing capital institutions, and explores the macroeconomic implications of the economies that emerge out of the various resulting firm populations.
The second project is the Structural Inertia Model, which is intended to build theory around why larger firms may be less successful in capturing new marketshare than smaller firms, as well as to advance fitness landscape methods. The model explores the possibility that firms with larger scopes may be less effective in mitigating the costs of cooperation because conditions may arise that cause intrafirm conflicts. The model is implemented on structured fitness landscapes derived using the maximal order of interaction (NM) formulation and described using local optima networks (LONs), thus integrating these novel techniques.
Finally, firm dynamics can serve as a proxy for the ease at which people can voluntarily enter into the legal cooperative agreements that constitute firms. The third project, the Emergent Firm model, is an exploration of how this dynamic of voluntary association may be affected by differing capital institutions, and explores the macroeconomic implications of the economies that emerge out of the various resulting firm populations.
ContributorsApplegate, Joffa Michele (Author) / Janssen, Marcus A (Thesis advisor) / Hoetker, Glenn (Committee member) / Johnston, Erik W., 1977- (Committee member) / Shutter, Shade (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The objective of this paper is to provide an educational diagnostic into the technology of blockchain and its application for the supply chain. Education on the topic is important to prevent misinformation on the capabilities of blockchain. Blockchain as a new technology can be confusing to grasp given the wide possibilities it can provide. This can convolute the topic by being too broad when defined. Instead, the focus will be maintained on explaining the technical details about how and why this technology works in improving the supply chain. The scope of explanation will not be limited to the solutions, but will also detail current problems. Both public and private blockchain networks will be explained and solutions they provide in supply chains. In addition, other non-blockchain systems will be described that provide important pieces in supply chain operations that blockchain cannot provide. Blockchain when applied to the supply chain provides improved consumer transparency, management of resources, logistics, trade finance, and liquidity.
ContributorsKrukar, Joel Michael (Author) / Oke, Adegoke (Thesis director) / Duarte, Brett (Committee member) / Hahn, Richard (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The passage of 2007's Legal Arizona Workers Act, which required all new hires to be tested for legal employment status through the federal E-Verify database, drastically changed the employment prospects for undocumented workers in the state. Using data from the 2007-2010 American Community Survey, this paper seeks to identify the impact of this law on the labor force in Arizona, specifically regarding undocumented workers and less educated native workers. Overall, the data shows that the wage bias against undocumented immigrants doubled in the four years studied, and the wages of native workers without a high school degree saw a temporary, positive increase compared to comparable workers in other states. The law did not have an effect on the wages of native workers with a high school degree.
ContributorsSantiago, Maria Christina (Author) / Pereira, Claudiney (Thesis director) / Mendez, Jose (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake, which hit Port-au-Prince in the late afternoon, was the cause of over 220,000 deaths and $8 billion in damages \u2014 roughly 120% of national GDP at the time. A Mw 7.5 earthquake struck rural Guatemala in the early morning in 1976 and caused 23,000-25,000 deaths, three times as many injuries, and roughly $1.1 billion in damages, which accounted for approximately 30% of Guatemala's GDP. The earthquake which hit just outside of Christchurch, New Zealand early in the morning on September 4, 2010 had a magnitude of 7.1 and caused just two injuries, no deaths, and roughly 7.2 billion USD in damages (5% of GDP). These three earthquakes, all with magnitudes over 7 on the Richter scale, caused extremely varied amounts of economic damage for these three countries. This thesis aims to identify a possible explanation as to why this was the case and suggest ways in which to improve disaster risk management going forward.
ContributorsHeuermann, Jamie Lynne (Author) / Schoellman, Todd (Thesis director) / Mendez, Jose (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Radiometric dating estimates the age of rocks by comparing the concentration of a decaying radioactive isotope to the concentrations of the decay byproducts. Radiometric dating has been instrumental in the calculation of the Earth's age, the Moon's age, and the age of our solar system. Geochronologists in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at ASU use radiometric dating extensively in their research, and have very specific procedures, hardware, and software to perform the dating calculations. Researchers use lasers to drill small holes, or ablations, in rock faces, collect the masses of various isotopes using a mass spectrometer, and scan the pit with an interferometer, which records the z heights of the pit on an x-y grid. This scan is then processed by custom-made software to determine the volume of the pit, which then is used along with the isotope masses and known decay rates to determine the age of the rock. My research has been focused on improving this volume calculation through computational geometry methods of surface reconstruction. During the process, I created an web application that reads interferometer scans, reconstructs a surface from those scans with Poisson reconstruction, renders the surface in the browser, and calculates the volume of the pit based on parameters provided by the researcher. The scans are stored in a central cloud datastore for future analysis, allowing the researchers in the geochronology community to collaborate together on scans from various rocks in their individual labs. The result of the project has been a complete and functioning application that is accessible to any researcher and reproducible from any computer. The 3D representation of the scan data allows researchers to easily understand the topology of the pit ablation and determine early on whether the measurements of the interferometer are trustworthy for the particular ablation. The volume calculation by the new software also reduces the variability in the volume calculation, which hopefully indicates the process is removing noise from the scan data and performing volume calculations on a more realistic representation of the actual ablation. In the future, this research will be used as the groundwork for more robust testing and closer approximations through implementation of different reconstruction algorithms. As the project grows and becomes more usable, hopefully there will be adoption in the community and it will become a reproducible standard for geochronologists performing radiometric dating.
ContributorsPruitt, Jacob Richard (Author) / Hodges, Kip (Thesis director) / Mercer, Cameron (Committee member) / van Soest, Matthijs (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05