Academic literature on the topic 'Organization structure of public administration'

<p> This study addressed the problem that no formal evaluation of a P-12 Washington state school district's change from a traditional hierarchical district organizational structure to a three-region organizational structure based on the feeder patterns of its three comprehensive high schools was conducted. A mixed-methods approach was utilized to address the research questions and hypothesis centered on the original goals set forth by the superintendent to increase student achievement, collaboration, planning time, and professional development opportunities. The study incorporated data collected by the state in the five years before the change in district structure and the five years after the change in the district's organizational structure. Quantitative data were collected on student achievement defined by graduation rates and the 10th-grade state assessments in reading, writing, and math over the past 10 years. Data were also collected through the use of an online survey with classified staff, certificated staff, building administrators, and central office administrators. A convergent parallel design was employed to analyze and interpret the data. Both theory generation and theories of organizational change provided the theoretical frameworks for the study. Results of the study showed no significant change in student achievement that could be correlated to the district's organizational structure change. Planning time and professional development was shown not to have increased but results from the data collected on collaboration did indicate an increase in collaboration for building administrators. This study is significant because it delivered a formal evaluation of a district's organizational structure change where none existed and offers a reference for current and future organizational leaders when considering a change in their own organization's structure.</p>

Educational Administration<br>Ed.D.<br>This quantitative study analyzed the relationship between district characteristics, the educational environment and the administrative organizational structure in public schools in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania between the 1996-1997 school year and the 2006-2007. More specifically, this study conducted an assessment of the changes and stability that have occurred in the Commonwealth's 501 public school district's administrative positions and structures and determined the trends or relationships that exist between the administrative structure in comparison with district characteristics and the educational environment. Pennsylvania public schools have increased in total number of administrators across the Commonwealth from 5,734 in the 1996-97 school year (Database 1996-97) to 7,348 administrators in the 2006-07 school year (Database 2006-07). This is an increase of 1,614 administrators across the 501 public school districts. These increases have not been consistent from one year to another or across districts. Little is known concerning the relationship between internal district characteristics, the external educational environment and administrative changes or stability. In addition, little is known about that combination of characteristics that have allowed some districts to remain stable in a changing educational environment. In an effort to provide more information on these issues, this quantitative study analyzed public school administrative positions and structures in the 501 Pennsylvania school districts over time in relation to the district's characteristics and educational environment. By assessing combinations of district characteristics and the educational environment, this study sought to find similarities and differences in how districts administratively respond to forces and pressures on the organization.<br>Temple University--Theses

The purpose of the quantitative study was to analyze the staffing patterns, organizational structures, funding resources, practice of resource allocation, technology use, size of alumni population, size of institution enrollment, and age of the institutions at senior public colleges and universities in the southeastern United States. These institutions were derived from the membership of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education [CASE] during the academic years 2010-2012 in the United States District III region, generally the Southeast to lower Mid-Atlantic states. The study was further limited to public, comprehensive institutions as determined by the Carnegie Classification system. Data were collected through an online internet survey to test 11 research questions and gather demographic information relevant to the study. Of the 100 potential institutions for response, 16 completed surveys were received. The overall results of the tests reflect that 3 of the 11 results were statistically significant. Specifically, resource allocation scores were significantly higher than funding resource scores. Also there were strong positive correlations between technology use and age of institution and between size of alumni and the size of the institution.

This dissertation examines when initiatives by International Development Organizations (IDOs) are more, and less, successful. The core argument is that allowing field-level agents to drive initiatives – what I call organizational Navigation by Judgment – will often be the most effective way to deliver aid. This inverts what a classical application of the principal agent model – the workhorse of studies of public management and bureaucracy – would predict, with better performance resulting from less control. In the delivery of foreign aid the costs of monitoring to the principal are often overshadowed by the deleterious effects of the monitoring itself. The core of the argument is that development implementation requires soft information, tacit knowledge, and flexibility that are crowded out by tight controls or an organizational navigation strategy focused on short term measurement and targets. As a result there are increasing returns to Navigation by Judgment in environments that are uncertain or difficult to understand from the outside and tasks where outputs are difficult to observe and/or poorly correlated with long term intervention goals. Insecure political authorizing environments which constrain the autonomy of IDOs prevent these organizations from Navigating by Judgment in situations where this is the best strategy. Empirically, this dissertation examines a cross-IDO dataset of projects (including over 14,000 projects over 50 years over 9 organizations), which I have assembled. It also examines eight cases of development interventions in Liberia and South Africa. These cases are matched pairs comparing the performance and navigation strategies of the US Agency for International Development (a low autonomy IDO) and the UK’s Department for International Development (a higher autonomy IDO) in capacity building and health sector interventions.<br>Public Policy

Following each of three major disasters--the financial crisis, the Gulf oil spill, and the nuclear meltdown in Japan--policymakers responded by overhauling the associated regulatory infrastructure. In each case, the response was intended to sharpen the regulator's focus, predicated on the widely held view that asking an agency to satisfy both regulatory and non-regulatory roles induces organizational conflict and impedes performance. In this dissertation, I put this commonly accepted belief about agency structure to the test by analyzing the behavior of regulators also assigned significant, non-regulatory functions. Incorporating data on a broad set of U.S. federal agencies, I first establish that the conventional wisdom holds some truth: Regulators that combine purposes do not perform as well. Even so, through a mix of statistical analyses, formal modeling, and an in-depth study of the former U.S. offshore oil and gas regulator, the Minerals Management Service, I show that assigning regulatory and non-regulatory functions to one agency can, in some cases, still be better than dividing them between agencies. I demonstrate that while the goal ambiguity and conflict introduced by combining roles does impact behavior, overemphasizing this issue misses several important factors affecting regulators tasked with non-regulatory aims. These factors explain both how regulators operate when charged with achieving other goals and why these multiple-purpose mandates persist. First, although the goals may conflict, the underlying tasks supporting these divergent purposes may still require extensive coordination. Second, even within agencies, introducing features that encourage separation between the affected groups can allow regulators to manage ambiguity, but these efforts can simultaneously exacerbate difficulties in achieving synergies generated through Professor Daniel Paul Carpenter Christopher Michael Carrigan close contact. Third, even when the conditions for conflict are present, political and public preferences—and not just internal factors—can play important roles in shaping agency priorities. Fourth, broader social, industry, and environmental shifts can attenuate or accentuate the organizational tension that exists between managing goal ambiguity while encouraging underlying coordination. In sum, only by recognizing roles for a diverse set of forces—operations, organization, politics, and environment—can the existence, behavior, and performance of regulatory agencies that balance non-regulatory mandates be logically explained.

Bakgrund: Kommuner har tidigare varit i en förvaltningsfas där de fokuserat på att förvalta samhället och de byggnader som finns. I och med att kommuner har ökat sina investeringar markant de senaste åren indikerar det på att kommuner befinner sig i en ny fas, vilket är samhällsbyggnadsfasen. I den nya fasen handlar kommunernas verksamhet om att förbättra samhället med nya investeringar samt rusta upp de befintliga byggnaderna för att öka kvalitén för medborgarna. De flesta byggnationerna sker i projektform där flera olika förvaltningar och nämnder i kommunen är involverade. Förvaltningar och nämnder har ofta olika intressen och motivationer vilket gör att gränser behöver dras för att precisera projektets innebörd. Med ökade investeringar ökar också risken hos kommunen och gränsproblematiken är en viktig faktor för att lyckas med projektet. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med ökad förståelse kring kommunala samhällsbyggnadsprojekt gällande de strukturella och konceptuella gränserna. Vidare syftar studien mer specifikt att bidra med förståelse för nämnda gränser vid etableringsfasen av ett kommunalt samverkansprojekt. Metod: Studien är en kvalitativ fallstudie av ett kommunalt samhällsbyggnadsprojekt. Studien bygger på fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer samt dokumentstudie och observation. Den har en övergripande abduktiv forskningsansats och utgår således från teori och empiri. Slutsats: Studien visar att kommunen använder sig av direktiv och riktlinjer i projekt som skapar gränser för projektgruppen. De upplevs porösa och oklara då projektgruppen inte vet vad som förväntas av dem. Därmed behövs det en tydlig ansvarsfördelning inom projektorganisationen eftersom kommunen är ovana att arbeta i stora investeringsprojekt.<br>Background: For a long time, municipalities have been in an administration phase where the focus have been to administrate the community and existing buildings. Since municipalities in recent years have increased their investments it indicates that municipalities are in a new phase, which is the phase of social structure. The municipality’s work in the new phase is to improve the community with new investments and improve the existing buildings in order to increase quality for the citizens. The municipality’s work is done in projects where several departments are involved. The departments have often different interests and motivations which means that boundaries are required to define the meaning of the project. Increased investment results in higher risk for the municipality and therefore boundaries are an important factor for the project to succeed. Aim: The aim of the thesis is to increase the understanding of boundaries in a municipally social structure projects. Furthermore, the aim is to increase the understanding of boundaries in the establishment phase of a collaboration project. Methodology: This is a qualitative case study of a municipal social structure project. The study is based on semi structured interviews, document studies and an observation. The thesis has an abductive approach. Conclusion: The thesis shows that municipally use directions and guidelines, which creates boundaries for the project organization. However, the boundaries are vague and the project organization do not know what is expected of them. Therefore, it is important with a distinct responsibility distribution within the project organization because of municipality's unfamiliarity to work in large investment projects.

This research presents the results of a qualitative and quantitative investigation to understand the challenges of public sector facilities management and maintenance to include the negative impact of deferred maintenance, it’s history, the current industry practices and the potential to reverse the negative impact of the current trend. History has been known to speak loudly, and with accuracy relative to the expansion of public facilities and the challenge to maintain them. The challenge to keep pace with the growing population and the ever-changing requirements for contemporary designs are felt in every sector of our public facilities. Regardless, we, the public trust that those responsible are managing these assets effectively and efficiently. Research indicates that this doesn’t appear to be the case. This study serves as a measurement against the historical performance of public facilities management practice. There have been decades of growth in public assets. During that time, innovation within operational practice and technology offer new opportunities for organizations to address issues of efficiency that translate directly in a measure of effectiveness. Given the continued outcry for additional funding, it seems that there are challenges that continue to exist despite the innovation offered. This study focuses on those challenges. Further analysis, based on successful models of public facilities management, provides insights as to what practices, if adopted, may drive the lesser achieving programs toward greater effectiveness. This paper also includes the results of a study that focuses on the current practices of public facilities management programs. The intent is to identify elements that either support or detract from efficiently operated, effective facilities departments. Given the nature of this industry, both objective and subjective elements were addressed. Objectively the organizational hierarchy and the associated communications pathways were identified. Subjectively, the lifecycle of the facilities mission was dissected and discussed throughout an interview process. Fifteen specified data points were addressed, which included questions related to accountability, effective communication, data driven program development, allocation of resources, documentation of work performed, continuous training and education and the use of technology. In order to reverse the declining momentum, we must first identify the most common areas that challenge facilities managers and understand how they currently address those challenges. This research will address the following questions: What do facilities managers perceive to be the greatest obstacles to ensuring their facilities are properly maintained? What factors do facilities mangers perceive to be the greatest challenge to ensuring sufficient resources are allocated to current maintenance? To what degree do facilities managers perceive that more effective communications would positively impact the effectiveness of facilities management and maintenance. The results of this research presents a comprehensive understanding of the challenges that face public sector facilities leadership teams, the history and creation of excessive deferred maintenance and finally, future opportunities that identifies best practices and presents an artifact that reflects a means to resolve those deficiencies identified within the current facilities management environment.

The main aim of this thessis is to analyze the evolution of legal rules and structures of organization of public administration connected with social insurance between years 2004 - 2014. The first part of the thessis provides the intro of problem. The second part sumarises main crosspoints within the evolution of social insurance and sickness and pension insurance and its covering organization - Českou správu sociálního zabezpečení. The crucial changes are written down in surveillance tables. There are also mentioned changes in social benefits of passive policy of employment and evolution of Employment Department. These are also specified in surveilance tables. There are also analized: impact of legislative changes on amount of social benefits, administrative burden of byrocratic workers and total operating expenditures. These makroekonomics data are graphicaly pictured in the second part of the tessis. Crucial is the enumeration of changes that had real impact on the national economic.

Comparative analyses of district-run public schools and charter schools are limited to performance outcomes. There is a dearth of research on how the school-types vary on factors consequential to performance such as school climate. Public-private distinctions, such as in organizational autonomy, value orientations, funding structures, and management practices, could result in school climate dissimilarities between district-run public schools and charter schools. The aim of this dissertation is to assess the influence organizational factors have on school climate and determine if school-type affects school climate. Student and staff school climate survey data from the Miami-Dade school district were utilized for this dissertation. Structural equation modeling was employed to test theoretical models of students’ and staffs’ perceptions of school climate using data from 2001-2002 through 2015-2016 academic years. Within-between effects panel regression was utilized to test the effect of school-type on school climate constructs over time using data from 2005-2006 through 2015-2016 academic years. The structural equation results demonstrate that milieu, ecology, culture, and organizational structure influence students’ and staffs’ perceptions of their schools’ climates. Ecology has the strongest association with students’ perceptions of school climate. Job satisfaction, a part of milieu and culture, has the strongest association with staffs’ perceptions of school climate. The results indicate that the theoretical models of school climate employed by this study are sound. The within-between effects panel regression results demonstrate that characteristics inherent to school-type have a plausible influence on students’ perceptions of school climate, but not for staff. Charter school students rated their school climates more favorably than traditional public schools, but when other factors are controlled, traditional public schools and magnet schools had more favorable ratings. Public-sector values, collective bargaining, and school district oversight may be beneficial to schools’ climates. This dissertation underscores the impact management and funding structures have on school climate. The author recommends that the school climate concept and evaluations of schools’ organizational practices be incorporated into school improvement policies. The milieu, culture, ecology, and organizational structures of schools should be reviewed when assessing school quality.