Why do megachurches participate in economic development, and who benefits from their participation? Frumkin's framework for understanding nonprofit and voluntary action and extra-role behavior are theories tested to answer these questions. My research employs a mixed-methods research design conducted in two phases. In phase one, I analyze 42 responses to an online survey to provide data about the prevalence and nature of economic development activities offered by megachurches in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Phase two involved 23 semi-structured telephone interviews with megachurch leadership to provide data that explains the rationale for why megachurches offer economic development activities and who benefits. Evidence from this research demonstrates that megachurches are participating in economic development for reasons consistent with both demand-side and supply-side arguments. Findings also show that megachurches take on extra-role behaviors for in response to community expectations and the values of members and staff. Implications for understanding partnership decisions and collaborations between faith-based organizations and local governments are discussed.

This dissertation assesses the importance of a specific debt instrument, the Certifi- cate of Obligation in the state of Texas. It conceptualizes the Certificate of Obligation as a type of contractual debt that enables local governments to finance their capital projects. This dissertation is guided by three research questions: (1) What are the various types of debt instruments employed by local governments and what are their relative advantages? (2) How prevalent is the use of a specific debt instrument such as Certificates of Obligation? And why would some local governments prefer to issue them while others do not? (3) To what extent does the local institutional environment, e.g., the executive authority of city managers in the council-manager form of government, affect debt financing behaviors of local governments? To examine the first research question, we created a typology to represent four ideal types of borrowing methods: (1) Contractual Debt, (2) Voter Approval/Special Tax Debt, (3) Guaranteed, and (4) Non-Guaranteed Debts. The typology examines whether or not the state mandates the referendum requirement for the use of each of these debt instruments, and at the same time determines whether each debt instrument is secured by multiple or single revenue sources. Using data …

This dissertation examines the impact of city-level characteristics (immigration-friendliness index, unemployment rate, and the percentage of Democrat Party votes) on the psychological resiliency of Latino immigrants. In the light of increased attention on the immigrant issue throughout the world, this study aims to develop our understanding of the factors that have the effect on the resiliency of immigrant populations. This dissertation examines these different characteristics by examining five different cities in Texas: Austin, Dallas, Fort-Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. The survey was distributed through the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to those individuals who define themselves Hispanic or Latino. Results suggest that the city characteristics have a significant impact on the resiliency of Latino immigrants suggesting that local governments have a potential capability to increase the resiliency of the immigrant groups in the United States by embracing the notion that immigrants should be integrated into the fabric of the local community.

This dissertation examines the impact of citizen's perception of community policing on public attitudes toward fear of terrorism, resilience for a future terrorist attack, and satisfaction with the police in the face of new terrorism. In particular, considering the changing nature of terrorism in recent years as a response to the centralized homeland security efforts, this dissertation attempts to develop our understanding about the extent to which community policing could be a strategy in dealing with terrorism fear among citizens, in building up resilience for future terrorist attacks, and to increase citizens' satisfaction with the police in order to enhance the quality of life in the face of new terrorism. Additionally, this dissertation examines the impact of the variation in the level of community policing implementation on public attitudes toward fear of terrorism, resilience for a future terrorist attack, and satisfaction with the police. Data was collected through an online survey conducted in the cities of Arlington and Frisco, Texas. The survey distributed to the citizens through the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform. These cities were selected based on a community policing scale which was created through the help of the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey. Results …

This study develops a theoretical framework to examine the major dimensions of transformational leadership style (TLS), public service motivation (PSM), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and public organization performance (POP). It is hypothesized that when employees perceived a public organization is practicing a transformational leadership style, they are likely to have a favorable view on the performance of their organization, but the effect is indirect and mediated by OCB. At the same time, if employees have a strong desire to serve and improve the welfare of others, they are likely to perform beyond their job requirements and thus, likely to express a positive view on the organizational performance. A structural equation modeling was used to examine 1,016 public employees (67.7% response rate) in the Guadalajara metropolitan area, Mexico i.e., concerning their perceptions about leadership style, motivation to serve in the public sector, citizenship behaviors, and public organizational performance. The results suggest that if Mexican public employees perceived their leaders to adopt a transformational leadership style, they were likely to have a favorable view on the performance of their organization (direct effect); and that, the effect is mediated by their tendency to engage in activities that would contribute to the functioning of …

This dissertation used an organizational structure framework to examine the current status of hazard mitigation from the perspective of emergency managers from four organizational structure categories. This study addressed three primary research questions: (1) What is the role of the local emergency management office in hazard mitigation and what is the function of other stakeholders as perceived by local emergency managers? (2) What are the challenges to achieving hazard mitigation objectives and what are the strategies used to overcome them? and (3) How do local emergency managers define hazard mitigation success? Thirty North Central Texas emergency managers were recruited for participation in this study, and data was collected through telephone interviews and an internet survey. A mixed methodology was used to triangulate qualitative and quantitative findings. Qualitative analyses consisted of inductive grounded theory, and quantitative data analyses consisted of independent samples t-test analyses, correlation analyses, and Chi-square analyses. Findings indicate that emergency managers from the different emergency management office categories have six self-identified roles in hazard mitigation planning and strategy implementation; have a similar reported level of involvement in different hazard mitigation-related activities; and perceive stakeholders as having four key functions in hazard mitigation planning and strategy implementation. Second, participants …

This dissertation examines the effects of tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) stringency and its interaction with revenue diversity and the council-manager form of government on municipal general fund expenditure. TELs are explicit rules that states impose to reduce local government spending. TELs stringency varies from state to state, leading to difficulties in assessing their impact across the nation. This dissertation proposes a new means for measuring the stringency of TELs imposed on local governments. Factor analysis is utilized, and then factor scores are calculated to identify degrees of TELs stringency. This study contends that higher levels of TELs stringency are associated with lower local government spending. However, the effectiveness of TELs is dependent on revenue diversity and the form of government. This study suggests that both revenue diversity and the council-manager form of government mitigate the impacts of TELs stringency on local government spending. Panel data from 2007 to 2011 from 1,508 municipalities are utilized. This study finds that higher levels of TELs stringency are associated with lower levels of municipal general fund expenditures per capita. However, TELs stringency is effective only when revenue diversity is low and when cities have a form of government other than council-manager. These results …

One of the long-standing debates in disaster science and practice is the tension between planning and structure on the one hand and flexibility and adaptation on the other in maximizing the effectiveness of response operations. This research aims to reconcile the divide that currently exists among scholars and practitioners and present a continuum that bridges the above models and ties planning, improvisation, and spontaneous planning together. The main questions that were examined with this research are: First, what role did spontaneous planning and improvisation play in responding to the two disasters. Second, in what ways do hazard characteristics (e.g. speed of onset and scope of impact) influence the roles played by spontaneous planning and improvisation? This is a qualitative study that employed a comparative case study to examine the characteristics of spontaneous planning. The major findings are that spontaneous planning does occur and that variables such as speed of onset, scope, magnitude, and number of organizations involved impact the visibility of spontaneous planning characteristics.

The objective of this dissertation is to test the Institutional Collective Action framework and examine the governance arrangements during health emergency. Basically, the dissertation argues that due to collaborative risks, transaction costs, barriers to collective action, governance arrangement provides avenues for action and a force for driving coordination across jurisdictional boundaries. The dissertation adopts two studies to investigate the governance arrangements represented by lead agency, emergency plans, Emergency Operation Center and city council mandates and coordination when it comes to health emergencies such as Ebola. The qualitative approach investigates the causal relationship between governance arrangements and coordination. The second study investigates to what extent do formal mechanisms and informal mechanisms affects the outcome of collaboration during a health emergency. This study uses a quantitative research approach to examine the patterns of collaborative arrangement used during health emergency. The findings of the study demonstrate the pattern used in health emergencies is dependent on the application of formal mechanisms represented by higher authority, emergency plans. Both studies indicate that due to collaboration risks, self-governance arrangements or higher authority mandates provides a venue for collective action. The survey data was collected from local, state and federal governments during the summer 2015 on the …

Successful service coordination for the homeless depends on the ability of diverse organizations to effectively collaborate. This study utilizes a life-cycle framework to expand on the collaborative governance theory by highlighting the different stages of collaboration that homeless service networks encounter. Activation, collectivity, and institutionalization are three stages used to uncover the unique nature of emergency discharge planning processes. Since collaboration is not a static process and government regulation for emergency discharge plans were recently enacted in 2012, collaborative networks encounter challenges and success factors at different stages. A qualitative case-study approach of organizational leaders in homeless service networks in Texas (Dallas, Ft. Worth and Houston) examines stages of collaboration. Results show common success and challenge factors identified among the three networks, but the factors take on different forms in relation to where the networks are at in the coordination stages. Practitioners can use the findings from this study as a guide to set up benchmarks and measurable objectives to identify strengths and weaknesses in their coordination processes.

This dissertation investigates the effects of natural disasters and political institutions on municipalities' climate change policies. Although most theoretical frameworks on policy adoption highlight the roles of extreme events as exogenous factors influencing policy change, most studies tend to focus on the effects of extreme events on policy change at the national level. Additionally, the existing theoretical frameworks explaining local policy adoption and public service provision do not pay attention to the roles of extreme events in local governments' policy choices. To fill those gaps, this dissertation explores the roles of natural disasters and political institutions on municipal governments' climate change policies. It does this by applying the theory of focusing events to local climate mitigation and adaptation actions. Based on the policy change framework, the political market model, and the institutional collective action frameworks, this dissertation develops and tests hypotheses to examine the effects of natural disasters and political institutions on municipalities' climate mitigation and adaptation policies. The dissertation uses 2010 National League of Cities (NLC) sustainability surveys and the 2010 International City/County Management Association (ICMA) sustainability survey to test the hypotheses. Analytical results show that floods and droughts influence local climate change policies and suggest that local governments …

Within risk communication, much is understood about pre-event warning related to evacuation and sheltering; however risk communication during the return-entry phase when ending evacuations has been largely under-studied in the disaster literature. Understanding of the return-entry risk communication process is important because returning early or prior to issuance of the all-clear message can make returnees susceptible to post-disaster risks, and also hamper post-disaster activities such as debris removal, traffic management, utility restoration and damage assessments. Guided by the Warning Components Framework and the Theory of Motivated Information Management, this dissertation focuses on risk communication as it pertains to organizational behavior during the return-entry process by examining how local emergency management organizations develop, disseminate and monitor return-entry messages. The data is collected through semi-structured telephone interviews with local emergency management organizations that managed return-entry following Hurricane Sandy. The findings of the study indicate that local emergency management organizations required information on post-disaster threats, damages, and utility and infrastructure condition in order to develop return-entry strategy for their community. Organizations improvised to their existing risk communication measures by adopting creative ways for information dissemination to the evacuees. They also utilized active and passive approach to monitor public response to the return-entry messages.

This dissertation is about economic resilience of local governments to natural disasters. Specifically, the dissertation investigates resilience on regional level. Moreover, the dissertation also investigates growth in the green job sector in local governments. The findings indicate that local governments working with each other helps green job creation. In addition, the dissertation finds that green jobs, following disasters, experience three percent growth. This dissertation is important because it investigates the relationship between climate- related disasters and green jobs, which is an area that is under-investigated.

This study explores the demand and supply oriented factors that may contribute to the size of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. communities. This research tests demand theory, which indicated that nonprofit organizations grow more in communities where large service demand exists and when there is a service gap between community demand and government service supply. On the other hand, supply theories contend that nonprofit organizations are prevalent where a community carries the supply of human capital and financial resources and these supply of human and economic capital will mobilize nonprofit organizations to fulfill civic duties. For the scientific test of demand and supply theories, this study employs hierarchical linear model (HLM) and develops a longitudinal data set from multiple sources such as Department of Housing and Urban Development and National Charitable Center for Statistics, and Census. The proposed model analyzes how demand and supply indicators explain homeless serving nonprofit organizations size. The size of homeless service nonprofit was measured by three indicators: number of nonprofits, revenue of nonprofits and number of shelter beds. The findings of HLM analyses confirmed some of demand and supply factors that contribute homeless service nonprofit size. The communities with higher level of chronic homeless population …