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The purpose of this dissertation is to study the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) in the Information Systems (IS) development processes. The study describes and evaluates TQM concepts and techniques in the IS development processes and interprets sub-organizational elements in the application of TQM in the public sector. This dissertation uses a multiple case study methodology to study the development processes of IS in three public agencies. This study attempts to examine what quality means across these public organizations and to discover the differences between IS development methodologies that do or do not apply TQM concepts and techniques. The late Dr. W. Edwards Deming, regarded as "father" of post war Japanese economic miracle as well as leading advocate of the TQM movement in the United States, developed a systematic approach to solving quality related problems which aims to fulfill customer expectations. His system of management is adopted as the theoretical basis to this dissertation. The "lessons learned" from these case studies, empirically and in literature, reveal multiple experiences of TQM applications to IS development processes in the public sector. Ph. D.

Network, organizational, and policy learning literatures indicate that when interest groups face failure they will seek out alternative ideas and strategies that will enhance their potential for future success. Research with regard to interest groups and legal change has found that interest groups, using arguments that were once accepted as the legal standard for Supreme Court decisions, were unwilling or unable to alter their arguments when the Court reversed its position on these legal standards. This research project examined the conflicting findings of these literatures. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework as a guide, this project studied the separationist advocacy coalition in cases regarding state aid to elementary and secondary sectarian schools from 1971 to 2002. The legal briefs filed by members of the separationist advocacy coalition with the Court were examined using content analysis to track changes in their legal arguments. Elite interviews were then conducted to gain an understanding of the rationale for results found in the content analysis. The research expectation was that the separationist advocacy coalition would seek out and incorporate into their briefs new and innovative legal arguments to promote their policy goals. The research results demonstrated that prior to legal change interest groups did seek out and incorporate new legal arguments borrowed from other fora and sought to expand or reinterpret established legal arguments to better aid their policy goals. The changes that seemed to have the potential for adoption by the Court were quickly incorporated into the briefs of the other members of the coalition. Following legal change interest groups continued to analyze the decisions of the Court in order to seek out the best possible legal arguments to use in their briefs; however, the main focus of legal arguments examined and used by the coalition narrowed to those cited by the swing justice in the funding cases. Two innovative arguments were developed, but were either ignored or considered unsuitable, and were not used by the other members of the coalition. Counter to this project's research expectations new and innovative legal arguments were not adopted by the coalition. As the Court discontinued the use of various legal arguments the coalition quickly responded to these changes and dropped those obsolete legal arguments. Therefore, contrary to prior research, the interest groups and the coalition altered their arguments following legal change. Only those interest groups who no longer participated in coalition discussions reverted back to using pre-legal change arguments. Learning continued to occur in the coalition following legal change; however, the focus of analysis and the pool of arguments deemed worthy of use narrowed considerably. Ph. D.

Distribution tables have become ubiquitous to the tax policy debates surrounding major legislative initiatives to change tax law at the federal level. The fairness of any proposed change to federal tax policy has become one of the most highlighted components of tax policy discussions. The presentation of tax data within distribution tables can hide or omit important information that is required in order to effectively evaluate the merits of any tax legislation. Many producers of distribution tables show only the information necessary to present their policy preferences in the best possible light. The different economic assumptions and presentations of data used by the various groups that release distribution tables have the inherent consequence of providing the public with numerous tables that are often used as political ammunition to influence and shape debate. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the tax policy research literature by exploring the limitations and biases inherent in specific designs of tax distribution tables and in specific methodological approaches to tax distribution analysis. This is done by means of a systematic examination of how different designs and methodologies provide an incomplete picture of a proposed change to federal tax policy. By comparing distribution tables as used by different groups to provide alternative perspectives of various tax proposals, the research shows how the use of tax distribution tables often provides misleading results about the impact of proposed tax legislation in order to influence and shape the issues surrounding a proposed change to federal tax policy. A method for evaluating tax distribution tables is proposed which highlights the deficiencies of design and methodology which characterize the present use of tax distribution tables. An index of questions is provided as part of this research project to serve as a new tool of policy analysis, an index termed the "Tax Distribution Table Scoring Index" (TDTSI). The TDTSI will assist in balancing the different perspectives presented via tax distribution tables by identifying the biases and limitations associated with different methodologies and presentations of data. Ph. D.

Historically, the federal government has been the institution responsible for setting the nation's drug policy. Since 1996, however, the federal government's authority and legitimacy in this issue area has increasingly been challenged through state ballot measures introduced via the initiative process. While only eight percent of ballot measures historically are approved by voters (Initiative and Referendum Institute 2004), half of the 28 state ballot measures on illegal drugs have been approved by voters over the past decade. The stated goal of those supporting legalization through ballot measures is to "build a political movement to end the war on drugs" (Nadelmann 2004). Nadelmann (2004) suggests that victories in the states show that the "nascent drug policy reform movement" can win in the "big leagues of American politics" and that the successful models presented through the ballot measures will increase "public confidence in the possibilities and virtue" of regulating the non-medical use of illicit drugs. To date there has been no detailed examination of the issue framing strategies in this venue; nor has there been an effort to link the problem definition and direct democracy literatures. This dissertation links the problem definition and direct democracy literatures, using drug policy as the vehicle and applying Stone's (2002) analytic framework of problem definition to make descriptive inferences about the issue framing devices employed in state ballot measures on illegal drugs. The research examines a range of materials related to the state ballot measures on illegal drugs including the language appearing on voter ballots; the full text of the ballot measures, including ballot titles and political preambles; and the voter information statements and their authors. In addition, the dissertation describes the elements of legalization proposed by the ballot measures that were approved by voters and examines three key legal challenges to Proposition 215, one of the first ballot measures on illegal drugs approved by voters in California in 1996, including two U.S. Supreme Court cases. Ph. D.

This multiple-case-based dissertation contributes to the stream of literature on the organizational innovation process by examining Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) as an innovation with the potential to address an important schedule planning and execution performance gap in DOD weapon system development programs. The contextually different Integrated Product Team case studies in DOD's F/A-22 fighter aircraft weapons system acquisition program are: manufacturing assembly, manufacturing process, test operations, and supplier product development. Rich descriptions of the case studies are developed by the author, a senior Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company systems engineer in a role that merged participant, observer, change agent and champion (POCAC). Analysis distinguishes between Program and Operational levels of organizational structure and focuses on the innovation process through use of the author-designed Casey Hybrid Innovation Process (CHIP) model based on Rogers' stages heuristic. Substantively, research demonstrates that in key areas of the F/A-22 program, proper application of the innovative Critical Chain Project Management process can generate and achieve development schedules sometimes substantially better than traditional approaches; improper application will lead to mixed results or rejection. The research contributes to knowledge in the field of organizational innovation by demonstrating use of the CHIP model in the huge, geographically dispersed and extremely complex organization of the largest DOD weapon system acquisition program of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The research reflects Program leadership's important role in the top-down initiation and support of an innovation, even while choosing (by policy) not to force use at the Operational level. At the Operational level, details show that IPT implementations and results of the CCPM innovation vary. Ph. D.

Since the end of the Cold War, the Department of Defense (DoD) has been challenged to formulate and make strategic decisions, especially in areas related to the Department's "business operations." Strategic decisions are those that focus on setting long-term organizational direction. This has proven difficult because a rather simplistic (and somewhat comforting) DoD organizational orientation toward an "either/or" or "us versus them" decision-making mindset that was once ubiquitous and appropriate, given the nature of political and military threats, has been hard to shake. This study reviews a particular manifestation of this dilemma: the decision-making arrangements associated with the provision of military depot maintenance services. An historical review of this topic shows a mixture of problems, progress, and promise. A strategic decision-making approach that draws upon Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith's Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is proposed to improve the situation. It addresses key problems identified in the analysis and rests upon an approach to strategic decision making that is politically rational in nature. This approach, called a Strategic Improvement Agenda, is offered as a potential foil to the "us versus them" orientation. Ph. D.

This study seeks to identify and examine issue transformation in public policies, and to understand the relationship between issue transformation and policy change. The focus for this investigation, the information resources management (IRM) policy subsystem, is examined as a 28-year case study, concluding at the end of 2002. Study results are documented textually, and visually in an exploratory, "virtual reality-based" Policy World. This study examines the questions: "In what ways are the core issues underlying public policies transformed over time, and what is the relationship between issue transformation and policy change?" Using the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) for explaining policy change over considerable periods of time, this research identifies and examines the issues over which policy coalitions contend, and seeks to identify issue transformation in the IRM policy subsystem's 28-year history. Augmenting the traditional paper-based dissertation is an exploratory, "virtual reality-based" case study, called "Policy World," that visualizes both the policy subsystem environment and critical elements of the external policy system. Visually depicting the richness, texture, and artifacts of policy activities aids policy learning, and promotes understanding of the dynamic and complex environment of issue transformation and policy change. In confirming issue transformation, this study contributes to the advocacy coalition framework by detailing the initiation and maturation of a policy subsystem. In demonstrating issue transformation's role as facilitating policy continuity through policy change, this study contributes to policy theory. As a chronology of IRM's issue transformation and policy change, this study documents the rise of IT-enabled governance for public administrators and educators. Policy World provides an interactive, experiential learning environment for public administration scholars and practitioners wanting substantive knowledge of both policy theory and Federal IRM policies. Public administration literature notes both the need for and the lack of an information resource management component to public administration education. Information visualization concepts are combined with interactive designs and hosting on the World Wide Web, to provide wide access to Policy World and extend educational opportunities in public policy and information resources management wherever desired. Ph. D.

As part of an on-going process of centralizing control of government science and technology (S&T) after World War II, in 1966 the Navy went through a major reorganization that was intended to centralize the strategic management of the Navy laboratory system. This centralization was to be accomplished by placing the major Navy research and development activities in a single systems command - the Naval Material Command - and establishing the position of Director of Navy Laboratories. Organizational studies and reorganizations continued for the next 25 years until the Naval Material Command and the Director of Navy Laboratories were disestablished in 1985 and 1991, respectively. This dissertation is, in part, an historical study of the Navy from 1946 to 1966 that focuses on the bureaus and laboratories. It summarizes the organizational changes related to strategic management and planning of science and technology. The 1966 reorganization was a critical event because it created the first formal Navy laboratory system. It is proposed that the 1966 reorganization was not successful in centralizing the strategic management of the Navy laboratory system. Classical organization theory offers an explanation of this failure. What can complexity theory add? The overarching contribution is in recognizing that a "Navy Laboratory System" existed before one was formally established in 1966. This argument is developed by considering two specific aspects of complexity theory. First, there is the notion that strategic management of the laboratory system resulted from the complex interactions of the smaller units that comprise the system (rather than the result of organization and process choices by senior leadership). Second, there is the theory that an organization will exhibit different behaviors at different times or in different parts of the organization at the same time. This translates into the idea that at particular times and places, the formal structure was dominant in strategic management, but at other times the "emergent" organization was dominant. In fact, if power law theory is applicable, then the periods of stability (where the formal structure was dominant) ought to be more prevalent than the turbulent periods where the emergent organization was dominant in strategic management. This case is made by describing agent-based models of the Navy laboratory system at two points in time and using them to identify the expected performance characteristics of the system. Historical and organizational artifacts are then used to make the case that the postulated system existed. Ph. D.

This dissertation examined how complexity theory might offer insight into the behavior of a population of large-scale networked organizational groups. Academic medical centers (AMCs), a large-scale social and policy system that plays a key role in the education of physicians, the conduct of research, and the provision of specialized clinical care, were chosen as an example to demonstrate the enhanced understanding that can be obtained from the application of complexity theory. Graphical and nonlinear mathematical tools were chosen to place this research study in contrast to studies that metaphorically apply the concepts of complexity theory to social systems. Complexity science suggests that AMCs will demonstrate both nonlinearity and the emergence of patterned behaviors characteristic of self-organization in complex adaptive systems. Changes in the fiscal environment of AMCs, influenced by federal policy and the health care delivery market, were hypothesized to be among the factors that mediated changes in AMCs' activities and organizational relationships during a twenty-year period. The collection and examination of multiple indicators within the framework of a study model allowed development of a rich description of the AMC system and identification of patterned behaviors. Graphical analysis was used to identify underlying periodic and chaotic attractors in the AMC system. A logistic equation was used to confirm the presence of nonlinearity. The presence of nonlinearity and the emergence of patterned behavior within schools in different managed care market groups suggested that it is appropriate to treat the population of AMCs as a complex adaptive system. The results of this research study also showed that AMCs have responded to the rise of managed care in the health care delivery marketplace by leveraging their institutional strengths. Identification of nonlinear properties offers a new perspective for understanding the behavior of a population of networked organizations, the management of large-scale systems, strategic planning, and policy formulation. Until researchers and managers recognize the coexistence of nonlinear and linear processes in social systems, they will make decisions on the basis of incomplete information. Ph. D.

For more than a half century Douglas MacArthur was a servant of the United States. He is best remembered as a general and a soldier, especially for his leadership during World War II and the Korean War. MacArthur was also the Superintendent of West Point, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, Generalissimo ( Commander) of the Armed Forces and Military Advisor (Minister of Defense) to the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, and the Supreme Commander Allied Powers and the Military Governor of occupied Japan. In these positions he functioned not as a soldier, but as a senior public administrator. The dissertation will begin by establishing the military as a valid and unique field of Public Administration. Contributions of military adminstration to the discipline of Public Administration will then be examined. The dissertation will examine MacArthur's professional and academic training for his previously listed administrative posts. A determination and analysis of MacArthur's theoretical and applied approaches to Public Administration and General Management Theories will be made. The analysis of MacArthur's performance in his administrative positions will be made against a backdrop of contemporary Public Administration Theory. Ph. D.

This dissertation develops a method for evaluating whether federal agencies have complied with the intent of the Clinger-Cohen Act (CCA) of 1996 as they established Chief Information Officer (CIO) positions. The research is important because the CIO position, as envisioned by the CCA, oversees a growing information technology infrastructure that is increasingly becoming the primary vehicle for inter/intra-government communication and for delivering services to the public. Yet despite this importance, CIO-related aspects of the CCA have not received in-depth evaluation in policy science or public administration literature. The CCA specified many roles for the CIO position but provided few criteria for evaluating how agencies complied with the provisions that required the establishment of a CIO position. Therefore, a seven-step policy analysis process was used to develop a federal agency CIO position evaluation method that would fill this gap. This analytic research included describing the CCA's legislative context, modeling the federal CIO position, determining the intent of the CCA relative to CIO establishment, and devising a method to evaluate this activity. This research approach was grounded in organizational theory related to institutional structure. A validated "Federal CIO Position Evaluation Method" (FCPEM) is the result of the research. FCPEM, which contains thirteen evaluation criteria, was tested and validated through key actor interviews at four federal agencies and focused on CIO position establishment activity between 1996 and 2000. Additional research is required to replicate this finding in other agencies and to further validate the use of FCPEM in conducting this type of public policy inquiry. Ph. D.

This work expanded on previous research on school effectiveness by developing and testing hypotheses about the specific relationships between school characteristics---including aggregated student and classroom characteristics---and student academic performance. The work used data from the "Early Childhood Transitions Project," a study of intensive social and educational services in a suburban school system, to identify and test the effect of a limited set of school-level characteristics on test score gains made by individual students on the Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT) between the second and third grade. The analyses found that there are differences in the size of schools, the percent of low performing students, and the percent of students who are non-English speaking across the schools in the sample. Test score gains are affected by concentrations of these types of students at the schools. Students at schools in this sample with high concentrations of non-English speaking students or high concentrations of Hispanic students achieve lower test score gains than students in other schools. Another "concentration effect" emerged from the analysis of high-performing students in the sample. In particular, female students with high scores on the second grade MAT who are in schools with large concentrations of students who perform poorly on the second grade exam have smaller third grade test score gains than similar students who are in schools without a concentration of low performing students. These results suggest that more attention be paid to the influence that the characteristics of the student population have on the school's ability to implement the curriculum. As a first step, researchers may want to simply document the differences in the educational characteristics of students entering schools. This would provide evidence of the segregation that occurs across schools. Researchers may then want to conceptualize students within schools in terms of their homogeneity on demographic measures and their homogeneity on educational characteristics. This "educational minority or majority" concept may bring researchers closer to understanding the school environment, as it is organized by schools and experienced by children. Ph. D.

This research addresses the subject of conventional arms transfers in the Post Cold War Era. ("Conventional arms" herein are defined as high cost, state-of-the-art weapons systems in aerospace, land vehicles, missiles and naval vessels.") The rapid and startling changes in the international political environment that took place in the late 1980's forced the U.S. and her Western Allies to reexamine their national defense budgets. The Bush Administration responded to the situation with new policy initiatives or "jolts" that aligned the annual U.S. Department of Defense's budget with Post Cold War realities. (A "jolt" is defined here as a sudden "shock" to a system that has the potential to alter radically one or more of its established structural components or behavioral patterns.) The word "jolt" is specifically used because while the policies reducing force strength and decreasing defense spending had been introduced on earlier occasions since the end of World War II, these particular jolts were driven by different circumstances than previous drawdowns. The Cold War that had dominated and shaped international affairs was over; the Post Cold War era promised to be a radical departure from the 50-year long status quo. Some phases of the policy jolts were directly related to U.S. Department of Defense operations, such as base closings and reductions in force, while others affected the U.S. defense industrial base through the weapons acquisition process. Domestic acquisition programs have important linkages to transferable weapons systems. Such linkages were so deeply embedded that despite severe reductions in weapons acquisition programs, most prime defense contractors did not conceptually redefine or reconstitute themselves although they went through a long period of mergers and acquisitions. This research explores how U.S. governmental stakeholders interpreted the utility of conventional arms transfers in managing the "aftershocks" of the policy jolts experienced by defense contractors. Their behaviors indicate that U.S. policy-making institutions, for the most part, tried to direct favorable outcomes for U.S. sales in the world market. Ultimately, the policy initiatives undertaken to assure favorable outcomes for defense corporations and their unforeseen consequences could lead to new policies or issue transformation. Ph. D.

This dissertation presents a new approach for identifying, assessing, mitigating, and managing the risks of failure in complex systems. It describes the paradigm commonly used today to explain such failures and proposes an alternative paradigm that expands the lens for viewing failures to include alternative theories derived from modern theories of physics. Further, it describes the foundation for each paradigm and illustrates how the paradigms may be applied to a particular system failure. Today, system failure commonly is analyzed using a paradigm grounded in classical or Newtonian physics. This branch of science embraces the principles of reductionism, cause and effect, and determinism. Reductionism is used to dissect the system failure into its fundamental elements. The principle of cause and effect links the actions that led to the failure to the consequences that result. Analysts use determinism to establish the linear link from one event to another to form the chain that reveals the path from cause to consequence. As a result, each failure has a single cause and a single consequence. An alternative paradigm, labeled contemporary, incorporates the Newtonian foundation of the classical paradigm, but it does not accept the principles as inviolate. Instead, this contemporary paradigm adopts the principles found in the theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos, and complexity. These theories hold that any analysis of the failure is affected by the frame of reference of the observer. Causes may create non-linear effects and these effects may not be observable directly. In this paradigm, there are assumed to be multiple causes for any system failure. Each cause contributes to the failure to a degree that may not be measurable using techniques of classical physics. The failure itself generates multiple consequences that may be remote in place or time from the site of the failure, and which may affect multiple individuals and organizations. Further, these consequences, are not inevitable, but may be altered by actions taken prior to and responses taken after the occurrence of the failure. The classical and contemporary paradigms are applied using a single embedded case study, the failure of the space shuttle Challenger. Sources, including literature and popular press articles published prior to and after the failure and NASA documents are reviewed to determine the utility of each paradigm. These reviews are supplemented by interviews with individuals involved in the failure and the official investigations that followed. This dissertation demonstrates that a combination of the classical and contemporary paradigms provides a more complete, and more accurate, picture of system failure. This combination links the non-deterministic elements of system failure analysis to the more conventional, deterministic theories. This new framework recognizes that the complete prevention of failure cannot be achieved; instead it makes provisions for preparing for and responding to system failure. Ph. D.

This dissertation addresses U.S. foreign aid as a policy problem and examines new avenues for future aid strategies. Contemporary scholars call for shifting the paradigm of world politics from power to a more economicoriented policy of "Cooperative Capitalism." They call to base US foreign policy on a system of "Global Partnership." In that vein this study argues that future aid policy should be reshaped and carried out as a comprehensive strategy that incorporates trade and aid activities. Such a policy will meet better American domestic and global interests. The dissertation examines aid and trade policies, the linkages between them, and their effect on LOCs' economic growth. The inquiry, conducted as a multiple case study, analyzes past and contemporary documentation concerning u.s. aid and foreign trade activities from 1945 to 1990. Ph. D.

Although enrollment in advanced mathematics courses is a significant determinant of mathematics achievement, the majority of public school students are not enrolled in advanced mathematics courses in high school. Policy makers are interested in the dynamics of the math course selection process in the eighth grade because it is viewed as a pivotal transitional point when students are confronted with the decision to either enroll in algebra, the first course on the advanced math track, or in regular math. Approximately one third of eighth grade students enroll in algebra, in spite of general availability of the course. Enrollment patterns vary among the four major race/ethnic subgroups - Asian, Hispanic, Black and White. This study constructed and tested a structural equations model that examined the factors influencing math course choice and the course selection process in the eighth grade in public schools. There were three sources of influence in the model: 1) math achievement; 2) school policies and practices; and 3) parents. The model consisted of three exogenous and five endogenous variables. The model was tested five times. It was tested on a nationally representative sample of 7,648 eighth grade public school students. It was also tested separately on the four race/ethnic subgroups comprising the full sample. The study used data from student and parent files of the base year survey of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS 88), a major national study conducted under the auspices of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). For the full sample, the major school and parental factors influencing a student’s math course choice were math track placement, parents’ educational expectations and school-parent algebra push. Of the two achievement influences, standardized math test scores had the stronger influence on the outcome variable. Prior math grades influenced math course choice, but to a lesser extent and was influential largely due to an indirect effect. Although these factors were important for each of the subgroups, the influence of the factors varied among the subgroups. The model fitted the data fairly well for the full sample and the Asian and White subgroups, but less well for the Hispanic and Black subgroups. Ph. D.

This dissertation is a case study of a public policy decision, the decision to shift the military manpower policy of the United States from conscription to a policy of complete volunteerism--the all-volunteer force. The case study approach is largely historical and is concentrated on the turbulent period between 1965, when the United States' combat role in South Vietnam escalated sharply, and 1973, the year of American withdrawal from the war and the last Selective Service System draft call. A brief history of the military manpower policy of the United States is outlined in order to set the case study period within the proper context and to permit a fuller understanding and appreciation of the policy decision. In order that the case study may have potential application to the study of other public policy decisions, a theoretical model for changes in public policy-making is developed based on the research of public policy-making theorists. This model, which is largely adapted from the theoretical work of ~he Agenda-Building Theorists, is compared to the events and inter-actions of key players in the case study. Although conclusions about a wider applicability of the model is not possible, it can be concluded that the theoretical model does fit the events and circumstances contained in the case study. In addition to attempting to derive a working theoretical model of change in public policy-making, a secondary purpose of the research is to address the nonnative aspects of the shift in policy from conscription to volunteerism. Based on the pattern of American military manpower policy, it appears that Anglo-Saxon liberalism, rooted in the freedom of the individual, is an extremely strong strain in American thinking, and that the relatively long period of conscription in the United States after World War II was an anomaly in the history of American military manpower policies. Ph. D.

Issue exploration is used as a preliminary phase in strategic decision making. It performs the function of allowing strategic decision makers to encounter new information, learn from it, and use it to help them sort the strategic problems from the non-strategic problems. The function of issue exploration effort is to focus strategic resources on the strategic problems and to avoid solving the non-strategic ones. In statistics, solving the wrong problem is considered as making an Error of the Third Kind. For strategic decision makers, solving non-strategic problems can also be considered as making an Error of the Third Kind. An "Organizational Disposition For Change Framework" was developed to research the exploration behavior of thirty strategic decision-making management initiative:s for information technology development in Fairfax County, Virginia. The results supported the hypothesis that strategic decision-making initiatives that included exploration behavior significantly outperform those initiatives that did not. Ph. D.

This dissertation discusses the administrative mechanisms used to execute the president's federal interagency program for national security emergency preparedness (NSEP). The research examines NSEP organizational history starting with its formal creation in 1933, and focusing on its most recent structure, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (during the 1978-1990 period). The dissertation explores formal organizations as manifestations of public policy. The critical events of recent NSEP history resulting in the redefinition of the public policy are the focus of this case study. The findings are: (1) that reorganization has been a significant aspect of NSEP history; (2) that the formal and informal relationship of an organization and its leadership with the White House constitute a critical aspect of organizational design; (3) that the task of coordination is a murky one rife with hazards; and (4) that the effectiveness of a reorganization can be undermined by its implementation. Ph. D.

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe the transfer of a specific technology to a program intended to benefit a segment of the older population. The study interprets the implications of this transfer process for human service programs responsive to the public interest. This provides a lucrative realm for examining the process as an outgrowth of public-private partnerships. Analysis of a partnership in five case studies illustrates the dynamics between nonprofit and for-profit organizations and potential tensions related to differing goals, means, and values. Theoretical grounding draws on relevant organization theory that guides the consideration of prominent concepts, such as responsiveness to the public and the potential for cooptation of public goals in public-private organizational partnerships. With this as a base, the dissertation provides implications for the development of theory on technology transfer in the delivery of human services. Ph. D.