Adm. Sci., Volume 7, Issue 4 (December 2017) – 6 articles

This econometric study contributes to the ongoing debate about the costs and benefits of urban form by employing interdisciplinary means—urban planning, econometrics and public administration—to explore the relationship between urban form and urban public services expenditure. In China, particularly, rapid urbanization is accompanied by an increase of urban public services expenditure and a difference in efficiency, which undermines the promotion of urban public service development. The Chinese government has paid great attention to urban sustainable development and promoting urban public services performance; however, until recently there has been a lack of empirical studies exploring the relationship between urban public services expenditure and urban form. Thus, the present research aims to analyze this issue by using relevant indicators based on an econometric model. The results provide a promising basis for improving urban public services expenditure efficiency. Based on the urban area interpreted by remote sensing data and geographic information system, two urban form metrics, the compactness ratio and the elongation ratio, are selected and quantified to describe urban compactness and urban sprawl accurately. Panel data analyses are performed using a cross-sectional dataset of the 30 cities for the years 2007, 2010 and 2013 to assess the likelihood of association between indicators of urban form and urban public services expenditure, while controlling for other determinants, such as educational level, income per capita, degree of industrialization, and unemployment rate. The results indicate that urban elongation is positively correlated to per capita urban public services expenditure and urban compactness is insignificantly correlated to it. Thus, it is recommended that policymakers consider the relationship between urban form and public services expenditure as part of urban planning and on-going strategies to promote public service efficiency. Full article

Research on the dispositional traits of Millennials (born in 1980–2000) finds that this generation, compared to earlier generations, tends to be more narcissistic, hold themselves in higher regard and feel more entitled to rewards. The purpose of this intragenerational study is to counter balance extant research by exploring how the positive dispositional traits of proactive personality, core self-evaluation, grit and self-control predict strategic independence in a sample of 311 young adults. Strategic independence is a composite variable measuring a person’s tendency to make plans and achieve long-term goals. A confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression found evidence of discriminant validity across the scales and that three of the four independent variables were statistically significant and positive predictors of strategic independence in the study. The paper discusses research and practical implications, strengths and limitations and areas for future research. Full article

Nonprofit and voluntary associations around the world are the primary vehicle for representing the voices of citizens in the policy-making process. As scholars who are committed to advancing the role of civil society and the citizen, it is incumbent upon us to provide theoretical and practical frameworks that can assist nonprofits with this important work. In developed nations, the similarity between societal values and structures in democratic countries makes it possible to assess and advance best practices for policy advocacy regardless of the origin of those advocacy models. This research introduces a recently developed conceptual framework originally deployed to diagnose nonprofit organizations in the U.S. engaged in legislative advocacy. Applied to 12 Israeli nonprofit organizations involved in legislative advocacy and seeking to advance change through the legislative process, this paper assesses and expands the proposed model confirming that most facets of the U.S. framework were commonly used by Israeli nonprofits. There is also evidence that culturally embedded norms are the main source for deviations from the model applied in the U.S. Full article

Despite the predominance of perspectives on women’s leadership, which consistently emphasize the underrepresentation of women in virtually every sphere of political and economic life in countries around the world, very little is known about women’s leadership, especially in higher education, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). This has resulted in a gap in the literature, since higher education is one area of employment where Saudi women have made progress, and in spite of complex social, religious, cultural and organisational barriers, some have broken through the glass ceiling into higher education leadership. One goal of this paper is to highlight, through a synthesis of existing literature, the current state of women’s higher education leadership in Saudi Arabia. The second goal of this paper is to propose new directions for future research to address the current dearth of empirical work on women’s leadership in higher education in Saudi Arabia. This may be relevant to other regions of the Middle East and elsewhere. Full article

Strategic concepts and practices first evolved in the private sector, so they evoked much controversy when they migrated to the public sector from the late 1970s onwards. Partly this was about their (in)applicability to the distinctive features of government organizations, in particular their focus on public as well as private value, their situation in a political rather than a market environment, their almost exclusive capacity to use legal authority to achieve purposes, and the extent to which they often need to share power over personnel and resources with other public sector agencies. These and other factors complicated efforts to apply New Public Management and similar frameworks in strategy concepts in a governmental context. Partly also the traditional private-sector focus on single organizations did not resonate with the growth of network governance from the 1990s. The authors argue for an alternative model based primarily on the public value framework as a means of incorporating and going beyond traditional strategy thinking. Full article

The complex features of the nursing shortage, horizontal violence, generational diversity and healthy work environments have frequently been addressed within the context of their singular characteristics, challenges and potential solutions. Yet it is the interrelationships of these phenomena that holds solutions to the overarching challenges facing nurses and the nursing profession. Through an inductive approach, a preliminary discussion and related strategies to address the highlighted challenges have been proposed. Full article