Table of Contents     
                                                    

2003
 

Volume Eight, Number Three
    

Symposium

Public Policy Impacts on Organizational Behavior

Breena E. Coates, Editor

1. Foreword: Public Policy Impacts on Organizational Behavior
   Breena E. Coates

2.  

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.

2. Sequence of Papers
    

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.

3. THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY CHALLENGES THE FEDERAL CIVIL SERVICE SYSTEM: Personnel lessons from a department’s emergence
   Richard W. Ryan

   The establishment of a Department of Homeland Security has become an opportunity for the reshaping of personnel rules governing federal employees, both those entering the new department and throughout the federal service. Policy debates over the department’s creation and management are giving voice to different perspectives on the shape of human resources preferences in the new millennium. This paper examines the recommendations and goals of competing political perspectives on reforming public service personnel management and looks to the near future for potential impacts.
    

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.

4. The Effects of Government Funding on Management Practices in Faith-based Organizations: Propositions for Future Research
   Kevin P. Kearns

   The Bush Administration has taken steps to help religiously oriented organizations compete for federal grants and contracts to delivery social services to their communities. A composite case study is used as a literary device to illustrate propositions about the possible effects that increased federal funding will have on the management structure, practices, and culture of a small faith-based organization. The paper speculates that the President’s so-called “faith-based initiative” could have some unintended negative consequences for the organizations it is designed to help.
    

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.

5. Urban Collective Governance Organizations: The Effect of Institutional Arrangements on Organizational Behavior
   Susan E. Baer and Vincent L. Marando

   The authors analyze how the institutional arrangements, considered rules and forms of public policy in this context, of four community benefits districts (CBDs) impact organizational behavior in these organizations. A community benefits district is a quasi-governmental city subdistrict organization that assesses an additional property tax to both residential and commercial property owners within its boundaries. In exchange for paying this additional tax, subdistrict property owners receive supplemental services such as safety, sanitation (garbage collection), and economic development. The authors examine these institutional arrangements in four subdistrict organizations in Baltimore, Maryland; New York, New York; Louisville, Kentucky; and Cincinnati, Ohio. Specifically, the authors find the following broad similarities in the organizations’ institutional arrangements: legislation at the state and local level is required before the organizations can form; a necessary amount of favorable political will at the grassroots level is required before the organizations can form; organizational governance by an elected or appointed board is required; and a professional and non-professional staff that manages the organizations’ daily operation is required. In addition, the authors find and discuss the importance of more nuanced differences in these institutional arrangements on organizational behavior. In the article, the authors show that how the organizations are institutionally structured affects the way in which they behave.
    

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.

6. Democratization: The Development of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) in Central and Eastern Europe
   Ginta T. Palubinskas

   This paper examines the impacts of public policy on organizational behavior in relationship to the process of democratization and the development of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in post-communist Central and Eastern European countries. The public policies and public management style in these countries under communist rule differed greatly from those associated with democratic societies. Under communism, public policies were geared toward making the individual totally dependent on the state. These policies must now be replaced with policies that support democratic values. This study finds, that the democratization of post-communist Central and Eastern European countries can best be achieved through the development of a political climate conducive to private initiative and to the growth and development of NGOs.
    

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.

7. Rogue Corporations, Corporate Rogues & Ethics Compliance: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2002
   Breena E. Coates

   Managed-mendacity arising from a culture of corporate greed gave birth to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Organizational malfeasance arises from deep within the culture of mega corporations, and consists of the collective issues of complexity and strategy; and, individual forms of managerial mischief. The impact of unethical corporate behavior has had wide-spread national and global ramifications for the economy and prestige of the United States. This paper looks at survey results that shows that stiffer penalties for wrongdoing embedded into the legislation are beginning to have an impact on corporate social responsibility.
    

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.

8. UNIVERSITY, INDUSTRY, AND GOVERNMENT ALLIANCES: ESCALATING CONFLICTS WITH THE PUBLIC INTEREST
   Deborah Woo

   This paper addresses threats to the public interest in a period where economic globalization has promoted increasing university, industry, and government collaborations. A significant focus of these partnerships has been industry-supported research that purports to serve the public interest but instead creates conflicts of interest for both universities and government. The implications are drawn especially for academic researchers with entrepreneurial pursuits. In addition, specific examples are given of how existing regulatory mechanisms have been inadequate with respect to preventing the intrusion of corporate profit-making over the public welfare. In the context of national and state budgetary shortfalls, it will become that much more attractive for institutions to seek commercial support to realize public interest goals. For this reason, the impact of commercially funded activities deserves much more public policy attention.
    

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.

9. Agricultural Inspections on the California-Mexico Border: The Impacts of Public Policy
   Max Leimgruber

   This paper uses qualitative, first-person experience from the field, to show how the impetus for homeland security, arising in the United States, after September 11, 2001, has changed organizational culture, and the design and meaning of work, on the California-Mexico Border. How this change has impacted individual employees is given from the perspective of a veteran Agricultural Officer at the Port of Calexico, using participant observation, hermeneutical and phenomenology techniques.
    

		View Full Article		Download PDF Version		Return to Journal Listing.