Mario A. Rivera

Refocusing Graduate Public Affairs Education: A Need for Diversity Competencies in Human Resource Management

Abstract It is generally agreed that diversity is a critical challenge for managers and that advancing organizational diversity is both an ethical and a pragmatic requirement for effective public administration. However, it may be argued that graduate public affairs education relating to human resource management (HRM) has not sufficiently attended to diversity topics and that public affairs graduate curricula in general have not evidenced sufficient inclusion of diversity themes. This essay indicates a need for curricular revision that includes diversity competencies. The research and corresponding analysis is presented in two parts, corresponding to two phases of research. The first addresses findings from graduate student surveys conducted over three years at the University of Vermont. The second concerns data collected from 41 NASPAA-accredited and 17 unaccredited NASPAA-member programs in public affairs. The results from the first phase suggest that graduate public affairs students need greater exposure to diversity themes and issues. The second phase results suggest that NASPAA-accredited programs are not much different from unaccredited member programs in incorporating diversity topics into curricular offerings or otherwise exhibiting a commitment to diversity. The essay ends with several recommendations for programs intending to develop or revise their public policy and administration curricula in order to better attend to diversity concerns.

RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT: A LAND MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY

Network analysis of information systems management is the focus of this study. Its premise is that resource scarcity will force public sector organizations to integrate and coordinate systems development tasks with other agencies in ways that will give rise to networked interorganizational capabilities. Emphasis is placed on the effect that the joint adoption by public organizations of advanced information technologies is likely to have on existing approaches to managerial decision making, particularly in the federal bureaucracy. Information models of organization suggest that expanded information processing capacity can correspondingly increase institutional capability and responsiveness, although information technology (IT) also tends to generate increasingly complex internal and external demands on the information management capacities of organizations.[1] In interorganizational domains, a history of technical collaboration, along with shared missionx and common interests, conditions the process of adoption of information systems. A case study of a partnership between the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service in an effort at the joint development of a major computer information system will indicate the need for new approaches to the management and evaluation of coordinated IT projects capable of sustaining organizational innovation. One important issue is the relationship between the cultures and practices of emergent team-led management and established centrally directive management. An assessment of the BLM Automated Land and Mineral Records System (ALMRS) indicates that, as adversity and uncertainty increase, institutional capacity and efficacy may also increase proportionally, and resource constraint might actually prompt the development of new organizational capabilities. For this somewhat paradoxical outcome to obtain, however, public agencies must address information demands flexibly, adaptively, and cooperatively, modifying their management systems in complementary ways. They can, for instance, tackle the high costs of information system deployment by sharing expertise through interorganizational networks of user-experts. However, information systems innovation requires the corresponding development of organizational and managerial capabilities. A movement toward decentralization and teamwork may be expected to require new, integrative, forms of information systems management, and political management skills need to be brought into play to stave off external threats long enough for these changes to occur. Absent these enabling conditions, fledgling or even established team approaches to information systems development may be in jeopardy.

Employment Equity and Institutional Commitments to Diversity: Disciplinary Perspectives from Public Administration and Public Affairs Education

Abstract Are racism and discrimination forgotten issues in public administration research on the promotion of diversity in graduate education and faculty employment? Studies touching on diversity and employment equity usually address subjects such as education and training—the competencies needed by professional administrators, for example—as well as best practices in diversity management, persistent problems such as the lack of racial or gender diversity in upper management positions in public sector agencies, and the enduring challenges of minority recruitment and retention in public administration programs. The subjects of racism and discrimination as such—or of underlying factors generally—are seldom addressed centrally. Consequently, questions such as the following arise: What role might racism play in academic as well as public sector employment? What about other lines of causation impacting discrimination? How do individual, group, and institutional predispositions and actions affect employment equity? How have such questions been addressed in the public administration literature? In other research and research applications in the social, behavioral, and management sciences? And, finally, what can be learned from successful and failed diversity-promotion practices among academic programs? A significant body of empirical research is uncovering patterns of action that have the intended or unintended effect of excluding candidates of color from recruitment pools, interview short-lists, and faculty hiring and advancement opportunities. This essay reviews and analyzes some of this literature, particularly as it relates to public affairs education. On that basis, it suggests the following: (1) new directions for diversity-related research, (2) changes in the articulation of diversity commitments, particularly by public administration departments and programs, and (3) ways to successfully realize those institutional commitments (assuming that they are more than rhetorical), pointing to research that specifies proven practices.

The Paradox of Transforming Public Administration: Modernity Versus Postmodernity Arguments

Directing organizational change requires the ability to interpret—and reinterpret—the meanings customarily ascribed to crucial institutional values, norms, and events. If public managers are prepared to live with contradiction, conflict, and ambiguity, they can gain a new perspective on the complex social process of organizational change. An appreciation of the inherent tensions among crucial constructs in public administration—the binary opposition of bureaucracy and democracy, leadership and representation, policy making and implementation, centralization and decentralization, and the like—would allow administrators to determine if it is possible to reconcile tensions in particular instances. One element of contradiction in contemporary public administration is found in the debate concerning “modern” and “postmodern” perspectives of administrative practice, representing conflicting interpretations of substantive and normative aspects of institutional change. This study probes this issue at the intersection of the social and administrative sciences with administrative practice and also examines what the authors see as the paradoxical interplay of postmodernist theory, critical theory, and theories of political and economic development. An ancillary purpose is to assess the prospective value of critical-modern and postmodernist models for contemporary public administration.

Institutional racism, organizations & public policy

Contents: Introduction: Institutional Racism and Its Multiple Dimensions - The Legacy of Race and Public Policy in Contemporary America - Institutional Racism and the Management of Government Organizations and Policies: A Critical Examination of HAMP - Religious Institutions, Race, and Belief Systems - Institutions of Higher Learning and the Promise of Diversity: An Ethics Dialogue for Public Affairs Education and Diversity/Cultural Competency Training - Nonprofits, Community Service Organizations, and Philanthropy - Racial Profiling and Law Enforcement Agencies - Employment Equity and Institutional Racism: Diversity Advocacy in American Public Administration Education and Practice - Transformative Leadership and Remedial Action: Prospects for a Public Ethics Focused on Claims to Equity.

Intersectionality, Stereotypes of African American Men, and Redressing Bias in the Public Affairs Classroom

Abstract This article describes how the authors use the theoretical construct of intersectionality and concepts relating to stereotyping in treatments of diversity and social equity in the public affairs classroom. The authors’ approach reflects their efforts in civil rights advocacy, which inform their teaching. Larger framing questions, of some pertinence to the interpretation and determination of public policy and programs, emerge. The authors’ focus is on intersectionality, stereotyping, and miscategorization as these pertain to African American men in particular, with some consideration of the possibilities for assertive self-categorization within this population as a means for attaining greater self-efficacy and agency. Additionally, the authors bring the important constructs of critical race theory and public ethics into the discussion, reflecting their use of these constructs in the classroom. The article concludes with recommendations for public affairs faculty, regardless of background or area of specialization, who wish to address these subjects in their classrooms.

Comparative Program-Performance Evaluation and Government Accountability in New Mexico—Some Applied Lessons for Intergovernmental Relations

Abstract In Strategies for Using State Information: Measuring and Improving Program Performance (2003), Shelley Metzenbaum poses a series of “key questions” about the federal-state performance reporting relationship. Metzenbaum asks whether there should be a uniform accountability system across the American states and whether it should be required of the states by the federal government. Ancillary questions include what uses should be made of state performance information and whether federal agencies should publicy report such information. These questions are important in light of the burgeoning performancemanagement movement in contemporary public administration. The extension of performance measurement and reporting systems to state governments is largely due to the impact on states of the federal Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), and generally to the ascendancy of new public management perspectives in governmental practice. The experience of the State of New Mexico with regard to intergovernmental performance reporting in recent years, under both Republican and Democratic gubernatorial administrations, suggests that closer integration of federal and state performance reporting is necessary, that more comprehensive performancebased systems (that include comparative performance measurement and strategic planning frameworks) are essential, and that new evaluative models are needed to address the sometimes cooperative and sometimes adversarial nature of intergovernmental relations. Lessons from the MPA classroom arising from these interrelated concerns and from the authors’ applied research with state government are addressed at the conclusion of this study.

A Public Ethics Approach Focused on the Lives of Diverse LGBTQ Homeless Youth

How can an ethical-analytical framework focused on social equity help illuminate the challenges faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth of color, particularly those who are homeless? The purpose of this article is to engage in just such an analysis of the complex analytical and ethical challenges presented by homelessness among LGBTQ youth. The authors take as our point of departure the premise that trans youth who are also visible minorities may be among the most marginal and most likely to experience homelessness and other threats to well-being. The authors argue that society needs to be concerned with the lives of diverse LGBTQ youth, and particularly those navigating multiple, intersecting forms of marginalization, including homelessness, because they present us with a limit situation that demands an ethical response.

Ethical and institutional frameworks for interactional justice in public organizations: a comparative analysis of selected Western and Chinese sources

This paper explores both differences and points of contact between selected contemporary theories of public ethics in the West and China. China is in a greater state of flux in this connection, with new, eclectic approaches to ethical justification for moral agency gaining prominence. There are thematic parallels between East and West in their distinct strains of institutionalism (in which neither individual moral agency nor the justice claims of individuals have much play). However, there are recent Chinese theoretical proposals – many incorporating Western sources – that address this quandary, namely the institutional overdetermination of moral agency. These proposals are joined to contributions from feminist and liberation ethics in a critical reconsideration of overridingness in formal ethics. Contemporary Chinese ethics connect moral claims to kin, community, and reciprocity networks, particularly as traditional philosophy is recovered in new theoretical syntheses. The grounding of Confucian ethics in kin and community offers an instructive contrast to formal Western ethical systems, as do radical strains of Western ethics that suggest that transcendence is found in the selfs extension toward others in need. This paper considers these ethical themes in connection with hypothetical instances of interactional justice in organizations.

Internet Access and Innovation-Diffusion in a National Cancer Institute Preventive Health Education Project: Telecenters, Cybercafes, and Sociodemographic Impacts on Knowledge Gaps

Abstract Policymakers and analysts cite the availability of free Internet telecenters at libraries and community centers as a viable way to close the so-called knowledge gap and the digital divide among minority and poor communities. This study looks at policymakers’ dissemination of a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Web-based, preventive health education intervention to low-income people in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado through free Internet access. Although free public access Internet telecenters would appear to offer the potential of bridging these gaps, knowledge and information gaps persist because of the differentials between free and pay Internet access, as well as access through direct personal ownership of computers with Internet connections. The rate of increase of knowledge diffusion is much higher for individuals and communities of higher socioeconomic status who pay for access than for those with lesser means and who access free electronic resources. Pay-for-Internet cybercafes and free Internet telecenters have different accessibility thresholds, offer different user environments, and attract at least two different types of customers or clients. The socioeconomic differences in the two types of patrons are presented in this study by way of the results of an electronic user survey and a telecenter survey in the aforementioned project locales. While a learning and knowledge gap is evident between patrons of pay and free access sites, both types of public Internet access are, in relative terms, severely limited. Residually, a large knowledge gap persists among users of public access sites compared to computer owners with their own Internet connections. These disparities have implications for the dissemination of Web-based health information, particularly among the poor in minority communities. The Internet access evaluation is placed in the larger context of the NCI project, the Health Communication Intervention Research Initiative, looking (1) at broader concerns of cultural communications and policy and program implementation (2) across social and programmatic networks, with consideration to (3) pedagogical applications of the case in the MPA classroom.