Richard F. Callahan

End-User Satisfaction and Design Features of Public Agencies

This study relates end-user satisfaction to three design features of public agencies that provide services. The research connects the discussion on public participation in administrative processes with a core consideration of public administration: the design features of public organizations. The study seeks to move from the descriptive literature to an empirically grounded survey methodology that examines end-user satisfaction across varied levels of government. Based on a sample of 2,816 end users of 17 public sector organizations, the study tests for associations between organizational performance features and service satisfaction. The findings correlate user satisfaction with three design characteristics of public agencies: agency dependence on user satisfaction for future funding, a clearly identifiable end-user focus by the agency, and the ability of the user to exercise choice in her or his future use of the agency’s services. These findings provide a methodology for survey of public preferences that connects agency performance with public agency design.

Leadership and Strategy: A Comparison of the Outcomes and Institutional Designs of the Alameda Corridor and Alameda Corridor East Projects

This research examines and compares the development of two large-scale projects in Southern California, the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (ACTA) and the Alameda Corridor East (ACE), sharing a number of features for useful paired comparison. Both have similar political institutions at the regional and local levels, serve the same ports and the same private sector railroad parties, and have a similar regional purpose. This paper uses a specific model of strategy to consider a set of outcomes designated by the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) as a framework that can be applied across different projects and regions. The TBL framework tests the strategy model for explanatory power, for the criteria needed for large scale projects to move forward. This model makes explicit the strategic components of each project that advance a triple bottom line as three distinct outcomes: Increased freight velocity (efficiency), improved air quality and reduced traffic congestion (environment), community protection and safety (equity).

Aligning Fiscal and Environmental Sustainability

The future of environmental sustainability will be driven by the capacity of local, state and federal levels of government to develop fiscal sustainability. For example, in the case of the Alameda Corridor in Los Angeles County environmental sustainability advanced only because of the fiscal sustainability of the project. The environmental improvements of reducing particulate car and truck pollutants, as well as remediation of underground water pollution, were financed by the innovative public-private partnership that generated revenues to pay for long-neglected environmental degradations.

America's Engagement in Iraq: Insights and Implications for Public Management Research

Abstract There are lessons to be learned in the matter of public management in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially in the importance of the management cultures in which decisions are made. This review is of four books, by different authors, sharing their journalist approach. Four shared themes emerge from these works: the importance of training, organizational culture, strategy, and governance. The authors develop an awareness of the inter-connectivity of the leadership and management cultures of the military and civilians, with significant implications for future public management research. Each of the four books in this review offers contributions that extend the knowledge and practice of public management and public policy, providing hard-learned lessons that can be cross walked into teaching, practice, and research.