Simon A. Andrew

Introduction: Understanding the Relationships Between Nonprofit Organizations and Local Governments

In the past two decades governments at all levels in the United States haveincreased their involvement with nonprofit organizations. As state and localgovernments deal with devolution of service responsibilities from state andfederal governments, they confront the challenges of providing more andbetter service while operating within fiscal constraints. To address thesechallenges, local governments increasingly involve nonprofits in servicedelivery. Local governments can draw on nonprofit organizations’ volun-teers and private financial resources, as well as their greater flexibility ofaction. Nonprofits have also become increasingly skilled advocates for theirclients, arguing persuasively for public resources to support their activitiesand seeking to influence governmental agendas and priorities. Increasingly,nonprofits and local governments have partnered to jointly develop andimplement programs.

Understanding Horizontal and Vertical Relations in the Context of Economic Development Joint Venture Agreements

A joint venture agreement is one type of governance mechanism that can be adopted by local governments to address collective action problems. While much of the current research discusses the importance of regional cooperation, few studies explore the type of relations formed with institutional actors in the context of interjurisdictional agreements. The authors address this gap in the literature by investigating the association among the transaction costs of forming an economic development joint venture agreement and two types of relations formed by local governments: horizontal and vertical. The results of a survey of local officials in 12 large metropolitan areas indicate that, depending upon the extent to which coordination, division, or defection problems are perceived to make joint venture agreements difficult to establish, local governments have horizontal and vertical relations. The findings highlight challenges and opportunities for addressing collective action problems and facilitating regional cooperation for economic development.

An adaptive governance approach to disaster-related behavioural health services.

This paper explores the provision of disaster-related behavioural and mental health (DBH) services as a problem of institutional collective action in the United States. This study reviews the challenges that providers have in surmounting multi-organizational disconnects, unstable professional legitimacy, ambiguous information, and shifting disaster needs in developing a system for delivering DBH services. Based on the adaptive governance framework, it argues that existing protocols such as the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Incident Command System (ICS) may be helpful in advancing collective action, but that real progress will depend on a recognition of norms, expectations, and credentials across many spheres-in other words, on the ability of responders to continuously adjust their procedures and administrative boundaries for behavioural health institutions.

Regional Cooperation and Multilateral Agreements in the Provision of Public Safety

Although much has been written about interlocal agreements for the delivery of services, few studies have examined the factors that influence the establishment of different types of multilateral agreements (MLAs). To address this lacuna, the authors draw a distinction between an adaptive and restrictive MLA and seek to understand why local governments enter into one type of arrangement over the other. The authors build our theoretical argument on the basis of previous research that suggests agreements are designed to minimize the uncertainties associated with transaction risk. On the basis of this premise, the author’s general proposition is that the decision to establish an adaptive MLA is shaped by the asset specificity and measurability of the goods and services of the transaction. The authors utilize data on public safety agreements among municipal and county governments in the state of Florida. Findings suggest that local governments are more likely to form an adaptive MLA when goods and services are relatively high in service measurability difficulty and when both high and low asset specificity exit.

Sources of organisational resiliency during the Thailand floods of 2011: a test of the bonding and bridging hypotheses.

Based on the Institutional Collective Action framework, this research tests the impact of two competing hypotheses--bonding and bridging--on enhancing organisational resiliency. The bonding hypothesis posits that organisational resiliency can be achieved if an organisation works closely with others, whereas the bridging hypothesis argues that such a structure places considerable stress on an organisation and advocates for an organisation to position itself as a central actor to gain access to novel resources from a diverse set of entities to achieve resiliency. The paper analyses data gathered from semi-structured interviews with 44 public, private, and non-profit organisations serving communities affected by the Great Floods of 2011 in the Thai capital, Bangkok (urban), and in Pathum Thani (suburban) and Ayutthaya (rural) provinces. The findings suggest that: organisational resiliency was associated with the bridging effect; organisations in the rural province were more resilient than those in the suburban and urban centres; and private and non-governmental organisations generally were more resilient than public sector organisations. The findings highlight the importance of fostering multi-sector partnerships to enhance organisational resiliency for disaster response.

Does transformational leadership build resilient public and nonprofit organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of transformational leadership – broadly defined as an individual who is visionary, innovative, inspirational and sensitive to the needs of followers – on the level of organizational resiliency. Design/methodology/approach – This study employs multiple hierarchical regression analysis to test the causal relationship between transformational leadership and organizational resiliency by utilizing 112 respondents working in emergency management departments of local governments, fire and police stations, and nonprofit organizations in the Southeastern Economic Region of South Korea. Findings – The results of the analysis indicate that transformational leadership style has a positive and statistically significant effect on perceived organizational resiliency. The findings also indicate that elected officials such as mayors are more likely to focus on building organizational resiliency than appointed officials and nonprofit leaders. Originality/value –...

Using provincial baseline indicators to model geographic variations of disaster resilience in Thailand

Understanding a community’s capacity for responding to and recovering from natural disasters has been an emphasis of recent disaster research. In particular, scholars have called for the development of methodologies for measuring a location’s resilience to disasters. While several studies propose methodologies and frameworks for measuring disaster resilience in the USA, few studies examine and measure resilience in international settings. This study applies Cutter et al.’s (Glob Environ Change 18:598–606, 2008) Disaster Resilience of Place (DROP) model in order to examine disaster resilience at the provincial level in Thailand. Guided by the DROP model, 25 variables were selected from the 2000 and 2010 Thai Census and 2005–2006 Statistical Yearbook that served as indicators of resilience. Using a principal component analysis, a set of baseline metrics reflecting dimensions of community capacities that influence disaster resilience was created. This analysis resulted in four dimensions describing resilience: household assets, economic assets, community/response assets, and institutional assets. Using the derived index, a correlation analysis was then conducted to examine differences in rural and urban disaster resilience. While the results of the model suggest that disaster resilience is generally higher in the more urbanized areas, we also note that communities located in rural areas in Thailand may not necessarily be less resilient to the impacts of disasters and call for studies conducted at both the macrolevel (provincial level) and at microlevel (village or neighborhood level) to get a nuanced understanding of community resiliency.

LINKING COOPERATIVE ARRANGEMENTS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES: AN INSTITUTIONAL COLLECTION ACTION FRAMEWORK

The main purpose of this paper is to examine if cooperative arrangements among local governments explain the tendency for local governments to adopt certain types of economic development strategies. We take our clues from the Institutional Collective Action (ICA) framework by highlighting the elements of competition and cooperation in economic development strategies. The general hypothesis is that when local governments decide to cooperate, they are acting strategically to improve their economic competitiveness. The general hypothesis is that when local governments decide to cooperate, they are acting strategically to improve their economic competitiveness. We utilize a series of binary regressions with data collected from a survey of local development officials in 206 cities located in twelve metropolitan areas in the United States. The results provide partial support for our general propositions. We found cooperation has no effect on “go it alone” tax incentive strategies but a positive effect on the use of capital intensive strategies that are crucial for enhancing regional competiveness.

Building R&D collaboration between university-research institutes and small medium-sized enterprises

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of governments in resolving collective action dilemmas arising in RD and supplemented by firm-level data retrieved from the government official statistics on structural characteristics of SMEs. The Mann-Whitney Test of Difference was employed to test the perceived importance of RD and that, they believe the government can assist them in research and development activities and human resource training. Research limitations/implications - – This study provides new insights into the way in which R&D facilities of SMEs may facilitate R&D collaboration with URIs. The results broaden the understanding on the scope of R&D collaboration adopted by SMEs and strategies that can be adopted and implemented by government agencies to attract and retain firms that are innovative. While the findings also provide insights on the scope of management decisions adopted by SMEs, the sample was limited to 336 SMEs in the Seoul Metropolitan area, making generalization to other regions of the country limited. Originality/value - – From the institutional collective action framework, this research provides a critical lens to build R&D collaboration between the URI and SMEs, highlighting the role of government with considerable efforts to facilitate SMEs to enter into arrangements with URIs by focussing on the importance of R&D facility and stages of product development.

How do you warn them if they speak only Spanish? Challenges for organizations in communicating risk to Colonias residents in Texas, USA

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the information channels used by public and nonprofit organizations to communicate disaster risk information to Colonias residents in Hidalgo County, Texas. It seeks to find creative and proactive solutions for organizations to improve risk education to these constituents. Design/methodology/approach – Initially a snowball sampling technique was used to conduct six face-to-face interviews. This was followed by an online survey sent to 64 reputational referrals, of which 23 completed the survey, generating a response rate of 34 percent. A comparative analysis between public and nonprofit organizations and the Fischers exact test were employed to analyze the data. Findings – Channel preferences for providing risk information varied with public organizations using the television (TV) and the nonprofit organizations using bilingual staff for outreach. The television, radio, public events, and bilingual staff were considered to be the most effective while soci...