William M. Leavitt

Building on Success: Transforming Organizations through an Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry, developed by David Cooperrider and colleagues at Case Western Reserve University and The Taos Institute, is an organizational transformation tool that focuses on learning from success. Instead of focusing on deficits and problems, the Appreciative Inquiry focuses on discovering what works well, why it works well, and how success can be extended throughout the organization. It is both the vision, and the process for developing this vision, that create the energy to drive change throughout the organization. In 1998, the City of Hampton, Virginia, already nationally recognized as an innovative government, initiated an Appreciative Inquiry process to re-energize its workforce in bringing about their desired vision for the 21st century. 1 The Appreciative Inquiry process was successfully modified to meet the needs of the city government.

Infrastructure Interdependency and the Creation of a Normal Disaster: The Case of Hurricane Katrina and the City of New Orleans

This article examines the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the infrastructure of the City of New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina set in motion a devastating series of failures in the critical infrastructure of the City of New Orleans and the surrounding region. The authors argue that Katrina can be viewed as a “normal” disaster, involving the complex interaction of interdependent infrastructures resulting in the unanticipated failure of multiple infrastructure systems. Key characteristics of infrastructure interdependencies are explored in relation to the case of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. Understanding the nature of normal disasters and the tight coupling of infrastructure systems provides infrastructure managers with important lessons. These lessons involve the need for risk and vulnerability assessment; coordination, cooperation, and communication; and the need for flexible response to disasters.

In Search of Middle Ground The Public Authority as an Alternative to Privatization

This article argues against privatization and for the use of an existing organizational arrangement, one that may take advantage of private-sector efficiencies while maintaining public accountability. Public authorities are already in widespread use around the nation at all levels of government, yet the utility of the public authority as a middle ground between traditional (bureaucratic) public-sector organizational forms and privatization has yet to be explored systematically. We suggest that the use of public authorities provide additional efficiencies without the loss of accountability (or the imposition of expensive accountability arrangements) often found in privatization arrangements. The theoretical basis of the public authority explores its use as an alternative to privatization and encourages debate among public works scholars and practitioners about the use of alternative organizational arrangements for public works functions. A case illustrates how public authorities are situated to provide market-like benefits while minimizing accountability problems and bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Public Works Service Arrangements in the 21st Century. The Multiple-Sector Partnership as an Alternative to Privatization

As the new millennium begins, the debate about how best to provide, produce, and deliver public works and infrastructure services to a growing population increases in intensity. The authors argue that traditional definitions of “privatization” and “public-private partnerships” limit thinking about the options available to infrastructure policy makers and that a broader definition of potential arrangements that better captures the nature of the relationships between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors will lead to a more productive conversation about how best to meet infrastructure needs. This article thus sets the stage for the other four articles in this symposium and enjoins a debate about alternative service delivery arrangements in the 21st century.

Market-Based Pay in Action: Municipal Strategies and Concerns in the Cities of Hampton Roads

The practice of linking the pay of public sector employees to the prevailing labor market, or market-based pay, has been a topic of conversation in many municipalities across the nation. Although much has been written about the use of this pay philosophy, little has been written about the use of market-based pay in local government settings. This article presents the results of in-depth interviews about the use of market-based pay with the human resource directors in the seven Hampton Roads, Virginia, cities. The authors find that although the idea of a market-based pay system is alluring, the difficulties of balancing internal and external equity, political considerations, and economic barriers make full implementation of such a system difficult at best.

Developing Infrastructure Through the Use of Tax Increment Financing The Case of the Virginia Beach Town Center Project

The use of tax increment finance (TIF) arrangements to finance capital-intensive infrastructure needs is not a new concept, but it is gaining traction in many states and municipalities. This article presents the case of the Town Center project in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and the use of a TIF to provide infrastructure for the project. The authors find that the success of the TIF is because of a combination of a reduction in public risk, careful planning, and close attention paid to the capabilities of the private sector partners. The authors conclude that the TIF mechanism is an appropriate and attractive means to fund infrastructure needs, provided the trade-offs and pitfalls are carefully considered and understood.

The High Tech MPA: Distance Learning Technology and Graduate Public Administration Education

The technology of distance learning is in use in graduate MPA classes at a growing number of colleges and universities and is being considered for use at many others. This article explores the important objectives, issues, and concerns that should be addressed for the successful application of the technology and develops models of distance learning for graduate programs. The results of two preliminary surveys covering the use of distance learning technology in MPA programs are reported and analyzed. The authors present their findings concerning the development of successful distance learning programs at the graduate level and call for a consortium of university MPA programs to devise studies and share data and expertise in order to create quality distance learning programs for public administration education.

Human Resources Issues in Local Government: Yesterday's Headlines Remain Today's “Hot Topics”

The authors of this article suggest that one of the most informative methods to identify the human resources issues that occupy an organizations time and efforts is to ask the experts directly. In many local governments, there are at least three groups or organizational units that share responsibility for human resources functions and that must work together as a team to successfully resolve human resources issues: managers and supervisors, human resources professionals, and attorneys. This article specifically addresses some of the legal concerns and issues, i.e., the “hot topics,” that constitute the primary workload of attorneys practicing local government employment law, explores these issues, and identifies strategies used to address these ongoing concerns.

The Case for Performance Management In Public Works and Infrastructure

This article serves as the introduction for the four articles in this symposium issue on performance measurement and management for public works and public infrastructure. The effective management of performance in public works organizations has received an inadequate amount of study in the academic literature and it is hoped that this symposium will provide the impetus for more research on the important of performance measurement and management in public works organizations. The complexity of and challenges to performance measurement and management in public works organizations, themes that cut across all the symposium articles, are outlined and discussed in this introduction article.

Examining Admission Factors in an MPA Program

Abstract This article presents an in-depth examination of the validity of the admission factors employed by a NASPAA-accredited MPA program. Admission factors are examined to determine if particular factors, or a set of factors, are most indicative of an applicant’s potential achievement in the MPA program as measured by a student’s final grade point average (GPA) in the program. The study uses truncated regression techniques to analyze student records in order to determine the relative significance of a set of commonly collected admissions information. We find that the best predictor of success in the MPA program, as measured by final GPA in the program, is the applicant’s undergraduate GPA. This finding brings into question the utility of much of the information collected in a typical MPA program application.