Nicolas A. Valcik - Böcker

In a recent paradigm shift, local governments find themselves shouldering more responsibility for day-to-day governance and crisis management, thanks to regulations and federal spending cuts. While 20 years ago a book on local government administration might have been considered complete with chapters on budgeting, public personnel management, productivity and responsivity, and community engagement, any discussion of local government must now also include resilience, emergency management, climate change, smart cities, social media, and infrastructure funding. Bringing together key voices from the academic and public sectors, Local Government Management offers techniques and insight into how local government can most effectively lead and manage their resources in an evolving political—and environmental—landscape.Featuring examples from expert contributors’ own decades of public service and research, this forward-thinking book explores the rapid speed of change in local communities and the need for local government to not only adapt but also proactively plan for the future. Local Government Management is essential reading for local government officials, public stakeholders, practitioners, and students of public administration and management.

American higher education faces a challenging environment. Decreasing state appropriations, rising costs, and tightening budgets have left American colleges and universities scrambling to achieve their missions with ever more limited resources. Campus leaders have therefore increasingly relied upon institutional research and strategic planning departments to make transparent and rational decisions and to promote good stewardship of critical but finite resources. Institutional Research Initiatives in Higher Education illustrates the wealth of institutional research activities occurring in American higher education. Featuring chapters by a prominent mix of authors representing community colleges, traditional undergraduate institutions, land grant institutions, research and flagship universities, and state agencies, this book provides numerous insights into the contemporary challenges, innovative programs, and best practices in institutional research. With contributors from a variety of regions and types of institutions, each chapter provides rigorous analysis of campus-based research activities in areas such as strategic planning, admissions and enrollment management, assessment and compliance, and financial planning and budgeting. Like the departments it studies, Institutional Research Initiatives in Higher Education is an invaluable resource for university administrators, researchers, and policymakers alike.

Employers face a myriad of issues when hiring: how to recruit, whom to select, how to interview, Equal Employment Opportunity policies, fair salary offerings, health issues, performance evaluations, behavior/disciplinary actions, turnover, and the list goes on and on. Practical Human Resources Management for Public Managers: A Case Study Approach provides insight into human resource trends and demonstrates how complex situations can be successfully managed by public sector practitioners. The authors take us step by step into the "real world" with examples of historical events that compare "What Happened" with "What Could Have Happened" as well as suggested readings for more in-depth analysis and important points to remember. Exploring the space between theory and what actually occurs in the world, this book supplies instructional case studies based upon actual events. The authors introduce key human resources issues with clear, concise language and provide techniques to address these issues in a real-world setting. The case studies cover legal and liability issues, recruiting and hiring, employee performance, reward and discipline issues, retention, termination, workplace violence, mentorship, motivation, and managing through transitions. The authors bring know-how from a wide array of working environments, including teaching and administrative experience in public universities and management in municipalities of various population sizes from a few thousand to more than a million. They have also worked in a variety of capacities within these organizations, which allow them to see different perspectives on how different departments handle similar situations. They use their from-the-trenches knowledge to explore pragmatic ways to deal with human resource issues in public sector workplaces.

Completely revised and updated, Hazardous Materials Compliance for Public Research Organizations: A Case Study, Second Edition presents a case study of one university’s policies and practices with regard to the procurement, use, storage and disposal of HAZMAT in the context of a changing internal structure and regulatory environment. The author’s presentation is no-holds-barred, using interviews, archival documentation, and unobtrusive observations as a participant where the research institution was at times noncompliant with the new federal guidelines. See What’s New in the Second Edition: Incorporates issues with all types of hazardous materials instead of just focusing on biological HAZMATUpdated information on current regulations on HAZMAT in relation to universities and research centersFollow-up on the case study university, disclosing the university’s progress in resolving the security and safety shortcomingsBy implementing key improvements in safety and security, the universities can also more easily obtain research grant money and satisfy both state and federal safety requirements. This book includes recommendations to improve safety while using and storing biotoxins, chemical, radioactive material, and industrial waste, and to improve overall security at the university. It also highlights improvements that can make the environment a safer and more secure location to perform biological research.

Packed with case studies and ripped-from-the-headlines examples, Non-Profit Organizations: Real Issues for Public Administrators introduces critical issues commonly encountered when managing non-profit organizations and gives you the tools to develop policies and procedures to meet the challenges that arise when these issues occur. The authors use the case study methodology to explore decision-making issues and provide potential solutions. It provides an applied framework to use when managing a non-profit organization.The book provides case studies that range from unethical behavior to poor operational decisions to illegal activities in non-profit organizations. The authors discuss the events in phases and then identify what issues should concern the administrator and potential solutions to each phase of a case study. In addition, many of the case studies address more than one issue that threatened an organization’s finances and its credibility to its stakeholders and the public.Using the information in this book, you can create a checklist of issues that will help you and your organization avoid scandals or alleged criminal activity, and better defuse fallout if an incident occurs. It gives you a "safe" environment in which to "live" through a case study without suffering the consequences of lost resources, assets, or worse, public trust, for your organization in reality.

This book provides administrators in public and non-profit organizations with direction and a framework from which to lead their organizations effectively. Taking a global approach to the issues administrators need to examine when managing a group of employees at any level (including budgeting and expenditures, forecasting, policy creation and execution, communication and reporting), this book explores the driving forces in organizational decision making. Author Nick Valcik takes a holistic view on organizational management, beginning with the core aspects of public organizations and the leadership competencies necessary to manage an organization successfully. Designed to be used on undergraduate and graduate courses in public administration and in public affairs programs, the book discusses the basics of organizational structure, delves into risk management issues, and offers a set of tools that can be used by administrators to make informed decisions based on actual data or documented processes. Throughout the book, real world case studies provide students and practitioners with a clear understanding of how exactly the right decision tool may be applied when facing a particular decision in any organization.

Why should public administrators care about city planning? Is city planning not a field ruled by architects and public works personnel? Much of city planning in fact requires expertise in areas other than buildings and infrastructure, and with city planning expertise, urban administrators are empowered to make more informed decisions on matters that involve budgeting, economic development, tax revenues, public relations, and ordinances and policies that will benefit the community. City Planning for the Public Manager is designed to fill a gap in the urban administration literature, offering students and practitioners hands-on, practical advice from experts with diverse city administration experience, and demonstrating where theory and practice intersect. Divided into three sections, the book provides an overview of the life cycle of a municipality and its services, explores city planning applications for planners on a strict budget, and walks the reader through a real-life planning research project, demonstrating how it was formulated, implemented, and analyzed to produce usable results. Topics explored include justifications for specific city services, internal and external benchmarking used for city planning, common technical tools (e.g., GIS), legal aspects of planning and zoning, environmental concerns, transportation, residential planning, business district planning, and infrastructure. City Planning for the Public Manager is required reading for students of urban administration and practicing city administrators interested in improving their careers and their communities.

American higher education faces a challenging environment. Decreasing state appropriations, rising costs, and tightening budgets have left American colleges and universities scrambling to achieve their missions with ever more limited resources. Campus leaders have therefore increasingly relied upon institutional research and strategic planning departments to make transparent and rational decisions and to promote good stewardship of critical but finite resources. Institutional Research Initiatives in Higher Education illustrates the wealth of institutional research activities occurring in American higher education. Featuring chapters by a prominent mix of authors representing community colleges, traditional undergraduate institutions, land grant institutions, research and flagship universities, and state agencies, this book provides numerous insights into the contemporary challenges, innovative programs, and best practices in institutional research. With contributors from a variety of regions and types of institutions, each chapter provides rigorous analysis of campus-based research activities in areas such as strategic planning, admissions and enrollment management, assessment and compliance, and financial planning and budgeting. Like the departments it studies, Institutional Research Initiatives in Higher Education is an invaluable resource for university administrators, researchers, and policymakers alike.

This book provides administrators in public and non-profit organizations with direction and a framework from which to lead their organizations effectively. Taking a global approach to the issues administrators need to examine when managing a group of employees at any level (including budgeting and expenditures, forecasting, policy creation and execution, communication and reporting), this book explores the driving forces in organizational decision making. Author Nick Valcik takes a holistic view on organizational management, beginning with the core aspects of public organizations and the leadership competencies necessary to manage an organization successfully. Designed to be used on undergraduate and graduate courses in public administration and in public affairs programs, the book discusses the basics of organizational structure, delves into risk management issues, and offers a set of tools that can be used by administrators to make informed decisions based on actual data or documented processes. Throughout the book, real world case studies provide students and practitioners with a clear understanding of how exactly the right decision tool may be applied when facing a particular decision in any organization.

Designed to enable practitioners and students to evaluate a variety of real-life emergencies from every angle, this new edition of Case Studies in Disaster Response and Emergency Management provides clear, thorough, step-by-step descriptions of more than 50 major disasters or emergencies. Arranged chronologically, the case studies involve incidents from around the globe, with topics including natural disasters, industrial accidents, epidemics, and terrorist attacks. A series of questions throughout each case study encourages the reader to think critically about the problem at hand, to select a course of action, and to then see the results of the decisions that were made. This hands-on approach invites practitioners and students to apply learned theoretical emergency management techniques in a safe test environment.Case Studies in Disaster Response and Emergency Management, 2e provides readers with the most modern and current case studies in disaster response and emergency management and can be used in group project settings, as individual homework assignments in training courses for first responders, law enforcement, and government employees, or to complement existing emergency management textbooks in Public Administration, Public Management, and Public Affairs programs.

This volume provides an introduction to Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) for those in the public administration field. At the intersection between human resource management and information technology, HRIS is often the key to having and maintaining the personnel data that is essential for hiring and recruitment, strategic planning and analysis, and legal requirements in most public organizations. Revised and updated for the second edition, this book describes what an HRIS system is, what the functionality of such a system should be, and outlines the practical aspects of an HRIS. It also compares the different aspects of human resources in public organizations, non-profit organizations, and private corporations, and how differences across organizations may influence the functionality requirements of the HRIS. Finally, the volume contains both an organizational theory component, which frames how an HRIS interacts with an organization both from a functional standpoint and a reporting standpoint. The book includes a practical component, which includes real-world case studies that illustrate the advantages and pitfalls to implementing an HRIS enterprise system. Providing a thorough introduction to HRIS for both academics and practitioners, this volume is appropriate for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in the fields of public administration, higher education administration, information systems, computer science, and human resources.