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The Next Frontier: Inter-Institutional Dynamics in Regional Problem Solving

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posted on 2022-12-01, 00:00 authored by Samuel Adam Ash Kurtz
Kurtz, Samuel (2022) The Next Frontier: Inter-Institutional Dynamics in Regional Problem Solving. ABSTRACT Local and county governments have neither the capacity nor jurisdictional reach to adequately address public problems. The externalities that local governments impose on each other, the inability to reach economies of scale, and the lack of management capacity has led to extant questions about how regions are to be governed. The predominant organizational model that local governments have to address such problems are regional organizations (Wolf and Bryan, 2009), which are understood to have the capacity to address these problems as a provider of technical competence, a resource coordinator, and a facilitator of collaboration networks (Hall, 2008; Kwon, 2008; Kwon et al., 2014; Wolf and Bryan, 2009). The body of literature empirically examining the relationship between regional organizations and self-organized collaboration points to such capacities as its underlying mechanism (Kwon, 2008; Kwon et al., 2014; Hawkins et al., 2016; Hawkins 2019). However, data and methodological limitations have prevented prior authors from examining how such capacity operates or the structure of self-organized collaboration. This dissertation overcomes such limitations, utilizing organizations’ websites, audit documents, and staff data provided by the Center for Metropolitan Studies to operationalize capacity and utilizing data developed in the Networks and Governance Lab (NGL) to operationalize self-organized collaboration via interorganizational agreements in Iowa. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is employed to reveal the network structures of self-organized collaboration in each region in 2018. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is employed to reveal which configurations of capacity lead to distinct forms of such collaboration. Findings suggest that aiding members in the administration and planning of their own services is necessary in almost every pathway to self-organized collaboration, in combination with either a large staff or a large budget. Both large staff and large budgets are required for regional organizations that do not also aid members in obtaining capital or deliver services to the residents of the region. All pathways to popular self-organized collaboration involve the latter. Finally, extreme prosperity or the lack of it may lead local and county governments to self-organize in spite of a lack of capacity. By revealing the configurations of capacity through which regional organizations are linked to different network structures of self-organization, this dissertation provides nuance to the debate concerning the impact that different institutions used in regional problem solving have on each other.

History

Advisor

Carr, Jered

Chair

Carr, Jered

Department

Public Administration

Degree Grantor

University of Illinois at Chicago

Degree Level

  • Doctoral

Degree name

PhD, Doctor of Philosophy

Committee Member

Albrecht, Kate LeRoux, Kelly Siciliano, Michael Rickabaugh, Jay

Submitted date

December 2022

Thesis type

application/pdf

Language

  • en