The state of emergency management 2000: The process of emergency management professionalization in the United States and Florida

This dissertation analyzes the current status of emergency management professionalization in the United States and Florida using a qualitative case study. I investigate the efforts of various organizations at the national and state levels in the private and public sectors to organize emergency management as a profession. I conceptualize emergency management professionalization as occurring in two phases: the indirect institutionalization of the occupation of emergency management and the formal advancement toward an emergency management profession. The legislative, organizational, and procedural developments that occurred between approximately 1900 and the late 1970s became the indirect institutionalization of the occupation of emergency management. Over time, as our society developed and became increasingly complex, more disasters affect the security of the population. In order to adapt to increasing risks and vulnerabilities the emergency management system emerged and with it the necessary elements upon which a future profession could be established providing the basis for the formal advancement toward an emergency management profession. ^ During approximately the last twenty years, the formal advancement toward an emergency management profession has encompassed two primary strategies—certification and accreditation—motivated by the objective to organize a profession. Certification applies to individual emergency managers and includes all training and education. Accreditation of state and local emergency management agencies is reached by complying to a minimum level of proficiency with established standards of performance. Certification and accreditation are the mechanisms used to create an emergency management profession and thus act as axes around which the field of emergency management is organizing. ^ The purpose of this research is to provide a frame of reference for whether or not the field of emergency management is a profession. Based on sociology of professions literature, emergency management can be considered to be professionalizing. The current emergency management professionalization efforts may or may not be sufficient to achieve the ultimate goal of becoming a legitimate profession based on legal and public support for the exclusive right to perform emergency management tasks (monopoly) as well as self-regulation of those tasks (autonomy). ^

Process of privatization: Benefits of *reform in management of public housing

The study of the private management of public housing is an important topic to be critically analyzed as the government search for ways to increase efficiency in providing housing for the poor. Public Housing Authorities must address the cost for repairing or replacing the deteriorating housing stock, the increase in the need for affordable housing, and the lack of supply. There is growing pressure on efficient use of public funds that has heightened the need for profound structural reform. An important strategy for carrying out such reform is through privatization. Although privatization does not work in every case, the majority position in the traditional privatization literature is that reliance on private organizations normally, but not always, results in cost savings. ^ The primary purpose of this dissertation is to determine whether a consensus exist among decision-makers on the efficiency of privatizing the management of public housing. A secondary purpose is to review the techniques (best practices) used by the private sector that results in cost-efficiencies in the management of public housing. The study employs the use of a triangulated research design utilizing cross-sectional survey methodology that included use of a survey instrument to solicit responses from the private managers. The study consists of qualitative methods using interviews from key informants of private-sector management firms and public housing agencies, case studies, focus groups, archival records and housing authorities documents. ^ Results indicated that important decision-makers perceive that private managers made a positive contribution to cost-efficiencies in the management of public housing. The performance of private contractors served as a yardstick for comparison of efficiency of services that are produced in-house. The study concluded that private managers made the benefits of their management techniques well known creating a sense of competition between public and private managers. Competition from private contractors spurred municipal worker and management productivity improvements creating better management results for the public housing authorities. The study results are in concert with a review of recent research and studies that also concluded private managers have some distinct advantages to controlling costs in the management of public housing. ^