February 18, 2003

DISCRETION AND THE EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF PUBLIC POLICY


You are cordially invited to attend:

The next Public Administration Forum

Tuesday, February 18th, 2003
12 to 1 p.m.
Room 262
CUPPA Hall, 412 S. Peoria St.
(Brown bag lunches welcome)

Margaret LaPorte
PhD Student in Public Administration

DISCRETION AND THE EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF PUBLIC POLICY
Factors Influencing the Use of Discretion By Front Line Bureaucrats in Health Care Institutions
The research is comparative case study that identifies characteristics of the individual worker, the work environment including policy, and the client as salient influences over the use of discretion by front line non-professionals. It uses mixed-methods embedded in the research design and examines whether it is advisable and appropriate to extend theoretical boundaries of street-level bureaucracy beyond currently established criteria for the legitimate use of discretion by professionals to include non-professionals as well. The main hypothesis of the research is that front line discretion is a necessary function of how personnel actually understand and act on policy directives. Data from the study should indicate that those in front line positions, including non-professionals, do in fact make critical decisions that affect clients and institutional policy in situations where the policy is ambiguous or cannot address the specific client situation.

The Graduate Program in Public Administration announces a new, regular forum on public administration research and practice. The Forum will provide an opportunity for interaction among faculty, students and practitioners on a range of topics relevant to the field of Public Administration. The format will be interactive, generally including an initial presentation by an invited speaker followed by discussion. All PA Forum events are scheduled to run for one hour at lunch time (Brown bag lunches are welcome)