In order to prevent chronic diseases, community-based programs are encouraged to take an ecological approach to public health promotion and involve many diverse partners. Little is known about measuring partnership in implementing public health strategies. We collected data from 23 Missouri communities in early 2012 that received funding from three separate programs to prevent obesity and/or re...

Article history: Received 26 June 2008 Received in revised form 20 January 2009 Accepted 23 January 2009 Available online 4 February 2009 This paper provides a systematic analysis of fiscal decentralization on the quality of government by studying jointly its effects on electoral discipline and selection, in a settingwhere, realistically, voters only have limited information aboutfiscal policy ...

Using a spatial model, we compare different rules for aggregating preferences across confederated districts, under the assumption that voters have private information and face uncertainty about the distribution of preferences of other voters. Our model includes, as special cases, systems of local representation in national assemblies and parliaments and international legislatures with rep­ rese...

This paper brings into question whether information systems should be centralized or decentralized in order to provide greater support for different business processes. During the last century companies and organizations have used different approaches for centralization and decentralization; a simple answer to the question does not exist. This paper provides a survey of the evolution of central...

Authority defines the formal structure of an organization, and is essential for the allocation of resources inside the firm. This paper develops a theory of authority in a multiple layer hierarchy, in which the distribution of authority alleviates incentive incompatibilities. To examine the theory, I collect monthly personnel data from about 200 journalists over three years in a Chinese newspap...

It has been discovered that in many organizations the information technology department is a separate entity, while in others each business unit incorporates their own information technology department. The former represents a centralized approach while the latter represents a decentralized approach. The centralized IT department suits some organizations better than others. However, it is becom...

Objective. We investigated the effects of the centralization of obstetricians and obstetric care facilities on the perinatal mortality rate in Japan. Methods. We used the Gini coefficient as an index to represent the centralization of obstetricians and obstetric care facilities. The Gini coefficients were calculated for the number of obstetricians and obstetric care facilities of 47 prefectures...