Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Individuals’ detection of others’ goals is an integral part of social interaction, especially when inaccuracy arises. Inaccurate goal detection, for example, can adversely affect goal pursuers’ and detectors’ communication competence. The current paper discusses three sources of goal detection inaccuracy—goal-, perspective-, and context-based determinants. Goal detection inaccuracy can be explained and predicted, knowing when a goal, perspective, or context of a particular social interaction are similar to (and different from) other goals, perspectives, and contexts (respectively). At the grossest level, goal-, perspective-, and context-based similarities impact the extent to which individuals can clearly perceive the linkages (i.e., cognitive associations) between various factors in a social interaction and certain goals. As factor-goal linkages are clearly perceived by a goal detector, the linked goals increase in accessibility, which in turn decreases the goal detection inaccuracy. Three sets of propositions are advanced focusing on how goal-, perspective, and context-based similarities determine goal detection inaccuracy.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: A theoretical framework was employed to examine the goal detection process in the interactions of close-friend and unacquainted dyads wherein one conversationalist (pursuer) sought a goal unbeknownst to the other (detector). The extent to which the pursuer’s goal was cognitively associated with the relational type of the dyad was manipulated. The pursuer’s level of efficiency in reaching their goal was assessed from the videotaped interactions. In an anticipated three-way interaction, efficiency, relational type, and relationship-goal linkages interacted to determine the accuracy of detectors’ goal inference. In line with hypotheses, efficiency was unrelated to accuracy when the pursuer’s goal was strongly associated with the relational type (e.g., a pursuer seeking an avoid-awkwardness goal in an unacquainted dyad); yet, efficiency was correlated with accuracy when the pursuer’s goal was not strongly linked to the relational type (e.g., a pursuer attempting to avoid-awkwardness in a close-friends dyad). Results regarding the onset latency and certainty of goal inferences, however, did not generally support hypotheses.

Publication Type: Roundtable Format
Abstract: Storytelling has motivated my students to start thinking about their health, setting goals,overcoming unbelievable odds, planning to succeed and never quitting.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Performance management necessarily involves establishing program goals and measuring performance toward goal attainment. Superior public management systems differentiate among inputs, outputs, and outcomes in measuring performance and efficiency. This otherwise straightforward effort is complicated where program goals are multiple, vague, or in conflict, and where implementation is delegated to third parties whose interpretive view of program goals may further depart from those intended by policymakers (Frederickson & Frederickson, forthcoming).

Exemplary of recent policy change has been relaxation of transparency requirements for particular programs through exemptions from transparency laws. Most notable among these are economic development policy and homeland security policies. Within the policy subsystems for both economic development and homeland security there are clear goals, though often not clearly prescribed courses of action. Overarching constituent policy such as open records and open meetings laws (like state freedom of information acts), while not in direct conflict with economic development policy, interferes with the competitive recruitment process at the state level. On the other hand, transparency conflicts directly with the goals of U.S. federal and state policies intended to prevent and respond to emergencies such as terrorist attacks.

This paper examines recent policy change in these two policy areas and suggests a theoretical framework to explain how different models of change apply to each as a result of differences between direct and indirect applicability of transparency to policy goals. The paper concludes by examining the role of goal conflict as the impetus for policy change and its implications for performance management.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In September 2000, delegates from the nations of the world convened in a Summit to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration. This Declaration created a series of targets which have come to be known as the Millennium Development Goals, to be achieved by 2015. Having reached the midway point between adoption and deadline, there have been numerous assessments of the goals, suggesting wide divergence in the progress made, particularly in the area of greatest need, sub-Saharan Africa. This paper focuses on two issue areas exhibiting this divergence, HIV/AIDS and water and sanitation, which exemplify areas of rapid achievement in the first case, and of stagnation and even reversal in the second. The paper then will explore the role of global social movements, specifically transnational advocacy networks, as critical variables in the success or failure of achieving these aspirational goals, and suggest lessons for other development-based advocacy movements from these cases.