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Library professionals are well aware that a telecommunication revolution is beginning. In Mississippi it is well underway; almost 20 percent of the national supercomputing power is located in the state: MTel, WorldCom (formerly LDDS) and Mobile Telecommunications—all major players in the telecommunications field—have headquarters in Mississippi and are serving the business sector of America.

The Mississippi Legislature adopted casino gaming in 1990 for the purpose of curing financial ills that have long plagued the Magnolia state. Local policy makers were given the opportunity to tax the casino industry at 3.2 percent of gaming wins, with an additional .8 percent if these local government stakeholders deemed it necessary to extract additional supplemental revenue from the casino industry. One program designated as a beneficiary of this revenue-generating source was education. This paper borrows research techniques from the lottery literature in an effort to measure the impact of casino gaming dollars on per pupil spending in Mississippi. The conclusions reached by this research suggests that the thirteen school districts receiving casino proceeds for education are significantly benefiting from this supplemental source of revenue.

This research examines the relative influences of different forms of government on local governments' financial management. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether or not the impact of financial and environmental factors on the unreserved fund balance differs between an administrative form of government, such as the Unit system, and a political form of government, such as the Beat system of county governments in Mississippi. The purpose of this study is to explain further why governments maintain far more savings than are the recommended benchmarks. The findings suggest that savings behave differently under different financial environments. During times of resource abundance, Beat systems increase savings as per capita income, property tax, and other revenues increase. Beat systems decrease savings as the population, debt per capita, and intergovernmental revenues increase. Unit systems, however, increase savings as property tax, intergovernmental and other revenues increase, but decrease savings as per capita income, population, and debt per capita increase. During times of resource scarcity, majority-non-white counties spent savings at a much slower rate than did the majority-white counties.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the theory of institutional isomorphism to investigate how Mississippi’s centralized cash management policy affects the cash management practices in the state’s rural and urban counties.

The study uses a sequential exploratory mixed methods design involving a qualitative documentary analysis and a quantitative analysis of a survey of Mississippi counties.

The study finds that institutional isomorphism drives cash management practices in the counties by influencing how they follow state and agency mandates. Moreover, while urban counties have superior socio-economic indicators compared to their rural counterparts, no differences exist regarding standardized financial indicators, which suggest that local governments in the state may be imitating the practices of one another.

First, states should consider the different financial and economic conditions of their local governments when prescribing cash management policies because uniform policies could stifle local innovation and reduce efficiency in cash management. Second, when there is pressure from a higher-level government or a state agency, local governments may end up imitating one another rather than exploring opportunities for innovation within state policies. Third, state policies should consider requiring education and training in cash management practices that help identify strategies to add value to public funds within the scope of local fiscal capabilities.

The study uses one state to investigate a unique case of centralized cash management practices. The lessons learned can apply to other states seeking to develop a policy for their small local governments without placing the larger ones at a disadvantage.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a 5As framework for entrepreneurial nudge public leadership for health and wellness promotion based on two exemplary cases in Mississippi.

The authors use a “case within a case” study design to develop the 5As public influence framework for entrepreneurial public leadership.

Based on the investigated cases of healthcare and wellness promotion in Hernando and Charleston, Mississippi, the authors developed the 5As framework for wellness promotion dimensions of awareness, assistance, alignment, association, and assessment. This framework is applicable to the lived experiences of community members, leaders, healthcare providers, and government.

The study results provide a compelling insight into early-stage formation of entrepreneurial public leadership. However, the study results lack generalizability due to the case study approach used.

This study can assist entrepreneurial public leaders and policy-makers align their strategic wellness goals, initiatives, and policies that motivate community members to seek and receive supporting services.

Developing an original framework for wellness promotion useful to both healthcare practitioners and public leaders, this study contributes to the extant literature on public health leadership and proposes mechanisms for addressing community wellness needs. The framework is designed to address public health concerns by integrating public leadership strategies aimed at linking with existing community wellness and healthcare services.

Many university-based services for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have incorporated peer mentorship programs; however, the research on the success of these programs to increase social engagement is extremely limited. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of a peer mentor program, both alone and combined with an incentive program, on increasing the social engagement of college students with ASD. Additionally, the perceptions of college students with ASD were also examined to determine potential barriers to participate in these social events.

A component analysis was used to determine what intervention component or combination of components, was most effective in increasing the social engagement among college students with ASD. The number of students during each component was totaled and averaged across the number of social events held during that phase. A survey regarding barriers to social engagement was also provided.

Results suggest that both the peer mentor program alone, as well as the peer mentor program in conjunction with an incentive program, were effective at increasing students’ attendance at weekly supervised social events. Results from the survey regarding barriers to social engagement revealed that the majority of students reported difficulties managing time to fit social events into their schedule.

To the knowledge, the use of peer-mentoring programs combined with an incentive program on increasing social engagement has not yet been investigated. Further, perceptions of the use of these programs by college students with ASD is relatively limited.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and improve the current methodology of securing and collecting data sources for use in the Impact Analysis for Planning (IMPLAN) model to more accurately use, and be able to support, inputs and outputs from economic impact models, specifically those generated by IMPLAN.

Primary expenditure data were derived from an extensive mail survey conducted during the 2005-2006 Mississippi waterfowl-hunting season. Survey results were analyzed using the IMPLAN software model default data and comparing it with new, more localized state data that were collected in 2010. Industry sectors were sorted and ranked after analysis based on sector importance to the economy and IMPLAN default data were replaced by localized data.

Economic contributions generated from the survey-based default model were $158 million (2010 USD) supporting 1,981 full- and part-time jobs. Economic contributions using survey-based data replacement model were $153 million (2010 USD) supporting 1,517 full- and part-time jobs. Separate model runs of the survey-based data replacement model yielded vastly different results, making the case for changing as many sectors with larger impacts as possible.

The makeup and components of sectors used and described by the IMPLAN model were at times not clearly labeled which at times hindered the process of comparing and replacing data. It was evident that IMPLAN sectors were too highly aggregated.

This project will contribute to efforts within Mississippi aimed at protecting and promoting its natural resources for conservation and use for both the private and public sector.

The purpose of this article is to present qualitative research of the past organizational crisis at Mississippi Chemical Corporation that the authors use to theorize a typology of organizational crisis from the leadership perspective.

The authors combined ANTi-microhistory approach and staff ride research design to re-enact the sensemaking of the company’s former crisis leaders and elicit their retrospective oral accounts. A long interview format was used to interview the crisis leaders.

The authors found that the former crisis leaders not only conceptualized organizational crisis conventionally as an event or as a process but also that they engaged in the denial of the crisis to guard the company’s reputation and competed with their claims against the stakeholder claims about the ways how the crisis was to be managed.

Based on the paper’s findings, the authors proposed an original typology of organizational crisis.

This paper aims to investigate the design charrette as a method for teaching sustainability.

The paper utilizes a student‐based design charrette for the Mississippi Gulf Coast comprising a framework for teaching sustainability. An assessment of the charrette's role in promoting sustainability in higher education was ascertained through respondents completing pre‐ and post‐charrette surveys.

The paper provides survey results that shed light on the effectiveness of the charrette as an approach for teaching sustainability in higher education.

This research indicates that a charrette framed with criteria for teaching sustainability is viable. However, the study has limitations owing to the project's scope and its being a single‐case sample.

The paper shows that actively engaging students in interdisciplinary, service‐oriented projects is of value in teaching concepts of sustainability in higher education.

The paper addresses the need for sustainability in higher education, focusing on disciplines of design, by assessing the effectiveness of a well‐accepted design teaching approach, the charrette.