Megachurch involvement at the local level: Examining conditions for church action in economic development

The roles of small congregations and their social impacts are well known, but few theoretical studies investigate megachurch congregations. These mammoth organizations have the potential for advancing social good, but minimal research specifically focuses on the activities of these congregations in economic development (ED). This study addresses this dearth of information by answering the following research questions: (a) In what ways are megachurches involved in ED activities? (b) Who benefits from these programs and how are the programs offered? and (c) What factors influence megachurches to offer ED activities? We frame our investigation using both demand‐ and supply‐side arguments from Frumkin's (2002) model of nonprofit and voluntary action. Online survey data and follow‐up interviews with 42 megachurch leaders in the Dallas/Fort Worth and greater Houston areas show that megachurches are implementing ED activities in alignment with demand‐side explanations, especially when advancing opportunities for the unemployed and underemployed. However, supply‐side arguments provide more explanatory power, indicating that volunteer engagement with ED activities plays a significant role in the provision of ED services through megachurches. Our study offers a better understanding of why megachurches carry out ED activities with considerable attention devoted to how megachurches partner with other congregations, nonprofits, and government entities to encourage economic growth and improve the economic well‐being of community members.     

Foraging for patchily-distributed leaf miners by the parasitic wasp,Dacnusa sibirica

Summary We studied the rules used by the female parasitoid,Dacnusa sibirica Telenga (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), for deciding when to leave a tomato leaflet on which she is searching for larvae of the leafminer,Liriomyza bryoniae Kalt. (Diptera: Agromyzidae). Females would deposit a marking pheromone on the leaflet and would leave the leaflet when the amount of the pheromone accumulated to the thresholdL, which is proportional to the amount of search effort on the leaflet.L appears to increase with host density since it rises after every encounter with a host (or mine).D. sibirica would employ an area-concentrated search, which is advantageous in foraging for hosts showing a clumped distribution.     

Challenges Facing Public Sector Management in an Era of Downsizing,Devolution, Dispersion and Empowerment—and Accountability?

Agencies at all levels of government are facing strong ideological pressures to downsize, devolve, dispense, and empower both employees and recipients of services. These ideological pressures provide many performance advantages, but collectively they threaten historic notions of achieving economy, efficiency, and effectiveness, along with accountability. It has been widely assumed in recent years that advancements in information technology and performance measurement provide adequate replacements for the historic notion that accountability flows up-the-hierarchy to elected officials and the sovereignty. These technologies, however, are not yet able to ensure responsible administration or accountability in many areas of domestic government services. Today's public managers can play leading roles in developing alternative approaches for achieving accountability if they are supported by forward-looking human resources management (HRM) agencies.