Response to discussion question 4

Respond in one or more of the following ways:

• Ask a probing question.
  
• Share an insight from having read your colleague's posting.
  
• Offer and support an opinion.
  
• Validate an idea with your own experience.
  
• Make a suggestion.
  
• Expand on your colleague's posting.

Article A: Institutional Collective Action and Economic Development Joint Ventures

            Authors: Richard Felock, Annette Steinacker, and Hyung Jun Park

             In Institutional Collective Action and Economic Development Joint Ventures, the authors conducted a quantitative research study on cities cooperating together for economic development. According to Creswell (2009), this article follows the format of a quantitative research. The article used a quantitative hypotheses of predicting the outcome of the research study, they used variables and independent variables to prove their prediction (Crewell, 2009). The hypothesis in this article is "we expect that the costs associated with interlocal cooperation are influenced by the demographic characteristics of communities, local political institutions, and the nature of regional government networks" (Felock et al, 2009, p. 257). According to Creswell (2009) either a study has research questions or a hypothesis, but not both because it tends to repeat themselves. However, in this research both research questions and hypothesis are used because the hypothesis is assembled by the discussion of the research question (Creswell, 2009). The research question for this article is "why do some local governments engage in cooperative agreements while others do not" (Creswell, 2009)? To answer this question Felock et al (2009) discussed obstacles and barriers preventing interlocal cooperation, they also explained the relationship of government economic development and the cost.

            Creswell (2009) discuss several forms of hypothesis null and alternative. In the null hypothesis makes prediction that there is no relationship between the variables in the study (Creswell, 2009). In the alternative form there are two types directional and nondirectional (Creswell, 2009). A directional hypothesis the prediction is based on prior knowledge and in the nondirectional hypothesis a prediction is made but without prior knowledge of the groups in the research (Creswell, 2009). In the highlighted article, Felock et al (2009) uses the alternative form with the directional type of hypothesis because of the existence of prior literature.

            For this article the dependent variable was dependent on the respondents reply on the survey as to whether or not the "local government engaged in joint ventures with other cities to encourage development" (Felock et al, 2009, p. 261). There were several independent variables in this research study: joint gains, division of gains, agency costs, and informational costs (Felock et al, 2009). The results of the study confirmed the hypothesis that "identifies policy variables that, in turn, increase the prospects for cooperation, specifically through the development of informal policy network" (Felock et al, 2009, p. 256).

References:

Creswell, J. ( 2009). Research design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Method Approaches (3rd ed.). Los                Angeles, Ca. Sage Publications.

Feiock, R. C., Steinacker, A., & Park, H. J. (2009). Institutional collective action and economic development joint            ventures. Public Administration Review. Retrieved December 20, 2015 from Walden Library Databases.