|
|
Tom Darling's Home Page
Under continuing construction.
|
|
What's here?
|
|
|
|
|
Who am I?
|
Assistant Professor
at UBalt
|
|
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration
at the University of Baltimore, and serve as
Director, Government and Technology at the Schaefer
Center for Public Policy at UB.
I received my Ph.D. (1994) in
Public Administration
from Rockefeller College at the
University at Albany,
SUNY,
with concentrations in policy analysis and organization theory and behavior.
My dissertation, entitled The Effects of Problem Structure and Task and Social
Environment on Contract Negotiations, was selected for the University at Albany's
President's Distinguished Dissertation Award (1995).
In the recent past, I worked with the with the
Center for Policy Research
at the University at Albany and the New
York State Forum for Information Resource Management and served as an
adjunct faculty member with the Rockefeller College's School of Public
Affairs and Policy.
|
|
|
Research Interests
|
...how people think
about solving problems
and making decisions...
|
|
Broadly, my apparently varied interests all relate to understanding how people think
about solving problems and making decisions, and how characteristics of the environment
in which they must act affect their problem solving and decision making processes.
Within the fields of public administration and policy analysis, my principle interest is
in the application of information technology within public organizations, particularly in
the areas of assisting individual and group decision making, and organization theory,
especially from a conflict and decision making perspective.
|
...committed to a
multi-disciplinary
approach to public
administration...
|
|
I am committed to a multi-disciplinary approach to public administration and policy
analysis, and seek to integrate and re-shape concepts and tools from management science,
information technology, decision theory, organization theory, cognitive and social
psychology, and economics to productively reengineer and redesign public organizations,
to reduce and resolve conflicts and disputes, and to help policy makers, individually and
in groups, better understand existing alternatives, generate integrative solutions, and
reach better decisions.
Significant influences on my work come from R.M. Axelrod, E. Brunswik, M. Crozier,
J.W. Forrester, T.A. Kochan, J.L. Mumpower, A. Newell, H. Raiffa, J. Rawls,
T.C. Schelling, A.K. Sen, H.A. Simon, and G. Simmel.
|
|
|
Return to top of page.
Current research activities
|
Strategic planning in
public sector organizations
|
|
I currently am helping several Maryland
agencies with their strategic planning and performance measurement
efforts, including the Maryland Transportation Authority, the
Department of Housing and Community Development, the Governor's Office
for Children, Youth, and Families, the Maryland Aviation
Administration, and the Department of Budget and Management.
|
Negotiation support
for multi-party resource
allocation decisions.
|
|
The allocation of scarce resources among competing "goods" lies at the
heart of many
of the conflictive decision making situations that arise in the public (and private) sectors.
We develop and investigate tools that can help groups better understand the problem
they face, and, hopefully, reach better allocation decisions in
Darling, T.A., J.L. Mumpower, J.W. Roughbaugh, & A. Vári. 1997. Negotiation
support for multi-party resource allocation: Recommendations for decreasing
transportation-related air pollution in Budapest. Group Decision and
Negotiation, 1999.
|
Computer-generated
election districting
plans.
|
|
In conjunction with colleagues Carmen Cirincione and Tim O'Rourke, we developed
an algorithm that will efficiently generate large numbers of (essentially random)
election districting plans. We use the large sample to investigate the effects of task
and social environment on drawing such plans and how changes in the algorithm
affect the characteristics of the plans.
We presented our most recent paper at the 1997 American Political Science Association
Annual Meeting entitled Does the Supreme Court Have It Right? Toward a Quantitative
Standard for Evaluating Congressional Redistricting Plans After Shaw v. Hunt and
Bush v. Vera. The paper considers districting plans in five states (North Carolina,
South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia) and several variations on the
basic algorithm (jurisdictional integrity and compactness). Additional information
on this work is available at
Election Districting
Research Report.
|
Strategic information
systems planning.
|
|
Strategic information systems planning poses a particular challenge for public sector
organizations. Colleagues Michelle Lombardo, Christina Bower, and I propose an
alternative approach to address the difficulties involved in this critical activity.
A draft discussion paper is available in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format --
Strategic Information System Planning: A Template for Use
in Public Agencies.
Along the same lines, Molly Atzinger has joined us in a study comparing the current
practice of strategic information systems planning in mid-sized health care organizations
and public municipalities.
|
Stable marriages.
|
|
Jim Bradley (from Clavin College) and I have been investigating the equity of various
algorithms for solving "marriage market" problems. We also explore how
the characteristics of the environment (the preference structures within each side)
affect the achievable outcomes. Working paper and discussion paper available.
|
Collective action.
|
|
The structure of collective action: Production, distribution, and
decisions to contribute. Discussion paper available.
|
Negotiations.
|
|
The interaction of task and social environment on negotiations
(dissertation-based).
|
|
|
Return to top of page.
Personal information
|
