Do state policies that allow municipal governments to levy economic development taxes stimulate economic development? Texas allows municipal‐level economic development corporation dedicated local option sales taxes (LOST), effectively diverting revenue from general fund purposes exclusively toward local economic development efforts. Drawing from a performance management framework focused on policy outcomes, the authors use a structural equation model to estimate the effects of local tax choices on economic development performance. The results reveal that municipalities implementing the 4a LOST tax choice (traditional industry‐related efforts) experienced a significant and positive effect on economic development as measured through a latent construct assessing five years of growth in population, property value, and new home construction. The observed impact of tax choice, though weaker than preexisting municipal economic capacity, suggests that states and municipalities can influence economic development activity by permitting municipal choice in the allocation of tax revenues dedicated to economic development.

While scholars and practitioners increasingly embrace contingent approaches to public strategic management, they have done so tepidly. In an increasingly perilous and turbulent governing environment, both groups must move past time-honored tools and concepts and embrace the complexity inherent to the strategy implementation process. In response, this article proposes a contingent, micro-organizational process model of public strategy implementation based on Whittington’s (2017) framework of strategy as a practice and a process. Through regression analysis of 205 strategic initiatives from 43 U.S. municipalities, the study concludes that the relationships between implementation practices and proximate outcomes do indeed vary over time and across context, offering a specific list of recommended practices tailored to the intersections of implementation phase and initiative type. Public strategy implementation scholars can best aid practitioners by rejecting strategic reductivism and embracing micro-organizational implementation activity surrounding a strategic initiative, in all of its temporal and contextual splendor.

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This study examines whether community-level social disorganization and community engagement initiatives are associated with public high school performance. Analyzing data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS), a latent variable measuring community-level social disorganization is examined within a structural equation model for 302 traditional public high schools in Florida. The study finds a statistically significant and large negative association between community-level social disorganization and a latent variable representing Florida Department of Education performance metrics. Correspondingly, the recognition of receiving the Florida Five Star School award for satisfying recommended community engagement criteria is positively associated with high school performance with social disorganization factors simultaneously considered. This research hopes to further provide an emphasis for recognizing and engaging community within the context of addressing disparities in public education performance.

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