Public Administration Commons^™

Social Work And Downsizing: Theoretical Implications And Strategic Responses, Samuel J. Rosenberg

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The economic, political and social changes of the past 25 years have undermined most working American's assumptions about job security. Large segments of the population now find their jobs threatened by "downsizing" -which results from the reduction of staff by employers, usually for economic reasons. Downsized individuals typically experience personal and familial crises of major magnitude, and have increasingly been turning to social workers for assistance. Social workers, however-who have had relatively little experience delivering services to this clientele--are themselves being threatened by downsizing. Given this situation, the present study assesses-through interviews and participant observation-(a) how social workers are conceptualizing …

Organizational Position: Influences On Perceived Organizational Properties, Moshe Sherer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

People perceive and interpret their work place in different ways that may be related to their hierarchical position in the organization. Workers' attitudes toward their organization can exert a negative effect on their own and other people's feelings and behavior, and have detrimental consequences for the achievements of the organization. The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptionso f organizationalc haracteristicsm aintainedb y three levels of human service organization employees: Managers, supervisors or instructors, and line workers. Respondents in the present sample (n = 135) indicated their perceptions about seven organizational properties. Results reveal that the higher the …

Managed Computer System Conceptualization: Knowing When To Say No, Menachmen Monnickendam

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Computer systems in human services are often abandoned after significant investments have already been made. A case study of preventing the utilization of a wrong computer system for a child development center illustrates how managed system conceptualization minimized damage. Critical consciousness and adherence to specific computer implementation technology created an environment which supported recurrent system efficacy evaluation. When the system, as initially conceptualized, could not meet practitioners' needs, early project abandonment was achieved. Some considerations for successful system development in human service are presented.

Purchase Of Service Contracting Versus Government Service Delivery: The Views Of State Human Service Administrators, Peter M. Kettner, Lawrence L. Martin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Purchase of service contracting (POSC) as a mode of human service delivery is based largely on untested normative grounds. This article presents the results of a national study comparing the views of state human service administrators on the relative merits of POSC versus government service delivery in four issue areas: (1) service costs, (2) service quality, (3) bureaucracy and red tape, and (4) effect on government employees. The study results provide some support for POSC in three of the four issues areas. The study finds that geography plays no role in the views of state human service administrators, but that …

Purchase Of Service Contracting In The 1990s: Have Expectations Been Met?, Peter M. Kettner, Lawrence L. Martin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Privatization and purchase of service contracting (POSC) are generally considered to be two of the most important factors that have helped shape the human service system during the 1970s and 1980s (Gilbert, 1983, 1986; Kammerman, 1983; Demone and Gibelman, 1984, 1989; Weddell, 1986; Kettner and Martin, 1985; Termell, 1987; Rein, 1989). Therefore, as we enter the decade of the 1990s, it would seem both appropriate and worthwhile to reflect on the original expectations for privatization and POSC and to assess the extent to which these expectations have been realized.

Characteristics Of Social Welfare Stasis And Change: A Comparison Of The Characteristics Of Two Child Welfare Agencies In The 1920s, Eve P. Smith

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article describes and compares two child welfare agencies of the 1920's with regard to qualities that influenced or inhibited their ability to change. While one agency gave up its institution in favor of foster home care and mother's pensions; the other continued to provide only institutional care. Four characteristics may account for the difference. They are the organizations' networks; amount of "sunk costs" associated with change; ideologies and interests of organization leadership and the agencies' "boundary spanning" activities. If further studies confirm these, then we may encourage organizational changes so that contemporary agencies may meet emerging client needs.

Assessment Inequities Of Residential Properties In Nine Michigan Townships, Sivaswami Amarnath

Dissertations

Horizontal equity in property tax administration has been neglected by researchers in favor of research on incidence of the property tax. The present study, conducted within nine townships in Allegan, Barry, and Grand Traverse Counties in Michigan, investigated differences of practices in assessing residential properties. Three hypotheses test differences in ratio of assessed value to sale price for properties owned by nonresidents and residents, properties with water frontage and without water frontage, and properties of higher value and those of lower value. Both parametric and nonparametric statistics were utilized to test the research hypotheses.

The study findings were: (1) Properties …

Corporate Resistance To Early Return To Work Policy, Roger J. Shoemaker

Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to discover the extent and patterns of resistance the concept of an early return to work policy is encountering in private corporations. Early return to work policies encourage and enable injured/disabled employees to return to duty before being fully recuperated. The degree of resistance was examined through variables which are component elements of the macro themes of corporate culture and corporate structure theory. Corporate culture embodies a set of beliefs and values collectively held and socialized by a corporation. Specific elements of corporate culture which were examined are corporate goals (to increase market share, …

Strategic Planning In Human Service Agencies, Stephen A. Webster, Mary Wylie

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Recent public policy initiatives including deinstitutionalization, deregulation, decentralization, and privatization have resulted in: (a) rapid growth in the number of private not-for-profit organizations; and, (b) competitive environments. These conditions have forced agencies to examine their planning processes to determine if agency goals are appropriate for meeting market demands. An exploratory study of 154 human service agencies examined if and how strategic planning was used to respond to these conditions. The Chief Executive Officers for those agencies reported that strategic planning was replacing incremental planning as a preferred planning model. However, the choice resulted because of pressure from outside influentials not …

Determination Of A "Benchmark" Rate Of Return For Regulated Small Telephone Utilities In The State Of Michigan, Gondy Bhaskara Rao

Dissertations

This study presents an approach that is consistent with regulatory standards of fairness, and enables the Public Service Commission staff to determining "benchmark" rates of return for Michigan's small telephone utilities. It applies only where they are either subsidiaries of holding companies or independently operating but whose securities are not publicly traded.

The methodology developed in this research is couched in the capital asset pricing framework and is powerful enough to capture the parent-subsidiary relationship to the ultimate determination of benchmark rates of return for utilities that have similar risks.

To evaluate the methodology for consistency with the regulatory standards, …

Development Of Michigan Jtpa Title Iia Performance Standards Regression Models Under The New Federalism, Yung Sung Wu

Dissertations

The purpose of this study has been to make some contribution toward an understanding of the United States Department of Labor's (USDOL) JTPA Title IIA performance standards models and their policy implications. The major objective of the study has been to construct, evaluate, and document short-run econometric models which would be available for policy analysis and ex ante forecasting. The consequences of job training programs may have important effects on participants and the manpower service delivery system--hence, this study of the relationship between program activities and their consequences.

The State of Michigan has been using USDOL's JTPA Title IIA performance …

The Idea Of Good Government: The Evolution Of Administrative Thought And Practice In The American Republic, James Robert Wieber

Dissertations

This study analyzes the evolution of the proper role of public administration in American government. American public administration traces its roots to the founding of American constitutional government in 1789, but divergent opinions continue regarding the discipline's proper role in a democracy. This question has never been settled in the American experiment. Considering the size, scope, and complexity of today's administrative state, it may well never be. Recent efforts have sought to define public administrations's role as proactive on behalf of clients for reasons of social equity and human dignity. Further attempts have been made to define administration as a …

An Analysis Of The Use Of Special Masters For Assuring Compliance With Judicial Decrees In Corrections Litigation, Richard J. Liles

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to analyze the recent practice of judges appointing remedial special masters to oversee the implementation of consent decrees and court orders. These orders are a response to the spate of inmate suits demanding compliance with the constitutional guarantees provided in the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. As more courts have become involved in adjudging the constitutionality of conditions in correctional institutions, there has been a trend toward the judge becoming a quasi-manager in assuring compliance with the court's orders. To conduct this oversight, they have turned more and more to the practice of hiring …

Beyond Contingency Theory: Environment, Structure, And Administrator's Coping Ability In The Public Sector, Shyu-Tu Lee

Dissertations

In the last two decades, organizational-environment contingency theory has attracted much attention. A great deal of research has been done on investigating the impact of environment on organizations, suggesting the appropriate design of organizational structure. In recent years, organizational theorists have moved to investigate proactive approaches to organizational environments.

Most empirical studies, however, have been conducted in the private sector. In order to transfer the knowledge to the public sector, it is necessary to investigate whether public organizations are also subjected to environmental influence and how public administrators interact with the environment.

This study investigated the following three questions: (1) …

Work-Related Perceptions Of Social Workers Versus Administrators: More Grist For The "Is Social Work A Profession?" Mill, Robert A. Snyder, Jane M. Ridolphi

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The work-related perceptions of 683 employees of a federally funded public assistance agency were examined by occupational classification. The results show that persons employed as social workers report distinctively different patterns of attitudes and values than do those employed as administrators. These distinctions were most dramatic for the younger members of each group. The overall results fail to refute previous predictions of an evolving anc critical duality in the field of social work.

The Service Orientations Of Social Service Administrators: Towards A Normative Model, Walter Lamendola, Patricia Yancey Martin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The service orientations of 28 administrators of social service agencies are examined as part of a normative model of service delivery. Six service issues are identified, and their interrelationship is described and examined. The service orientation issues include: effectiveness, efficiency, responsiveness to constituency interests, agency autonomy, community involvement, and services integration. In part, the results show that, as a group, the executives rank effectiveness (or the setting and achievement of programmatic goals) as of greatest concern. Community involvement and responsiveness follow in importance. Efficiency ranks fourth and autonomy, fifth. Services integration is of least concern. Service orientation is examined in …

A Descriptive Study Of The Leadership Styles Of Michigan Juvenile Court Administrators Utilizing The Application Of The Managerial Grid Theory, Zigmund S. Kryszak Jr.

Dissertations

This descriptive study investigated the 83 juvenile court administrators in the state of Michigan. Specifically, the study attempted to (a) collect biographical and professional data regarding the administrators, (b) establish a preferred leadership style utilizing the Managerial Grid Theory postulated by Blake and Mouton, and (c) test the relationship between key variables and the leadership styles demonstrated by the administrators as a group.

The instruments utilized to collect the data were the Style of Management Inventory copyrighted by Teleometrics International of Woodland, Texas, and a self-designed Personal Data Questionnaire. These instruments were mailed to all 83 juvenile court administrators. The …

Non-Governmental Emergency Food Services: A Descriptive Study Of The Tertiary Welfare Sector, Stanley Wenocur

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory study of voluntarily organized emergency food centers in Baltimore. These agencies comprise the heart of a tertiary welfare system that provides basic survival supplies without a means test to the needy who cannot obtain relief from traditional public or private sources. Forty-one emergency food services were identified in Baltimore and the heads of 37 of these agencies were interviewed in depth. The findings indicated that a large and heterogeneous population bad utilized emergency food agencies and that the agencies generally met the requisites for a true safety-net function - i.e., accessibility, non-bureaucratic …

Public Monitoring Of Contracts With Nonprofit Organizations: Organizational Mission In Two Sectors, Bruce S. Jansson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Public officials in the human service delivery system must wrestle with complex decisions regarding utilization of agencies in the nonpublic sector to deliver publicly funded services. Data from a survey of 167 agencies in a major metropolitan area suggest that there are still substantial differences in priorities and service approaches of public and nonpublic agencies. These differences suggest that public officials may need to devote more resources to ascertaining whether and when public agencies should themselves deliver publicly funded services and to strengthening public monitoring of contracts in the private sector.

Comunication Disturbances In A Welfare Bureaucracy: A Case For Self Management, Robert E. O'Conner, Larry D. Spence

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The survey data in this study of 1313 caseworkers and income-maintenance workers of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare provide some elements of a description of white-collar alienation in government bureaucracies. We interpret our findings to indicate that the hierarchical communication network of this department operates to deny implicitly the worth and intelligence of workers. As perceived by employees, the general pattern of message construction, message transmission and message acknowledgment takes no account of their needs for information and validation nor does it allow the information generated at the work place to be fed back to the administration. Thus, the …

Discourse Management: Key To Policy Development, Joseph R. Steiner

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Skills in discourse management are necessary in order for democratic policy development groups to be productive. These skills, like other skills, are developed by practicing their utilization. A general cognitive frnework, however, can assist one in this development. This paper develops and then describes the use of such a general framework.

Opinions And Expectations Of Nursing Home Administrators, Jordan I. Kosberg

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

From a comparative analysis of 214 nursing homes in the Chicago area, it was found that the nursing home field is composed of institutions with great variations in treatment resources available to the residents (Kosberg and Tobin, 1972). While the determination of organizational correlates to the extent of treatment resources was the major objective of the study, an exploration of the attitudes of a sample of nursing home administrators was undertaken in an effort to learn of possible relationships between attitudes and the characteristics of facilities.

There is a commonly-held assumption that not only the academic background of an administrator …

Affirmative Action In A Governmental Agency: Michigan's Vocational Rehabilitation Service (Vrs), Linda Collins Johnson

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Serendipitous Relationship Between Theory Modification And A Study Of Staff Development, Patricia A. Brown

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

There are instances in which the guiding impetus to a study is a very practical problem, the answers to which are expected to have immediate applicability. Although the practical purpose is accomplished, at the study's end comes the recognition that perhaps the most important contribution of the investigation had been the uncovering of theoretical implications.

The above serendipitous process is applicable to the following report of a limited study of staff development in a new youth serving agency. The study is presented in detail so that the main elements associated with the validation and elaboration of a conceptualization of organizational …

Innovation, Involvement, And Contemporary Service Organizations, Frank A. Kastelic

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Purpose of This Paper

Innovation and involvement have come to be ascribed an almost mystical potency for the task of bringing more relevant services and more human relationships to clients of service organizations. Many descriptive

and hortatory articles have appeared in the social welfare and health literature concerning the virtues of contemporary organizations exhibiting these characteristics, but little in the way of hard thinking about their real implications to service organizations has been done. The majority of the articles are reprises of proposals, or accounts of the first year or two of a program, with an emphasis upon positive prospects …

A Study Of The Attitudes Of Michigan Civil Servants Toward Regulations On Their Political Activity, Lauri E. Kallio

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.