Profiling Capacity for Coordination and Systems Change: The Relative Contribution of Stakeholder Relationships in Interorganizational Collaboratives

In response to increasing demands for greater coordination and collaboration among community institutions, interorganizational collaboratives (i.e., coalitions, partnerships, coordinating councils) have emerged as a popular mechanism for strengthening the capacity of a community system to respond to public and social issues. This study adopts a network approach to explore the relative importance of dense networks of cooperative relationships among members of interorganizational collaboratives for two outcomes of effectiveness: improving interorganizational coordination and fostering systems change. Based on survey and social network data collected from 48 different collaboratives, findings indicate that, relative to other key characteristics of collaboratives identified in previous literature, cooperative stakeholder relationships were the strongest predictor of systems change outcomes. However, for coordination outcomes, stakeholder relationships were overshadowed in importance by the leadership and decision making capacity of the collaborative. Collectively, findings suggest key differences in the requisite capacity profiles for coordination and systems change outcomes.     

组织中的社会交换：由直接到间接

社会交换理论被引用来研究组织中的两种交换：员工与所在组织之间的交换——“感受组织支持”（POS）和员工与直接上司之间的交换——“领导—成员交换”（LMX）。以往的研究侧重于“直接交换”,即：从POS和LMX到员工工作产出的直接回归。该文以员工的组织情感承诺和工作满意感为中介变量,考察POS和LMX对员工工作产出的间接影响。在919份有效问卷的基础上,通过结构方程模型的比较,结果发现：组织情感承诺和工作满意感的确可以在POS和LMX与员工工作产出之间承担全部或部分中介的角色。这说明,员工与组织之间、上司与下属之间的交换只有小部分是“直接交换”,大部分则属于“间接交换”。最后,作者讨论了这些新发现的理论意义和实践意义,并指出了该研究的不足之处。     

A Community Psychology View of Environmental Organization Processes

Environmental organizations have a key role in addressing environmental degradation and promoting ecologically and socially sustainable societies. Psychosocial processes underpin their work, however, empirical studies of these processes remain underdeveloped. This paper presents the first stage of a community psychology study involving in-depth interviews with leaders in environmental organizations. Qualitative analysis revealed a framework of five types of psychosocial processes that assist environmental organizations to achieve a range of outcomes, namely: problem analysis; influencing decision-making; inter-organizational relationships; community participation and knowledge transfer. These psychosocial processes were used in substantially different ways depending on the organizations' orientation. Three key orientations towards outcomes were evident: on-ground conservation, developing innovation in specialist areas and transforming wider social institutions. The findings provide a model of the psychosocial processes involved in fostering sustainable futures and exemplify the contribution of community psychology to this critical global issue.     

Organization-Level Predictors of Sustained Social Movement Participation

Long‐term sustained participation represents one of the most important resources available to community organizations and social movement organizations (SMOs). The participatory literature on community and SMOs has identified a host of individual‐level factors that influence participation beyond initial engagement, and has more recently identified contextual factors that influence participation. This study builds upon current understandings of participation in SMOs by examining how sustained participation in movement activities is affected by two qualities of SMO settings: repertoire of organizational activity, and equality of staff contact with organization members to cultivate and facilitate individual participation. To this end, we employ multi‐level regression techniques to examine longitudinal data on participation within 50 local chapters of a national congregation‐based community organizing federation. We find that the conduct of organizational activities previously shown to increase levels of participation among individual persons does not necessarily lead to increases in aggregate or organization‐level participation. Further, we find that conditions of unequal staff contact among organization members represent a notable drag on organization‐level participation over time. Our findings suggest that organizers and organizational leaders may well see greater levels of participation in their organizations by simply re‐distributing resources and opportunities more equitably within their organizations.     

The dynamics of a disturbance: New and established interests in technology policy debates

The effects of technological change have political implications. A “disturbance,” such as the rise of the Internet as a mass medium, brings about new policy issues and establishes new interest organizations in the lobbying community. The differential mobilization of interests can affect the resolution of these policy issues. I combine face-to-face interviews with Washington representatives from organizations involved in Internet policy debates with compiled data on the extent of their involvement to outline the difficulties that organizations face when building lobbying capacity, developing an agenda, and forming coalitions. The results indicate that new entrants face substantially more constraints than established interests and that these differences may affect policy outcomes. He formerly served as Research Director for the California Commission on Internet Political Practices.     

Revisiting the mediating role of leader–member exchange in transformational leadership: the differential impact model

Transformational leadership (TFL) has been proposed as an essential antecedent of leader–member exchange (LMX), which in turn affects outcomes in organizations. We extend this mediation hypothesis in two ways by proposing a differential impact model, which we test on three organizational outcomes: employee job satisfaction, employee organizational commitment, and leader effectiveness. First, we extend LMX’s mediational impact—which has previously only been tested for employee outcomes—to leader effectiveness. Second, we argue that this mediation will be stronger for outcomes that are more proximal rather than distal to dyadic relations between leader and followers (high proximity: job satisfaction; medium proximity: organizational commitment; low proximity: leader effectiveness). Meta-analytic structural equation modelling based on 132 studies revealed that LMX mediates TFL’s relationships with employee outcomes (more strongly for job satisfaction than for commitment), but not with leader effectiveness, whereas TFL showed a stronger direct link to leader effectiveness. The findings suggest that TLF and LMX contribute differentially to organizational outcomes depending on their proximity to dyadic relations between leaders and followers. The differential impact model uncovers leadership effectiveness processes, integrates influential leadership theories, and highlights the importance of distinguishing between different outcome measures and the processes facilitating them.     

Systems change as an outcome and a process in the work of community collaboratives for health

The widespread development of comprehensive community initiatives that aim to improve community health is driven by the need to change the systems charged with delivering the services and creating the policies related to a variety of health outcomes. Georgia's Family Connection initiative is the nation's largest statewide network of community collaboratives for health, with collaboratives operating in 159 counties. Data on community context, collaborative processes, engagement in systems change, and changes in programs and activities implemented, gathered consistently at the collaborative level over 3 years, will be used to answer the following questions. How do community contexts and the structure and processes of collaboratives affect implementation of systems change? How do systems changes affect intermediate outcomes such as the type of programs offered in a community? Longitudinal change in systems change and program implementation is described and significant predictors of between‐collaborative variation in longitudinal change for each outcome are identified.     

Applying a Theory of Change Approach to Interagency Planning in Child Mental Health

One of the challenges facing nonprofit organizations today is the demand for measurable results. Increasingly, these organizations are focusing less on program outputs and program outcomes in favor of community outcomes or changes demonstrated in the larger community. Success by 6(R) is a popular United Way initiative that emphasizes defining and measuring community outcomes. In this paper, we describe our work with 24 Success by 6(R) initiatives around the country. It is clear that not all of these initiatives are measuring community outcomes. Of those initiatives that are experiencing some success measuring community outcomes, similar measurement strategies are reported. Additionally, our experience suggests several United Way employees express dissatisfaction with the logic model as a framework for defining and measuring community outcomes although no preferred alternative model is identified. Evaluators working with community-wide initiatives must find ways to communicate the differences between program and community outcomes to key stakeholders and funders.     

The Efficacy of Group Therapy in a Case of Marriage Neurosis

Abstract

Corruptogenic organizational dynamics have been largely ignored in reporting about recent corporate scandals. Using a large group framework, the author identifies factors within an organization that create a breeding ground for unethical or illegal behavior and attract individuals unconsciously looking for ways to damage themselves or others. An organizational culture that promotes questionable attitudes and behaviors along with subgroups that produce powerful corruptive forces can destroy a firm and damage the economy. Enron and the Madoff investment group are identified as corruptogenic organizations put together by founders and a leadership core bent on self-destruction and traumatizing the community–outcomes beyond that which are usually linked to greed. Suggestions are provided to organizational consultants and policy makers as to how to determine the potential for corruption hidden in their midst and to implement countervailing structures and processes.     

Developing a Partnership Model for Cancer Screening with Community-Based Organizations: The ACCESS Breast Cancer Education and Outreach Project

There is growing enthusiasm for community-academic partnerships to promote health in underserved communities. Drawing upon resources available at a comprehensive cancer center, we developed the ACCESS program to guide community based organizations through a flexible program planning process. Over a three-year period, ACCESS partnered with 67 agencies serving various medically underserved populations. Organizations included hospitals, parishes, senior centers, harm reduction programs, and recreational facilities. Program outcomes at the organizational level were quantified in terms of introduction of new cancer information, referral or screening programs, as well as organizational capacity building. ACCESS represents a viable model for promoting partnership to transfer behavioral health programs and adapt interventions for new audiences. Plans to further evaluate and enhance this model to promote cancer screening efforts are discussed. We argue that, ultimately, formation and development of community partnerships need to be understood as a fundamental area of practice that must be systematically integrated into the mission of major academic medical institutions in every area of public health.     

Job Insecurity Spillover to Key Account Management: Negative Effects on Performance,Effectiveness, Adaptiveness,and Esprit De Corps

Most of the existing research on outcomes of job insecurity has identified individual-level burdens such as reduced attitudinal attachments toward work and well being. Far fewer studies have examined work-related outcomes that are of substantial concern to organizational success. In this paper, we investigated four new work-related outcomes of job insecurity that are part of the literature on key account management (KAM): customer performance, effectiveness with customers, adaptiveness to changing competitive conditions, and esprit de corps. A total of 353 U.S. based employees participated. The findings of this research suggest that job insecure workers perceive their organizations to be ineffective in delivering on all four KAM outcomes.     

Union Influence on Internal Organizational Decisions: An Empirical Analysis

The development of appropriate models of organizational decision making requires a complete determination of the different groups that affect the decision-making process. The present investigation examines the influence of union officials as a group on internal organizational decisions. The rank and file membership of three local unions ( N = 1324) and their first level supervisors ( N = 205) were surveyed regarding the perceived influence of five different groups within the organizational hierarchy. A methodology developed by Tannenbaum (1968) and his associates was modified to include lower-level union representatives as one of five groups who potentially wield influence over organizational decisions. The results of this investigation determined that union representatives are seen as possessing significant levels of influence regarding microlevel organizational decisions. Additional analyses revealed that first-level supervisors believed that union representatives possessed more influence in organizational decisions than they possessed as a group. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Miami Thrives: Weaving a Poverty Reduction Coalition

In an environment where community based organizations are asked to do increasingly more to alleviate the effects of complex social problems, networks and coalitions are becoming the answer for increasing scale, efficiency, coordination, and most importantly, social impact. This paper highlights the formation of a poverty reduction coalition in south Florida. Our case study approach chronicles a developing coalition in Miami-Dade County and the role of one organization acting as lead to the initiative. Drawing on interviews with lead organization staff, participant observation field notes, network mapping and analysis of documents and artifacts from the initiative, we analyze the local organizational context and illuminate important processes associated with supporting a developing coalition. Findings offer a picture of the interorganizational relationships in the community using social network analysis and identify the organizational capacity factors that contribute to and inhibit the formation of a cohesive and effective coalition in this context. This study also highlights the utility of an action research approach to organizational learning about coalition-building in such a way that informs decision making.     

The relationship between justice and attitudes: An examination of justice effects on event and system-related attitudes

Research in organizational justice has always been interested in the relationship between justice and attitudes. This research often examines how different types of justice affect different attitudes, with distributive justice predicted to affect attitudes about specific events (e.g., performance evaluation) and procedural justice predicted to affect attitudes about organizations (e.g., organizational commitment). However, there is mixed support for these predictions. Moreover, this approach generally ignores the relationship between attitudes about the specific event and attitudes toward the organization. In this study we identify three alternative models of justice and attitudes. We use customer responses to complaint handling to test these alternative conceptualizations. Results generally support a mediated model, wherein event attitudes mediate the effect of justice perceptions on system-related attitudes. The implication of these findings for organizations and justice researchers are discussed.     

A Heuristic Framework for Understanding the Role of Participatory Decision Making in Community-Based Non-Profits

This paper explores the role of member participation in decision-making (PDM) from an organizational learning (OL) perspective. Community-based organizations (CBOs) serve as mediators between the individual and the local community, often providing the means for community member participation and benefiting organizationally from members' input. Community psychologists have recognized these benefits; however, the field has paid less attention to the role participation plays in increasing CBOs' capacity to meet community needs. We present a framework for exploring how CBO contextual factors influence the use of participatory decision-making structures and practices, and how these affect OL. We then use the framework to examine PDM in qualitative case study analysis of four CBOs: a youth development organization, a faith-based social action coalition, a low-income neighborhood organization, and a large human service agency. We found that organizational form, energy, and culture each had a differential impact on participation in decision making within CBOs. We highlight how OL is constrained in CBOs and document how civic aims and voluntary membership enhanced participation and learning.     

A multiple case study of rape victim advocates' self-care routines: the influence of organizational context

This study assumes that rape victim advocates who provide community outreach services to victimized women must adjust to a heightened awareness of sexual violence to do their jobs. Using qualitative methodology, this multiple case study explored rape victim advocates' strategies for incorporating repeated exposure to sexual assault into their daily lives as well as ways that organizations can support such endeavors. Findings suggest that advocates' self-care routines draw upon various personal resources (i.e., cognitive, physical, social, spiritual, verbal), and serve 2 roles for coping with rape-related pain: (a) cathartic releasing of traumatic material, and (b) improving capacity to integrate the traumatic material into one's life. Additionally, over 20 organizational characteristics that workers perceive to be supportive (e.g., weekly meetings, flexible hours) were identified. Nonparametric and categorical statistical analyses were used to analyze the relationship between organizational support and self-care routines, finding that advocates working in organizations with higher levels of support utilize more strategies that are integrative in nature. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Who benefits from independent careers? Employees,organizations, or both?

The traditional organizational career has been depicted as the classic example of how employers and employees can develop a mutually beneficial relationship; but changes in the competitive landscape and in individual work values have challenged its viability. Commentators have argued that a ‘new career’ deal, encapsulated by the notions of the protean and the boundaryless career, has emerged suggesting a shift in control of careers from organizations to individuals. Research has explored the implications for individuals' careers while largely neglecting consequences for organizations. Our paper seeks to remedy this by exploring both the individual and the organizational outcomes of independent career orientations and the extent to which organizations can manage these through high commitment human resource management (HRM) practices. Our study, conducted with 655 employee–supervisor dyads, indicates that a protean career orientation results in gains for both employees and organizations, whereas a boundaryless career orientation is associated with mutual losses. In addition, our findings suggest that high commitment HR practices play an important role in managing the outcomes of employees seeking traditional careers but have only a limited impact on those with a boundaryless career orientation.     

Team adaptation: A fifteen-year synthesis (1998–2013) and framework for how this literature needs to “adapt” going forward

Organizations increasingly operate within dynamic environments that require them to adapt. To respond quickly and effectively to acute or on-going change, many organizations use teams to help them remain competitive. Accordingly, the topic of team adaptation has become more prominent within the broader organizational team literature. Given the wealth of knowledge that has been accumulated, we consider what has been learned to date. However, even with the increased attention to team adaptation within the literature, not all teams are created equal in terms of their capacity for adaptability. Thus, we review factors that serve as antecedents of team adaptation, the process of adaptation, and the resulting adaptive outcomes. Finally, we suggest future directions for research and practice as we introduce a conceptual framework, whereby the focus of a team’s adaptation process is impacted by the type and severity of the disruption or trigger that gives rise to the need for adaptation.