Organizational Image Assessment in the Health and Human Services Sector1

Five studies were conducted from 1976 to 1984 in southcentral Pennsylvania to evaluate the potential of bipolar ratings by adult user populations for assessing the general agency and/ or specific program image of service organizations in the not-for-profit sector. Statistically reliable differences in mean ratings on scales such as staff qualifications, physical accessibility, and so forth were found to distinguish image profiles and the clarity of image of three human service agencies within the same region of service, to detect change over a 6-year period in the image of individual agencies, and to be sensitive to the effects of management actions designed to modify the image of an in-patient psychiatric facility within a region. The demonstration that specific management interventions over a 2-year period were detectable by ratings along specifically relevant dimensions encourages the immediate application of this inexpensive feedback device by managers of human service agencies and the further investigation of user image ratings as a system output potentially amenable to control system analyses.