Strategic Planning and Organizational Effectiveness in Social Service Organizations in Portugal

This study aims to understand the reality of social service organizations, the level of implementation of the strategic planning as well as the impact of its application on organizational effectiveness. At first, we will group organizations in clusters according to the level of strategic planning implementation and its degree of effectiveness. Secondly, we will analyse all the different groups. Given the growing number of social service organizations and the consequent complexity of their structures, it turns out the need for these organizations adopt formal management techniques. Strategic planning is a valuable strategic management tool and one of its main objectives is to make organizations more effective. Therefore, the research has been conducted in order to determine if strategic planning is implemented in social service organizations and which effects has its application on organizational effectiveness. The survey, applied to 220 social service organizations, allowed us to gather them into different clusters, showing that different levels of strategic planning determine distinct degrees of organizational efficiency. Finally, it should be noted that findings of this research may be essential to decision makers of these organizations, because it was shown that the adoption of strategic planning has a positive influence on organizational effectiveness of social service organizations.

Quality Management and Formalization in Social Service Organizations - A Survey on Home-Based Family Intervention Services

Although the effects of quality management on social work are still widely unexplored, critics suspect that it will lead to a negative standardization of working conditions, whereas supporters of quality management hope for a greater transparency and effectiveness of service delivery. This article reports on a survey of 30 managers, 261 professionals, and 435 families in 30 family intervention service organizations. It uses cluster analysis to explore the relationship between quality management and different forms of work formalization. Results showed that working conditions generally are enabling for professional practice, but differences exist between what is called here a managerialist machine bureaucracy, an atomistic professional organization, and a collegiate professional organization.

Internalization of quality management in service organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the internalization of quality management (QM) on the basis of quality certifiable standards – also referred to as meta-standards – in service organizations. More specifically, the paper analyzes the case of the internalization of a quality standard in the Spanish hotel industry. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the relationships between the measures of internalization, benefit, QM tools and motivation, using partial least squares in the framework of the structural equation modeling technique. Findings – The results show that the hotels that have internalized the standard to a greater extent are more likely to be driven by internal motivation, develop more QM tools and achieve greater benefits than the hotels with a lower degree of internalization. Originality/value – As previous studies have examined these issues in relation to the internalization of ISO standards, the present study adds to this important stream of research and contributes by advancing the understanding of these issues through the case of a specific standard for the hotel industry.

Community organization and agency responsibility; a study of the process of community organization for social welfare, and of the role of the direct-service organizations as responsible participants

Includes bibliography.

Grants, programs and services to arts producing organizations, arts service organizations, and major institutions.

Description based on: Fiscal year, 1986; title from cover.

Third sector in transition - A question of sustainability for community service organizations and the sector?

Third sector organizations are transitioning towards entrepreneurial and managerial models as a result of quasi-market strategies. This paper reports on the research findings of a survey of nonprofit disability organizations in Queensland and Victoria impacted upon by quasi-market reform. Enterprising organizations were found to have made substantial change to organizational structures and systems, whilst more traditional organizations made few changes. All organizations demonstrated commitment to a social justice ethos. However across the organizational archetypes there were reports of an organizational 'fragility'. It is argued that the problems of sustainability of community service organizations that existed prior to quasi-market reforms remain. This implies community service organizations will experience ongoing difficulties in the post-market era without further rationalization and change. A conceptual framework for sustainability of the community service sector is presented at the policy and organizational level.

Managing people and performance:An evidence based framework applied to health service organizations

People and their performance are key to an organization's effectiveness. This review describes an evidence-based framework of the links between some key organizational influences and staff performance, health and well-being. This preliminary framework integrates management and psychological approaches, with the aim of assisting future explanation, prediction and organizational change. Health care is taken as the focus of this review, as there are concerns internationally about health care effectiveness. The framework considers empirical evidence for links between the following organizational levels: 1. Context (organizational culture and inter-group relations; resources, including staffing; physical environment) 2. People management (HRM practices and strategies; job design, workload and teamwork; employee involvement and control over work; leadership and support) 3. Psychological consequences for employees (health and stress; satisfaction and commitment; knowledge, skills and motivation) 4. Employee behaviour (absenteeism and turnover; task and contextual performance; errors and near misses) 5. Organizational performance; patient care. This review contributes to an evidence base for policies and practices of people management and performance management. Its usefulness will depend on future empirical research, using appropriate research designs, sufficient study power and measures that are reliable and valid.

Computer based monitoring in U.K. service organizations : a comparative study

The majority of the literature about CBM is American in origin, and (inter alia) notes that there were differing uses of similar technology, indicating that context has an important role to play in the use of CBM. The literature maps the psychological effects of CBM in considerable detail, but only two published studies examine the context of CBM. These grounded results provide scant support for any systematic, quantitative, large scale analysis of computer based monitoring in the UK context. This thesis thus aims to systemically examine the context of CBM using discourse analysis. Forty four interviewees were theoretically sampled using a structured sample technique in four organizations. All were national or multinational enterprises. The interviews were semi structured in nature and divided into three sections. The first addressed the respondents' thoughts and perceptions about CBM, the second elicited talk about the departmental context (focusing the management - worker relationship), and the final section addressed the organizational context. The cases demonstrated variation in the use of CBM, measured according to the criteria of Westin (1987, 1988) and according to the interpretive repertoires used by the respondents in each case. Seven analytical categories of talk emerged from the data: three at the organizational level and four at the departmental level of analysis. Discourse analysis revealed two discrete interpretive repertories - the procedural and the substantive repertoires - in respondents' talk whose main variation occurred at the departmental level of analysis. Furthermore, patterns were found in the use of these repertories within cases and between categories. Between the cases, variation in the use of the repertories matched the between case variation according to the criteria of Westin. It would thus appear that the source of variation in the use of CBM lies in its context, more specifically in the relative emphasis of humanistic, interpersonal and idiosyncratic values within the management worker relationship.

Alternative service organizations: Funding environment, strategies, and patterns of adaptation

This study explored the strategies that community-based, consumer-focused advocacy, alternative service organizations (ASOs), implemented to adapt to the changes in the nonprofit funding environment (Oliver & McShane, 1979; Perlmutter, 1988a, 1994). It is not clear as to the extent to which current funding trends have influenced ASOs as little empirical research has been conducted in this area (Magnus, 2001; Marquez, 2003; Powell, 1986). ^ This study used a qualitative research design to investigate strategies implemented by these organizations to adapt to changes such as decreasing government, foundation, and corporate funding and an increasing number of nonprofit organizations. More than 20 community informants helped to identify, locate, and provide information about ASOs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 30 ASO executive directors from diverse organizations in Miami-bade and Broward Counties, in South Florida. ^ Data analysis was facilitated by the use of ATLAS.ti, version 5, a qualitative data analysis computer software program designed for grounded theory research. This process generated five major themes: Funding Environment; Internal Structure; Strategies for Survival; Sustainability; and Committing to the Cause, Mission, and Vision. ^ The results indicate that ASOs are struggling to survive financially by cutting programs, decreasing staff, and limiting service to consumers. They are also exploring ways to develop fundraising strategies; for example, increasing the number of proposals written for grants, focusing on fund development, and establishing for-profit ventures. Even organizations that state that they are currently financially stable are concerned about their financial vulnerability. There is little flexibility or cushioning to adjust to "funding jolts." The fear of losing current funding levels and being placed in a tenuous financial situation is a constant concern for these ASOs. ^ Further data collected from the self-administered Funding Checklist and demographic forms were coded and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive information and frequencies generated findings regarding the revenue, staff compliment, use of volunteers and fundraising consultants, and fundraising practices. The study proposes a model of funding relationships and presents implications for social work practice, and policy, along with recommendations for future research. ^

Measuring Service Effectiveness for Families

While most professionals do not dispute the fact that evaluation is necessary to determine whether agencies and practitioners are truly providing services that meet clients’ needs, information regarding consistent measures on service effectiveness in human service organizations is sparse. A national survey of 250 not-for-profit family service organizations in the United States (52.8% return rate) yielded results relevant to client identified needs and agency effectiveness measures in serving today’s families. On an open-ended survey item, 52.3% agencies indicated that poverty represented the most pressing problem among today’s families because other psychological needs also take priority. Over two thirds of these agencies used multiple methods to evaluate their services. Clients’ feedback and outcome measures are the most popular methods. The findings reveal agencies' difficulties in determining what or who decides if the most appropriate services are being provided for the target population. Limited data collected on outcomes and impact may impose additional difficulties in program design and planning.

An extended approach for service innovation study: an empirical research

Initially, service sector was defined as complementary to manufacturing sector. This situation has changed in recent times; services growth has resulted in a dominance of employment and economic activity in most developed nations and is becoming a key process for the competitiveness of their industrial sectors. New services related to commodities have become a strategy to differentiate their value proposition (Robinson et al., 2002). The service sector's importance is evident when evaluating its share in the gross domestic product. According to the World Bank (2011), in 2009, 74.8% of GDP in the euro area and 77.5% in United States were attributed to services. Globalization and use of information and communication technology has accelerated dissemination of knowledge and increasing customer expectations about services available worldwide. Innovation becomes essential to ensure that service organizations respond with appropriate products and services for each market segment. Customized and placed on time-tomarket new services require a more developed innovation process. Service innovation and new service development process are cited as one of the priorities for academic research in the following years (Karniouchina et al., 2005) This paper has the following objectives: -To present a model for the analysis of innovation process through the service value network, -To verify its applicability through an empirical research, and -To identify the path and mode of innovation for a group of studied organizations and to compare it with previous studies.

Service innovation: Inward and outward related activities and cooperation mode

Knowledge of how customers co-create value, the way that suppliers and providers co-produce services, and how research and development centers and universities transfer technologies is becoming increasingly important to scholars' understanding of service innovation. This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between inward and outward innovation activities in service organizations and their modes of innovation, using network innovation premises and an extended innovation model. Empirical data from retail, health and education sector service organizations show the existence of a relationship between the degree of development of the inward innovation process and the degree of development of outward innovation activities. The majority of service organizations have innovation processes with an orientation toward customers and suppliers rather than other service network members, and leading service organizations follow a path that the literature defines as oriented toward the service value network. Findings lead to implications of how innovation managers could develop their internal innovation capacity to balance inward and outward activities properly.