Diversity‐related employee attitudes and perceptions in Bangladesh: A case study on the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee

Bangladesh is perceived as homogenous, often resulting in hidden discrimination for those considered to belong to minority groups. Little research has been conducted on the characteristics of diversity as predictors of work attitude and behavior in relation to organizational commitment and job performance in Bangladesh. This study examines conditions in a leading international, non‐governmental development organization, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC). The purpose of this study is to explore employees' perceptions and work attitudes and how these relate to organizational commitment and job performance. A phenomenological research strategy was used to understand the unique culture of Bangladesh and workplace diversity at BRAC. Data was collected through in‐depth interviews with BRAC employees currently working in the head office, using a purposive, convenient sampling method. Both positive and negative feelings and perceptions were revealed: positive factors include gender sensitivity in the workplace, positive organizational support, organizational goodwill, organizational culture, and longer tenure and seniority; negative factors include job insecurity, dissatisfaction with salary grades and gaps, promotions, and issues pertaining to disabilities, ethnicity, and supervisors' evaluations. These results have implications for organizational and governmental policy.     

Access to social services as a rite of integration: Power,rights, and identity

Access to social services is a multifaceted and multifactorial process, involving social policy lines, services organization, and professional front line practices. It appears to have a crucial role in how personal social services work: depending on the way the process is handled, access to social services could provide a bridge to an inclusive and solidarizing community or worsen discrimination and marginalization. Many underline how studying the actual encounters between citizens and practitioners can provide a privileged site to highlight the interconnections between the abovementioned factors. This is the focus of our research that explored access in a specific Italian region using a case study strategy. After a pilot study, the main points of access to social services were identified, and three units were selected as best examples of different approaches. The three units were explored using mainly qualitative methods inspired by ethnography. We were able to gain in depth understanding of three cultural approaches to access, defined as the “ethical duty,” the “good organization,” and the “professional approach” and reach an in‐depth understanding of their impact on access. There is a vast literature on the power of street‐level bureaucrats, seen as similar to gatekeepers. However, our research suggests that specific organizational cultures also play an important part: different organizational cultures may impact the implementation of local social policy, the organizational procedures, and social workers' practices.     

Social Workers' Implementation of Client Participation: What Factors Make the Difference?

ABSTRACT

Client participation is both a value and a strategy in social work, involving clients in decisions influencing their lives. Nevertheless, the factors encouraging its use by social workers in social services have received little research attention. This article reports on a study drawing on Goal Commitment Theory to examine, for the first time, four categories of variables that might predict its implementation: background variables (intervention method, age, experience, education, supervision); personal resources (self-esteem, mastery); organizational variables (superiors' support, organizational commitment); and situational factors (previous client participation, perception of client participation).

A sample of 661 Israeli social workers completed questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analysis and t-tests revealed that intervention method, mastery, superiors' support, and both situational variables contributed significantly to explaining the variance in client participation. Moreover, social workers valued client participation significantly more than they used it. The implications for researchers and professionals in social services are discussed. Proper training could increase social workers' awareness of client participation and provide tools for implementation. Policy makers should set standards for its use and evaluation, and require its inclusion in all interventions. Further research investigating clients and managers of social services could provide a broader picture of the factors impacting client participation.     

Specific Organizational Citizenship Behaviours and Organizational Effectiveness: The Development of a Conceptual Heuristic Device

Organizational citizenship behaviour has generally been associated with organizational effectiveness. However, recent research has shown that this may not always be the case and that certain types of organizational citizenship behaviour such as compulsory citizenship behaviour, may be inimical to the fulfillment of formal goals and organizational effectiveness. Using military historical and business organizational secondary data, the paper maintains that extreme variance in either organizational (task) or personal (social psychological) support organizational citizenship behaviour generates entropic citizenship behaviour which derails completely the effective accomplishment of formal organizational goals. A general model of organizational citizenship behaviour with entropic citizenship behavior as its novel conceptual boundary is developed in the paper, and four specific propositions with implications for future empirical research are delineated.     

组织动员、行动策略与机会结构——业主集体行动结果的影响因素分析

本文从组织动员、行动策略和机会结构三个维度出发,基于发生在1999-2012年的中国191个业主维权案例,系统考察了纠纷类型、参与人数、维权方式、业主组织和政府反应五个因素对业主集体维权结果的影响。研究发现,在涉及政府部门的行政型纠纷和混合型纠纷中,业主不易维权成功;动员一定数量的业主有助于集体维权成功,但并不意味着动员人数越多,成功可能性越大;不同维权方式及其组合会影响维权结果,非制度化的激进行为并不利于业主实现其利益诉求;真正代表业主利益且能有效运作的业主组织可以显著提高业主维权成功的可能性;政府的行政失当行为(包括不当干预和行政不作为)大大增加了业主维权的难度。这些发现在一定程度上揭示了当前中国强国家-弱社会的现状。     

Social enterprise and sustainable development in Bangladesh and Korea: Opportunities and challenges

The aim of this paper was to understand the similarities and differences between social enterprise (SE) systems in Korea and Bangladesh in terms of the emergence, background, development, and current status of the SE's policies and support systems in these two countries. This study employs a conceptual qualitative analysis, and the data used in this study were obtained from multiple reliable literature reviews. The data were analyzed based on a text‐by‐text comparison of social enterprises in the two countries, and the results were revealed through written explanation. In Korea, the SE system emerged as social employment creation plan after the currency crisis in 1997. Later, in 2007, this movement turned into the “Social Enterprise Promotion Act.” Conversely, in Bangladesh, the SE system emerged as a result of NGOs’ activities to “alleviate poverty” and “facilitate job creation” after the War of Independence in 1971 in an informal socioeconomic conditions. There is no explicit legal form of SEs in Bangladesh. This study also suggests the nature and scope of SEs and the barriers to sustainability of SEs in both countries. The study also emphasized the foundations to develop relevant policies as well as clear regulations for the future sustainability of the SEs of these two countries.     

The effect of information system utilization and education and training on organizational innovation in public social welfare officers: Focused on the moderating effect of organizational trust

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of information system utilization and education and training on organizational innovation for public social welfare officers in Seoul and verify whether organizational trust plays a role as a moderator variable in these relationships. First, information system utilization and education and training have positive effects on organizational innovation. Second, as a result of investigating the moderating effects of organizational trust, organizational trust has a positive effect on the relationship between information system utilization and organizational innovation, as well as education and training and organizational innovation. Therefore, it is found that information system utilization and education and training are important for innovation of public welfare service. The stronger relationship we have, the higher organizational trust we acquire. Therefore, in order to innovate the organization, it is necessary to strengthen the education training that can utilize the network and the expertise to share information and communicate. It is also necessary to focus on enhancing organizational trust such as mutual consideration, information sharing, and assistance within an organization.     

论德鲁克目标管理的理论渊源

1954年,管理大师德鲁克在《管理实践》一书中首次提出了“目标管理”的概念和体系。这个概念和体系是在前人理论铺垫的基础上建立起来的。在德鲁克之前,就曾经有许多管理学先驱对组织中的“目标”十分重视,并对其在组织中的作用及与组织中相关因素的关系进行了精辟的论述。在此基础上,德鲁克看到了以“目标”为中心的理论的延展性和科学性,最终综合、完善并发展了前人的“目标”理论,创造了目标管理体系,并且把“目标管理”发展成为一种管理哲学。也正因为如此,德鲁克创建的目标管理体系至今仍被各种组织机构广泛应用。     

民营企业国际化组织结构应变机制的构建与完善

经济全球化使每个企业都可能成为国际化市场体系的成员,国际化的市场更加复杂、多变。民营企业必须根据客观经营环境的变化,建立企业组织结构的应变机制,随时调整企业战略,才能充分发挥企业竞争优势,降低国际化带来的风险。企业组织结构设计必须体现出动态机制,要具备适应性和灵活性,还要考虑价值链对企业组织结构机制的作用。     

我国高校组织结构存在的问题与解决对策

随着高校招生规模的拓展和职能的增加,直线型组织结构对环境适应性差、不同职能部门之间协调性差等缺点日益凸显,尤其是科层化严重、学术权力较弱、群团组织权力不受重视等,成为违背大学职能、偏离大学理念的不和谐因素。鉴于此,我国高校组织结构应遵循坚持办学特色、注重整体和谐和以人为本的原则,在现有结构的基础上进行矩阵型变革,即建立学术权力与行政权力相结合、教学与科研相结合、学科与项目相结合、教师组织与学生组织相结合的多重矩阵。     

The Perception of Organizational Issues of Social Work Practitioners in Saudi Hospitals

ABSTRACT

Health care has evolved rapidly in Saudi Arabia, based upon a Western model of service that incorporates multidisciplinary professional teams. Social work practice forms part of patient care. This study explores how Saudi social workers perceive their role and how they describe their practice within the hospital context. A quantitative methodology was employed using a self-administered questionnaire. Analysis revealed that 219 social workers perceived formidable limitations to their daily work practice. The study identified factors relating to the hospital's organizational circumstances where a) organizational structural aspects, b) organizational resources, and c) hospital management and interprofessional teamwork impacted best practice. Future research and recommendations for further study are outlined.     

行业协会的组织自主性研究——以广东省级行业协会为例

本文以广东省级行业协会为中心,通过归纳组织自主性概念和总结影响组织自主性的相关理论研究,对行业协会自主性进行测量,在实证分析中探析协会与政府关系强度、协会组织规模两个变量对协会自主性的影响。研究发现,行业协会与政府的关系强度对行业协会整体自主性、具体的人事与财务和认知自主性具有显著负相关作用,对活动自主性作用并不明显;协会组织规模变量对协会的整体和具体自主性作用均不显著。     

Changing the cultural story in child protection: learning from the insider's experience

This paper argues that child protection organizations intent upon tackling low retention rates and enhancing the services they offer to children and families must pay greater attention to the emotional life of the organization and to enabling workers to manage the intrusiveness of the work. Findings from in-depth qualitative interviews with child protection workers and supervisors are reported in the form of a story about the insider's experience of the organization. The consequences of working in an organizational culture that denies opportunities for workers to understand and manage the emotional toll of the work are explored. While reporting on research and work undertaken with Australian child protection workers between 1997 and 2002, the view is expressed that these ideas have current relevance to many organizations in the health and welfare field whose core business involves workers coming into contact with individuals in complex, uncertain and ambiguous situations. The paper looks at what needs to change about organizational structures such as supervision to promote learning within a more healthy organizational culture. A clear message from senior managers and politicians to workers that the organization endorses the open expression of feelings, doubts and uncertainties is pivotal.     

Exploring characteristics of innovative nonprofit organizations in South Korea

The purpose of this study was to explore how employees of Korean nonprofit organizations perceived characteristics of innovative organizations. The social-validation method (first, an open-ended question is given; and later, ideas collected from participants are used to make an instrument) was used to collect the data. Thirteen employees representing a variety of nonprofit organizations in South Korea participated in this study. At the first stage of the study, participants were asked to generate a list of characteristics of innovative organizations. A total of 125 characteristics of innovative nonprofit organizations were summarized into the 25 most often mentioned characteristics. At the second stage of the study, all participants were asked to rate each of the characteristics on how important they were for an innovative organization. Among the highest-ranked characteristics of innovative organizations were: having a clear organizational vision and mission statement, having transparent financial and accounting processes, having a leader who is open-minded and flexible, being responsive to clients’ needs, and having employees who share the vision and mission of the organization. The pattern of agreement among participants indicated a low degree of consensus. Implications were suggested based on the findings.     

中共早期地方领袖、组织形态与乡村社会：以曾天宇及其领导的江西万安暴动为中

中共在建党初期就移植了俄共（布）的民主集中制作为自身的组织制度。这一制度在中国革命的实践中经历了艰难的调适过程。１９２７ 年大革命失败后,中共准备在乡村组织暴动时,组织原则和组织能力就面临着严峻的挑战。组织江西万安暴动的领袖曾天宇,代表了中共早期地方领袖的一种类型,其领导的万安暴动所暴露出的党内组织矛盾也具有一定的典型性。本文将中共党史、社会史以及民国政治史结合在一起,综合运用文件档案、组织史资料、忆述材料、地方史志、报刊等诸多史料,通过对曾天宇的生活史与精神气质的勾勒以及对万安暴动背景与过程的考察,揭示出中共早期组织形态中存在的三重张力：职位关系与个人因素之间的张力;组织纪律的有效性与地方领袖的自主性之间的张力;革命组织与传统资源及地方利益之间的张力。这些张力为同时期的一系列中共党内组织事件提供了解读的逻辑。     

信息化条件下国家审计组织方式创新研究

当前国家审计组织方式存在着不能适应信息化发展需求、不符合扁平化发展趋势、不能很好培养复合型人才等问题。信息化环境下,国家审计组织方式创新主要包括信息系统集成、组织结构整合、审计管理创新、审计技术和方式创新等几个方面。为了保证审计组织方式的有效运作,也需要在审计计划精细化管理和项目组长的职业化、内外部资源共享等方面实施相应的配套措施。     

行政包干的组织基础

回应“行政包干”的缘起问题,针对“成本衡量”说,本文建议从行政机体本身的特性和历史关系,说明发包制的存在。由于政府的多元角色、多中心控制权的组织关系以及对执行工具的依赖,政府系统逐渐发展出具有灵活适应性的、不同于单一科层体系的、能够利用上述组织环境的方法,来推进任务的执行。“行政包干制”顺势于不言自明的控制权范围,通过默许、交换和隐形授权,将目标和利益不同的组织容纳于一体,形成了今天治理体系中混合共生的形态。因此,政府行政体系的组成结构、其内部真实的组织关系和多元角色是发包制产生的基石。     

Linking Perceived External Prestige and Intentions to Leave the Organization: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction and Affective Commitment

ABSTRACT

The present study examines social workers' beliefs about the prestige that outsiders (e.g., patients, suppliers, competitors, and the public) attribute to their organization and the way these beliefs influence the social workers' commitment to the organization they work for, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions (i.e., intentions to leave the organization). We collected two primary data sets (N = 160 and N = 489, respectively) from social workers in nonprofit social service organizations in Israel in 2001 and 2002. In general, the results show that perceived (construed) external prestige results in higher employee commitment and satisfaction, which, in turn, leads to lower levels of intention to leave the organization. The implications of these findings for research on organizational image and employee commitment are discussed, with particular emphasis on social workers in nonprofit social service organizations.     

研究中国宗教的社会学范式杨庆堃眼中的中国社会宗教

摘要：本文通过杨庆堃教授对中国宗教极其卓越和具有开创性的研究,来审视中国宗教的社会学范式。杨氏的《中国社会中的宗教》是一部堪称现代经典的华丽巨著,是中国宗教社会学研究的典范之作,是社会学学者研究中国宗教的重要参考书,具有极高的学术价值和理论创新意义。相对于西方宗教的制度性,杨氏提出发散性宗教的概念,指出散开宗教的信仰和仪式有机会发展为有组织的社会体系,同时它是作为社会组织模式整体的一部分,在散开的形式中,宗教发挥着多样的功能,以组织的方式出现在中国社会生活中。杨氏是第一个从宽阔的社会学角度来证明中国宗教存在形式、合理性以及历史传统的华裔学者,对于其后学者的研究奠定了重要的学术基础。     

Development and Validation of an Organizational Competency Scale (OCS) for Elder Civic Engagement Programs: A Pilot Study

Abstract

This pilot study developed and validated an organizational competency scale (OCS) for elder civic engagement programs. The OCS was used to comprehensively measure the organizational competencies at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Thirty-two formal organizations in the State of Texas participated in this study. Based on the factor analyses of data collected from these organizations, the original 31-item OCS was reduced to a 28-item, seven-factor scale. The derived factors were client discovery with support, client-centered planning and management, client assessment and training, integration of diverse groups, promotion of adaptation between groups, integration of resources to address the structural constraints, and promotion of social recognition and social justice. Findings from the reliability tests and hierarchical regression analysis supported the reliability and criterion-related validity of the OCS. As a reliable and valid tool, the OCS can be used by formal organizations to evaluate the current competencies, identify areas for improvement, and find future directions for organizational development. It can also serve as practice guidelines to help organizational practitioners integrate available resources within the multi-level systems to better engage older participants. To further test the stability of the OCS and evaluate the overall fit of the structural model, additional research is needed.