Mobile Organizing Using Information Technology (MOBIT)

Both at the corporate level and in the government sector, we are currently witnessing a transformation towards mobile organizing using information technology (MOBIT). The mobile technology wave is challenging the fundamentals on organizational thinking on four accounts: (1) organizational platforms that support productive and efficient collaboration and enable self-development, experimentation and innovative behaviour; (2) balancing the need for managerial control and action with privacy rights for the individual workers related to digital transactions and storage; (3) strategies for having workers and external users (i.e. customers, citizens) at home, in a satellite office, or at the headquarters/front office; and (4) knowledge creation, replication, adaptation, and utilization in organizations glued with IT.     

Information Technology and Social Work Education in Malaysia

SUMMARY

Given the current stage of development of social work in Malaysia, the potential of harnessing the advancements in information technology (IT) for the development of social work education in Malaysia is immense. However, there are multiple barriers to cross before reaching this potential.     

Ensuring Safe Motherhood by Using Information and Communication Technology Tools in Behavioral Change Communication

ABSTRACT

Mothers are the primary caregivers, nurturers, and providers of family care and stability. Therefore maternal death isnot only a personal tragedy but isdevastating for the entirefamily and frequently extends to a community. Considering the societal roles that mothers play, it is particularly important that countries undertake all possible measures to reduce maternal death. This article focuses on information and communication technology as an available tool when aiming at the reduction of maternal death. This tool can play a decisive role in behavioral change communication and safe motherhood and raise awareness among people, contribute to training and capacity building, and help in advocacy at the grassroots level.     

Heads in the Cloud: An Example of Practice-Based Information and Communication Technology in Child Welfare

Changes in information and communications technology (ICT) in human services have accelerated rapidly and have elicited academic concern about the impact on practice, changes in approaches to implementation, and a shift to user-led development. This article describes the development of ICT by a nongovernment child welfare agency over the past two decades. It is guided by a social constructionist view of technology in which technology is shaped by social factors, but in turn shapes the “social” implementation as requiring the integration of two distinct technologies: a standardized framework for practice and the computer. Both technologies had to be carefully aligned to workplace culture, but the interests of workers have not been allowed to dominate those of and children and families. The organization of work has had to change. This article explores the agency’s experience drawing on theories of implementation of ICT in human services.     

The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in Addressing Safe Motherhood in South Asia

ABSTRACT

As it is recently recognized in academic and policy circles, limited access to information and limited knowledge are among key factors contributing to worldwide poverty, especially in low developed countries. Consequently, access to “knowledge” has become an integral part of discussions about global development, improvement of societal well-being, and empowerment of women. This article addresses the problem of the limited spread of information about maternal health and available maternal care services across impoverished South Asian countries. Lack of knowledge greatly contributes to underutilization of medical services and available maternal care that leads to high rates of maternal and infant mortality and pregnancy-related complications which, with proper medical care, could be avoided.     

Using Geographic Information System (GIS) Technology to Integrate Research into the Field Practicum

SUMMARY

This article reports on efforts to answer some basic questions arising in the introduction of technology into the social work curriculum. It involves an on-going project to integrate research into field instruction by training students to use Geographic Information System technology to identify and meet information needs of their field placement agency. Background on the project is given, with discussion of three concerns that shaped it. An explanation of how GIS works and how it can be used in the human service agency is provided, along with an account of the project's outcome. Preliminary conclusions regarding future efforts are offered.     

Understanding the Impact of Mobile Phones on Livelihoods in Developing Countries

Mobile phones are spreading rapidly in developing countries, but research conceptualisations have been lagging behind practice, particularly those that link mobile phones to livelihoods. This article seeks to fill this gap in two ways. First, by means of a literature review which analyses how they impact upon assets – through facilitating asset substitution, enhancement, combination, exchange and forms of disembodiment. On this basis key roles for mobile phones are defined within livelihood strategies. Secondly, the analysis demonstrates the shortcomings of the livelihoods framework for understanding technological innovation; its agriculture‐oriented understanding of assets; its silence on the developmental role of information and on user appropriation of technology; and its narrow categorisation of impact. Ways of addressing these shortcomings are suggested, pointing towards areas of future research and application.     

Information Technology,Adaptation and Innovation in Nonprofit Human Service Organizations

This report examines how two measures of performance—adaptation and innovation—can be predicted by the use of digital communication. It suggests that information technology in nonprofits offers strong leverage for adaptation but not for innovation. This suggests that (a) the two measures are dissimilar in both their nature and their relevance to organizational performance in nonprofit settings, (b) that service organizations are more likely to use information technology for adapting to change, and (c) it is probable that large and well-founded organizations will use IT for establishing innovations.     

The Impact of Electronic Communication and Social Media on Child Welfare Practice

One hundred and thirty-six child welfare workers completed an online survey examining their experiences regarding the impact that electronic communication and social media use has had on their practice with youth and families. Workers reported e-mail and text message use have made work with youth easier, yet distinct difficulties have emerged for practitioners in relation to electronic communication and social media use. New elements have also emerged including issues with harassment and the ethics related to monitoring clients' online activities. Comparisons with a previous study conducted by Finn indicate that the use of technology within social work practice has evolved over time. Implications for social work practice and future research are also discussed.     

The Impact of Distance Education Technology on Blending Two Cultures

SUMMARY

The authors describe their experiences with distance education technology as it has impacted the development of a joint MSW program's shared culture. This phenomenon is examined from a symbolic interactionist perspective which focuses on interactions, shared perspectives, contexts, participations, and meanings. While most interaction occurs in their “smart” rooms, the authors have found one-on-one and in-person interactions to be the most productive in terms of creating shared perspectives, a vital part of culture.     

Using Technology to Facilitate Collaboration in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)

This study explores the use of Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) technologies, by way of a computer-based system called iCohere. This system was used to facilitate collaboration conducting Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Data was gathered from 13 members of a Community Collaborative Board (CCB). Analysis revealed that iCohere served the following functions: facilitating communication, providing a depository for information and resource sharing, and allowing for remote meeting attendance. Results indicated that while iCohere was useful in performing these functions, less expensive technologies had the potential to achieve similar goals if properly implemented. Implications for future research on CSCW systems and CBPR are discussed.     

Mobile Selves: Gender, ethnicity and mobile phones in the everyday lives of young Pakistani-British women and men

This paper focuses on mobile phone use by a young minority ethnic group as a medium through which to explore diversity and technology use in everyday life. Recent research with young people has shown that mobile phones are instrumentally, socially and emotionally important but few have problematized the homogeneous concept of 'youth'. This paper argues for increased recognition of the intersections of social categories such as youth, gender and ethnicity with technologies, specifically mobile phones, in order to understand complexity of use. Drawing on new empirical, qualitative data from an urban area in the North East of England we explore the focus group narratives of young Pakistani-British Muslim women and men focusing on the notion of 'shifting' gendered and cultural identities and social practices, developed and reworked in relation to the use of mobile phones. We look at the gendered dynamics of mobile use, including gender talk and text, and ask whether the young women and men experience mobiles differently in everyday life. We also explore the ways in which mobiles are used to create 'space of one's own' and the gendered dynamics of remaining connected, especially to key peer groups. The paper concludes with the assertion that in order to fully explore the mutability of youth cultures across space and time, we need to develop a more dynamic concept of 'mobile selves' by exploring the place and meaning of technologies such as mobile phones in the rich tapestries of young people's lives.     

Emotions in a Rational Profession: The Gendering of Skills in ICT Work

Information communication technology (ICT) work is rarely seen as a work environment where emotional and social skills are key. However, the ideal ICT worker is increasingly said to possess a range of emotional and social skills that are often associated with femininity. This raises the question of how skills are discursively gendered in ICT work. This article firstly shows which skills ICT workers identify as those needed by the ideal ICT worker. Secondly, it highlights how ICT workers construct their own skills. Thirdly, some light is shed on how the gendering of emotional and social skills shifts with different discursive contexts and it is shown what the implications of this are. It is suggested that there is a dynamic at work through which men can appear as a new ideal ICT worker with more ease than women, despite the fact that women are more often associated with social and emotional skills.     

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the rehabilitation of individuals with severe functional impairments in a municipal care service system

This article explores the development of a scheme to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the training of individuals with severe functional impairments. Computers were used as an integral part of a rehabilitation programme for training, and the authors found that the resource was a useful addition to other treatment methods. This article describes the development and subsequent setting up of computers for training and how the study progressed. The study used a somewhat unique bottom up approach that first trained care-giving staff in computer skills. The caregivers in turn worked with and trained some of those they served. This learning strategy drew upon the concept of learning, empowerment and the motivation of all involved in a system and process. The study found that by using ICT all involved felt a greater sense of empowerment and improvement in the quality of life. That caregivers were involved at all stages was valuable in that they felt an ownership of the process and that they also benefited from being involved because they also learned new skills.     

The Role of Technology in Mediating Use of Outpatient Substance Abuse Treatment Services

ABSTRACT

This study examined the relationship between Connect, a telephone-based information and support system, and the use of outpatient substance abuse treatment services. Regression models were formulated to examine the relationship between use of substance abuse treatment services and Connect. The results indicate that Connect use was not significantly related to the likelihood of using treatment (N = 240). However, an inverse relationship was found between Connect and use of treatment services (n = 123). The findings raise the conceptual issue of whether one introduces technology as an “add-on” to or as a “substitute for” traditional substance abuse treatment services.     

The Impact of Domestic Work on Men's and Women's Wages

Past research has consistently found that the negative relationship between housework and wages is stronger for women than for men. This article tests a potential explanation for this difference by focusing on the fact that men and women typically perform different types of household chores. Traditionally “feminine” and “masculine” task types are likely to interfere with work differently, because they vary as to when and how often they must be performed. Based on longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households, fixed‐effects regression results show that only time spent in female housework chores has a negative effect on wages. Furthermore, gender differences in the effect of housework disappear upon disaggregating housework into task types. This research suggests that a more equitable distribution of not only the amount, but also the type, of housework performed by men and women in the home may lead to a narrowing of the gender gap in wages.     

Protest in an Information Society: a review of literature on social movements and new ICTs

New Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are changing the ways in which activists communicate, collaborate and demonstrate. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, among them sociology, political science and communication, are working to understand these changes. The diversity of perspectives represented enriches the literature, providing an abundant repertoire of tools for examining these phenomena, but it is also an obstacle to understanding. Few works are commonly cited across the field, and most are known only within the confines of their discipline. The absence of a common set of organizing theoretical principles can make it difficult to find connections between these disparate works beyond their common subject matter. This paper responds by locating existing scholarship within a common framework for explaining the emergence, development and outcomes of social movement activity. This provides a logical structure that facilitates conversations across the field around common issues of concern, highlighting connections between scholars and research agendas that might otherwise be difficult to discern.     

Evaluating the Impact of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) Perspective in Social Work Curriculum

A trauma-informed care (TIC) curriculum was integrated into a school of social work master’s level program. Measures assessed the impact of the curriculum on first and advanced-year students’ knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy, and behavioral intention at the beginning and end of a semester. Initial comparisons show advanced-year students as having more knowledge about TIC, more positive attitudes toward TIC, higher levels of self-efficacy to use TIC approaches, and greater likelihood to engage in TIC behaviors than first-year students. However, by the end of the semester, the latter were equivalent with advanced students on all measures. Results suggest the first-year curriculum provides sufficient background in TIC approaches to allow for significant gains across all areas assessed. However, integration of the TIC perspective within advanced courses needs further assessment.