Casework Job Design and Client Outcomes in Welfare-to-Work Offices

Differences in performance across different locations of a humanservice program may be driven by client, managerial, organizational,policy, or environmental characteristics. While many of thesefactors are outside the control of local managers, other factorsmay be open to influence by local discretion and may have independenteffects on performance. One issue facing local managers is howto divide job tasks among frontline staff, but little evidenceis available regarding whether job design is related to performance.In this article, I examine the relationships between differentcasework task configurations and welfare-to-work office performance.Controlling for a number of client and office characteristics,I find that clients' average earnings are higher over a two-yearperiod in offices that primarily use unified case managementand in offices with a specialist who develops job opportunities.I find no effects on earnings in offices that use other kindsof specialists and no effects of unified case management orspecialists on welfare benefit receipt in the two-year period.Overall, the findings suggest that local managerial decisionsregarding job design help explain the variation in performanceacross offices and suggest a possible lever through which performancecan be improved.     

Giving Meaning to Sport Involvement in Managerial Work

I use a discursive analytical approach to explore ways in which senior managerial men working in nonprofit organizations understand the contribution, if any, of their own sport history to their work skills, how this may vary by organizational contexts and how the subtexts of these discourses may strengthen the dominance of managerial men in a specific context. I used semi‐structured interviews to ask 67 senior managerial men about the role they perceive their sport history plays in their managerial skills. Two overlapping topics emerged from the data: team and leadership skills and perseverance and toughness. I explore the meaning these topics had for the managers and the possible gendered subtexts of these meanings. The findings are situated in the critical feminist management and sport literature.     

High job strain among social work managers and its relation to perceived work situation

The purpose of this study was to examine how middle managers within the personal social services in Sweden perceived demands, control and support at work. The study group included 402 frontline, second tier and third tier managers who have answered questions concerning their work situation and perceptions of their psychosocial work environment. Based on Karasek's demand–control model, a ‘high strain’ group was defined and analysed further. The results showed that this group experienced less support from immediate superiors, but no correlation could be found between high strain and other forms of support, such as courses on leadership, managerial supervision or networks. Organisational factors, such as municipality size, managerial level, number of subordinates and field of social work, seemed to be of little importance. Comparisons between the ‘high strain’ group and other managers showed that the high strain group spent more hours working with administration, that they to a lesser degree regarded budget responsibility as a way to exercise power in the organisation and that they had a more negative view on their organisation, especially concerning the possibility to influence decisions. They also had less confidence in the way the organisation was governed.     

Factors Attracting Individuals to Nonprofit Management over Public and Private Sector Management

Little research has sought to identify the distinct advantages that nonprofits offer employees, particularly managers. Drawing upon Weisbrod's theory of managerial sorting (1988), we test a series of hypotheses about the differences among nonprofit, public, and for‐profit organizations that may explain the preference of managers to work in one sector over the other. We use pooled cross‐sectional data from the General Social Survey to test managerial sorting. We find many similarities in the perceptions of managers in the nonprofit and public sectors as compared to the for‐profit sector. However, when we examine the sorting of managers into nonprofit versus public sector jobs, we find differences in work environment. Compared to those working in the public sector, managers in nonprofits report greater freedom in deciding how to carry out their job functions, more control over their work schedules, and greater opportunities for pay increases. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the practice of nonprofit management.     

Crisis in leadership or failure to plan?

During the past ten years, succession planning and managing executive transitions have emerged as important issues in the nonprofit sector. Demographers and economists have speculated for years about the potential effects of the retirement of baby boomers. The time has finally arrived: the oldest of the baby boomers are now eligible for retirement. The question that remains is how this trend will affect the nonprofit sector and the communities they serve. This study examines the issues of turnover and succession planning at the executive level, along with career development among young nonprofit professionals in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not only do the findings suggest that the community may very well see a crisis in leadership, but they also illustrate a growing disconnect between executive leaders and young professionals in nonprofit organizations. In addition to struggling with the realities of working in the nonprofit sector (limited benefits, challenging workloads), most young professionals reported that they felt undervalued by older managers and staff, and very few aspire to the position of executive director. Taken together, these findings have important implications for the local community and the broader nonprofit sector.     

LOSS AVERSION AND MANAGERIAL DECISIONS: EVIDENCE FROM MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

Previous research indicates that management changes are important events for organizations, partly because they lead to reversals of poor prior decisions. An unanswered question is why replacing the manager seems to be necessary for reversing poor decisions. One explanation is that managers have an irrational behavioral aversion to admitting mistakes (loss aversion). We test this hypothesis with a research design that mitigates many of the measurement problems associated with investment decisions in traditional corporate settings, and that allows us to distinguish agency cost from loss aversion as explanations. Using Major League Baseball data, we find that new managers, compared to continuing managers, are more likely to divest low‐performing players. Moreover, when the manager is new and the previous manager was responsible for acquiring a player who is underperforming, the likelihood of player divestiture is significantly higher relative to low performers acquired by earlier managers. Experience of the acquiring manager does not affect the likelihood that the manager retains a low performer, suggesting that it is loss aversion, and not career concerns, that motivates acquiring managers to retain low performers. The findings suggest that loss aversion plays a significant role in managerial decisions and managerial turnover. (JEL J6, L8, D8)     

The ambivalence of the work of the hotel managers: an approach to ergonomics

This article uses the contributions of ergonomics to understand the work performed by hotel managers. The concern to understand the job of managers is something new in the ergonomics and few studies address this issue, especially in what concerns the work of hotel managers and its aspects of performance and health, which is the focus of this article. Through a literature review on the subject, it is sought to understand the managers' work activity, the impacts on their health and their organizational performance, as managers take an ambivalent position in organizations, since they have to deal directly with the demands of upper and lower hierarchies in a context of high competition, organizational changes and user requirements. It is then inferred there is a risk of increased work density for managers, bringing negative consequences to their health and organizational performance. This phenomenon, still poorly covered by ergonomics, contributes to a certain invisibility of the manager's work in society as a whole, when the manager may suffer from health problems, which are also common in certain populations of workers who do not take the managerial function.     

THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL RESTRUCTURING AND CHANGES IN CORPORATE CONTROL ON INVESTMENT AND EMPLOYMENT IN THE U.S. PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

This article investigates the effects of changes in market conditions and the financial structure of domestic petroleum firms on employment and investment in offshore oil leases. Important theoretical issues include the extent to which managerial power in firms has been challenged by intervention from financial markets and institutional investors and the effects of changes in financial control on employment and inventory investment. A pooled cross-section time series data set was assembled for forty large oil companies for 1978–1989. A dynamic analysis of company employment levels and investment in offshore oil leases in the Central Gulf of Mexico reveals that falling oil prices and lower domestic oil consumption reduced spending on offshore leases. Some support was found for the agency theory's claim that lower free cash flow reduced spending on offshore leases in the late eighties. Support was also found for an executive defense strategy (Useem 1993), where petroleum company managers reduced lease spending and employment as an adaptation to changes in market fundamentals and external threats from capital markets and institutional investors.     

How organizational characteristics affect the adaptive tactics used by human service nonprofit managers confronting financial uncertainty

The way that nonprofits respond to funding uncertainty is crucial to their ability to meet goals and position themselves for future success. This article investigates how structural, managerial, and financial characteristics affect the adaptive tactics used by human service nonprofits during times of financial stress. These tactics include adding new programs, reducing programs or staff, expanding or starting joint programs, pursuing earned income, and expanding advocacy involvement. Using longitudinal data on human service nonprofits collected on either side of the 2002–2003 economic downtown, we find that larger size provides organizations with a unique ability to choose among different adaptive tactics, as larger size was significantly predictive of adding new programs, reducing programs, expanding advocacy, and pursuing earned income. Strategic planning was positively associated with innovative tactics such as starting joint programs or pursuing earned income. Financial stress or declines in an organization's major funding source led to cutbacks, as expected, but managers who foresaw these challenges were able to respond proactively by adding programs or starting joint programs. However, managers with more training did not respond much differently than did other managers, and organizational age and use of performance management tools had no effect in guiding organizational responses to financial uncertainty.     

Managing ambiguity: between markets and managerialism - a case study of 'middle' managers in further education

Advocates of devolved and market oriented Education reform, point to the benefits from self determination which enhance both teacher and managerial autonomy. Critics refer, on the other hand, to the ways in which running education institutions on business and accounting principles have introduced a new managerialism (Clarke et al, 1994; Pollitt, 1990; Clarke and Newman, 1997), which has driven a wedge between lecturers and senior manager interests. In Further Education, according to Elliott (1996a), this finds expression in conflict between lecturers in defence of professional and pedagogic values, and senior managers promoting the managerial bottom line (Randle and Brady, 1994). The danger in polarising such interests in this way is that it presents a plausible, if not oversimplified, analysis of organisational behaviour as market forces permeate FE. If this paper concurs with many critics on the effects of the new managerialism, it departs company from a prevailing determinism which assumes an over controlled view of the FE workplace (Seddon and Brown, 1997). Despite evidence of widespread casualisation and deprofessionalisation in FE, this paper examines changing managerial cultures in the FE workplace, in this case among academic 'middle' managers, which suggests that managerialism is not as complete or uncontested as is often portrayed. The paper draws on an ESRC research project conducted by the authors (ESRC no. R000236713), looking at Changing Teaching and Managerial Cultures in FE, at a time when the sector is emerging from a series of funding crises associated with redundancies, industrial action, mismanagement and low morale at college level.     

Managerial discourse and the restructuring of a district authority

This paper arises out of continuing debates on the class position of managers and professionals in the context of public sector restructuring. Recently, attention has been focused on the self-sustaining and autonomous character of ‘professionalism’ in organisational dynamics. Such an approach underplays the cultural significance of managerial discourse as this is active in the reconstitution of professional work. In a case study of a district authority it is possible to highlight the complex nature of managerial discourse in its relations to both central and local government. This relation is above all mediated by shifting conceptions of public service on the part of managers and those in non-managerial positions. The paper concludes that due to the structural constraints under which local authorities operate directly managerial discourse is becoming increasingly significant in the reconstitution of professional and semi-professional identities.     

Succession planning in nonprofit organizations

Executive leadership is a critical component in the success of nonprofit organizations. An upcoming period of leadership transition is anticipated as substantial numbers of baby boomers, now at the peak of their careers, reach retirement age. With nonprofit organizations growing in both size and number, an impending leadership deficit is a concern. To help prepare for these important transition events, this study focuses on planning for executive succession. A survey exploring details of succession planning was undertaken of executive directors of 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofits and CEOs of 501(c)(4) cooperative organizations—the more business‐oriented user‐owned and controlled nonprofit organizations prominent in agricultural, utility, and finance sectors. We found that planning and preparation do not match the level of interest and concern for executive succession. Although the replacement of long‐serving leaders is acknowledged as difficult, few proactive steps are undertaken.     

Strategic Management and the Performance of Public Organizations: Testing Venerable Ideas against Recent Theories

Miles and Snow, among others, argue that strategy content isan important influence on organizational performance. Theirtypology, applied recently to public organizations in the UnitedKingdom, divides strategic actors into four general types: prospectors,defenders, analyzers, and reactors. This article begins by integratingwork on strategy content or strategic management into the O'Toole-Meierformal theory of public management. This study shows that strategycontent is a subset of generally accepted management functionsin public organizations. The article then proceeds to test thestrategic management concepts in a large, multiyear sample ofpublic organizations. The results show that strategy can beseparated out from other elements of management for a distinguishableassessment of its impact on organizational performance. Unlikethe predictions of Miles and Snow and the empirical findingsof Boyne and Walker, however, we find that the defender strategyis the most effective for the primary mission of the organizationand that the prospector and reactor strategies work best inregard to the goals of the more politically powerful elementsof the organization's environment.     

Organizational Change in Intrusive and Non-intrusive Environments

This article discusses the importance of environments for managers’ successful introduction of a new management technique. Two empirical examples illustrate the interrelatedness of external and internal environments and its consequences for the propensity of organizations to accept and implement managerial propositions. It is suggested that an intrusive external environment, which clearly relates to generally accepted facts, facilitates managerial action and makes organizations change prone. Mangers, who seek to forestall future environmental problems, in contrast, seem likely to meet with a hostile and conservative internal environment. In both instances managers depend on the social construction of the external environment of their organizations.     

My company or my career: managerial achievement and loyalty

This article examines the objective and subjective aspects of managerial careers in six large firms that have experienced organizational restructuring. We begin by assessing the dominant models of change in career structures, particularly those which emphasize the 'portfolio' route to career success. Although elements of the bureaucratic career remain, we find some evidence of the shift predicted by these models amongst the younger generation of managers. However, it is striking that not all young managers are able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new career model. Indeed, cultural capital has an increasing impact on career achievement. Younger managers are responding by reorienting away from organizational loyalty towards a concern with individual career projects.     

Institutional Determinants of Collaboration: An Empirical Study of County Open-Space Protection

Collaboration is an increasingly important topic in the publicadministration and management literatures. A preponderance ofstudies focuses on how managers can build trust between thegovernment and collaborative partners by means of behavioralattributes and managerial skill. In this article, the authorsuggests that stable institutions and local government structurefacilitate collaboration by allowing public managers to morecredibly commit in a policy arena. Using county data on open-spacepolicy, the author finds empirical support for the propositionthat county form of government, along with rules governing debtaccumulation and administrative commitment, increases the breadthof county collaboration in open-space protection.     

Troubled hearts,care pathways and hospital restructuring: Exploring health services research as active knowledge

This paper explores the socially active character of contemporary forms of expertise through an institutional ethnographic analysis of health services research. The paper draws primarily on interview research to investigate how health services research helps shape text-mediated relations linking government health-care policy with local reform initiatives. In the paper, I focus on the use of a particular research report by managers, physicians, and others at a community hospital in Toronto, Canada as part of their efforts to standardize and reduce the duration of care provided to heart attack patients. I discuss how, through its intertextual presence, health services research helps to co-ordinate medical and managerial practices and rationalities into medico-administrative relations. I offer two examples of this process. The first focuses on the relations co-ordinated through the textual observance of inefficiency. The second addresses how the report helped resolve the problem of physicians’ resistance to reforming cardiac care. My analysis contributes to current perspectives on the relationship between discourse and action.     

The Subjectivity of Fairness: Managerial Discretion and Work–Life Balance

We use organizational justice theory to examine how perceptions of fairness affect the decision‐making process of line managers. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 35 Irish managers to explore how managers make organizational allocation decisions in cases where it is impractical to offer work–life balance accommodations to all employees. The findings suggest that firstly, managers construct the ‘life’ aspect of work–life balance within a heteronormative framework, where the emphasis is on caregiving and most usually parenting. Secondly, managers actively use their decision‐making powers around both formal and informal work–life balance supports to minimize injustice within their departments. By bringing together ideas about organizational justice and managerial decision‐making, we indicate how managers determine fairness through a decision‐making process narrowed by embedded gender role beliefs. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

What you don't know can hurt your community: Lessons from a local United Way

This paper describes how a controversial executive compensation package approved by a local United Way agency eclipsed the agency's long‐standing record and reputation of being a top fundraiser and pillar of the community. Using the framework developed by P. Connelly and York (2003), this case study illustrates how the lack of leadership and adaptive capacity within the board of directors, coupled with questions and speculation about managerial capacity, contributed to a highly visible scandal that resulted in the loss of the agency's chief executive officer, the resignation of the chairman of the board of directors, an internal investigation, and ultimately, a federal investigation. Not only did these events hurt the agency, which was forced to eliminate programs and cut staff, but these events hurt the annual campaign, which declined by more than 30 percent, resulting in substantial cuts in funding to dozens of nonprofit organizations. The findings from this study illustrate the importance of building strong governing boards that focus on both organizational processes and performance outcomes. They also highlight how important it is for the flagship charitable institutions to model best practices and invest in their own capacity.     

Business restructuring,management control,and corporate organization

Conclusions After half a century of growing dominance of the large corporation by non-owning managers, the 1980s were marked by a slowing or even reversing of their quiet revolution. Professional managers had come to control the corporation on the premise that they could more efficiently produce shareholder value than the original founder-owners. They turned shareholding into a passive investment on the same premise. As companies faced increasingly competitive pressures during the 1980s, however, the legitimacy of the rule of incumbent management came under challenge. No longer could government interference be blamed for many of the problems facing business; fingers pointed at management itself. As the criticism of corporate leadership gathered momentum, a leading diagnosis focused on one of managerial capitalism's crowning achievements: the autonomous power of professional management.The critique viewed the managerial autonomy as excessively permissive, the agency system as no longer effective. Professional managers had come to show too much concern for the social welfare of various stakeholder groups, including themselves, and too little concern for the financial welfare of the only stakeholder group that should really count — the shareholders. Many of the restructuring efforts were thus undertaken in the name of returning companies to the single-minded pursuit of ownership interests. What had stood in the way of such a pursuit was less a matter of government constraint and more a matter of inadequate stockholder vigilance by their appointed agents.Mindful of the critique, incumbent managements moved during the mid- to late-1980s to improve stockholder returns by paring the workforce and cutting other costs. Corporate acquisitions and leveraged buyouts brought new management teams to the fore where others had seemingly fallen short. The resulting restructuring reached a large proportion of the nation's major companies. Half or more of the largest companies had undergone a significant reduction in their workforce. And the dollar value of company resources changing ownership hands expanded considerably. The aggregate purchase price of mergers and acquisitions of publicly-traded firms in 1988 was nearly three times greater than in 1981. Even more striking was the sharp increase in the number of publicly-traded companies and divisions that were taken private. The aggregate dollar value of such buyouts in 1988 had increased almost 25 times over that in 1981. This opening of the market for corporate control among major U.S. firms brought a significant fraction of the nation's large corporations more directly under the immediate oversight of ownership interests.The reassertion of ownership control over large corporations was usually taken in the name of improving corporate earnings. Would be takeover groups generally promised more internal discipline and stronger financial performance. Whatever the actual financial impact of the intensification of ownership interests, available research suggests that it has had organizational impact. General company strategies may come to be more centrally guided while specific operating actions are devolved further down the organization.Ownership change and other restructuring steps have also ramified into corporate social and political action. That outreach is likely to be less vigorous and more divided. It is also being redirected. During the 1970s and early 1980s, corporate energies focused on reducing government regulation and improving community opinion. Those energies are now increasingly focused on facilitating or resisting restructuring. Companies have fought legislation that would limit the process of plant closings, but they have also sought legislation to protect themselves against hostile takeovers.The evidence also suggests that considerable managerial discretion remains in shaping company response to the restructuring pressures. Although market and organizational factors are sure to act as constraints, top management, whether a relatively autonomous non-owning management group or an owner-dominated management, retains an important independent capacity to exercise strategic choice. That choice is likely to receive special shaping by the long-term ascendance of financial managers and the decline of manufacturing personnel at the executive level.Yet corporate change must not be viewed as isolated managerial responses to changing market conditions. Companies and managements frequently look to one another for guidance in coping with ambiguous circumstances. DiMaggio and Powell's analysis of organizational isomorphism, for example, suggests that firms frequently adopt organizational practices not because they are dictated by the firm's market strategies, but rather because they are already used by other companies. Similarly, Granovetter's analysis of the social embeddedness of economic action indicates that company decisions are partially shaped by top management's contacts with their counterparts in other firms. Understanding company responses to restructuring pressures therefore requires a focus on inter-company flows of ideas and doctrines as well as purely internally generated responses specific to the company. Reactions to the restructuring pressures that are collectively developed and defined in the broader business community may prove to be as critical as individually fashioned solutions in guiding management approaches to restructuring during the years to come.

---