Methods for Whole System Change in Public Organizations and Communities: An Overview of the Issues

In a world that is made up of interconnected systems, public leaders are learning that they must build commitment, alignment, and ownership among a broad group of individuals and groups in order to implement change. An increasing variety of processes and methods are being utilized for engaging an organization or community in whole system change. Large group methodologies, originally developed by organization development practitioners and theorists, are now gaining currency in public organizations and communities. At the same time, community organizers who successfully utilized confrontation and conflict-oriented methods in the civil rights, labor and other movements, are employing broadly participative, collaborative approaches by creating small group settings where citizens can share their views and using large group meetings to engage multiple stakeholders in community change. This special symposium explores and reflects on the rich mix of methods in use for whole system change in public organizations and communities.     

Towards New Public Management in Greek Public Organizations: Leadership vs. Management,and the Path to Implementation

In the beginning of the 21st century, when the notion of constant transformation is so frequently invoked, organizational change in the public sector is gaining increased attention. Responding to regulatory, economic, competitive and technological shifts, the challenge of reorganization is universal for all public organizations. This paper aims to explore the shift from Traditional to New Public Management (NPM), as well as the driving forces (such as the information economy, the need for better public performance, the opening of global markets, greater knowledge intensity etc.) that lead to the formulation of transformational programs to Greece. A presentation of a transformational program called Politeia, will be provided, analysed and compared to previous efforts. Finally, we address the important role of leadership and management in Greek public organizations that want successful to implement any change effort successfully.     

Appreciative Inquiry and Public Dialogue: An Approach to Community Change

This paper will demonstrate the contribution of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to whole system change in the public and non-profit sectors through elucidation of the theory, method, and examples of the successful application of this approach. Developed in the mid 1980s by David Cooperrider and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University, AI begins with the discovery of the highest achievements, core values, and aspirations embedded in all human systems. It is a methodology that begins a dialogue between individuals, expands to groups and builds to embrace and declare community wide intentions and actions. The theory of social constructionism informs this work asserting that individuals in relationship with one another can and will co-create an effective future when a positive inquiry into the heart and soul of a system, its greatest accomplishments and deepest values, generates new meaning and inspires new possibilities. Deceptively simple, the system is based on a reversal of the expectations, practices, and limitations found in traditional problem solving methodologies and thus represents a significant shift in attitude and language.     

组织结构变革中的路径依赖与路径创造机制研究——以联想集团为例

经典的路径依赖理论因具有较强的历史决定论倾向,因而无法解释重大的技术和制度变革以及新路径的产生,这些问题推动着研究者将研究视角转向了路径创造和路径突破。战略行为具有路径依赖的特征,根据"战略决定结构、结构跟随战略"的思想,组织结构系统内生地蕴含着路径依赖特性。从组织结构模式演进的角度对组织中的路径依赖形成机制和路径创造机制进行研究,并讨论了组织结构变革中的路径依赖和路径创造对组织运行的双重影响。以联想集团为例,探讨了联想集团组织结构模式选择演化历程中的路径依赖和路径创造。     

In sickness and in health: An exploration of spousal support and occupational similarity

Abstract

While many studies of interventions have focused on their content and immediate effects, less research has focused on the processes that may explain these effects. The purpose of this study was to show how process evaluation can be used to interpret the results of an intervention study in four industrial canteens in Denmark. Two canteens acted as intervention groups and two as comparison groups. Effects were measured by surveys before and after interventions, and observations and interviews were conducted to provide an in-depth understanding of processes. Analyses were conducted based on the responses from 118 employees. Results showed, contrary to expectations, improvements in working conditions and well-being in one intervention group and in one comparison group, whereas no improvements were found in the two remaining groups. Data from the process evaluation enabled a meaningful interpretation of these results, raising the possibility programme failure rather than theory failure, and thereby constituting an example of how process evaluation can shed light over the factors that may influence outcomes in controlled intervention studies.     

Functional Assessment and Intervention for Organizational Behavior Change: Improving the Timeliness of Staff Meetings at a Human Services Organization

We implemented functional behavioral assessment (FBA) at a human services organization to reduce the tardiness of scheduled staff meetings. Following baseline, FBA focused on antecedent and consequence conditions that affected staff arriving on time to scheduled meetings. These data were subsequently presented at a staff meeting in which staff planned an intervention to improve the timeliness of meetings. The intervention, composed of premeeting reminders, positive reinforcement for arriving on time, and meeting termination criteria (to facilitate meeting-to-meeting transitions), was implemented in a multiple baseline design across 3 types of meetings. As a result of the intervention, the number of minutes late that meetings started decreased. We discuss FBA within organizational behavior management that targets performance improvement objectives.     

Business Activity Monitoring: Real-Time Group Goals and Feedback Using an Overhead Scoreboard in a Distribution Center

Companies operating large industrial settings often find delivering timely and accurate feedback to employees to be one of the toughest challenges they face in implementing performance management programs. In this report, an overhead scoreboard at a retailer's distribution center informed teams of order selectors as to how many tasks were completed, how many tasks were in queue, and how their team performance measured up against engineered labor standards. Results indicated that group-based immediate feedback can have a substantial impact on performance. Productivity for order selectors (n = 36) assigned to four pick zones increased by an average of 10.25% after intervention. The role of the Organizational Behavior Management experimenter and practitioner in linking business activity monitoring and engineered labor standards in order to accelerate key operational processes was examined.     

The Synergy and Substance of Organizational and Community Change in the Response to Crime and Conflict: The Emergence and Potential of Restorative Justice

The story of the one-hundredth monkey has generated new ways of thinking about cultural transformation. Different experiences and new understandings of justice have emerged in a variety of cultural contexts and led to a rather sudden multi-national shift in thinking about the collective response to crime, harm and conflict that raises broader theoretical questions about restorative justice as a social movement or innovation. This article will describe the restorative justice movement in an historical context and its emergence into a worldwide phenomenon. The authors also examine the role of communities, or “instrumental communities” in public organizations.     

Forest Fire Risk Management and Public Participation in Changing Socioenvironmental Conditions: A Case Study in a Mediterranean Region

Under current conditions of accelerated socioenvironmental change in the Mediterranean forested landscapes, fire is one of the most critical and difficult risks to tackle within the region. This article summarizes the lessons learned from a project based on the participatory integration of qualitative local stakeholders' knowledge with expert GIS fire simulations carried out in the County of El Bages, Catalonia, Spain. First, in this article, a theoretical model--the forest fire circle--is presented in order to explain the reasons for the rise in the damage and frequency of forest fires in this Mediterranean area. Second, it describes the methodology developed and the stages followed during the project. Results show that: (1) the advocacy of old forest reactive management paradigm assumptions and practices based on uncontrolled forest succession can put vast wooded areas of the Mediterranean basin at critical risk; and (2) forest fire management approaches that ignore the crucial role of long-term prevention and local capacity building strategies have failed. In the final section, the content and the specific dimensions of the old reactive paradigm that has characterized forest fire risk management in Catalonia are discussed and contrasted with the possibly emerging preventative paradigm.     

Uncertainties in the Link Between Global Climate Change and Predicted Health Risks from Pollution: Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) Case Study Using a Fugacity Model

Industrial societies have altered the earth's environment in ways that could have important, long-term ecological, economic, and health implications. In this paper, we examine the extent to which uncertainty about global climate change could impact the precision of predictions of secondary outcomes such as health impacts of pollution. Using a model that links global climate change with predictions of chemical exposure and human health risk in the Western region of the United States of America (U.S.), we define parameter variabilities and uncertainties and we characterize the resulting outcome variance. As a case study, we consider the public health consequences from releases of hexachlorobenzene (HCB), a ubiquitous multimedia pollutant. By constructing a matrix that links global environmental change both directly and indirectly to potential human-health effects attributable to HCB released into air, soil, and water, we define critical parameter variances in the health risk estimation process. We employ a combined uncertainty/sensitivity analysis to investigate how HCB releases are affected by increasing atmospheric temperature and the accompanying climate alterations that are anticipated. We examine how such uncertainty impacts both the expected magnitude and calculational precision of potential human exposures and health effects. This assessment reveals that uncertain temperature increases of up to 5°C have little impact on either the magnitude or precision of the public-health consequences estimated under existing climate variations for HCB released into air and water in the Western region of the U.S.     

Assessing the Multidimensionality of Coastal Erosion Risks: Public Participation and Multicriteria Analysis in a Mediterranean Coastal System

The complex and multidimensional nature of coastal erosion risks makes it necessary to move away from single-perspective assessment and management methods that have conventionally predominated in coastal management. This article explores the suitability of participatory multicriteria analysis (MCA) for improving the integration of diverse expertises and values and enhancing the social-ecological robustness of the processes that lead to the definition of relevant policy options to deal with those risks. We test this approach in the Mediterranean coastal locality of Lido de Sète in France. Results show that the more adaptive alternatives such as retreating the shoreline were preferred by our selected stakeholders to those corresponding to protecting the shoreline and the business as usual proposals traditionally put forward by experts and policymakers on these matters. Participative MCA contributed to represent coastal multidimensionality, elicit and integrate different views and preferences, facilitated knowledge exchange, and allowed highlighting existing uncertainties.     

Ecological Risk Ranking: Development and Evaluation of a Method for Improving Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making

This article reports an extension of the Carnegie Mellon risk-ranking method to incorporate ecological risks and their attributes. On the basis of earlier risk-perception studies, we identified a set of 20 relevant attributes for describing health, safety, and environmental hazards in standardized risk summary sheets. In a series of three ranking sessions, 23 laypeople ranked 10 such hazards in a fictional Midwestern U.S. county using both holistic and multiattribute ranking procedures. Results were consistent with those from previous studies involving only health and safety hazards, providing additional evidence for the validity of the method and the replicability of the resulting rankings. Holistic and multiattribute risk rankings were reasonably consistent both for individuals and for groups. Participants reported that they were satisfied with the procedures and results, and indicated their support for using the method to advise real-world risk-management decisions. Agreement among participants increased over the course of the exercise, perhaps because the materials and deliberations helped participants to correct their misconceptions and clarify their values. Overall, health and safety attributes were judged more important than environmental attributes. However, the overlap between the importance rankings of these two sets of attributes suggests that some information about environmental impacts is important to participants' judgments in comparative risk-assessment tasks.     

Socioeconomic Vulnerability and Adaptation to Environmental Risk: A Case Study of Climate Change and Flooding in Bangladesh

In this article we investigate the complex relationship between environmental risk, poverty, and vulnerability in a case study carried out in one of the poorest and most flood-prone countries in the world, focusing on household and community vulnerability and adaptive coping mechanisms. Based upon the steadily growing amount of literature in this field we develop and test our own analytical model. In a large-scale household survey carried out in southeast Bangladesh, we ask almost 700 floodplain residents living without any flood protection along the River Meghna about their flood risk exposure, flood problems, flood damage, and coping mechanisms. Novel in our study is the explicit testing of the effectiveness of adaptive coping strategies to reduce flood damage costs. We show that, households with lower income and less access to productive natural assets face higher exposure to risk of flooding. Disparity in income and asset distribution at community level furthermore tends to be higher at higher risk exposure levels, implying that individually vulnerable households are also collectively more vulnerable. Regarding the identification of coping mechanisms to deal with flood events, we look at both the ex ante household level preparedness for flood events and the ex post availability of community-level support and disaster relief. We find somewhat paradoxically that the people that face the highest risk of flooding are the least well prepared, both in terms of household-level ex ante preparedness and community-level ex post flood relief.     

运用结构化的数据分析方法做严谨的质性研究——中国企业管理案例与质性研究论坛(2019)综述

本文聚焦于质性研究的数据分析方法,主要是基于本届论坛的两个主旨报告,重点阐述结构化的数据分析方法,包括其数据结构的科学哲学假设、本质特征和优势,以及具体应用过程。本文通过对一篇范文的深度分析说明,这个方法强调系统性呈现证据,便于新见解的涌现和理论构建,可在原始数据和结论间形成牢固的证据链,而且相对容易学习借鉴,可显著提升质性研究的质量。此外,本文也对近年来案例论文中常见的3个缺陷进行了剖析,包括与文献对话不足、过度概念化,以及单案例的不当抽样问题。     

直面中国管理实践研究的评价机制与评价原则——势科学视角

评价的本质是选择,选择的基础是"势",即信息量或信息势。所以,有效评价的基本机制和原则就是"生产最大的评价信息量、营造最大的评价信息势"。由于构成数学群的对称性结构具有最大的信息量及最大的信息势,因而,直面中国管理实践研究评价体系设计的基本原则,就是根据不同的管理环境和时代,寻找一组多元对称的指标,使这些指标构成具有数学群结构的指标体系,才能使复杂管理实践的理论评价成为有效的和科学的。由于中国管理情景下的"文化纠结"的复杂性超过了西方"线性独立"文化的复杂性,所以直面中国管理实践的评价研究,将具有包容西方管理实践的普适性。     

道本管理“四主体论”:对管理主体与方式的系统反思——管理从控制到服务的转变

在社会科学领域中,如果理论的基础性假设存在问题,其后续的展开就可能将问题进一步放大。西方传统管理理论隐含着"管理者是管理的唯一主体,被管理者是管理的客体"的前提性假设,表现为管理主体对客体的单向指挥和控制。后来的参与式民主管理对此虽有修补,但本质并没有改变。由于剥夺了被管理者的主体性,导致了现实管理主客体间的恶性互动和双方主体性的扭曲和异化,并制造了管理中的一系列悖论。道本管理在认识和尊重主体性和管理规律的基础上,提出了管理"四主体论",对管理主体及其关系进行了重新认识和定位,破解了错误假设所导致的悖论,并通过机制设计实现了管理各主体之间良性关系的构筑,论证了管理从控制转向服务的必要。     

Weighing the Risks of Nuclear Energy and Climate Change: Trust in Different Information Sources,Perceived Risks,and Willingness to Pay for Alternatives to Nuclear Power

We examined how individuals perceive nuclear energy in the context of climate change mitigation and how their perceptions are associated with trust in different risk information sources. We analyzed the interrelationships between trust, perceived risk of nuclear power, climate change concern, perception of nuclear energy as an acceptable way to mitigate climate change, and willingness to pay (WTP) for alternatives to nuclear power. A nationwide survey (N = 967) collected in Finland was analyzed with structural equation modeling. The associations between trust and perceived risk of nuclear power, climate change concern, and perception of nuclear power as a way to mitigate climate change varied by the type of information source. Political party support and other background variables were associated with trust in different information sources. The effect of trust in information sources on WTP was mediated by perceived risks and benefits. The results will increase our understanding of how individuals perceive nuclear energy as a way to cut CO₂ emissions and the role of trust in different information sources in shaping nuclear risk perceptions and energy choices.     

Public Opposition to a Proposed Nuclear Waste Repository in Canada: An Investigation of Cultural and Economic Effects

Residents of four northern communities were surveyed about Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's proposal to site an underground repository for high-level nuclear waste somewhere in the Canadian Shield. Opposition to the repository was relatively strong in all communities, but was strongest among aboriginal respondents. Path analysis revealed that trust in nuclear regulators, faith in science and technology, and anticipated net costs were important mediators of this effect. Aboriginals were less trusting, exhibited less faith in science and technology, and perceived the costs associated with the repository to be higher than their nonaboriginal counterparts. No support was found for the hypothesis that, after controlling for aboriginal status, financially insecure individuals would display greater support for the nuclear waste repository than financially secure individuals. Policy implications for balancing perceived risks and siting needs are discussed.