A Strategic Planning Process for a Small Nonprofit Organization: A Hospice Example

Strategic planning is an essential part of management. However, planning processes can consume great amounts of time and resources that small, nonprofit organizations may lack. Moreover, the process that is used can be tedious and may result in plans that are discarded before or during their implementation. In this article, a strategic planning process is presented that incorporates a Policy Delphi group technique and Situation Structuring, a computer program that assists participants in structuring or defining the problems to be addressed in the plan. The organization to which the process is applied is a small, nonprofit hospice. Both the planning process and an evaluation of the implementation of the resultant strategic plan are examined.     

When Change Hits the Fan

This case study is based on an actual situation that has been disguised and has had some hypothetical content added. It addresses several problems that may be encountered as an agency struggles with its evolution from a hierarchical bureaucratic organizational structure to an egalitarian consensus model of management. Issues include resistance to change, difficulties with the modification of staff and board roles and responsibilities, and the resultant interpersonal conflict.     

Typologie des mensonges dans l’espace public: Quelle régulation numérique?

Quelle place pour le mensonge en démocratie ? Comment différencier les différents types de mensonge dans l’espace public ? La démocratie est-elle un régime de vérité ou un régime où les modes de véridiction peuvent se concurrencer légalement, sans s’assimiler, tant qu’ils respectent les droits fondamentaux des individus. Á la différence des régimes anti-démocratiques, l’État de droit offre des conditions de possibilités de déconstruction des langages mensongers, qui demandent une appropriation de la part des citoyens pour pleinement prouver leur efficacité régulatrice.     

Practicum Issues: A Placement Planning Model

The significance of the practicum's role in the professional education of social workers is discussed. A model is proposed for matching student with practicum settings, to be used as a tool to facilitate the administrative work of the practicum. Major variables inherent in the placement decisional process are highlighted and codified into a standardized format. The results of a pilot test utilizing an earlier draft of the model are reviewed.     

Loss-based approach to two-piece location-scale distributions with applications to dependent data

Two-piece location-scale models are used for modeling data presenting departures from symmetry. In this paper, we propose an objective Bayesian methodology for the tail parameter of two particular distributions of the above family: the skewed exponential power distribution and the skewed generalised logistic distribution. We apply the proposed objective approach to time series models and linear regression models where the error terms follow the distributions object of study. The performance of the proposed approach is illustrated through simulation experiments and real data analysis. The methodology yields improvements in density forecasts, as shown by the analysis we carry out on the electricity prices in Nordpool markets.