Endogenous Adaptation: The Effects of Technology Position and Planning Mode on IT‐Enabled Change*

The redesign of information technology (IT)‐enabled work processes often necessitates fundamental design changes to the intended work process, the IT platform hosting the work process, or both. Research suggests that such design changes often can be traced to earlier decisions involving endogenous adaptation or internal organizational change. Two such decisions are a firm's technology position and planning mode. This study examines the relationship between technology position and planning mode in predicting the magnitude of design change in process redesign projects. The conceptual frame applied in examining these relationships involves a synthesis of Miles and Snow's adaptive cycle with elements central to concurrent engineering. Our results indicate that the magnitude of design change is related to differences in technology position and planning mode. To effectively implement organizational change, firms must leverage their IT platform by carefully timing IT investments in accordance with their adopted technology position. Directing the trajectory of a firm's IT platform and deploying it so as to complement the firm's technology position reduces design uncertainty, promoting reengineering success.     

Brief Report: Same-Sex Male Couples’ Characteristics and Attitudes Toward Different HIV Prevention Services,by Dyad HIV Serostatus,in Lima,Peru

Abstract

Few HIV/STI prevention studies have been conducted with same-sex male couples in Lima, Peru. This brief report describes quantitative findings of 42 same-sex male couples’ characteristics and attitudes towards using various HIV prevention services. Couples’ communal coping and preferences for sexual health outcomes varied by their serostatus. Many partners were willing to use pre-exposure prophylaxis, couples HIV testing and counseling, and other couples-based prevention services, if and when they would become available. Partners’ likelihood of using HIV prevention services differed by their dyadic serostatus. These findings lend support for providing couples-based HIV/STI prevention interventions for this population in Lima.     

A practitioner's reflections on facilitating organization development in South African organizations

Globalization, contrary to the opinion of many HRD professionals, has led to a better world, one in which greater numbers of people have the opportunity for peace, prosperity and freedom. Anti-global critics are tragically wrong for they condemn millions of people to poverty, disease, force migrations, ethical strife, and terrorism. HRD professionals shold not be persuaded by anecdotal, selective and sentimental stories, but act with real facts and offer real, long-term solutions.     

Does Engagement Matter? Marital Intentions and Relationship Quality Among Cohabiting African Americans

Despite growing cohabitation rates, few studies have examined the relationship between engagement status and relationship quality among cohabiting couples, especially among Black Americans. This study used data from 30 cohabiting Black couples (n = 60) to examine whether perceptions of love, commitment, relationship satisfaction, and intimacy problems differ by whether cohabitors are engaged to be married. Results indicated that engaged Black cohabitors reported higher love scores than non-engaged Black cohabitors. They also had slightly more intimacy problems, but only in bivariate models. There were no significant differences in commitment or satisfaction between engaged and non-engaged Black cohabitors. Additional analyses revealed no variation in effect of engagement on relationship quality by gender. Results suggest that practitioners and policymakers should be careful not to make assumptions about relationship quality according to engagement status or gender in cohabiting Black relationships. The meaning and implications of engagement among cohabiting Black Americans may be changing.     

Innovating adult social work practice—learning from the Named Social Worker for adults with learning disabilities pilots

In 2016, following the publication of the vision for adult social work in England, the Chief Social Worker for Adults at the Department of Health in England announced the intention to pilot a new social work role—that being a Named Social Worker supporting people with learning disabilities. Phase 1 of the pilot has tested a reframing of the social work role as a relational practitioner with an expertise in human rights, freed from transacting the management of care. Phase 2 is now underway testing key knowledge and skills requirements for post-qualifying practice in the field of social work supporting adults with learning disabilities. Heuristic approaches are capturing outcomes from generative learning processes throughout the pilot. The insight emerging from this national pilot is that at its heart, named social work is about qualifying and on-going post-qualifying social work education which promotes and maintains practitioner reflexivity and connection to their social work values. We are finding that self-advocates may be a critical influencing factor, positively affecting the sources of resistance through making explicit the connection between social work values and lived experience of practice from the people social workers are there to serve.     

The Severely Disabled: Some Problems Associated with the Adjustment to Stress During the Rehabilitation Process

Modern methods of patient care are resulting in the discharge from hospitals and mental institutions of thousands of persons annually and increasingly large numbers are being referred to rehabilitation and other agency facilities for assistance in maintaining themselves in the community. For such persons, the requirement for medical care is minimal. However, these clients need relatively large amounts of assistance from social workers in readjusting to their families, in managing some kind of effective social existence, and in achieving some measure of economic independence.     

Results in family casework with feebleminded clients 1

Abstract

The bombing in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 was a massive assault on the meaning‐making of survivors and community members. Utilizing a social constructionist perspective, this article explores the evolution of the community's social narrative as it shifted in the immediate wake of the blast to a new framework for understanding the event three months later. It is speculated that the community's storying of the bombing was initially centered on issues of action and recovery in order to restore civil order. Only after the departure of the Red Cross, which contributed to the formation of this communal narrative, did traditional crisis notions concerning phases of grief begin to appear in the local Oklahoma City newspaper. In addition, individual stories that did not conform to the larger understanding of events were conferred less authority than those in accordance with the dominant narrative.     

Scoring strategic performance: a pragmatic constructivist approach to strategic performance measurement

This paper analyses the characteristics of good strategic performance that contribute to the overall performance of a successful company. We apply a framework of pragmatic constructivism in order to analyse and measure strategic performance. We use the model for performance measurement based on pragmatic constructivism for the more specific topics of measuring, assessing and analysing strategic performance as opposed to operational performance. This paper analyses the characteristics of strategic performance that successfully enhance the overall performance of the company. The purpose is to outline a framework for strategic performance measurement that can be used to guide and measure strategic leadership. The framework focuses on the concepts of coherence and coherence tracing as the basic concepts for strategic performance and thus the task for strategic performance measurement.