Disability and spirituality in social work practice

In working with social work clients, issues of religion and spirituality are sure to arise. Religious views on disability can have both positive and negative effects on the individual. In our increasingly pluralistic society, these issues must be approached with sensitivity and patience since it is common to work with adherents of minority or nontraditional religious groups or groups whose values conflict with the social work profession. The purpose of this article is to enhance and develop sensitivity to diverse religious views in order to respect the values and life beliefs of the client while enhancing the development of adaptive religious and spiritual views.     

Institutional processes of organizational culture

Queries into the creation of collective meaning through social processes arise in both organization culture and institutional theory. This paper applies DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983 DiMaggio, P.J. and Powell, W.W. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48: 147–60. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) three isomorphic processes (mimetic, normative and coercive) from institutional theory to re‐think how structural and dynamic aspects of culture become nested, taken‐for‐granted and transmitted. We consider both acquiescence and resistance to isomorphic pressures in an effort to understand cultural persistence and transmission, forms of resistance to culture, change, the role of sub‐cultures and power usage through Oliver’s (1992 Oliver, C. 1992. The antecedents of de‐institutionalization. Organization Studies, 13: 563–88. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) de‐institutionalization thesis. Our purpose in applying isomorphic processes to organizational culture is to offer another layer of understanding enhanced by the growing body of research in institutional theory, bridge one division between micro and macro theory and provide some suggestions for future research.     

Instability in patchworks of child care when moving from welfare to work

We use longitudinal, qualitative interview data collected from 38 initially welfare‐reliant women in Cleveland, Ohio to examine the factors driving instability in child‐care arrangements when women transitioned from welfare to work. Grounded theory analysis revealed that decisions about care were circumscribed by scarce social and economic resources, women went to extraordinary lengths to patch together arrangements that typically involved multiple providers, relative care was central to patchworks of care, and patchworks of child care were often highly unstable. These complex arrangements and their instability were influenced by mothers’ desires to find the most suitable arrangements for their children within resource and job constraints, dissatisfaction with providers, difficulties accessing subsidies, and changes in provider availability. Findings suggest that policymakers must consider instability in patchworks of multiple child‐care providers as they consider alternatives for meeting low‐wage working women's and children's needs for safe, affordable, accessible, and enriching nonmaternal child care.     

Organizational identity in acculturation in cross-border acquisitions: Implications for HRD practitioners in global M&A

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of organizational identity in acculturation, or organizational culture development, between the acquired and the acquiring organizations during a cross-border acquisition. The goal is to identify how long-term and short-term employees identify with the acquired organization, and the implications for acculturation for both groups. It is also to help identify implications for Human Resource Development Practitioners in this process. The long-term employees (more than seven years) of the acquired organization identified more strongly with the organization than the short-term (three or less years) employees in this study. The short-term employees seemed to welcome the acquiring Multinational Company (MNC), and readily adapted to their multicultural identity, while long-term employees were more concerned with maintaining the reputation of the original organization. The study provides Human Resource Development (HRD) practitioners with a better understanding of how and why organizational identity is an important aspect to consider in the acculturation process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. It also provides insight into how to work with organizational identity with acquired organizations in integration and adaptation to the new organization by understanding the differences in organizational identity of long-term and short-term employees in India.