Outcome evaluation in host organizations: a research agenda

The organizational context in which social work is practiced is viewed as an important factor in evaluating the outcomes of social work interventions. In host organizations, the context includes forces outside the department. The author offers a framework for developing a research agenda aimed at assessing the effectiveness of social work interventions in those organizations. The author demonstrates such an agenda with reference to hospital social work. Different types of outcomes and the relationships between them are considered at both the correlational and causal levels of knowledge. Examples of research assessing these outcomes are presented, and the implications of various types of findings are considered.