bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
First-Order, Second-Order, and Third-Order Change and Organization Development Interventions: A Cognitive Approach
Authors: Bartunek Jean M. , Moch Michael K.
Published: March 2006

This article discusses how recent developments in the cognitive sciences, especialy the concept of schemata (organizing frameworks for understanding events), can illumine the practice of organization development. On the basis of a cognitive perspective, the authors discuss the relationship between organizational change and schemata, describing the following orders of change that might result from OD: first-order change, or incremental changes occurring within particular schemata already shared by members of a client system, second-order change, or modifications in the shared schemata themselves; and third-order change, or the development of the capacity of the client system to change the schemata as events require. To show how understanding the differences among orders of change can help clarify problems and solutions from an intervention, the authors discuss how a paternalism schema affected a particular quality of working life intervention. They conclude by suggesting implications of the cognitive perspective for OD practice and research
The Movement to Stop the Withdrawal in Sinai: A Sociological Perspective
Authors: Aran Gideon , Feige Michael
Published: March 2006

This article analyzes the Movement to Stop the Withdrawal (MSW) and its efforts to provoke controversy in Israeli society over the evacuation of Israeli settlements from Sinai a condition of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The authors present the MSW as a messianic movement and discuss its context and ultimate aims, especially regarding the geopolitical conflict between traditional Judaism and modern Zionism. The article addresses the MSW's background, links with Gush Emunim -a movement seeking to restore the "greater Land of Israel" promised in the Bible-and environment. The authors note that the case of the MSW high-lights divisions in Israeli society between "hawks and doves" and especially between the secular and religious segments of the population.
Was it Really a Trauma? Wider Political Implications of the Removal of Israeli Settlements from Sinai
Authors: Sheffer Gabriel
Published: March 2006

This article discusses the political conditions allowing the Israeli government to negotiate a peace treaty with Egypt, which led to the evacuation of Israeli settlements in Sinai. This evacuation had no precedent in Israeli history, yet the author finds it did not create a trauma for most Israelis, so the Israeli government was able to implement the peace process with little public debate or resistance. The author states that most Israelis avoided analyzing the ideological framework of the evacuation because of dissonance with either their religious or political beliefs, and because at that time the majority sought relief from the Arab-Israeli conflict, even through territorial compromise. The article concludes that the long-term implications of the evacuation include changing Israeli attitudes toward settlement removal and compromise with the Arabs, and predicts that only a strong coalition government dominated by the Alignment will likely be able to begin serious negotiations concerning the West Bank.
Professional Behavior during Conditions of Extreme Community Turmoil: The Case of the Removal of Settlements from Sinai
Authors: Benyamini Kalman
Published: March 2006

This article reports an informal study of six human services professionals who conducted research and practice in Israeli settlements in Sinai during the settlements' evacuation, which was required by the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The author presents a model of three strategies of professional behavior that can guide human service professionals and social researchers during instances of extreme community turmoil (1) disregarding the crisis and following one's usual professional routines, (2) relinquishing one's professional stance and becoming personally immersed in the catastrophe, or (3) modifying one's behavior to suit the abnormal conditions. From retrospective interviews with the professionals, the author finds that the practitioners chose the first strategy and the researchers the third Professional, situational and personal circumstances for these choices are analyzed, and the author recommends further elaboration of the model and an assessment of the comparative productivity of alternative strategies.
Small Interventions for Large Problems: Reshaping Urban Leadership Networks
Authors: Brown L. David , Detterman Lynda B.
Published: March 2006

This article reports a longitudinal study of the Urban Leadership Program, which sought to reshape community leadership networks in a large metropolitan area Program classes of approximately50 persons each replicated in microcosm the ethnic, gender, and occupational diversity of the area's leaders. Data were collected when the program began and ended and three years after it began, using questionnaires and interviews. The authors found that program participation resulted in increased contacts among participants, which persisted for the first class only; that contacts with whites increased, but not with blacks; and that new networks emerged or old ones were strengthened for addressing community issues. Factors underlying leadership networks included contacts with black leaders, the social establishment, political leaders, business leaders, and community activists. The implications of the study for using microcosm interventions to influence larger systems are discussed
Factors Controlling Traffic Crashes
Authors: Evans Leonard
Published: March 2006

Based on traffic safety literature, the author's judgment, and traffic accident data, this article identifies the most important factors controlling traffic crashes. Using a hierarchical schema, the article presents these factors in the following order of importance: human infrastructure factors of individual behavior-specifically, social norms and closed-loop compensatory feedback control-and legislative intervention, and engineering infrastructure factors involving roadways, traffic control systems, and vehicles. Although social norms are found to provide the greatest opportunity for reducing traffic crash rates, the author stresses that several factors explain changes in traffic crash data, and considers attempts to explain such data using only one factor to be, at best gross oversimplification.
Sources of Knowledge for Practice
Authors: Demartini Joseph R. , Whitbeck Les B.
Published: March 2006

This article examines the concept of practice knowledge and its relationship to the use of various sources of knowledge to perform specific job tasks The authors sent questionnaires to social workers who had received master's degrees two and seven years previously from two Northwestern U.S. universities, and received responses from 90 for a response rate of 41%. The questionnaires solicited information on the use and ratings of various knowledge sources in the respondents' work The respondents indicated they used various sources in various ways, but the findings show only a weak correspondence between the importance assigned to the sources and how frequently they were used The authors suggest a need exists to explore how different knowledge sources are synthesized into information applicable to the work setting, and propose that practice knowledge be examined in terms of such a synthesis. They further argue that knowledge synthesis may play a major role in knowledge use and in various problem-solving and decision-making processes outside the human services.
Alternative Perspectives on the Phenomena of Human Aging: Age Stratification and Age Status
Authors: Cain Leonard D
Published: March 2006

This article discusses the shift by social scientists from an age status to an age stratification perspective on human aging. The history and major proponents of the age stratification model are discussed, and its widespread adoption attributed to its highlighting the variable of age and to the rise of conflict theory, bureaucracy, and the theorized diminished importance of the family. The author considers the model inaccurate because it conflates age stratification with class stratification and treats the life course as a vertical hierarchy rather than a horizontal progression. He further finds that social policies based on age stratification theory may inadequately provide for vulnerable or disadvantaged children or elderly persons and advocates that, instead of seeking standardized treatment among age groups, social policies instead promote fairness and equity.
Promotion Interest and Willingness to Sacrifice for Promotion in a Government Agency
Authors: Baker Peggy M. , Markham William T. , Bonjean Charles M. , Corder Judy
Published: March 2006

The authors developed a model of interest in promotion and seeking promotion by integrating insights from the literature on internal labor markets, discrimination in organizations, cognitivebalance theory, labeling theory, and expectancy theory. After making predictions based on this model, a sample of employees and supervisors in six offices of a federal government agency was examined. Data were drawn from questionnaire responses and personnel records. Interest in promotion proved to be more widespread than willingness to sacrifice to obtain promotion, and the former was related as predicted to the attractiveness of outcomes expected to accompany promotion and to severalvariables affecting promotion opportunity. Willingness to sacrifice for promotion was related to attractiveness of promotion, and some evidence indicated that this willingness declined when promotion opportunity was low-even when controlling for promotion interest. The implications of the findings for future research and practice are presented.
Louis A. Zurcher, Jr.: An Intellectual Portrait of an Applied Behavioral Scientist
Authors: Sjoberg Gideon
Published: March 2006

Acting Co-Editor of The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science Gideon Sjoberg assesses the accomplishments of Louis A. Zurcher, Jr., who was editor of JABS from 1979 until his death in December 1988.A colleague and friend of Zurcher's, Sjoberg critically evaluates Zurcher's scholarly writings, work asJABS editor, and role in academia. Despite any flaws in the development of Zurcher's ideas, Sjoberg considers them valuable for scholars seeking to grasp issues at the core of understanding human existence, particularly those related to social role theory and moral dimensions of the self. He also believes that Zurcher's activities as a journal editor and academic-and the way he lived his life-provide valuable lessons for nearly all of us.
Conversion Processes in Leadership Succession: A Case Study
Authors: Heller Trudy
Published: March 2006

This article explores organization members' experience of leadership succession. According to a model of change as a process of loss and substitution, leadership transition is a conversion process that succeeds when followers transfer their allegiance from the predecessor-and that person's view of reality-to the successor. During a study of a development corporation project to establish worker owned food stores, a change in directors occurred. Based on observations and interviews with the two directors, corporation board members, trainees, and lenders, the author found that those who remained with the project underwent a paradigm shift and repudiated the former director's views and policies. The findings illustrate the mechanisms of segregation, reputidation, annihilation, and rewriting history associated with the conversion process. The author concludes with implications of the findings for planned succession efforts.
Controlling Multiple F Test Errors with an Overall F Test
Authors: Fletcher Harold J. , Daw Haydn , Young Jane
Published: March 2006

This article presents a theoretical extension of the problem associated with multiple comparisons among means-the increasing rate of false rejection errors-to multiple F tests of effects in multifactor ANOVAs and regression analyses. The authors empirically confirmed the prediction of such errors through an experiment in which 32% of 100 random computer-generated three-factor ANOVAs had one or more false rejections for the usual seven F tests for main and interaction effects (30% were expected), yet only 6% of the overall F ratios-which tested all effects simultaneously-were falsely declared significant (5% were expected). In contrast, the Bonferroni procedure produced false rejections in 11% of the ANOVAs. The authors conclude that researchers can control the predictable rates of false rejection of errors inherent in multifactor analyses by extending the Fisher protection procedure and requiring the overall F to be significant. The article concludes with hypothetical experiments illustrating how researchers can use the procedure.
An Organizational Dilemma: The Case of Transracial Adoptions
Authors: McRoy Ruth G.
Published: March 2006

This article presents an overview and analysis of the complex organizational, racial, economic, and power issues associated with transracial adoptions whereby black children are placed in the homes of white families. The author discusses the historical and contemporary circumstances surrounding adoption, and discusses adoption policies in the context of Hasenfield's model of human service organizations. Arguments for and against transracial adoption are discussed, with emphasis on the unique cultural needs of black children and the desirability of inracial adoption. The article concludes that agencies must undergo organizational change to better serve black families willing to adopt children and black children in need of permanent homes.
Theoretical Observations on Applied Behavioral Science
Authors: Williams Norma
Published: March 2006

This article presents the major theoretical issues concerning "role taking" and "role making," particularly as these relate to relationships between majority and minority groups. The author examines the barriers researchers and others face when seeking to take the roles of others, and finds that we must recognize how ethnic and/or gender differences affect role taking. Three problem areas are examined: circumstances in which one group has more power than another, unexamined roles, and contradictory role expectations. The author concludes that role taking and role making have major methodological implications, and that further analysis of these concepts is essential to our understanding of the relationships among persons from different sectors of society.
Problems with Research by Organizational Scholars on Issues of Race and Ethnicity
Authors: Cox Taylor
Published: March 2006

Despite a growing need for knowledge about the effects of race and ethnicity in organizations, relatively little research on these issues has been performed and few research reports have been published in the major management journals. A literature review and a survey of authors in the field indicate that factors responsible for this problem fall into two categories: factors limiting the amount of work done on these issues, and factors hindering the publication of completed work. Underlying many of these factors is the tendency for the effects of personal biases among authors, reviewers, and editors to be especially severe with respect to this topic. Moreover, issues of racioethnic relations and heterogeneity, including the problem of racism, have never really been resolved in American society generally. Following an analysis of the problems, suggestions are provided to aid scholars in effectively conducting and evaluating research on this topic.
Pregnant Managers and their Subordinates: The Effects of Gender Expectations on Hierarchical Relationships
Authors: Corse Sara J.
Published: March 2006

A simulation of workplace conflict examined the effects of a manager's pregnancy on male and female subordinates. Study participants-40 women and 41 men from an MBA program-each took part in two ten-minute long, videotaped, interactive role plays with two women managers (research confederates), one apparently pregnant and the other not. The participants' impressions of the managers were tapped using an author-developed questionnaire and brief interviews. Interactive data were analyzed to determine the nature of the expression of emotion and ideas. The results show that participants had more negative impressions of and lower satisfaction with the pregnant manager than with the manager who was not pregnant, and initiated more social conversations with the former than with the latter. Interview data suggest that participants had expected the pregnant manager to be passive, nice, and giving, and were surprised by her authoritative behavior. Implications for pregnant managers and limitations of the study are discussed.
Lessons from the Field: An Essay on the Crisis of Leadership in Contemporary Organizations
Authors: Krantz James
Published: March 2006

A consensus is emerging that contemporary organizations are in critical need of leadership with compelling vision. Often this leads to an overemphasis on the personality or character of the leader. Although people clearly need to coalesce around a shared purpose in today's organizations, the same conditions that make "vision" so prominent also make the huge emphasis on the leader inappropriate. Increasingly complex, turbulent environments have made highly centralized, bureaucratic hierarchies obsolete, and require our understanding of effective leadership to shift from the leader alone to the context in which leadership can be exercised. People's heightened interdependence and need to exert authority and leadership at all levels call for a focus on systemic leadership capacity, for focusing only on top executives as the sole source of organizational leadership hinders the confrontation of the more troubling, deeper problems contributing to the contemporary crisis in leadership. This article explores common themes in the organizational literature and discusses three books in depth (by Bennis, Gilmore, and Vaill) that point to the emerging understanding of the crisis of leadership among organizational scholars.
An Experimental Test of Motivational and Content Control on Dispute Mediation
Authors: Ross William Henry
Published: March 2006

Research examined the effects of two types of mediation techniques-content control and motivational control-on the likelihood of reaching agreement and on the type of agreement (integrative versus compromise) reached. A laboratory experiment was conducted in which 86 pairs of male college students acted in simulated negotiations as disputants. Trained mediators used either content control in the form of narrowing the scope of discussion, motivational control in the form of making the parties aware of the additional costs of failing to settle the dispute, both techniques, or neither technique. When the mediators used content control, the number of multi-issue disputes resolved and the likelihood producing a compromise agreement increased. The use of motivational control had no significant effects. The implications of the results for mediation practice and future research are discussed.
An Interview with Eric Trist, Father of the Sociotechnical Systems Approach
Authors: Fox William M.
Published: March 2006

William M. Fox interviews Eric Trist, eminent scholar and social scientist, who was a founder and chairman of the Tavistock Institute in London. Trist recounts the foundation of the institute as an outpatient clinic and its evolution into a leading center of action research and applied behavioral science. He discusses his work in the British coal mining industry, from which he developed the concept of the sociotechnical system. Descriptions of his work and experiences with the British Army during World War II and of the various projects he undertook with multinational firms and smaller companies illustrate the resistance, suspicion, and other obstacles that he and his colleagues often encountered while working to implement new systems. Finally, Trist describes his sociotechnical systems work in the ailing industrial town of Jamestown, New York, and on the Ten recommendations.
Organization Development Practitioners' Activities and Interventions in Organizations during the 1980s
Authors: Fagenson Ellen A. , Burke W. Warner
Published: March 2006

A study was undertaken to determine the activities and interventions organization development (OD) practitioners engaged in during the 1980s. After interviews with practitioners and an examination of the OD literature, a survey was developed listing various activities and asking respondents to indicate the extent to which they had been involved in these activities. This survey was then administered to 142 participants of a professional development program for OD and human resource management practitioners, of whom 71 returned completed questionnaires. The responses were analyzed using factor analysis, which revealed five different activity factors. An examination of these factors suggests that OD practitioners engaged in management style enhancement, strategy development, culture change, technology integration, and employee development during the 1980s. The results are discussed in terms of the relationships among these activities, the business environment, and the organization development field at large.
Inappropriate Defenses Against the Monitoring of Organization Development Practice
Authors: Argyris Chris
Published: March 2006

Many organization development practitioners resist public inquiry into the reasoning behind and validity of their assumptions, methods, and outcomes. Based on personal experience, the author presents three patterns of defenses used by practitioners uncomfortable with discussions of their perceptions, strategies, and behavior. In the first pattern, the practitioner accuses someone seeking to address these issues of being inappropriately rational and insufficiently respectful of intuition. In the second pattern, the practitioner inhibits discussion by charging that rational dialogue and confrontation are inappropriate whenever they cause distress or interfere with one's personal learning style. In the third pattern, the practitioner withdraws from the interaction and accuses those questioning the practitioner's work of being judgmental and punishing. The author concludes that these defenses endanger the credibility of organization development, and that its practitioners must make their conclusions, methods, and claims explicit and test them using logical processes separate from their own experiences and biases.
Leaders on the Couch
Authors: Kets De Vries Manfred F. R.
Published: March 2006

This article explores the psychobiographical/psychohistorical approach to the study of leadership. Such an approach differs from traditional history in that the life of a subject is reconstructed and evaluated in terms of clinical methods and theories. Freud's study of Leonard da Vinci was the prototype for such work. Those using this approach have been criticized for not being sufficiently rigorous about facts and validation, and for practicing psychological reductionism and monocausality. Psychoanalytic theory has advanced since its inception with the development of the interpsychic model, self-psychology, character analysis, and personality assessment. Improved understanding of the role of transference and countertransference in the relationship between the researcher and subject has been particularly important. Influential psychobiographical studies of leaders by Lasswell, the Georges, and Erikson are discussed.
Using Biographical Methods to Understand Managerial Style and Character
Authors: Kofodimos Joan
Published: March 2006

A biographical action research approach was used to understand managers' behavior and foster their development. While taking part in a team study of executives' life histories, the author developed a theoretical framework of managerial style and personality. This approach was used to determine the underlying forces within each subject's character shaped by that person `s life history and environment and reinforced by organizational values and norms. The key principles of the biographical method are the following: gather multiple perspectives, use multiple methods, and combine research and service. Applications of the framework and principles in studying and consulting to executives are described, with details of the case study of one subject highlighted. The dilemmas of biographical action research involve resulting emotional repercussions, reporting data accurately without compromising subjects' anonymity, and balancing service to clients with the scientific pursuit of knowledge. The benefits include deeper understanding of the manager's style, behavior, character, and development and how the manager's environment shapes character.
Leaders and Followers in a Postindustrial Age: A Psychodynamic View
Authors: Hirschhorn Larry
Published: March 2006

In the face of complicated and rapidly changing settings, leaders need to have their followers help them understand the tasks and challenges they face. In psychodynamic terms, this means that leaders must become more vulnerable to their subordinates while continuing to support them, and that followers must learn to challenge their leaders while respecting their authority. A typology of authority is presented. Case studies are used to illustrate the difficulties leaders have confronting their vulnerability, how followers fear and foil leaders' efforts to share their uncertainties, and the benefits leaders and followers achieve when they ultimately succeed in connecting with one another. The author concludes that as the workplace evolves toward a postindustrial age, leaders and followers must recognize their dependence on one another and their need to collaborate, and bring more of their personal feelings to their roles.
Interests and Interdependence in the Formation of Social Problem-Solving Collaborations
Authors: Logsdon Jeanne M.
Published: March 2006

Cross-sectoral collaboration to address social problems is becoming more widespread. To assess the potential for the formation of cross-sectoral collaborations, this article explores the two most critical factors that influence an organization's willingness to participate: its stakes in solving the problem relative to its fundamental interests, and its degree of perceived interdependence with other groups in devising a solution. Two patterns of evolution toward collaborative formation are identified: movement from interdependence to interests, and movement from interests to interdependence. These patterns are illustrated by two case studies about successful cross-sectoral collaborations, one to improve a regional transportation system and one to create the first comprehensive regulations for underground chemical storage tanks.
Supraorganizational Collaboration: The Canadian Environmental Experiment
Authors: Pasquero Jean
Published: March 2006

A unique experiment has begun in Canada to address environmental protection by replacing adversarial relations with a nationwide multiparty collaboration involving all segments of society. An analysis of this experiment was conducted to inform our knowledge of the theory and practice of large-scale collaboration. The negotiated order perspective espoused in recent collaboration theory at the interorganizational level was found to provide an adequate framework for analyzing collaboration at the societal level. This framework, however, must be recast in a social ecology perspective to account for the fact that supraorganizational collaboration processes are themselves embedded in larger social processes. Institutional economics is suggested as a model for further developments. In addition, two factors were found to be essential to the success of large-scale collaboration: the institutionalization of roundtables to mediate between philosophical ideals and practical problem solving, and the institutionalization of the principle of shared responsibility to provide the social bond necessary for the permanence of supraorganizational partnerships.
Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Collaboration
Authors: Wood Donna J. , Gray Barbara
Published: March 2006

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science presents two special issues in which nine research-based articles and two overviews address various theoretical and empirical perspectives on the process of collaboration and the forms of collaborative alliances. In the first overview, the articles are mapped onto six theoretical perspectives according to how they address the preconditions, process, and outcomes of collaboration. In this overview, the research findings are analyzed in terms of the following overarching issues essential to a comprehensive theory of collaboration: (a) a definition of collaboration, (b) the auspices under which a collaboration is convened and the role of the convener, (c) implications of the collaboration for environmental complexity and participants' control over the environment, and (d) the relationship between individual participants' self-interest and the collective interests of all involved in the collaborative alliance. This theoretical analysis indicates several fruitful avenues for future research.
Organization Building in a Yale Union
Authors: Prasad Pushkala
Published: March 2006

This article studies organization building from a social constructionist perspective. It adopts a meaning-centered and endogenic approach to study the formation and establishment of a union of clerical workers at Yale University. Based on a review of existing literature on organizational creation, this article views social constructionism as a fruitful alternative theoretical framework for the study of organization building. Qualitative research methods, combining extensive document analysis with semistructured interviews, are used in a case study of union formation. The key elements of successful organization building appear to be defining meaningful realities, transforming contexts, and benefiting from the historical backwardness of organization members. Implications for organization theory are discussed.
The Mechanics of the Ph.D.
Authors: Melesky Tom
Published: March 2006

This narrative reports on original research into the primary variables affecting success or failure of doctoral candidates. It describes a study that found that a previously overlooked variable, condition of one's car, may be a critical factor in doctoral success. Also analyzed in this article (which was submitted by a friend of the researcher) are the stepwise multiple regression procedure utilized and long-term implications of the study.
School Restructuring by Teachers
Authors: Boles Katherine C.
Published: March 2006

School districts around the country are in the process of initiating projects to restructure their schools. A small but growing number of these projects have been initiated by teachers, but, as yet, little has been written documenting the experience of classroom practitioners involved in such efforts. This article examines the experience of a group of teachers at the Edward Devotion School in Brookline, Massachusetts during the first year of a school restructuring project. Initiated by two teachers in 1987, the Teaching Project restructured a portion of this public elementary school, altered the work of a team of thirdand fourth-grade teachers, and introduced a preservice teacher training collaborative with Wheelock College. This article highlights both the opportunities and the difficulties encountered in a teacher-initiated project. It also provides insights into the potential complexity of altering teachers' job responsibilities and describes the numerous benefits that can accrue when teachers are the initiators of school reform.
Myths, Stereotypes, and Realities of Black Women: A Personal Reflection
Authors: Bell Ella Louise
Published: March 2006

It is well over a year since the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. His appointment and the aftermath of the hearings remain controversial in the public's eye. The event is credited by feminists for energizing the women's movement. It was a catalyst for significant changes in the 1992 political arena. There has also been a substantial increase in the number of sexual harassment incidents reported. However, Anita Hill `s story represents more than sexual harassment for many Black women. The event serves as a painful reminder of how vulnerable they are especially when it comes to having their stories of sexual abuse heard and taken seriously. This article speaks to that pain and the complexity of understanding racism when entangled with sexism within the Black community.
Discovering Social Issues: Organization Development in a Multicultural Community
Authors: London Anne , McMillen M. Cecilia
Published: March 2006

This article reports on a community development project conducted in a small multicultural town on an island in the Pacific. The project objectives were twofold: to identify the social, health, and educational needs of the community and to develop a process of inquiry that could be used by residents in determining the community `s needs. The primary intent of the article is to discuss the process of inquiry used in the project. The authors contend that in a multicultural setting consultants must pay particular attention to the methods they choose. The article proposes that the cooperative inquiry approach, comprehensive coverage of all groups involved, joint data analysis, and cultural sensitivity result in a successful intervention, defined as discovering the underlying causes of problems in a community or organization. The authors propose that only when causes are identified specifically can problems be addressed.
Getting Everyone Involved: How One Organization Involved its Employees, Supervisors, and Managers in Redesigning the Organization
Authors: Axelrod Dick
Published: March 2006

The Conference Model". is a process that uses search conference methodology and sociotechnical systems principles to redesign an organization. Axelrod and Associates, Inc. developed and piloted this approach at a division of R. R.Donnelley and Sons Company, the world `s largest commercial printer The Conference Model involves a series of four conferences; in this case, each conference involved up to 80 participants. The results produced were similar to those that occur when traditional design methods are used but with greater speed and increased commitment and greatly reduced resistance by the rest of the organization. Over 60% of the organization participated in one of the four conferences and thus had direct input into the new design. The organizational design was completed 3 months from the time of the first conference, as compared with the full year it usually takes for traditional design methods. Most important, the design is supported by the overwhelming majority of the organization at all levels because they were part of the consensus that developed it.
The Destruction of a Synagogue Community: Polarization in a Postindustrial World
Authors: Hirschhorn Larry
Published: March 2006

Examining a case study of a consultation to a synagogue community, this article describes how the community polarized around its Rabbi's support for the Palestinian rebellion in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. By studying both the processes of polarization and the dynamics of the consultation, the article explores how a polarized community can destroy the real and psychological public space that it needs to heal its divisions and proposes that consultants can help a polarized community revitalize its public space by providing structure and boundaries inside the consultation process itself; by facilitating conversation so that substantive differences can be explored, and by interpreting the consulting process so that unconscious fantasies and unverbalized feelings can be examined. The article suggests that as we enter into a multicultural world where identities are negotiated, we need to develop a consulting technology that can help communities tolerate, protect, and sustain the many identities embedded in the texture of community life.
Facilitating and Undermining Organizational Change: A Case Study
Authors: Kahn William A.
Published: March 2006

This article offers a case study of a research-action project in which the author functioned as researcher and change agent. The success and failure of this project was related to his finding and losing the balance of joining and remaining separate from a social system's dynamics. The author describes the research project and reflects on its covert dynamics. In doing so, he illustrates the relationship between helping system members get unstuck from their automatic, dysfunctional patterns of relationships and getting himself unstuck from those patterns. He describes as well the forces within him and in the system itself that pulled for him to lose his balance, such that he either tumbled into it as a member or fell away from it altogether. He frames the earnings in terms of change agents creating or undermining the holding environment in which system members struggle to change dysfunctional relationship patterns.
Time and Task in the Valley: A Case Analysis of an Employee Buyout Effort
Authors: McCollom Marion , Gillette Jonathon
Published: March 2006

This article describes a failed effort by employees in a manufacturing company to implement an employee buyout. To analyze the case, a sociotechnical systems approach was extended to include historical analysis and explore how past interactions shaped here-and-now group processes. Sociotechnical theory allowed the researchers to analyze the task work of the buyout and examine how the emotionality of various aspects of that work enabled, transformed, or confounded the efforts of the buyout group. Also considered was how historical context influenced the leadership requirements of the buyout effort. The article concludes that historical forces (both those deliberately evoked by buyout organizers and also those generated by the nature of the project) blocked the role transformations necessary for the employees, both workers and managers, to become owners.
Problems in Assessing Prevalence and Membership Characteristics of Self-Help Group Participants
Authors: Lieberman Morton A. , Snowden Lonnie R.
Published: March 2006

Relying on secondary analysis of three surveys, this study examines the prevalence of self-help group (SHG) use. Two of the surveys are based on large household probability samples (Epidemiological Catchment Area and Mellinger-Balter surveys) and the third on the population of self-help groups in California. Based on the best available survey information, an estimated 7.5 million adults participated in a SHG during 1992. Self-help group use for mental health problems appears to be a predominately White, middle-class phenomenon. Use of services is overlapping; those who seek out help do so in multiple service delivery modalities. Highlighted in this article are the problems of accurately assessing SHG participation based on current survey information.
Narrative Studies, Personal Stories, and Identity Transformation in the Mutual Help Context
Authors: Rappaport Julian
Published: March 2006

A common way for researchers to think about mutual help organizations is as alternative treatments for people with problems in living. This approach, illustrated here in the context of a series of empirical studies conducted by the author, views people as service seekers. Although much can be gained from research in which there is collaboration between professionals and the self-help community, there remains a need for work that uses theories and methods consistent with the experiences of the members and the ethos of the organizations. A different way to understand mutual help organizations is to view them as normative narrative communities where identity transformation takes place. This approach forces us to listen to the personal stories that people tell about their lives. It has several advantages, including the reduction of professional centrism and the explicit linking of individual lives to community processes. A narrative studies framework also has the advantage of tying mutual help to a great deal of cross-disciplinary research, including cognitive psychology, anthropology, sociology, and literary analysis. General features of models for understanding the role of narratives, autobiographical memory, and personal change through identity transformation are described in the context of mutual help organizations.
Roles for Mental Health Consumers in Self-Help Group Research
Authors: Kaufmann Caroline L.
Published: March 2006

This article describes emerging roles of mental health consumers in self-help group research. Examples taken from recent empirical studies of self-help group activities among people with long-term and serious mental health disabilities illustrate new roles that transcend traditional relationships in research. A working typology for these roles include informed participant, key informant, advisor, staff member, and co-investigator as practical additions to the more traditional role of the research subject. Current guidelines for the protection of human subjects in research are limited in their ability to address ethical and procedural issues that arise out of these new role relationships. Self-help group research should address ethical issues that are not currently addressed by the established requirements of informed consent and IRB oversight. The author recommends that consumer review and approval be included as an integral part of the development and evaluation of human subject issues in clinical services research.
Moving Beyond the Individual Level of Analysis in Mutual Help Group Research: An Ecological Paradigm
Authors: Maton Kenneth I.
Published: March 2006

An ecological paradigm is proposed to help move mutual help group research beyond the individual level of analysis. Central to the paradigm and the article are the assumptions that mutual help group phenomena occur within and are shaped by a complex, interrelated network of factors that spans multiple variable domains and levels of analysis and that the generation of useful research knowledge depends on asking research questions and using research methodologies that take seriously this reality. Four research areas that implicate multiple variable domains and levels of analysis are discussed: group-level variations and member well-being; member-group fit and member well-being; influence of group, member, and community characteristics on group viability and stability; and group influence on the professional and lay community. To adequately carry out research in these and other research areas, it is argued that researchers will need to routinely obtain data that span multiple variable domains and levels of analysis; examine complex interactions among variables, including cross-domain and cross-level interactions; and use combined ethnographic-quantitative research methods.
Managing the Disappointment of Job Termination: Outplacement as a Cooling-Out Device
Authors: Miller Michael V. , Robinson Cherylon
Published: March 2006

As termination has become common among high-status workers, an industry has evolved that purports to assist in their reemployment. Advocates of outplacement have emphasized to employers, however, that the industry's service primarily functions as a self-protective device, minimizing the problematic reactions of job losers and bystanders. The particular strategy articulated by advocates for orchestrating the emotions, energies, and goals of terminated workers is described, and is interpreted as being analogous to that used by confidence game operators in "cooling-out" those they defraud.
Examining the Origins of Management Theory: Value Divisions in the Positivist Program
Authors: Eastman Wayne N. , Bailey James R.
Published: March 2006

Management theories, such as scientific management and human relations, have traditionally assumed that organizational success can be achieved through the application of science. This assumption is part of a broader belief in social and natural science as the central vehicle for objective knowledge and social betterment, which was cogently expressed in the nineteenth century by Auguste Comte and termed positivism. In this article, the authors trace the relationship between the thought of Comte, his contemporary John Stuart Mill, and twentieth-century management theory, focusing on how value differences and similarities evident more than a century ago have persisted to the present. The authors then propose a typology that classifies these value issues along two major dimensions: uniformity versus diversity and economics versus culture. This typology clarifies the value commitments, explicit or implicit, underlying management theory and practice.
Of Methods and Metaphors: Theater and Self-Exploration in the Laboratory
Authors: Bailey James R. , Ford Cameron M.
Published: March 2006

This article examines the metaphor of laboratory experimentation as theater After a brief review of the purpose, problems, and sources of metaphor in the social sciences, the authors describe the similarities between experimental and theatrical dynamics in regard to the tensions for the actor (experimenter) between script and performance, and for the audience (subjects) between illusion and convention. Laboratory and theatrical dynamics, however, depart in a number of significant respects. Most important, in the former the audience (subjects) becomes an active participant in the experimentally created drama. The authors draw from theory in anthropology and the performing arts to understand these enactment processes. This metaphor enriches the conceptualization of experimental practice, presentation, and interpretation, and can be used as a pedagogical framework for research design.
Strategic Bridging: A Role for the Multinational Corporation in Third World Development
Authors: Sharma Sanjay , Vredenburg Harrie , Westley Frances
Published: March 2006

The traditional lending paradigms adopted by international development funding agencies have not been very successful in fostering genuine economic development at the grassroots level in developing Third World countries. Despite good intentions on the part of these multilateral agencies, they sometimes lack perspectives on the unique social, cultural, and ecological conditions affecting development in these countries. Multinational corporations with a more permanent presence and long-term commitment of resources in these countries have egoistic interests in long-term relationship building with stakeholders in host Third World countries. They can provide collaborative mechanisms for partnering international development funding agencies to foster grassroots development efforts in developing countries. Collaboration theory and the concept of strategic bridging as a unique form of collaboration are used as frameworks to analyze a case study involving the role of a multinational firm as an unofficial strategic bridge between an international development bank and a state government in a West African country to bring about a successful outcome to an infrastructural funds lending exercise.
A Consummate Teacher: A Review of Participant Observer: An Autobiography, by William Foote Whyte
Authors: Horvath Lisa Alison
Published: March 2006

The article provides an overview of the material supplied in Participant Observer: An Autobiography written by William Foote Whyte. The book recalls in rich detail the academic work of the author Through Whyte's review and description of his work over a lifetime, the book provides fascinating lessons on research methodology, career development, and the adult life cycle. A limitation of the book is that it devotes little time to discussing the private life of Whyte and the linkages between his private and public adult world.