Client Attitude and Organizational Process

Abstract

The article treats attitude as a folk concept used by staff members in a Work Incentive Program (WIN) to account for and predict the behavior of their clients. Because the staff are unable to observe whether their clients are actually looking for jobs, they use client attitude (as reflected in their demeanor in the office) as an indicator of the clients' probable behavior outside the office. Based on their assessments of client attitude, the staff make and justify decisions having important consequences for their clients' lives. Most of the staff's concern is with detecting and responding to clients with “bad” attitudes who, based either on human weakness or self-interested calculation, are treated as unlikely to fulfill their WIN assignments, particularly looking for jobs. The tests may be used to confirm the staff's initial assessments of client attitude or to develop new ones as well as to identify “appropriate” programs to assign clients. The article concludes by considering the organizational factors associated with the WIN staff's concern for client attitude.