Agency Context Research Articles

Systemic perspectives about therapeutic change working in a social services team context

Psychologists working in multidisciplinary teams can be constrained by organisational discourses that are at odds with systemic ideas about working therapeutically with families to create change. In this paper we reflect upon clinical dilemmas experienced within a social services agency context.

Optimal Capital Structure of Banks with Contingent Capital: A Structural Model

This paper justifies, in an agency context, the existence of hybrid securities appeared very recently on the organized market: the cocos (contingent convertible bonds). Like the straight debt, they make it possible to profit from tax benefits of debt. And, like stocks, they provide protection against financial distress. Although cocos cannot completely protect banks against bankruptcy, they reduce significantly their probability of failure independent of regulator actions. The structural model shows that the cocos allow an increased valorization of the banks without jeopardizing their stability. However, it should pay special attention to their design under penalty of not being able to provide an efficient mean of financing to investors. Particular attention should be paid to the fixing of the value of the trigger. Its optimal value is highly dependent on the environment (structure and amount of bankruptcy costs, intensity of the dilution of shareholder claims, tax environmental and so on).

The Invisible Presence in Therapy: Organizational Context and Its Influence on Therapeutic Process

While two people, the social worker and client, might physically sit in therapy there can be invisible presences that influence the therapeutic process. Psychoanalytic relational theory and the concept of the “analytic third” will be used in case discussion to examine the presence of the organization, the social worker's and client's relationship to the organization, and conflicts that exist. Understanding agency context, the role social workers play and pressures they feel can support therapists to be mindful practitioners. Implications for social work practice and education will be discussed.

Overvalued Equity and the Accruals Anomaly: Evidence from Insider Trades

This paper examines the accruals anomaly in an agency context where managers of overvalued firms engage in various activities, including accruals-based earnings management, to sustain overvaluation. We use managerial trading to operationalize the empirical investigation, hypothesizing that mangers anticipate the ultimate share price reversals, and use high accruals to temporarily sustain overvaluation while at the same time sell their shares. There is no incentive to deflate earnings of undervalued firms, leading to the prediction of an asymmetric relationship between trading and accruals. We contrast this to the fixation hypothesis where high (low) accruals are associated with negative (positive) returns. Although investor errors are operative in both agency and fixation, the causes, mechanisms and implications are very different. Our results, which are important to the distinction, support an agency explanation for the anomaly. Quadratic and binary regressions confirm an asymmetric relationship between trades and accruals concentrated on the selling side. The relationship between accruals and trading is only significant within the overvalued, low book-to-market (BM) firms. There is also evidence that low BM firms manage their earnings upward compared to high BM firms. Tests using a subset of firms sorted on valuation ratios and past growth provide evidence of a strong relationship between insider sales and income increasing accruals for the glamour firms while buying and accruals are not related for the value firms.

From Selection To Termination: An Investigation Of Advertising Agency/Client Relationships

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 34.2pt 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">It is a fact of corporate life that firms now and again change their advertising agencies. Therefore the first objective of this study is to analyze the mixed and overlapping dimensions of the selection, evaluation, and termination processes. The second objective is to identify the differences that exist in evaluation criteria by comparing both parties to the relationship.<span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This exploratory and descriptive study attempts to understand the interactions from a theoretical background of organizational relations literature, namely, transaction cost theory, network theory, and resource based view (RBV).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>An important managerial implication of this study is that it gives a clearer picture of similarities and discrepancies in the views held by both parties in the client firm and advertising agency context. The results of this study indicate that it is important for both parties to understand that both the client and the agency may have different reasons for making their respective decisions. </span></span></p>

Customized Compliance: Exploring Patterns of Quality Practice Adoption in a Multidivisional Context

When quality management is implemented in multidivisional organizations, uniform adoption of quality practices across units is often desirable. However, institutional factors may foster customization at the unit level, resulting in variety rather than uniformity among divisions. This study explores differences in quality practices adopted by divisions following a general implementation stimulus from headquarters. Response to external implementation pressure is conceptualized as grounded in the institutional and agency context of units, which creates orientations for adopting quality practices in either an enthusiastic or ceremonial fashion. Case-based data obtained from a multidivisional manufacturing company indicated that units with ceremonial adoption orientations preferred to implement quality practices likely to build contextual infrastructure over practices likely to alter core technical processes. Enthusiast units exhibited no bias between infrastructure and core quality practices. Findings suggest the likelihood that units will comply with implementation mandates in a customized manner that favors unit interests. Policies that encourage constructive attitudes about quality management and trustworthy information exchange between unit and parent may lower institutional barriers to effective quality practice adoption in multidivisional environments.

The Immigration Penalties of Criminal Convictions: Resurrecting Categorical Analysis in Immigration Law

For over a century, immigrants have faced adverse immigration consequences if convicted of certain types of offenses in criminal court. Many types of criminal convictions carry severe immigration penalties, including deportation, detention, and the denial of status like asylum or U.S. citizenship. The Supreme Court recently recognized that these penalties are so intimately tied to criminal court adjudications that criminal defense attorneys have a duty to advise noncitizen defendants of the immigration consequences of their guilty pleas in criminal court. Yet there is little clarity as to how one determines whether a particular conviction triggers an immigration penalty. Historically, courts have applied a categorical analysis for assessing the immigration consequences of a criminal conviction. Under a categorical analysis, an immigration official determines the penalties based on an assessment of the statutory definition of the offense, not the factual circumstances of the crime. However, recent Supreme Court, federal court, and agency decisions have ignored this longstanding analysis and have instead examined these issues through the lens of Taylor v. United States, a criminal sentencing case that adopts a categorical analysis in a different context. Distinguishing Taylor and its criminal sentencing rationales, recent decisions have invented a new approach for how past criminal convictions are assessed in the immigration context that now permits a circumstance-specific inquiry into facts beyond the criminal court’s findings in some immigration cases. Under these recent decisions, the immigration consequences of a criminal conviction no longer turn on the criminal court adjudication alone, but may also account for facts that were not proven or pleaded in the criminal court proceeding. This article argues that this shift in analysis is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the origins of categorical analysis in immigration law and its independent rationales, including its promotion of notice and an opportunity to be heard, uniformity, predictability, efficiency, and judicial review in the administrative agency context. The article further argues that, because of the flaw in the current debate, courts have failed to consider the negative impact that the erosion of categorical analysis has on the functioning of the current immigration and criminal justice systems. The rationales meriting categorical analysis apply with even greater force today than they did when categorical analysis was first articulated nearly a century ago.

Examining the Premises Supporting the Empirically Supported Intervention Approach to Social Work Practice

Federal, state, and local policymakers and funders have increasingly organized human service delivery functions around the selection and implementation of empirically supported interventions (ESIs), under the expectation that service delivery through such intervention frameworks results in improvements in cost-effectiveness and system performance. This article examines the validity of four premises undergirding the ESI approach: ESIs are effective, relevant to common client problems and needs, culturally appropriate, and replicable and sustainable in community-based settings. In reviewing available literature, the authors found insufficient support for the uniform application of an ESI approach to social work practice in the human service sector, particularly as applied within agency contexts serving ethnic minority clients. The authors recommend that greater attention be devoted to the development and dissemination of social work interventions that respond to needs that are broadly understood and shared across diverse cultural groups, have proven clinical efficacy, and can be translated successfully for use across different agency and cultural environments. Such attention to the research and development function of the social work profession is increasingly necessary as policymakers and human service system architects require reduced costs and improved performance for programs serving historically oppressed client populations.

A posting for a job that does not exist: How we might define information architects in today's “integrated” advertising agency

A posting for a job that does not exist: How we might define information architects in today's “integrated” advertising agency

The impact of agency context, policies, and practices on violence against police

This study examined agency-level factors that impact the level of violence against police. The independent variables represented both agency context (e.g., violent crime rate, population characteristics) and agency policies and practices (e.g., backup and body armor policies) and were linked to constructs within routine activities theory. Information on agency policies and practices came from an agency survey. Data for the dependent variable―agency counts of officer killings and assaults over a three-year period―came from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Negative binomial regression was used to assess the impact of the independent variables on the dependent measure. Three of the independent variables—measuring body armor policies, agency accountability, and violent crime—had statistically significant relationships with violence against police.

Investigation of agency agreement formation: new opportunities for marketing relationship development in service industries

This paper examines agent–principal agreements that prevail in marketing structures. Structural equation modeling reveals a new positioning of the relative importance of antecedents in agreement formation for two agency contexts (recruitment consultants and real estate agents). The insignificance of negotiation in agreement formation deviates from services marketing relationship models in which negotiation pre-empts commitment. A close coupling of agent attributes and information disclosure similarly positions business and consumer exchanges, contrary to sales literature. As agreement formation is not directly determined by any single event, management should not focus on outcome-based metrics for process refinement.

Implementing Presidential Policy Agendas Administratively: A View from the Inside

Drawing on his experience in a variety of positions over 40 years, the author details a wide range of variables that are involved in implementing presidential policy, including (1) the nature, origin, and validity of the presidential policy agendas and how they are communicated; (2) the background, experience, and relationships of the appointee; (3) the internal agency context; and (4) the larger political and social context. The author concludes that the large number of variables makes it very difficult—if not impossible—to produce a coherent, useful set of guidelines for appointees that will have utility across the board. Rather, implementation often requires individually nuanced responses. At the same time, the author concludes that the documented experiences of appointees in similar circumstances can serve as useful reference points for the future.

Equitable Clawback: An Essay on Restoration of Executive Compensation

The remedy of restoration of compensation, known in the agency context as the faithless servant doctrine, provides for the corporate principal's recovery of compensation previously paid or payable to corporate officers and other agents who have breached their fiduciary obligations. Although a limited clawback provision was one of the reforms enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, courts have refused to imply a private remedy, and, even if they were to do so, it would be of limited utility. Given the many variations of the clawback concept, including the demands for clawback of AIG and Merrill Lynch bonuses and of pre-bankruptcy returns paid to Madoff investors, I have chosen to distinguish the equitable remedy of restoration of compensation as equitable clawback. My essay contends that the remedy's increased recognition and broader use would add primacy to individual versus entity liability, and, consequently, help reestablish the link between executive wealth and executive responsibility.

Agency context and tailored training in technology transfer: A pilot evaluation of motivational interviewing training for community counselors

Few empirical studies are available to guide best practices for transferring evidenced-based treatments to community substance abuse providers. To maximize the learning and maintenance of new clinical skills, this study tested a context-tailored training (CTT) model, which used standardized patient actors in role-plays tailored to agency clinical context, repetitive cycles of practice and feedback, and enhanced organizational support. This study reports the results of a randomized pilot evaluation of CTT for motivational interviewing (MI). Investigators randomly assigned community substance abuse treatment agencies to receive either CTT or a standard 2-day MI workshop. The study also evaluated the effects of counselor-level and organizational-level variables on the learning of MI. No between-condition differences were observed on the acquisition and maintenance of MI skills despite reported higher satisfaction with the more costly context-tailored model. Analyses revealed that those counselors with more formal education and less endorsement of a disease model of addiction made the greatest gains in MI skills, irrespective of training condition. Similarly, agencies whose individual counselors viewed their organization as being more open to change and less supportive of autonomy showed greater average staff gains in MI skills, again, irrespective of training method. Posttraining activities within agencies that supported the ongoing learning and implementation of MI mediated the effects of organizational openness to change. This pilot study suggests that tailored training methods may not produce better outcomes than traditional workshops for the acquisition of evidence-based practice, and that efforts to enhance skill acquisition can be focused on characteristics of learners and ongoing organizational support of learning.

Self-Disclosure of Sexual Orientation in Social Work Field Education: Field Instructor and Lesbian and Gay Student Perspectives

ABSTRACT In-depth interviews were conducted with lesbian and gay recent MSW graduates (n = 6) and experienced field instructors (n = 8) to explore sexual orientation–related challenges in social work field education. Data were analyzed using techniques from grounded theory and NVivo qualitative software. Self-disclosure emerged as a central theme in the establishment of a positive learning environment for lesbian and gay students in field education, including the benefits of student self-disclosure to learning, the responsibility of the field instructor, and the role of the agency context. Schools of social work may benefit from training and sensitizing field instructors to develop competence in providing educational experiences for LGBT students.

And justice for all? Investigators’ perceptions of punishment for fraud perpetrators

Despite extensive financial losses and other indicators of harm, the American public and legal professionals have historically been ambivalent toward white-collar crime. Recent research demonstrates that public perceptions of white-collar crime and attitudes toward the punishment of white-collar offenders have become more punitive. Along these lines, a neglected area of research concerns those individuals who routinely face white-collar crimes: fraud investigators. Using data collected during the height of recent corporate scandals (2001–02), this study examines the perceptions of 663 fraud investigators and extends prior research by considering the influence of investigator characteristics, organizational context (i.e., size, setting, internal controls, and resource capacity), case characteristics (i.e., offense type, financial loss, and sanction), and offender characteristics on legal professionals’ general and specific punishment perceptions. Results indicate that organizational resources increase the likelihood of both outcomes. Additionally, the correlates of general and specific punishment perceptions are found to differ: government agency context influences general but not specific perceptions. Comparatively, the perception that fraud is increasing and a sanction that includes incarceration each have a significant, positive influence on specific punishment perceptions. Implications of these findings for future research and policy are discussed.

The limits of behaviour change theory: Condom use and contexts of HIV risk in the Kolkata sex industry

This paper uses ethnographic data from a sex workers' HIV project in India to consider the appropriateness of individual, social/group and structural theories of health behaviour when applied to HIV‐prevention initiatives. Existing theories are critiqued for their modernist representation of behaviour as determined by individual rational decision‐making processes or by external structural forces, with inadequate recognition being given to the roles that human agency, subjective meaning and local context play in everyday actions. Analysis of sex workers' accounts of their sexual practices suggests that existing theories of health behaviour can only partially account for sexual behaviour change retrospectively and that they have limited predictive value with respect to the outcomes of individual sexual encounters. Our data show that these outcomes were, in fact, highly context dependent, while possibilities for action were ultimately strongly constrained by structural forces. Findings suggest that interventions need to adopt an integrated, structurally‐oriented approach for promoting safer sexual practices in sex work settings. Recognising that no one model of health behaviour is likely to be adequate in explaining or predicting behaviour change encourages responsiveness to local people's agency, recognises the different (health‐ and non‐health‐related) registers of risk with which people operate and encourages flexibility according to local contingencies and contexts.

A Definition of Social Work for Practice

Australian and international discussions of the broad mission of social work, of its underlying premise that the personal is political, that it is responsive and able to take a leadership role from a clear value base, are sophisticated debates that demonstrate the vitality, dynamism, and enthusiasm of a profession cognizant of changes and challenges occurring outside it. However such developments and considerations are possibly most meaningful for those social workers who are either very clear about what social work is or who are not daily confronted with challenges to explain or account for their profession in performance‐driven agency contexts. This article proposes a simple definition of social work which, while cognizant of the theoretical developments occurring both in and outside the profession, presents the profession in a way that clearly articulates what it is that social workers do.

Take Your Time and Give It More: Supports and Constraints to Success in Curricular School-Based Groups

ABSTRACT Curricular skill-based groups are frequently used in practice to teach new ways of thinking and behaving to children and adolescents. This article describes a process inquiry that evaluated the implementation of an empowerment group project for young adolescent girls in urban and rural schools. The findings provide insight into three areas that impacted the groups: The agency (school) context and its influences on formation and facilitation of the groups; the fit of the curricular model with the needs of the young adolescent girls across schools and cultures; and leaders' ability to observe and respond effectively to the process of the group within the sessions.

A collaborative network for first responders: Lessons from the CapWIN case

It is increasingly important for government agencies to collaborate across jurisdictional and functional boundaries. Interorganizational systems supporting interagency collaboration must accommodate a wide range of factors from the external environment and participating organizations as part of their design and operation. This paper presents the findings from a case study of CapWIN, a collaborative network created to enable first responders to share information across jurisdictional and functional boundaries as they work together during emergencies and other critical events. The study examines how aspects of the external environment and the agency context impeded or facilitated the CapWIN collaborative network and the interorganizational system (IOS) that supports it. We identify factors affecting information sharing and collaborative processes, and describe how these factors interact to enable and constrain an IOS. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research on the interplay of environmental, organizational, and technical aspects of interagency collaboration networks as they evolve over time.