Leadership Coalition Research Articles

Social Work Leadership and Aging: Meeting the Demographic Imperative

In 2001, with support from the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Council on Social Work Education's Strengthening Aging and Gerontology Education for Social Work (CSWE/SAGE-SW) project published A Blueprint for the New Millennium aimed at strengthening the impact of social work to improve the quality of life for older and their families (CSWE/SAGE-SW, 2001, p. 1). Taking note of what it called the imperative--meaning the combined effects of the aging of the baby boom generation, the increasing median age of the national population, and extended longevity from technological, medical, and lifestyle factors--the authors argued that there will be increased demand for social workers. In particular, social workers' comprehensive, biopsychosocial approach to meeting human needs make them well equipped to provide services for older Americans and their families (p. v). Despite this potential, the profession continues to face serious challenges. According to the National Institute on Aging, by 2020 the United States will require 70,000 professional social workers with expertise in aging, which translates into a 43 percent increase over the current social work labor force (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1987). A recent survey of 10,000 licensed social workers by NASW's Center for Workforce Studies (NASW, 2005) found that almost one-third of social workers are age 55 and older (with only 17 percent younger than 35), and 13 percent said they plan to leave their current positions in the next two years. In addition, only 9 percent of social workers identified aging as their practice area, and the median age of these individuals was 50 years, compared with 49 years for the profession as a whole. Clearly, we must bring younger people into the social work field and, in particular, into a specialization in aging (Marshall & Altpeter, 2005) to meet essential care requirements in a variety of settings (Volland & Berkman, 2004). Unfortunately, schools of social work often fail to offer adequate gerontological content in their courses and limited resources and capability to strengthen gerontology education, and limited incentive to improve the situation (CSWE/ SAGE-SW, 2001, p. 6). Students and faculty often hold stereotypical and ageist views, and have interest in aging as a field. Students with an interest in aging often receive support or encouragement, and faculty members have little or background in aging. As a result, most BSW and MSW students receive little or no training or experience in working with older adults (p. 6), and these knowledge and care experiences are frequently limited (Volland, Berkman, Stein, & Vaghy, 2000). From a broader perspective, the public, government officials, and employers are often unaware of social workers' unique skills and the role they might play in addressing the demographic imperative. In conjunction with A Blueprint for the New Millennium, CSWE and the John A. Hartford Foundation collaborated on the Hartford Geriatric Enrichment in Social Work Education project, aimed at infusing content on aging into social work curricula (http://depts.washington.edu/gerorich/ index.shtml). A total of 67 BSW, MSW, and combined programs participated in this three-year project. The Hartford Foundation has funded related initiatives, such as the Faculty Scholars and Doctoral Fellows programs, to establish gerontological leaders in research and education. Hartford has led initiatives to improve curriculums on aging and practice methods through the Faculty Development and Geriatric Enrichment programs (http://depts.washington.edu/gerorich/ hartford/hartford.shtml). Here, we examine the Practicum Partnership Program (PPP) and a related initiative, the Geriatric Social Work Public Policy Center (GSWPPC), funded by Atlantic Philanthropies. THE NATIONAL LEADERSHIP COALITION In 2003 nine aging and social work organizations--CSWE, NASW, the National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work (NADD), the Association of Baccalaureate Program Directors (BPD), the Society for Social Work and Research, Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research, the Action Network for Social Work Education and Research, the Veterans Administration, and the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM)--joined to establish the National Leadership Coalition (NLC). …

Process Management and Supply-Chain Integration at the Bose Corporation

The Bose Corporation has developed an approach to quality management that is driving the integration of manufacturing and selling across its supply chain. Instead of designing a path towards integrated process improvement, Bose has evolved through definable stages in achieving its view of processes and business relationships. In the early stages, managers commonly explore and discover process concepts informally. They acquire a sense of urgency, achieve early successes, and develop a leadership coalition. As they better understand quality management in the context of the organization, managers formalize their efforts and share them widely. Credible management communication and top management support are important. Finally, managers link the process thinking created within the organization with process efforts of the business coalition. At this stage, mobilizing a business coalition and creating a compelling business case are important. Bose's experiences provide a guide for process improvement within the organization and across the supply chain.

Ethics of child and youth care professionals: A code developed by the draft committee for the international leadership coalition for professional child and youth care

Ethics of child and youth care professionals: A code developed by the draft committee for the international leadership coalition for professional child and youth care

Ecumenists and Entrepreneurs: A Study of Coalition Leadership

This paper is a sociological study of leadership in a Canadian social (religious) movement. Specifically, it is a study of a leadership coalition between ecumenists and entrepreneurs in the church union movement (1904-25) that produced the United Church of Canada. What is demonstrated is that representatives of two groups with dissimilar ideologies collaborated to achieve a common goal — a national organizational merger.

The New Course in Chinese Agriculture

China's current reform program in agriculture is enormously ambitious in intent and highly significant for all aspects of future economic and political development. It represents a rejection of past policies of large-scale labor mobilization and communal self-reliance in favor of commercialization and individual incentives for peasants. Diversification of the rural economy, decentralization of farm management, production specialization, crop selection in accord with comparative advantage, expansion of free markets, release of labor from the land, and a shift toward household-based, rather than collective, cultivation have all been important elements of the new line. The resultant explosion of pent-up rural entrepreneurship, fueled also by marked state procurement price rises, produced dramatically positive effects on overall productivity, peasant incomes, and standards of living. These led to widespread introduction of even more radical reforms. The recent agricultural boom will be difficult to sustain, however, without worsening China's already serious budget and finance crisis. Today's leadership coalition also faces intrabureaucratic opposition from cadres at all levels who are threatened by the reorganizations, and widespread popular unease about new patterns of social inequality that may accompany greater reliance on market relations. Decentralized management, a wider role for the market, and the vigor of new commercial combines also appear to be hampering the ability of central planners to regulate the economy. Such factors are capable of producing their own political backlash. The new course is, therefore, still a risky gamble in search of a workable balance between plan and market, growth and equality, national priorities and local demands.

Agricultural Development: The Key Link in China's Four Modernizations Program

Mao Tse-tung, source of legitimacy for radical leaders of left-wing of Chinese Communist Party, died in September of 1976. The radical left-wing leaders were arrested and removed from their positions of power within month following Mao's death and a new, post-Mao leadership coalition under control of right wing slowly emerged during course of 1977. Thus, in early 1978, Chairman Hua Kuo-feng's Report on Work of The Government, delivered to National People's Congress, announced that solution of China's economic problems would now take precedence over ideological objectives of Mao's social and political revolution (Hua, 1978). To solve those problems, National People's Congress adopted Ten-Year Plan (1976-1985) for Development of National Economy, which Hua had summarized in his report. Utilizing themes originally put forth by Chou En-lai in early 1970s, this Ten-Year Plan was to be first stage in achieving of China's agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology-the four modernizations-by end of twentieth century. Ever since Hua's speech which announced plan for achieving Four Modernizations, Chinese leaders and press reports have emphasized continuously that is foundation of national economy, and that the development of agriculture at a high speed is most important guarantee of success in (FBIS, 25 Oct. 1979). Furthermore, in post-Mao spirit of respect for facts, it is admitted that China has difficulties in feeding urban population and in ensuring a rational development of industries using farm products as raw materials (FBIS, 6 Mar. 1979). According to a Renmin Ribao (6 Mar. 1979) editorial, modernization will quite simply be out of question if this state of affairs continues. Few Western

DUAL LEADERSHIP IN A THERAPEUTIC ORGANIZATION

Altro Health and Rehabilitation Services is an agency well-known for its successful work in rehabilitating the mentally ill. Altro offers psychiatric patients the experience of employment in a sheltered work setting plus the services of a social case worker to oversee their progress in the work setting and to assist them toward normal occupational pursuits in the community. This paper examines the Altro structure in an effort to account for the effectiveness of its psychiatric program. Drawing on Parsons' structural-functional theory and Bales' related small group work and on the prevailing traditions in organizational sociology, we first chart a set of conditions under which successful rehabilitation can be expected to occur. The object of rehabilitation is change in the state of the personalities of the subjects. This requires the exertion of pressure for growth and the provision of support on the part of the agents who direct the process. Rehabilitation also demands the application of leadership by the agents of control. Leadership is the ability, based on an individual's personal characteristics, to elicit his followers' compliance in a broad range of matters. Leadership involves the exercise of influence, i. e, change of preferences on the followers' part. While the same leader may provide both pressure for growth and support, as in traditional psychotherapy, the effectiveness of a rehabilitation program, it is suggested, is enhanced if these incentives are allocated to different roles provided that the leaders support each other's efforts and re-enforce each other's authority. We next consider the extent to which Altro meets these conditions. Altro divides leadership between work supervisors and social workers, with the former specializing in pressure for growth and the latter in support. Work supervisors and social workers are arranged in separate hierarchies of authority, and contact between them is limited to prevent the erosion of each group's autonomy by the other. At the same time, mechanisms are available for harmonizing the two sets of interests, with primacy granted to social work considerations. Congruence between the model and the Altro structure is not complete, however. The social worker's role involves a larger element of pressure for growth than the model calls for. This is symbolized by the social worker's position as arbiter of sanctions in the work setting. The mechanisms Altro uses to guard against the dysfunctions of too much pressure are described. Altro does not encompass all of the patients' treatment relations. We focus briefly on the matter of leadership coalition between Altro and the other treatment organizations and personnel that share the patient and describe the meam Altro employs to foster interagency cooperation. Like other socialization processes, the Altro rehabilitation program involves expansion of the patient's social memberships. In the final section, we raise the issue of the relationship between the pacing of this expansion and the patient's capacity to sustain plural memberships. We discuss some of the ways by which Altro tries to adapt this pacing to the patient's needs and explore some of the limitations imposed on these adaptations by interagency divisions.