A theory of coordination : an examination of its practice in three welfare organizations in Hobart

In recent times social welfare workers, like all other professional groups involved in the personal services which are designed to mould, remould, and adjust the social and psychological wellbeing of a large proportion of the population, have demanded a comprehensive approach to serving their clients. This is a resultant of a recognition of social problems in a new light, dependent upon the increased knowledge and skill of the professional experts as well as a felt gap in the amelioration of such social problems. This study has identified the latter problem as belonging to the area of interorganizational coordination and as deserving of careful and detailed study. Evidence is gathered to show that it is an area of concern to the professionals in the field, welfare administrators, as well as to the sociologists interested in social welfare. By using existing literature on the sociology of organizations, the concept of coordination has been treated as embodying those interactions between organizations which are of a facilitative nature. Along the conventional paradigms of problem oriented sociological research three types of variables, namely, analytic (information about members), structural (information about relations among members and the frameworks within which such relations occur), and global (information about systems of organizations), have been identified and discussed as critical components of a theory of coordination. The theoretical framework on coordination is designed to illustrate how much better we can understand that substantive area of sociology commonly designated as 'interorganizational relations'. Moreover, the usefulness of major theoretical perspectives in sociology, such as structural-functionalism, exchange theory and systems theory has been demonstrated in relating the different variables to the theory. From the refined theoretical framework twelve hypotheses were enunciated to test out empirically the nature of coordinating networks in three welfare organizations in Hobart. The results of the empirical study have shown the extent and intensity of facilitative interorganizational interactions that take place in the welfare scene in Hobart, seen from the vantage points of the three organizations included in the study. It has also shown how the efforts of the workers in the three organizations resulted in a network of both private and public organizations, whose function, program, and the strength of the interaction could be fully understood in terms of the essentials of the postulated theory. We have seen that the differential emphasis given to outside transactions has many antecedent variables, analytic, structural, as well as global. For example, there was sufficient evidence to argue that lines of authority, notions of hierarchy, control of decision making power, combined (vi) with individual attributes of workers, moulded not only the internal dynamics of an organization, but outside exchanges as well. There was a negative association between organizational attributes such as hierarchy and centralized decision making, and interorganizational behaviour of employees. The professionally qualified workers in the two main organizations studied regarded the presence of such organizational guidelines as less valid for them than the dictates of their own professional training. Furthermore, professional expertise as demonstrated by credentials and performance did not necessarily mesh with the rationality of the 'bureaucracy' as exemplified by the actions of managers in the area of coordination. The use of the exchange perspective and systems theory helped to explain the phenomenon of 10 coordination as a two-way process between organizational structure and environment rather than a passive result of environmental or organizational determinism. Most significantly, the study of welfare organizations has revealed the intriguing nature of their loose but productive structures and their impact on the behaviour of organizational employees. It is an organizational theory that takes account of such diversity in forms that can instill a common frame of reference to sociologists interested in the study of organizations. The study consists of seven chapters. The first three chapters are primarily theoretical. The third chapter is the culmination of arguments developed in the preceding chapters and deals with the classification, refinement, and systematization of (vii) of variables to bring out the relationships between them within a coherent framework. It was through the cross tabulation of variables that the hypotheses were drawn out. Chapters five and six describe and analyse the data from the three organizations and use some statistical techniques in the testing out of the hypotheses. The' -final chapter draws out the implications of the study. As anticipated in chapter one, the study clearly points out the strains and problems produced by the growing expansion of social welfare and the demand for a comprehensive approach to the treatment of clients. In the final chapter, the relevance of the study to the wider areas of policy and practice is explored to indicate the relevance of studies on organizational dynamics to the overall improvement of social welfare. It is the contention of this study that the main elements of the service delivery system, namely, organizational structures, environments, and staff, determine the effectiveness of any social policy in operation. It is through a responsible intellectual enquiry that we can help those who manage the weighty problems of a large segment of our society devise strategies to make the services a useful addition to the struggle for human welfare