Textbook of Social Administration

The Consumer-Centered Approach

John Poertner, Charles A. Rapp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781136755866
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Textbook of Social Administration equips social programs managers with the skills they need to produce mutually desired outcomes for their consumers/clients and for their staff. This comprehensive resource is a how-to guide to developing the management abilities needed to maintain an effective client-centered approach by using a social programs fra

Chapter 1

Consumer-Centered Social Administration

We have devoted a considerable portion of our careers to the premise that social administrators make a difference in the lives of the people we call clients or consumers of social work services. We believe this because we have known administrators who had a positive effect on consumers through their efforts in directing resources toward this end. We can now say that there is a beginning body of research that supports this position.

Argyris (1999) says that managing is creating intended consequences. In social work, the intended consequences are results for consumers. Managing is the behavior that creates these results. Many people who have studied social administration have attempted to identify management behavior. They catalog daily management activities and group them into different types of social work management tasks. Patti (1977) was one of the first to take this approach. Recently Menefee (2000) has pursued this line of research in social work and determined that managers must be

• effective communicators within the organization;
• boundary spanners;
• innovators;
• organizers;
• resource administrators;
• evaluators;
• policy practitioners;
• advocates;
• supervisors;
• facilitators; and
• team builders.

Another line of scholarly activity is determining the fit between organizational theories and social welfare management. Hasenfeld (2000) has written extensively and draws connections between organizational theories and administrative activities. One way that he makes these connections is by taking administrative tasks and identifying the corresponding organizational theory. This includes:

Task	Organizational Theory
Goal attainment	Rational-legal, scientific management
Management of people	Human relations, feminist perspective
Proficiency and efficiency	Contingency
Adaptation and mobilization of resources	Political economy
Founding and survival	Population ecology
Institutionalization	New-Institutionalism
Integration and social cohesion	Culture, sense-making
Knowledge, power, and control	Neo-Marxist, postmodern, structuration
Social change	Critical theory, radical feminism (p. 91).

Determining what social administrators do and the organizational theories that link to these behaviors is useful. However, the consumer is missing from both of these approaches. The work on identifying management tasks has not focused on those behaviors that produce the benefit to consumers. Organizational theories have more to do with understanding the organization than its results.

For us, it is imperative that social administration begins with outcomes for consumers, determines management behavior that results in these intended consequences, and uses research and theory to create the conditions for consumer success. By beginning with consumer results, we propose an approach that puts beneficiaries of our services first. This is consistent with social work history and values.

Consumer-centeredness is the degree to which consumers and their well-being intrude on or flavor all aspects of agency.

This consumer-first approach allows a more directed inquiry into the tasks of social work managers. We argue that the most important administrative tasks are those that produce results for consumers while keeping the organization functioning. We also believe that theory can usefully guide management practice and we shall rely on theory either explicitly or implicitly throughout this text. We agree with Patti when he says:

In the long term, however, as I have argued elsewhere (Patti, 1985; Patti et al., 1988), all of these goals should be considered instrumental or intermediate purposes, essential but not sufficient to achieving the basic mission of the organization, which is to change people’s lives and social circumstances. (Patti, 2000, p. 23)

Consumer-Centered Social Administration Learning Objectives

1. Based upon the existing research, identify the ways that supervisors affect consumer outcomes.
2. Based upon the existing research, identify other organizational arrangements that affect consumer outcomes.
3. State the four assumptions underlying consumer-centered social administration.
4. State the principles of consumer-centered administrative practice and give examples of each.
5. State the five management performance areas.

Social Administration and Outcomes for Consumers: What We Know*

There is a beginning body of research that links organizational characteristics and management behavior to results for consumers. In part, the scarcity of this type of management research is due to the difficulty in conducting it. There are many methodological problems. With the unit of interest being a work group or an organization rather than a person, statistical power requires many agencies to participate to generate significant findings. In addition, organizations are complex entities with many elements and relationships between them. Relevant research must account for a number of these elements or variables. As a general rule, the more variables that a researcher brings into a study the more research subjects are needed to help explain the impact of these variables. Not only must the study include a large number of organizations or units, it must also use reliable and valid measures. Seldom are there well-established measures for these variables.

However, studies now exist that link organizational variables to client outcomes. Some are published in administrative journals but more often they appear in other fields such as child welfare or mental health. Consequently, they are difficult to find. This may be, in part, because there has been more public policy emphasis on client outcomes in some fields than others. For example, the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 and the Foster Care and Independence Act of 1999 established safety, permanency, and child well-being as the desired outcomes for children vulnerable to abuse and neglect. This emphasis encourages research that helps explain how programs can obtain desired results. Although this research is not typically intended as management research, it includes organizational variables in a larger context to help explain results for consumers. This scattering of the research makes it difficult to stay current on research linking management to outcomes.

We reviewed the research that we knew of linking management behavior to outcomes for consumers of social work services. This review is both imperfect and incomplete. We encourage readers to identify this type of research in their field of practice and send the reference to one or both of the authors. Although standard bibliographic databases were searched, few of these studies were found in this traditional manner. Social administration scholars and researchers in the fields of child welfare and mental health who were known to have an interest in the link between organizational variables and client outcomes were asked to identify such studies. For each article, identified references within it were also checked for additional studies. This process resulted in the identification of ten studies.*

Later in this text we discuss evidence-based practices. When the reader comes to that part of the text, you will see that the social administration research summarized here does not meet the standard for the highest level of evidence. This is another reflection of the beginning nature of this research. We hope and expect that research more strongly linking management behavior to consumer outcomes will emerge. In the mean time, this body of research provides useful insights.

Supervisors Make a Difference to Consumers

Supervisory behavior has been shown to be positively associated with consumer outcomes (Table 1.1). Although this may be reassuring to those who have been or intend to be supervisors, it should be noted that supervisory behavior has also been shown to be negatively related to consumer outcomes. In other words, making a difference to consumers can be positive or negative.

A recent study that demonstrated this was by Corrigan, Lickey, Campion, and Rashid (2000), who used the transformational leadership model developed by Bass to link team leader behavior to consumer satisfaction and quality of life. This study had 143 leaders and 473 subordinates rate the leadership style of the team leader on the 3 dimensions of the Bass model. Transformational leadership was defined as situations where the leaders’ goal was to improve programs. Transactional leaders used feedback and reinforcement to maintain effective programs. Laissez-faire leadership was a hands-off leadership style.

In this study, subordinates, the researchers’ term for those working directly with consumers, identified leadership behaviors that were associated with consumer satisfaction with their quality of life. Subordinates who viewed their leaders as charismatic, inspiring, and considerate of the interests of individual staff members were more likely to work in programs that had consumers with higher quality of life. Subordinates who ranked their leaders high on management-by-exception worked in programs where consumers reported low satisfaction.

Leaders who rated themselves high in inspiration, those who were more frequent users of contingent rewards with their staff, and those who ranked themselves low in passive management by exception and laissez-faire leadership worked in programs with consumers who reported high satisfaction. Other study findings included an association between subordinates’ age (inverse relationship) and education level (positive relationship) with consumers’ satisfaction.

Ahearn (1999) had 100 supervisors and a sample of their child welfare workers rate their client-centeredness and interpersonal skills. The outcome of interest was children achieving permanency (i.e., reunification, adoption, or guardianship). Higher workers’ ratings of supervisor client-centeredness and higher supervisory assessment of their interpersonal skills were associated with higher permanency rates. Her findings included that larger caseloads were associated with lower rates of permanency.

Harkness (1997) and Harkness and Hensley (1991) compared normal supervision in a mental health center, which was a mixed focus on administrative issues, training, and clinical supervision with client-focused supervision. Clinicians were asked questions about client problems and staff’s attempts to address them. Client outcomes were assessed using measures of generalized contentment, client satisfaction, and goal attainment. They found that when a supervisor used client-focused supervision, adult outpatients reported increased goal attainment and greater satisfaction with counseling. In a replication of the original study, Harkness (1995) found positive associations between workers’ report on their relationship with their supervisor and supervisory problem-solving skills with client goal attainment. Workers’ ratings of supervisory empathy and helpfulness were also positively associated with clients’ generalized contentment and goal attainment.

Table 1.1. Supervisory Behavior that Makes a Difference to Consumers

Study	Supervisory Behavior	Link to Consumer Outcomes
Corrigan, Lickey, Campion, and Rashid (2000)	Team leaders’ ratings of passive management by exception, contingent rewards, and subordinates’ ratings of leaders’ active management; subordinates’ ratings of consideration of the interests of individual staff members	• Subordinates who ranked their leaders as high on active management-by-exception worked in programs where consumers reported low satisfaction • Subordinates who viewed their leaders as charismatic, inspiring, and considerate of the interests of staff members were more likely to work in programs that had consumers with higher quality of life • Leaders who rated themselves high in inspiration, those who were more frequent users of contingent rewards with their staff, those who ranked themselves low in passive management by exception and laissez-faire leadership worked in programs with consumers who reported high satisfaction • Subordinates’ age was inversely related to client satisfaction • Subordinates’ education level was positively associated with consumers satisfaction
Ahearn (1999)	Supervisors being client centered (as rated by workers) and supervisors self-rated on interpersonal skills	• Workers’ ratings of supervisor client centeredness and supervisory assessment of interpersonal skills were positively related to higher permanency rates. • Larger caseloads were related to lower rates of permanency (i.e., reunification, adoption, or guardianship)
Harkness (1997) Harkness and Hensley (1991)	Supervisors asked mental health counselors questions about client outcomes and interventions related to outcomes	• Increased client satisfaction • Increased goal attainment
Harkness (1995)	Relationship between worker and supervisor and the supervisor’s problem-solving skills as rated by workers	• Supervisory relationship positively associated with client goal attainment and generalized contentment and goal attainment • Supervisory empathy positively associated with client report of generalized contentment and goal attainment • Supervisory trust not associated with either client outcomes • Supervisory problem solving positively associated with goal attainment but not generalized contentment • Supervisory helpfulness positively associated with client-generalized contentment and goal attainment.
Sosin (1986)	Supervisors reminded workers that child welfare case reviews were needed	• Fewer children were in care for long periods of time

Note: For purposes of brevity Tables 1.1 and 1.2 only include statistically significant findings. Nonsignificant findings are also important and readers are encouraged to read the original research reports.

In an early study, Sosin (1986) studied variation between...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. Consumer-Centered Social Administration: What This Book Is About and How to Use It
• Chapter 1. Consumer-Centered Social Administration
• Chapter 2. Initiating Change Through Persuasion: The Microskills Approach
• Chapter 3. An Analytic Framework for Social Program Management
• Chapter 4. Specifying and Managing the Social Work Theory of Helping
• Chapter 5. Program Framework: The Rest of the Story
• Chapter 6. Managing Information: Determining Whether the Program Is Operating As Intended
• Chapter 7. Selection and Measurement of Performance Indicators
• Chapter 8. Personnel Management
• Chapter 9. Fiscal Management
• Chapter 10. The Inverted Hierarchy
• References
• Index