Warner Woodworth

Evaluating impacts of microfinance institutions using Guatemalan data

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate microlending outcomes among Latin American non-governmental organizations (NGOs), specifically microfinance institutions (MFIs). While there is a growing movement of non-profit ventures channeling small loans to the poor worldwide, assessments of their impacts are lacking. Thus, field interviews with clients who had various degrees of involvement in the process of receiving microloans from MFIs were conducted over a summer in Guatemala. Design/methodology/approach - Using a dataset of 393 clients from Guatemalan MFIs, microfinance impacts from two dimensions are examined and impacts measured along financial and social dimensions by surveying new clients, current clients, and graduated clients of five MFIs in Guatemala. Findings - Applying univariate and multivariate analyses shows that for Guatemala, MFIs do produce a measure of improvement in the lives of microfinance clients. This improvement is concentrated along the social dimensions of housing, health, and client empowerment. Research limitations/implications - A limitation of this paper is that it focuses on only five of several dozen MFIs in Guatemala. What is needed is further use of the survey instruments to carry out subsequent studies throughout more of Latin America, and beyond. Practical implications - This research suggests that microfinance demonstrates promising results associated with social benefits to various client populations. As such, it holds a variety of implications for government and other policymakers as they consider innovative ways to reduce poverty and human suffering around the globe. Originality/value - It is anticipated that this field study will contribute to the furtherance of literature on the effects of lending among the poor.

Organization Development: A Closer Scrutiny

The central thrust of this paper argues the need to expand the critical literature on organization development (OD) in terms of theoretical assumptions and change strategies. Conceptual roots of OD theory are examined for their ideological bias, value problems confronting the OD practitioner are highlighted and resulting implications for the field are discussed.

A Self-Structured Approach To Ob: Toward De-Institutionalizing the Classroom

as the vanguard of a new educational movement, one gets the impression that recently the movement is on the retreat. Currently, education is undergoing a backto-basics shift, with dominant concerns consisting of standardized performance requirements, minimum competency tests, teacher rights rather than student rights, renewed emphasis on writing form and the packaging of one’s ideas (regardless of substance), memorization of the masters, and so on. As one who identifies himself with the radical critique of traditional education, I find myself struggling to teach OB in a way that is congruent with critical values and yet effective in today’s milieu of a return to conservative schooling. This paper is a sketch of my basic approach to teaching OB graduate courses which will discuss: (1) why de-institutionalizing education is important in a business school, (2) how this orientation is communicated, (3) what my assumptions are about organizational learning, (4) objectives in the OB classroom, and (5) educational mechanisms and resources for use in evaluating student performance. Infiltrating the Business School

Pain, Pathos, and Paranoia: Responses to the Unstructured OB Course

Much debate has occurred in our profession about the relative merits of teaching a structured versus unstructured organizational behavior course (Woodworth, 1979; Bowen, 1980; Wanous, 1981). We would argue that the approach one takes in teaching organizational behavior is based on a theory, often inexplicit, about students and the learning process. For several years we have been experimenting with a classrdom approach that is relatively unstructured. The present article reviews student expectations, satisfaction and performance in an unstructured organizational behavior course and faculty response to the course.

East African NGO Impacts

From 2000-2008 the author conducted field research on two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in East Africa. One site was in Kenyas central mountainous region of urban Nairobi where it has become the largest and fastest growing NGO in the country. Most of its clients live in or near a million-person city slum. The other organization was in the southern rural area, along the Kenyan coast where members had enjoyed relative peace, but extreme poverty. One-on-one client interviews have been conducted at the two research sites, along with observations of staff leaders, social services, village banking meetings, and so on. These materials became the sources of data gleaned during the study of both organizations. This study delineates similarities and differences among microfinance NGOs that provide economic and social development services to poor families in Africa, focusing on different strategies, unique client services, and so forth. The paper concludes with an assessment of their socio-economic impacts, and offers several suggestions for governments to emphasize in reducing human suffering.

Book Reviews : O.D. Texts: How Do You Use Them?:

The instructor of today’s OD class is faced with a dilemma. In past years, instructors have had few texts from which to choose. But recently the number of texts has increased sharply, implying a quantitative trend, if not increasing quality. This present article seeks to help the OD teacher sort out those volumes that may be the most useful for him or her. Because of the limits of rationality and of editorial space, only a few of the 50 available texts will be reviewed. Therefore, we have used several criteria to cut the choices to a manageable size. First, the scope should be wide enough to use at the graduate level. Thus, we ignore texts with only one major focus, such as MBO or GRID techniques. Second, in reviewing these 50 texts, we found that there were five major categories in which most texts could be placed: (1) the traditional textbook which systematically tries to integrate the original works of the field, (2) the experiential text characterized by a large number of exercises in which the student participates, (3) the reader which compiles original writings by a number of different authors, (4) the book collection, similar to a readings text, only each author writes a self-contained book, and (5) the case text primarily containing accounts of intervention situations. Although these categories are

A Critical Assessment of Organization Development Theory and Practice.

The central thrust of this paper argues the need to expand the critical literature on OD in terms of theoretical assumptions and change strategies. Conceptual roots of OD theory are examined for th...