Yeheskel Hasenfeld

People Processing Organizations: An Exchange Approach

This paper sets forth a framework for analyzing the role of organization-environment relations in defining the classification-disposition functions of people-processing organizations. People processing organizations are defined as attempting to achieve changes in their clients not by altering basic personal attributes, but by conferring on them a public status and relocating them in a new set of social circumstances. The papers basic proposition is that people-processing organizations employ classification-disposition systems that reflect, in part, organizational adaptations to the constraints of their exchange relations with various market units receiving the processed clients. Using a power-dependence paradigm, variables which increase or decrease the organizations dependence on its market units are identified. The consequences of these exchange relations on the organizations classification-disposition system are then explored.

Power in Social Work Practice

The role of power in social work practice has been generally understated despite its importance to the course and outcome of the clinical process. This paper examines the sources of power of workers and clients, and, by using a power-dependence perspective, it explores the consequences of power on social work practice. It is argued that, in most instances, the effectiveness of social work practice is predicated on the enhancement of the power resources of the client. Client empowerment strategies are proposed as the core tasks of social work practice.

Organizational Forms as Moral Practices: The Case of Welfare Departments

Human service organizations that aim to change behavior inevitably do moral work. As institutionalized organizations, they enact in their structure and practices dominant moral systems. Moral systems and rules within them emanate from several sources, including nationally powerful interest groups and organizations, local constituencies, and organizational and street‐level moral entrepreneurs. By studying the historical transformation of welfare departments, I show how changes in the moral assumptions about poor single mothers have transformed the organizational forms and practices of these offices. In doing so, these forms and practices enact and enforce these moral rules on the clients.

Understanding multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations: The contributions of theories on civil society, social movements and non-profit organizations

Abstract The paper offers a theoretical framework to study the conditions that lead to the emergence of multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations and the factors that influence their ability to mobilize resources and enlist commitment. These organizations are characterized by four interrelated attributes: (a) they set out as their mission to uphold and promote cultural values that are typically at variant with dominant and institutionalized values; (b) they offer services to members and the public that express their distinct values, using the services as a model and catalyst for social change; (c) in addition to their instrumental goals, they aim to meet the expressive and social identity needs of their members by promoting a collective identity; and (d) they evolve into hybrid organizations by having multiple purposes—combining to various degrees goals of value change, service provision and mutual-aid. Because they deliberately combine features of volunteer-run associations, social movements and non-profit service organizations, we articulate a theoretical framework that melds concepts and propositions from the various theoretical perspectives used to study each of these organizational forms. We argue that the expanded theoretical framework offers a more comprehensive and dynamic view of civil society and a better perspective to the study of third sector organizations.

The Logic of Sanctioning Welfare Recipients: An Empirical Assessment

The 1996 welfare reform legislation expanded the use of sanctions under the assumption that welfare recipients can comply with work requirements and that they can calculate the costs and benefits of compliance. This research tests the validity of these assumptions through a record‐ and survey‐based study of California welfare recipients. The article questions the validity of the assumptions, finding that, compared to nonsanctioned recipients, sanctioned recipients face greater barriers to meeting the work requirements. A significant proportion say that they were not informed about the sanctioning rules. Almost half of sanctioned recipients were not aware that they were sanctioned.

Nonprofit Human-Service Organizations, Social Rights, and Advocacy in a Neoliberal Welfare State

The hallmark of the welfare state is the extension of social rights to the most vulnerable, a cause historically championed by nonprofit human-service organizations. With the rise of neoliberalism, these rights are threatened. This article attempts to show how the institutional, economic, and political environment of the nonprofit human-service sector is reshaped by a neoliberal ideology that celebrates market fundamentalism. The ideology institutionalizes such rules and practices as new public management, devolution, and privatization of services. Those elements shift the political discourse about the rights of the most vulnerable from the national to the local level. By turning vulnerable citizens into consumers, the ideology also reduces the national visibility of their needs. Most importantly, neoliberalism dampens the sector’s motivation to challenge the state and greatly curtails its historical mission to advocate and mobilize for social rights.

Enforcement, Compliance, and Disputes in Welfare-to-Work Programs

Mandatory welfare-to-work programs are a cornerstone of current welfare reform efforts, but achieving compliance has been difficult for these programs, in part because the organizational issues facing welfare-to-work programs have not been considered. In this analysis of case management practices in four of Californias Greater Avenues to Independence programs, we demonstrate how organizational arrangements influence client compliance with program requirements. Compliance is associated with an ideology that does not stigmatize welfare recipients, goals that stress education and skill training, a service technology that is people-changing, and dispute management strategies that emphasize lenience and professional treatment.

Implementation of Social Policy Revisited

This article assesses the state of theory development in the study of social policy implementation and offers a political economy framework as a synthesis of current theory and research. The article reviews and classifies the major theoretical and empirical studies of implementation. On the basis of the review, a political economy model of implementation is developed, consisting of the following components: policy-making, policy instruments, critical actors, driving forces, service delivery system, and policy output. The policy output is measured by a correspondence index defined as the correspondence between eligible, processed, and served populations and between identified needs and services delivered. It is argued that policy output is determined by organizational systems which develop as a result of technological specifications, economic considerations, and power relations.

Institutional Logics, Moral Frames, and Advocacy Explaining the Purpose of Advocacy Among Nonprofit Human-Service Organizations

Studies of advocacy by nonprofit human-service organizations generally fail to distinguish between two major types of advocacy—advocacy for social benefits versus organizational benefits. We show that different organizational factors explain the emphasis on each type of advocacy. We use an institutional logics perspective, with its emphasis on the moral frames organizations adopt, as our theoretical framework. We propose that two organizational mechanisms express these moral frames—selection of a practice frame and location decision—and shape the substance of advocacy. Analyzing a probability sample of these organizations, we find that a practice frame that places the clients’ problems on the environment rather than the individual is positively associated with advocacy for social benefits. Similarly, organizations that express their moral commitment to locate in high-poverty areas are more likely to advocate for social benefits. We conclude with some implications on the role of advocacy in a neoliberal regime.

Organizational Responses to Social Policy: The Case of Welfare Reform

I argue that worker-client relations and their consequences are the actual manifestation of people changing policies. A theoretical framework is presented to explain the path from the policy to its outcomes, which includes the policy design, the institutional and political economy of the local community in which the policy is implemented, the strategic choices made by the organization, the responses and adaptations of the workers, and the resulting worker-client relations and their consequences. The framework is applied to the implementation of welfare reform, demonstrating why there is an inherent disjuncture between the policy design and the actual organizational practices.