Strengthening Research and Practice on Organizations and Management: Building a New Research Agenda to Meet New Demands

Background: Since the 1960s, social work has fallen behind schools of business and public administration in training leaders of health and human service organizations and in developing management and organizational (M&O) scholars. At the same time, demands on human service managers have increased, with a dramatic growth in interorganizational competition for public and private funds, new forms of networked governance, and new accountability requirements. To meet the challenge of 21^st century human service management, we need a new research agenda centered around social work values that reflects these new M&O realities.

Objectives and Approach: In this interactive roundtable, a panel of established social work researchers will address the following questions in order to develop this new M&O research agenda: 1) How can we support M&O research usage, in order to support innovation and growth in the health and human services sector?; 2) How can we strengthen linkages between managers/organizations and researchers/universities?; and 3) What kinds of methodological innovations are needed to advance M&O research? Presenters will engage one another and the audience around these questions; the goal of the roundtable is to promote dialogue, building on the following themes related to each of the above questions.

Content: First, for a new research agenda to succeed we need to bridge the illusive gap between scholarship and practice related to organizational change processes, improvements, and performance outcomes.  We will discuss strategies to foster research dissemination and utilization so that research appearing in journals supports the development of promising M&O practices and vice versa. For example, how do we help leaders/managers commit to both evaluation and performance measurement in order to drive organizational performance? What are scholars learning from human service organizations (HSOs) that are navigating these barriers effectively? 

Second, active collaborations between HSOs and research institutions are essential for developing studies assessing the impact of M&O interventions and for helping translate research into practice. This is vital to move our knowledge base forward. We will discuss how research institutions can foster effective and sustainable relationships with HSOs that benefit both parties, as well as what incentives help achieve improved research and practice outcomes in HSO settings.

Finally, we see a need for methodological advances to improve the rigor and robustness of M&O research. First, the emerging phenomenon of “big data” (both qualitative case record data and quantitative administrative data) can inform practice and policy development/implementation but often requires advanced methods training. Second, more attention needs to be given to multilevel models that can test for complex interactions across levels (e.g., organizational context, frontline service delivery, and client outcomes). Third, longitudinal research is important for helping us understand drivers of change and assess performance improvements over time. Finally, mixed methods studies that combine quantitative data collection with rigorous qualitative work can help us expand our understanding of the dynamic relationship between the organizational context, service delivery, and client response to service interventions. Matching methodological advances to research questions to support both practice and theory development remains an enduring challenge.