Examining Major Changes in Asian Pacific American Ethnic Agencies

Background

Asian Pacific Americans (APA) have been found to underutilize mainstream social services due to multiple barriers that include agencies’ lack of cultural and linguistic competence. One strategy to address these barriers is the formation of ethnic agencies that offer the same services as mainstream providers while meeting the specific and unique needs of APA communities. These agencies are staffed and led by individuals who represent the communities they serve. Ethnic agencies have the same structural organization as mainstream organizations consisting of a board of directors, staff, volunteers, mission/vision, and programs/services. APA ethnic agencies, however, encounter organizational changes unique to them. There is a paucity of literature on how APA ethnic agencies experience and overcome changes. This study aims to address the gap in the literature.

Methods

A sampling frame of 174 agencies in California was developed using Internal Revenue Service (IRS) form 990 (the annual report filed by nonprofits) by identifying all the Asian countries and Asian nationalities as keywords. For instance, if an organization’s name contained key words such as “China” or “Korean” they were included in the sampling frame. Major themes were identified using the multiple case study approach (Yin, 2002). Data sources for the project included: 1) IRS form 990 financial reports; 2) publicly available organizational information on agencies’ website; and 3) 36 in-depth semi-structured interviews with agency leaders. With multiple sources of data, data analysis strategies to integrate and verify the data included: 1) using case summaries to develop and cross examine findings; 2) conducting content analysis to identify an individual’s consistency of message; 3) reading and analyzing interviews for meaning; and 4) identifying themes.

Findings

Four themes emerged: 1) APA ethnic agencies were found to adjust their services and programs based on cultural values and beliefs of the ethnic communities they serve. 2) The agencies experienced barriers to expanding their scope of service to their ethnic communities due to factors such as lack of funding and absence of qualified and interested leaders in the ethnic community. 3) Some agencies are serving other ethnic/racial groups and the leaders and staff may not be from the ethnic community to sustain. 4) Major changes are ongoing and APA ethnic agencies must continue to adapt by responding to the needs of their clientele, exploring alternative sources of funding, and integrating community members into the agency.

Conclusions & Implications

While the structures of APA ethnic agencies are identical to mainstream providers, the organizational changes APA ethnic agencies experienced revolve around adapting to the ever-changing needs of the APA community. This study fills the gap in the literature on how APA ethnic agencies experience and overcome changes. Findings from this study will help APA ethnic agencies better deal with similar organizational changes in the future.

Reference

Yin, R. K. (2002). Applications of Case Study Research (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.