As required by the Government Performance Results Act of 1993, the use of performance measurements in social service organizations to measure outcome data has increased expectations of efficient outcomes in service delivery. This study addressed the problem of inefficient service delivery in nonprofit human service organizations from the perspective of direct service staff responsible for service provision. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore how direct service staff in nonprofit organizations perceive their individual contributions to the overall goal of providing efficient quality service. Principal agent theory framed the inquiry regarding how direct service staff working in nonprofit human service organizations perceive the nature and value of using performance measurements as required by law. Data were collected from 5 direct service workers through semi-structured interviews and analyzed for content themes using Ethnograph software. The results of this study indicated direct service workers perceive organizational efficiency related to how well they do their jobs and not overall at the organizational level. In addition, participants identified job training and more open communication with management to understand how organizational level goals would be valued to do their jobs effectively. This study contributes to social change by informing those who develop nonprofit human services policy and practice of the potential for further staff training curriculum and improvements to the organizational accountability culture.

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The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of satisfaction of dislocated workers served by WIN Job Centers in the Mississippi Corridor Consortium. Four WIN Job Centers participated in this study: Northeast Mississippi Community College WIN Job Center in Corinth, Northwest Mississippi Community College WIN Job Center in Oxford, Itawamba Community College WIN Job Center in Tupelo, and the Golden Triangle WIN Job Center in Columbus that is operated by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security. This study was concerned with the following variables: facilities, staff, services, self-service facilities, and overall level of satisfaction. A survey design was employed in this study to collect and analyze the data. From the four WIN Job Centers, a total of 159 surveys were collected in the ten week period. An instrument created and utilized by the North Carolina Employment Security System titled “Customer Satisfaction Survey” was used to collect the data. The instrument was tested for internal consistency, and the Cronbach alpha coefficient was .793. The data collected from the surveys were tested using the One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Among conclusions for this study were the following: each of the four WIN Job Centers rated in the Excellent to Good rating in satisfaction for each of the following areas: staff, facilities, services, self-service facilities, and overall satisfaction; of the five null hypotheses, three were rejected due to there being a statistically significant difference in at least one of the centers with regards to facilities, staff, and services.

Obesity is caused by a variety of contributing factors including genetics, behavior, and environment, which contribute to weight gain in children and adults. The obesity epidemic is growing rapidly, predisposing both children and adults to preventable chronic diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Obese children often become obese adults, further contributing to the obesity epidemic and its economic consequences including higher healthcare costs and lost productivity. The obesity epidemic also exposes significant health disparities; non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics represent a disproportionate number of obese adults and children in the United Community Health Workers (CHWs) are uniquely positioned to support current efforts in the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity. Studies have found CHWs to be effective at increasing healthy behaviors and reducing disparities in cancer screenings for adult minority groups. CHWs can be trained to provide a variety of health services, reducing the burden of healthcare professionals, and reducing cost of care. CHWs provide peer to peer, culturally sensitive health information in an individual’s preferred language. The proposed study is a three-year randomized controlled clinical trial with 262 participants divided equally into two groups, intervention, and control. Non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic children ages 1-5 years old will be recruited from their pediatrician’s offices in the Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Participants will be identified and enrolled by research assistants based on language of care and BMI (body mass index) as recorded in the electronic medical record (EMR). Both groups will receive standard of care treatment throughout the study. The intervention group will additionally receive monthly in-home CHW visits for the first one and a half years. CHWs will take quarterly BMIs and provide education materials on healthy eating and physical activity. The primary outcome is BMI and the secondary outcomes will include healthy behaviors such as average weekly servings of fresh fruits and vegetables. At the end of the study period, all guardians will be given a survey to assess their opinions on the standard of care treatment and CHW interventions. CHWs are an untapped resource in the fight against childhood obesity, reducing health disparities, and the obesity epidemic. However, more research is needed in this area and the proposed study is a step toward proving their efficacy and efficiency. In the United States, the implementation of CHWs over time could make a huge impact on public health by reducing preventable chronic diseases.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / It is not a new phenomenon that there is a high turnover rate among social workers. In particular, child welfare has shown the highest rates of staff turnover. To address the issue, turnover and retention of child welfare workers have been studied for decades. The history of research produced a long list of determinants for child welfare worker turnover, more than 20 factors, and showed conflicting findings with the same variables. Moreover, the long list of factors for workers’ decisions to leave has poorly contributed to organizational practices for retaining child welfare workers. Therefore, this study aims to examine organizational factors, particularly leadership, for child welfare worker turnover intention, in order to help child welfare agencies to invent a practice model to prevent qualified worker’s turnover. To do so, it is important to examine the effect of organizational commitment on employees’ turnover intention. Therefore, following is the primary research question: Does the use of transformational leadership style in social work organizations explain child welfare worker turnover intention? A cross-sectional survey research was employed among workers in public child welfare agencies in a Midwest state, United States (N=214). Five models were examined in terms of the direct and indirect effects of transformational leadership on turnover intention of child welfare workers using STATA ver. 15. The study finding showed that transformational leadership styles of local office directors had a direct and negative effect on child welfare workers’ turnover intention. As a result, this study recommends that child welfare provide local office directors with leadership training to reduce preventable turnover of child welfare workers. However, the findings should be cautiously interpreted due to the sampling strategy used in this study.

Alcohol abuse and illicit drug use in the United States are major concerns of American households, as well as of the White House. This dissertation research evaluates alcohol abuse and controlled drug use by American workers in the context of various individual, organizational, and occupational settings. It tests the importation and organizational stress perspectives, the occupation subculture perspective, and the lifecycle wage compensation theory. The analyses are developed utilizing (1) logistic regression, (2) generalized linear modeling, including Poisson regression and negative binomial regression, (3) weighted modeling estimation, taking the clustering effects of complex survey design into account, and (4) the hierarchical growth curve modeling of intra- and inter-individual differences. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979—1993, the 1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, and the 1998 National Occupational Information Network (O*NET 98), I find that employees' drinking and controlled drug use behavior are predicted by a number of individual background characteristics, as well as workplace-environment variables. I also find that occupational characteristics influence alcohol and drug using behaviors of workers, although in more complex ways than suggested by much of the organizational stress and occupational subculture literature. It appears that occupations with higher levels of steady employment prospects exert the most significant negative effect on employees' alcohol use, marijuana use, and any illicit drug use, regardless of an employee's age, gender, race, education, and income. It also appears that the etiology of cocaine use is different from that of either alcohol use or other drugs, such as marijuana. Finally, I find that when education and years employed are held constant, employees' current marijuana use is negatively associated with their earnings. No evidence has been found that current alcohol use, current marijuana use, or lifetime cocaine use predicts future growth rates on earnings. Having examined the factors of occupational, organizational, and individual social/demographic characteristics as they influence patterns of alcohol abuse and controlled drug use in multiple large representative samples of the labor force, discussions on the research findings, the implications, the limitations, and the future study directions are presented. / Ph. D.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Racial and gender discrimination in the workplace is still prevalent in western society. Authoritarian organizational hierarchies may further embed stereotypes and prejudice that reduce the likelihood for inclusion and equity within organizations. Democracy as an alternative governance structure for organizations has been proposed and practiced in organizations within western societies demonstrating effectiveness in reducing class disparities, but limited work has investigated racial and gender-based disparities. Employees working in democratically and non-democratically governed organizations were surveyed on their level of participation in organizational governance and attitudes toward their organization. Employees within democratically governed organizations experience on average higher positive job attitudes compared to employees in non-democratically governed organizations regardless of gender or race. It is found that women, Asian American, and Pacific Islander employees participate in organizational governance at equivalent rates as White male colleagues, but Black, Indigenous, and People of Color employees do not. Members of minoritized groups within democratically governed organizations experience similar feelings influence over organizational outcomes and psychological ownership compared to their White male colleagues. Findings also imply having an ownership stake in the organization plays a significant role individual participation but cannot fully account for racial disparities in participation rates within democratically governed organizations. These results imply democratically governed organizations may effectively increase racial and gender inclusion and equity, but not fully reduce existing racial disparities. Future work should continue to explore additional mechanisms that influence individual participation in organizational governance and how perceptions of status and competence differentiate between governance structures within organizations.

Demographics indicate that the United States and many other industrialized nations are currently experiencing what is called the ¡°graying¡± of the workforce (Hayslip & Panek, 1993). Today the majority of the workers in many companies are in the age groups of 40-44 and 45-49 years. However, by the year 2010, the largest proportion of workers will probably be in the age groups of 55-59 and 60-64 years (Ilmarinen, 1995). Thus, a growing concern of employers in the near future will be the assignment of older workers to specific job tasks and responsibilities (Williams & Crumpton, 1996) as well as other issues pertinent to the employment of older workers. As workers age they typically experience physiological and psychological changes which must be estimated to minimize the mismatch between their capabilities and job demands as well as to prevent work related injuries such as over exertion injuries. Early identification of declines in work ability and implementation of ergonomic interventions are key to sustaining older and more experienced workers in the workplace (Williams et al., 1996). If preventive measures are not taken, older employees are likely to experience a decline in work capacities (Ilmarinen, 1994). Therefore, reliable and valid measures of one¡¯s ability to perform physical work activities are essential for preventing work-related injuries. Hence, the focus of this research project is to develop a diagnostic tool that can be used by employers to estimate their workers¡¯ ability to perform daily work activities. Specifically, the Williams Work Estimator (W2E) is designed to provide information concerning workers¡¯ ability to perform physical work activities such as lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling, etc. A field research study involving 32 employees at a beer distribution warehousing facility was conducted to evaluate the following attributes of the W2E: (a) test-retest reliability, (b) concurrent criterion validity, and (c) predictive validity. Test-retest reliability of the W2E was assessed using Pearson correlation coefficients. The overall correlation coefficients obtained on both the task evaluation (.64) and the self-evaluation (.58) were near minimal acceptable levels (.60 or greater) for each job task evaluated. In addition, the W2E ranged from 50 to 100% accurate when identifying persons who had experienced a work-related injury within the past year. Findings of this research study suggest the W2E represents a promising new tool for assessing work capability and deserves further study to improve reliability and validity.

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